Sound Blaster Recon3D Fatal1ty Professional

[El3h]

Sound Blaster Recon3D Fatal1ty Professional was released yesterday in Japan only, just got mine today(slow delivery :< )
It's available only via creatives jp website and in limited numbers too.

Tested it out and the audio clarity is really good compared to my old asus xonar d2x.
It also comes with a new feature called "scout mode" which basically enhances the sound of footsteps at a distance so you can hear it more clearly!

Anyhow enjoy the pic and lets hope tomshardware will do a review when they get a copy

 

[nukemaster]

Sound Blaster Recon3D Fatal1ty Professional was released yesterday in Japan only, just got mine today(slow delivery :< )
It's available only via creatives jp website and in limited numbers too.

Tested it out and the audio clarity is really good compared to my old asus xonar d2x.
It also comes with a new feature called "scout mode" which basically enhances the sound of footsteps at a distance so you can hear it more clearly!

Anyhow enjoy the pic and lets hope tomshardware will do a review when they get a copy

[url]http://img825.imageshack.us/img825/3140/dsc0339ig.jpg[/URL]

Can i get some screens of the control panel? I am curious what kind of upmix(Like how X-fi and Audigy had CMMS 3D) options it has now?

 

[El3h]

Can i get some screens of the control panel? I am curious what kind of upmix(Like how X-fi and Audigy had CMMS 3D) options it has now?

Soundblaster Recon3D control panel screenshots:

 

[nukemaster]

Thanks!

Was not a huge fan of true studio surround, but it looks to be the future for creative(only an issue for 2 channel audio on multi-channel speakers anyway).

Hope to see some reviews on this card in the future as well.

Have you tried scout mode?

 

[El3h]

Thanks!

Was not a huge fan of true studio surround, but it looks to be the future for creative(only an issue for 2 channel audio on multi-channel speakers anyway).

Hope to see some reviews on this card in the future as well.

Have you tried scout mode?

Only tried it on Battlefield 3, can't say I notice a huge difference but I think its bugged at the moment, seems to deselect itself on the recon3d control panel, but saying that the sound quality ingame is so much clearer now anyway, I guess once the drivers mature it will work better.

 

[nukemaster]

Very good.

It did just come out, i see it as coming soon to EU. will be a while for Canada i think.

I think i will use this x-fi until it dies or becomes unusable to to some new card slots(but that card looks very cool with almost everything integrated. should be able to make it low profile with out much troubles)....hell i still have my SB live! working...sound cards just don't die.

 

[gamerk316]

Personally, I would never recommend any of the Recon3D series, as too many features were removed. Lack of OpenAL acceleration, horrid SnR (worse then onboard!), and lack of ASIO support. I don't consider the Recon series to be a step forward at all.

http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/img/pcw/docs/475/452/html/25.jpg.html

edit: No idea why image won't show properly; conparison to old X-fi and Recon series.

 

[HD87]

Agreed. Oh and BF3 is not the game to test audio cards their software audio solutions is horrible!
By default it uses 2 cores from a 4 core CPU while taxing each core 50% and only spits out 15 sounds at any given time.
BF2 actually used the soundcard and supported up to 128 sounds!
WTF! happened!

 

[El3h]

obviously you are running a pikey pc because my cpu load while playing bf3 never spikes over 30% and I'm running in ultra with 5760x1080

 

[HD87]

I can understand that you might have felt attacked by my post but that was not the intention I assure you.
So lets not get into a e-penis sausage fight over this now shall we ladies and gentlemen? :lol:

Tho I have to state that my information comes directly from within the games "initfs_Win32"scripts file and not based on taskmanager readings or a hunch.
But yeah I was kinda wrong its the maximum load percentage the thread can use, so excuse me for that mistake.
Would still have preferred a good oldie OpenAL based solution over this anyday. Oh well.

Back to topic:
I was really looking forward for these cards some time ago and I'm very disappointed how they ended up, mostly because of the lack of native ASIO support and the lackluster SNR ratio.
For an average gamer clearly not an issue and you seem to be pleased by the product and thats more than fine.
But for a guy like me thats into gaming and digital audio production, well guess I have to wait and see if Auzentech gets a license for the chip and manages to make a card out of it for people like me as well!
Maybe next year Santa?

 

[nukemaster]

http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/img/pcw/docs/475/452/html/25.jpg.html

edit: No idea why image won't show properly; conparison to old X-fi and Recon series.

Mostly because you can not use a .html as an image thats a webpage with an image on it

That said, for real? no OpenAL?

In once sense this is expected, Creative has removed features since the SB live! was released

SB live had more input options and could play back any input/output in any location among your speakers. So lets say you wanted a CD to play just on the rear speakers so it did not interfere with hearing games on the fronts. Granted that was with analog CD playback and digital audio extraction by your software player.

With sound being so personal, there is much room for opinion.

 

[gamerk316]

Agreed. Oh and BF3 is not the game to test audio cards their software audio solutions is horrible!
By default it uses 2 cores from a 4 core CPU while taxing each core 50% and only spits out 15 sounds at any given time.
BF2 actually used the soundcard and supported up to 128 sounds!
WTF! happened!

Umm, no. BF3, while entirely software, still supports a heck of a lot more then 15 audio voices at once.

 

[HD87]

Umm, no. BF3, while entirely software, still supports a heck of a lot more then 15 audio voices at once.

Taken from the "initfs_Win32" decrypted file:

Spoiler

if(quality > 0.8) then
applySettings([=[
Audio.MaxAudibleSoundCount 15
Audio.AudioCoreCpuLoadLimit 50
]=])
else
applySettings([=[
Audio.MaxAudibleSoundCount 8
Audio.AudioCoreCpuLoadLimit 30
]=])

You can decrypt yours to actually confirm it your self by searching a small python script from Frankelstner trough a search engine of your choice.
To give an illusion of more sounds they are using quite a few ambient sounds at times.

 

[shatteredx]

Have you tested the included mic + CrystalVoice? It's supposed to let you use a mic with speakers with no echo right? That would be a selling point for me if that "beamforming" mic actually worked decently.

Use any high impedance headphones with the dedicated headphone port? I'd like this card just for the dedicated heaphone port so that I could have my 5.1 speakers and headphones both plugged in at the same time.

 

[ctguy1955]

Taken from the "initfs_Win32" decrypted file:

Spoiler

if(quality > 0.8) then
applySettings([=[
Audio.MaxAudibleSoundCount 15
Audio.AudioCoreCpuLoadLimit 50
]=])
else
applySettings([=[
Audio.MaxAudibleSoundCount 8
Audio.AudioCoreCpuLoadLimit 30
]=])

You can decrypt yours to actually confirm it your self by searching a small python script from Frankelstner trough a search engine of your choice.
To give an illusion of more sounds they are using quite a few ambient sounds at times.

************************************************************************************************
I would appreciate some of your wealth of knowlege as far as sound cards and my system go. I love playing BF3 so much I updated my 2 year old video cards to a GTX 580 1584 so that the game would look nicer on my screen. Im getting older and it was hard to see the little guys heads to shoot em. I now have my FOV at 60 and that helped. I am running a 7.1 Creative Labs speaker system (T7700) with a xtream gamer X_fi card that is 6.1 I had hoped to buy a new Recon3D Fatal1ty Professional or Champion card as the " Scout Mode " had me hoping that I would not get killed so much by people coming up behind me and knifeing me in the back. Going from a 6.1 card to a 5.1 card seems like a step backwards, although I dont know anything about the advances of the 4 cores and all the other tech stuff.

I would appreciate your advice on what to upgrade to, to better hear behind me, and does the above script allow me to look at mine on my BF3 and make some changes that will allow me to hear better as well ? I am using War Tapes and it sure is loud, perhaps I should use some other config ????? Thanks so much for your help, being in the Army back in 72 really messed up my hearing. Thanks

 

[ctguy1955]

its been days and no reply at all..........

 

[Kewlx25]

Creative has had nothing but crap drivers for the past decade. I wouldn't touch anything they make. Not to mention A3D, which is around 10 years old, is/was still better than anything Creative has come out with since they sued them out of existence and took their tech.

 

[nukemaster]

************************************************************************************************
I would appreciate some of your wealth of knowlege as far as sound cards and my system go. I love playing BF3 so much I updated my 2 year old video cards to a GTX 580 1584 so that the game would look nicer on my screen. Im getting older and it was hard to see the little guys heads to shoot em. I now have my FOV at 60 and that helped. I am running a 7.1 Creative Labs speaker system (T7700) with a xtream gamer X_fi card that is 6.1 I had hoped to buy a new Recon3D Fatal1ty Professional or Champion card as the " Scout Mode " had me hoping that I would not get killed so much by people coming up behind me and knifeing me in the back. Going from a 6.1 card to a 5.1 card seems like a step backwards, although I dont know anything about the advances of the 4 cores and all the other tech stuff.

I would appreciate your advice on what to upgrade to, to better hear behind me, and does the above script allow me to look at mine on my BF3 and make some changes that will allow me to hear better as well ? I am using War Tapes and it sure is loud, perhaps I should use some other config ????? Thanks so much for your help, being in the Army back in 72 really messed up my hearing. Thanks

If you read up on the page, they said that scout mode does not seem to do anything yet. As such. It will not help you.

If your speakers/receiver let you increase the set distance of the rear speakers, they will be told to play louder since they are farther away from you(in most sound card control panels). Some setups just have a rear volume control(on the speakers them self).

Windows also lets you increase the rear speaker volume, but when you hit max, then they are all max(so you do not have louder back speakers).

Crank it up

Creative has had nothing but crap drivers for the past decade. I wouldn't touch anything they make. Not to mention A3D, which is around 10 years old, is/was still better than anything Creative has come out with since they sued them out of existence and took their tech.

I would not call it any better or worse then other companies. I mean creative DID take away features of the Audigy 2zs(CMSS Stereo surround), but Realtek took away the ability to map ANY plug to anything as well with newer drivers.

Daniel K drivers for Audigy make a still good card work fine under new operating systems.

Creative did offer basic features under Vista/7

Hauppauge(Wintv PVR 250) just said no 64 bit support for your card, have a nice day.
Yamaha never released drivers for the DS-XG sound card for anything after windows 98(was a fairly good card to be honest).

I would not call them better or worse then others, some of those cards are old.

Now the Daniel K(over his modded and better drivers) fight they had, that was just wrong.

 

[gamerk316]

Have you tested the included mic + CrystalVoice? It's supposed to let you use a mic with speakers with no echo right? That would be a selling point for me if that "beamforming" mic actually worked decently.

Use any high impedance headphones with the dedicated headphone port? I'd like this card just for the dedicated heaphone port so that I could have my 5.1 speakers and headphones both plugged in at the same time.

For a cheap dedicated headphone port, I'd still recommend the ASUS Xonar DG over the recon. There are no redeeming features on the card whatsoever to recommend.

 

[novastorm]

Apparently Battlefield 3 can be set to OpenAL by altering some config file....would that mean it would use my x-fi (and maybe more than 15 sounds)?

So far i've seen no reason to replace my x-fi since most new games seem to not use any hardware acceleration features anyway, and instead going the software route =\

 

[nukemaster]

OpenAL is good since it will bypass windows and use the sound card at a hardware level(as long as it does not use the software version, yes that exists as well).

You can tell because windows volume control panel will not even show the sound from an openal program

 

[ctguy1955]

Battlefield 3 can be set to OpenAL by altering some config file.....sure would like to know how to do this !!!!!!!!!!!

 

[ctguy1955]

Battlefield 3 can be set to OpenAL by altering some config file...Still would like to know how to do this..........

 

[nukemaster]

I have seen no listings for it(and it did look, most say it is just software and that is all). You may get a faster answer on the EA forums to be honest.

 

[ctguy1955]

I have seen no listings for it(and it did look, most say it is just software and that is all). You may get a faster answer on the EA forums to be honest.

Thanks anyway, I appreciate your help. Now Im not so worried about the sound, but playing the game as now almost every time I play
I get disconnected from the server and it says I have been timed out. I disconnected my UPNP and that did not help either, so Im just
very frustrated right now. Laters Bro, and thanks again for trying.