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Hi all,
First and foremost, I'd like to say that this only pertains to those that intend to use headphones/headsets with an X-Fi, and more particularly in gaming that supports the X-Fi's capabilities or 64+ sounds (BF2 particularly).
I built a rig about 2 weeks ago, which has an X-Fi in it. Unfortunately, I had to wait until after I had it to learn that there is a serious flaw with the card (perhaps the current drivers are at fault) for those that are using headphones, or intend to use headphones for gaming. I am shocked that there hasn't been more talk of this, aside from the creative forums.
I direct you first at the following two links. The first is a 12-page (currently) thread on the creative forums of people complaining about dropping down to 15FPS at times in BF2 on ultra-high audio with EAX, and the other which is a site containing benchmark evidence of the flaw with the X-Fi.
Now, the problem: Everyone, with all different types of systems are consistently dropping down to about 15FPS in BF2 with ultra-high audio settings and using headphones, particularly when it gets busy and there are a lot of sounds bouncing off of walls and stuff with the EAX5. As you can see in the last graph on the second link, with EAX2, the CPU utilization stays around 15%. However, as you can see, the CMSS-Headphone mode spikes up about 4-fold to over 80% CPU utilization when 64 or more sounds come into play.
Now take this into account. That benchmark uses EAX2 and you see that insane jump after 64 sounds. BF2 is supposedly using EAX4/5. Now, I'm guessing that could have more of a toll than EAX2, maybe way worse. This explains why people that have even high end systems like me (Athlon64 3700 1MB L2, 7800GT, 2GB RAM, SATA) are all seeing drops down to about 15FPS. It makes a lot of sense too because others posted in that creative thread - that I linked - saying that they do not have the problem with their CMSS-2.1/5.1/7.1 setups. So, the good news is only for people that don't use headphones. You don't have to worry about it. But for a majority of gamers (headphone users), there is a big problem making most games that will do more than 64 sounds unacceptable in terms of performance.
Now, I am disgusted with creative, as their representatives respond on most of the threads on that forum, but are yet to say a word on that thread that is now 12 pages. Which leads me to believe they have no answer or idea on this, which is sad because BF2 is one of the few games utilizing the X-Fi's power right now, and most people bought it for that game to run in the ultra-high audio mode. Or it could be even worse and this is a hardware flaw that they believe cannot be fixed with drivers. Hopefully it's just a bad driver problem.
Please, if you're an x-fi owner, contribute to that thread and get creative to jump on it. I'm sure they've already taken notice since it's 12 pages, but the more people complaining on their site, the better. I am just trying to let the rest of the community know so they don't fall victim to this like I did. I based my purchase off many user-reviews, and this information was nowhere to be found on the common sources.
First and foremost, I'd like to say that this only pertains to those that intend to use headphones/headsets with an X-Fi, and more particularly in gaming that supports the X-Fi's capabilities or 64+ sounds (BF2 particularly).
I built a rig about 2 weeks ago, which has an X-Fi in it. Unfortunately, I had to wait until after I had it to learn that there is a serious flaw with the card (perhaps the current drivers are at fault) for those that are using headphones, or intend to use headphones for gaming. I am shocked that there hasn't been more talk of this, aside from the creative forums.
I direct you first at the following two links. The first is a 12-page (currently) thread on the creative forums of people complaining about dropping down to 15FPS at times in BF2 on ultra-high audio with EAX, and the other which is a site containing benchmark evidence of the flaw with the X-Fi.
Now, the problem: Everyone, with all different types of systems are consistently dropping down to about 15FPS in BF2 with ultra-high audio settings and using headphones, particularly when it gets busy and there are a lot of sounds bouncing off of walls and stuff with the EAX5. As you can see in the last graph on the second link, with EAX2, the CPU utilization stays around 15%. However, as you can see, the CMSS-Headphone mode spikes up about 4-fold to over 80% CPU utilization when 64 or more sounds come into play.
Now take this into account. That benchmark uses EAX2 and you see that insane jump after 64 sounds. BF2 is supposedly using EAX4/5. Now, I'm guessing that could have more of a toll than EAX2, maybe way worse. This explains why people that have even high end systems like me (Athlon64 3700 1MB L2, 7800GT, 2GB RAM, SATA) are all seeing drops down to about 15FPS. It makes a lot of sense too because others posted in that creative thread - that I linked - saying that they do not have the problem with their CMSS-2.1/5.1/7.1 setups. So, the good news is only for people that don't use headphones. You don't have to worry about it. But for a majority of gamers (headphone users), there is a big problem making most games that will do more than 64 sounds unacceptable in terms of performance.
Now, I am disgusted with creative, as their representatives respond on most of the threads on that forum, but are yet to say a word on that thread that is now 12 pages. Which leads me to believe they have no answer or idea on this, which is sad because BF2 is one of the few games utilizing the X-Fi's power right now, and most people bought it for that game to run in the ultra-high audio mode. Or it could be even worse and this is a hardware flaw that they believe cannot be fixed with drivers. Hopefully it's just a bad driver problem.
Please, if you're an x-fi owner, contribute to that thread and get creative to jump on it. I'm sure they've already taken notice since it's 12 pages, but the more people complaining on their site, the better. I am just trying to let the rest of the community know so they don't fall victim to this like I did. I based my purchase off many user-reviews, and this information was nowhere to be found on the common sources.
Using term like on some systems instead of everyone/all would probably make the post seem a little more vaild IMO.
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