Auzen X-Fi™ Forte 7.1 vs XtremeGamer" Fatal1ty Pro

[broshm]

Can anyone compare the 2?

Thank you!

 

[thefivetheory]

Well for starters the Forte has better quality components (for analogue out) and a headphone amp. Both should be compatible with the IO drive if you want it. Both support ALchemy. Unless you get a ridiculous deal on the Fatal1ty, I vote for the Forte (I replaced my Fatal1ty Titanium with it and am very pleased).

 

[wolfram23]

Forte is a great card. I have it's slightly younger brother, the Bravura and I love it. The surround sound (7.1) has worked perfectly for every game I've played so far from Batman to Metro to Crysis to NFS Shift to Dirt 2 to STALKER etc etc. The Forte is only slightly more expensive and slightly better opamps plus it has "gamer mode" (as well as the Bravura's "entertainment mode") which... well, I guess it's better.

Anyway, of the two get the cheaper one, I think that would be the Forte and yeah it'll be great.

 

[broshm]

Thanks guys!!!
Also the Forte has good drivers and non of those Win7 problematic onces that Creative has.

One more thing, does the Forte have all the special features?

EAX Advanced HD 5.0
64 MD X-Ram
Xi-Fi 24-bit CRYSTALIZER
Xi-Fi CMSS-3D
3-Audio Modes

 

[wolfram23]

I don't believe the Forte has XRam, but that's because it's become a lot more common for sound processing to happen in software and then the hardware just makes the output signals ultra crisp and clear. It does have EAX but that's dated and most games don't use it. The most common is Direct 3D Sound, and it definitely has that. It does have Crystalizer and 3D, although personally I don't like either but yeah, it has it. Not sure what you mean by 3 audio modes... I believe the Forte has 2 audio modes called Entertainment and Gaming. But then, on my Bravura there's also settings on the card itself for different output/input modes (iirc).

 

[thefivetheory]

To be totally honest, Creative's recent drivers have been pretty solid. At the end I wasn't even using daniel_k drivers anymore. But yes, the Forte's drivers are very good (Auzentech actually JUST released updated drivers for the Forte earlier this month).

As Wolfram mentioned, X-Ram is basically useless as practically no games made use of it (I think UT2004 was one of them), but if I remember correctly, the Forte does have 64MB of X-Ram onboard. EAX has been replaced by OpenAL, but the Forte does support Creative's ALchemy software which will convert EAX calls into OpenAL so things should mostly sound right, from an environmental audio perspective, on older games. Wolfram is correct that it has Crystalizer and CMSS-3D (I use CMSS-3D for my headphones, which is nice with the built-in amp).

The Forte does also have all 3 audio modes (Gaming, Audio Creation, Entertainment).

In a nutshell, it's the best X-Fi card on the market, IMHO, unless you consider the X-Fi HomeTheater HD (basically a Forte plus HDMI).

 

[broshm]

You guys are amazing thank you very much!

 

[davcon]

I don't believe the Forte has XRam, but that's because it's become a lot more common for sound processing to happen in software and then the hardware just makes the output signals ultra crisp and clear. It does have EAX but that's dated and most games don't use it. The most common is Direct 3D Sound, and it definitely has that. It does have Crystalizer and 3D, although personally I don't like either but yeah, it has it. Not sure what you mean by 3 audio modes... I believe the Forte has 2 audio modes called Entertainment and Gaming. But then, on my Bravura there's also settings on the card itself for different output/input modes (iirc).

Ya Wolffy it has X-ram and 3 audio modes the third being audio creation mode.
I agree with what you say about EAX and i doubt the X-RAM comes into play very much either maybe a couple extra fps at most.
The Forte and Bravura sound great and are feature rich i really haven't seen any competition at their price points.
Bonus is no crappy Creative drivers.

 

[wolfram23]

Yea I guess I was wrong there. All I can say is I have had absolutely zero issues with my Bravura. It's been great, sounds great works wonderfully. Very good sound card in my opinion.

 

[broshm]

I'm getting the Forte as soon as it lands here which will be in about a month and a half. Do you guys think that prices should drop by them or there is no telliing?

 

[gamerk316]

Thanks guys!!!
Also the Forte has good drivers and non of those Win7 problematic onces that Creative has.

One more thing, does the Forte have all the special features?

EAX Advanced HD 5.0
64 MD X-Ram
Xi-Fi 24-bit CRYSTALIZER
Xi-Fi CMSS-3D
3-Audio Modes

Yes, although none of them (aside Crystalizer) is anything special; X-RAM is hardly ever used, EAX is a dead specification at this point, CMSS-3D is basically Dolby Pro Logic + Dolby Virtual Speaker, and seperate audio modes are somewhat standard now since Dolby Digital introduced seperate modes in the mid-90's.

Good card that competes against the ASUS Essence STX and HT Omega Claro; don't even consider the aged ExtremeGamer at this point, go with the Forte.

 

[broshm]

One more point for the Forte Thx.