Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeMusic

[Jofaba]

Re: Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeMusic

Great great news! So far, since my last fix, the card has been running flawlessly. I haven't played much BF2, but I haven't been able to reproduce the problem since. I find the fix interesting because on one hand it sounds extremely obvious, and on the other hand it really doesn't make much sense.

The Creative website has a "X-FI and Battlefield 2" fix. Sounds dead on right? The thing is though, as far as I can tell, the fix is about people having problems getting the X-FI options working in Battlefield 2. And all the fix addresses is uninstalling then reinstalling the driver, all of which has been done by me before. But since doing it exactly as the Creative site said to, everythings been running very smoothly.

I'll keep y'all updated. Several hours of BF2 will be the only real test =)

[[dwg]Quank]

Re: Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeMusic

Has anyone figured out how to connect the front headphone and mic jacks on a computer case to the X-Fi card?

I'd like to know this as well. I'm about to order this card from Newegg, but if I can't use my front panel input/outputs on my case, that might be a deal breaker. I love being able to put my headphones away (and thus enable my speakers) when I'm not using them.

Maybe you can connect the wires from the front of your case to certain pins on that connector for the 5.25" expansion bay? Is there a pin-out diagram for the card?

EDIT: A search on the Creative Forums found this

[DieFledermaus]

Re: Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeMusic

Is there a difference between my X-FI Xtreme Music and the fatality sound card? Besides price. Found an intresting link as well.

http://www.creative.com/heartobeliev...me.asp?npage=2

[Jofaba]

Re: Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeMusic

The Platinum and Fatal1ty (I'm too lazy to look up the elite pro) have the front panel which has a headphone jack on it. It requires an adapter, but the adapter comes wtih the soundcard. That said, there are a couple of connections on the card that might possibly connect to front panel stuff other than it's own.

The difference between the Xtreme music and the Platinum/Fatal1ty is that the Xtreme music does not come with the front panel. All X-FI's have Xram, which is onboard ram sort of like what a videocard has. However, only the Fatal1ty (and maybe the pro, I dunno) has 64mb. The Platinum and Xtreme Music have 8mb. What kind of difference this makes, no one can really agree on. Most people generally think that the xram doesn't make that much of a difference. I'm sure ram on soundcards will be commonplace one day, but right now not many games take advantage of it.

Latest update on my soundcard adventure: I played BF2 for a couple hours today and I'm pretty sure there was no sound faults. I thought I heard crackling once, but it was directional, as in it moved from one speaker to the other as I turned left and right, so it was probably a high treble effect caused by the 24 bit crystalizer which was turned on at 100%.

However, when I went to go play GTA San Andreas, there was definately a crackling going on. At one point, the sound even began shreiking like a text file being played through a music player (if you've never done that then count yourself lucky). I'm going to uninstall it tomorrow and reinstall. If that fixes it, then I'm pretty sure that that's the problem. Something about my rig, or maybe the games, makes adding new hardware an issue. Reinstalling the game and maybe reinstalling the driver afterwards (since reinstalling bf2 alone didn't fix the problem earlier) fixes it.

That said; now that I've almost got this sound card working, I'm contemplating replacing my videocard and mobo. There's a great combo deal on Newegg for an EVGA 7800GT and EVGA nForce mobo =P

http://www.newegg.com/product/Product.asp?item=N82E16814130238

That might be opening a while new can of worms though... I've heard that nforce boards have particular issues with X-FI cards...

[[dwg]Quank]

Re: Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeMusic

Wow... what a pain in the butt. You have to order all these pins and connectors and fabricate yourself an adapter to get front panel connections to work with your case. What's even better is Creative makes all of their connectors gold on the card so even if you say "screw it" and just swap cables everytime, you'll likely plug into the wrong connector on the card.

Ordering the parts is over $25 + all of the labor to make it work. They REALLY want you to get the $200 version that has the breakout box, but I think they are ugly and a waste of a good case that already has these connections.

Could I take an external box, like from an Audigy 2 XT and connect it to the X-Fi? I think the pinouts are the same.

[DieFledermaus]

Re: Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeMusic

Thats why i went with the Xtreme Music. Easy installation. No pins or connectors.

[N2K]

Re: Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeMusic

OK i just got minde today, it was a bunch to install cuz if my Zs that i had

But now when i put Sound settings to X-Fi in game, it crashes to desktop

im right now loading new drivers, anyone know to fix this

[N2K]

Re: Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeMusic

Anyone know how to get it to work with X-Fi Settings?

And how does the sound suppose to work? with my ZS i had EAX on Drum and Bass, EQ at Heavy-Metal

Now sounds are different for me, i love how my earphones now work like a 7.1 setup

[Jofaba]

Re: Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeMusic

Make sure you're in Gaming mode.

[N2K]

Re: Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeMusic

How does it sound on gaming mode?

[Jofaba]

Re: Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeMusic

Point is it has to be in gaming mode for the X-FI settings to work. Usually you'll get the warning saying that your hardware isn't compatible with those settings*, but i did get the crash to desktop error also (although to be honest, I can't remember if that was the reason or not.)
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edit: *I mean you'll get the error in the "Entertainment" settings.
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An update on my own problem: After uninstalling GTA and trying it again, same problem. However, the GTA folder in My Documents never deleted (so I didn't have to paste my save files back in), so maybe I should have deleted that. Either way, after going back into BF2, sound was corrupted again. Since then I have experienced a severe meltdown in complete computer peformance and stability. After doing a lot of research, I've decided that my power supply, which I've been suspecting of finally becoming an issue lately, must be the main source of my problems.

Complete system freezes, reboots, problems getting the computer to boot properly, POST errors, problems overclocking, BIOS corruption while overclocking, and of course my PCI errors (sound card in particular)...

So last night I purchased a new PSU. I ordered it with a 3 day delivery, so it should be here Monday. Until then, the only game I feel comfortable playing because it hasn't crashed on me yet, is Need For Speed: Most Wanted. Thankfully it's a great game and looks beautiful, so it'll keep me plenty occupied before the new PSU arrives.

I'll update once the new PSU is installed. If you're curious, this is the unit that I purchased:

http://www.xoxide.com/hiper-power-supply-blue.html

[N2K]

Re: Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeMusic

I got it to work, and it worked on X-Fi setting but sound sucked, sounded i was inside a fish tank lol, like my foot steps and my moving on ground realy sucked, so did flying a jet, so i went and put it back to Hardware and put it to Ent Mode, and it sounds sweet, i mean before my jet would sound like an ongoing roar but now i can hear much more

Voices also sound like they are coming from a radio, i dont know why before they didnt

[Jofaba]

Re: Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeMusic

Sounds like you have some settings wrong. The software provides a wide array of customization. Play around with the Crystalizer. I found that that particular option, set at 70% or more, really brings the game to life. Also, make sure you don't have any EAX effects on if you use Entertainment and Hardware combo. Make sure "Enable EAX Effects" in the Gaming mode, and likewise in BF2. Once you find a good setting, and turn the volume up a bit (I've found that, at least on my speakers, that at lower volumes there's not much difference between onboard sound and a sound card. But when you turn the volume up, everything becomes very realistic and sounds amazing).

Also, it appears, at least from my own experience, that when you customize your settings, they don't save. So you might have to reset them each time. My Entertainment settings usually stay where they are, but just now noticed that Gaming was all back at default. Then again, maybe I accidently reset to default at one point.

Good luck and enjoy.

[N2K]

Re: Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeMusic

Then im going to go try, i play with my earphones cuz it has my mic there too, ima go try it right now

[Jofaba]

Re: Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeMusic

i play with my earphones cuz it has my mic there too, ima go try it right now

Realize that you must plug your headphones into the speaker out on the SOUND card. If you plug into the front of your computer or volume knob or any other input, it wont work. If you plug into any of those things, and hear stuff, then you forgot to shut off your onboard sound which might cause problems with sound quality while using the sound card. Let us know how it works out for you.