VOGONS

X-Fi Alternatives for EAX 5?

Topic actions

First post, by lilylarceny

Posted on 
User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie

Okay, this has been the one major problem with my windows xp build. I have an X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty and I am pretty sure that my GPU is conflicting with it, it's a reference evga 980ti. I have the GPU "HD Audio device" disabled in the device manager. I have Daniel K's most recent custom driver for the X-Fi. The Creative Labs software is set to "Game Mode" and EAX is on.

With in-game settings enabling EAX:
Sometimes I can play my entire gaming session without a problem. Sometimes my games play normally at first, and then after a little while some part or all of the audio will crack, pop and stutter, or get out of sync with the game. Other times the audio will be bad from the start, and I have to reboot the computer. This problem is usually resolved at least temporarily by rebooting.
If I set the game audio settings to "software" everything just works, but no EAX features.

Everything else seems to work great and exactly the way I want it to.

I have found quite a few people complaining of the same problem with the X-Fi and I have tried a lot of things they suggested. I think it might be time to consider a different sound card. The main reason I built this computer is EAX 3, 4, 5 hardware support tho, so I'm not sure where to go from here. If anyone has any recommendations, I'm all ears.

Current Specs:
Z97 chipset/Gigabyte G1 sniper motherboard
Intel I7 4790k CPU
16gb DDR3 ram
GTX 980ti
X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty
Win XP sp3 Integral Edition + PAE patch

Reply 1 of 4, by Joseph_Joestar

Posted on 
User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++

From my experience, X-Fi Titanium cards work better when using older drivers under WinXP. See my guide for more details. Be sure to also install EAX Unified and OpenAL as instructed there.

Additionally, there are some reports that EAX can break under WinXP if the system can access more than 4GB RAM. I have 16GB on my machine and I haven't experienced that, but I don't use the PAE patch, so WinXP only sees 4GB .

My retro builds

Reply 2 of 4, by lilylarceny

Posted on 
User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie
Joseph_Joestar wrote on Today, 20:05:

From my experience, X-Fi Titanium cards work better when using older drivers under WinXP. See my guide for more details. Be sure to also install EAX Unified and OpenAL as instructed there.

I will have a look at this and try, but I have attempted a lot of other recommendations.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on Today, 20:05:

Additionally, there are some reports that EAX can break under WinXP if the system can access more than 4GB RAM. I have 16GB on my machine and I haven't experienced that, but I don't use the PAE patch, so WinXP only sees 4GB .

The vram and system ram both count toward the 4GB limit. Without the PAE patch, video intensive games crash constantly and behave as one would expect with running out of vram. After installing the PAE patch I don't have any more problems with vram limits or game crashing.

Reply 3 of 4, by Joseph_Joestar

Posted on 
User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++
lilylarceny wrote on Today, 20:40:

The vram and system ram both count toward the 4GB limit. Without the PAE patch, video intensive games crash constantly and behave as one would expect with running out of vram. After installing the PAE patch I don't have any more problems with vram limits or game crashing.

Out of curiosity, which games specifically caused those crashed for you? I had a 980Ti in one of my XP rigs and never saw anything like that.

That said, the most demanding games that I ran under WinXP were Crysis and BioShock, which both worked fine. I also played Mirror's Edge and Risen there, which are a bit newer, but they don't really need a super powerful GPU. Haven't really dabbled with anything released after 2009, other than a very brief test of Risen 2.

My retro builds

Go to top of page Go to top of page
Back to Sound
Close window
Close window