Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.videocards.nvidia (More info?)
After doing more looking around, I'm changing my mind a bit on the new
Creative X-Fi. While I'm nonplussed about the possibility of another
upgrade, I am excited a bit by the technology being used. No, not
necessarily the 24 bit support (although that's nice), but the feature set
is pretty impressive. They'll be incorporating head-related transfer
function technology from Aureal, which they bought out, and also Sensaura
licensed tech. Sensaura has currently the best HRTF's of any existing
engine, and of course Aureal's were great too. They'll also be using
Sensaura-licensed technologise like MacroFX, which if you haven't heard it,
is simply incredible (I used to have a Sensaura-powered card); things like
flies and bullets seem to be right next to your ears- the extreme near
placement is just much more accurate when audio is within 1-2 meters of the
player. Combine that with the EAX HD engine, and you could have some very
authentic audio, even over headphones or two speakers.
And also, 70 percent of the power of the card can be dedicated to
resamlping of audio. Apparrently, the Audigy cards had a bit of a flaw that
increases total harmonic distortion when resampling audio, which is common
for games. The X-Fi will handle this much better, and have upsamlping to 24
bits as default for all audio with better total harmonic distortion + noise
figures. It also will have enhancement effects similar to SRS Wow, but much
more powerful and authentic because they will be using more power/processing
than the wimpy DPS's typically used (SRS Wow at maximum can result in highly
colored audio, just speaking from experience... so hopefully Creative's
solution is better). The idea is to fill in the missing details that are
inevitably lost, especially with compressed audio.
So, I think I'm much more psyched about the X-Fi now that I've read about
it, it just comes down to price and features. I don't want an expensive
card with a breakout box, and the transistor count has me worried about how
much power it will use. If they can supply a gamer-type card for around
100 dollars that just goes into a PCI slot with no extra cables, I'm sold.
After doing more looking around, I'm changing my mind a bit on the new
Creative X-Fi. While I'm nonplussed about the possibility of another
upgrade, I am excited a bit by the technology being used. No, not
necessarily the 24 bit support (although that's nice), but the feature set
is pretty impressive. They'll be incorporating head-related transfer
function technology from Aureal, which they bought out, and also Sensaura
licensed tech. Sensaura has currently the best HRTF's of any existing
engine, and of course Aureal's were great too. They'll also be using
Sensaura-licensed technologise like MacroFX, which if you haven't heard it,
is simply incredible (I used to have a Sensaura-powered card); things like
flies and bullets seem to be right next to your ears- the extreme near
placement is just much more accurate when audio is within 1-2 meters of the
player. Combine that with the EAX HD engine, and you could have some very
authentic audio, even over headphones or two speakers.
And also, 70 percent of the power of the card can be dedicated to
resamlping of audio. Apparrently, the Audigy cards had a bit of a flaw that
increases total harmonic distortion when resampling audio, which is common
for games. The X-Fi will handle this much better, and have upsamlping to 24
bits as default for all audio with better total harmonic distortion + noise
figures. It also will have enhancement effects similar to SRS Wow, but much
more powerful and authentic because they will be using more power/processing
than the wimpy DPS's typically used (SRS Wow at maximum can result in highly
colored audio, just speaking from experience... so hopefully Creative's
solution is better). The idea is to fill in the missing details that are
inevitably lost, especially with compressed audio.
So, I think I'm much more psyched about the X-Fi now that I've read about
it, it just comes down to price and features. I don't want an expensive
card with a breakout box, and the transistor count has me worried about how
much power it will use. If they can supply a gamer-type card for around
100 dollars that just goes into a PCI slot with no extra cables, I'm sold.
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