Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio delay between mic and headphones

leosuth

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When I speak into the boom mic on my headphones, there is about a 2sec delay between speaking and hearing what I have just said :pfff:
 

leosuth

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What I meant was, this occurs even when I'm not using any Voip stuff (ie if I'm doing actual work rather than gaming :) )

I downloaded later drivers for the card (apparently) and this reduced the delay to something approx like 1/10 sec (which is now bearable) but I thought that voice into the mic would go into the card and straight back out to the headphones, so there should not be any discernible delay :(
 
The card may be doing some processing. Depending on the exact model of the card it may use the cpu as well. Is it a PCI-E one? I have read of this being an issue with PCI-e cards. I have a PCI-E sound card, but never used a mic on it, line seems to work fast.

Windows 7 also has an ability to playback a device(under recording-> listen to this device.), with that option there is a slight lag, but not 2 seconds. This is done in software and not recommended for most use

In the digital world, the card takes the analog sound converts it to digital, does its thing, then converts it to analog for playback(on the card or speakers depending on your setup.)

Depending on the card setup, it may be able to just pass analog along, but not always. For instance, I use line-in, the cmss features also happen to the audio from line-in(so there is some processing, but it does not seem to include any noticeable delay).
 
Depends on how the processing is done. More then likely, the analog signal is being converted to digital, having processing done on it, being converted back to analog, then outputted to the headphones. That adds delay. Even 1 second delay times are considered "normal", though 2 sounds a bit much...

It should also be noted that the Extreme Audio is really a re-badged Audigy 2 chipset, and lacks some of the extra hardware oomph of all the other X-fi models.
 

italianmonti

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In the past I had the same card, I used to have an issue with the magic jack (might be called something else) used to detect the mic. If it didn't detect it; it would not work right. I eventually had to switch the settings between creative console modes and adjusted the playback options then it would work.
 

italianmonti

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Yes! Flexijack. I completely forgot about it. It would mess up constantly, it was extremely annoying. I remember calling creative and saying the flexijack doesn't detect my microphone and they told me to pay for technical service.
 

italianmonti

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The titanium is great, except it didn't fit well in my case. I had to bend the adapter to snap it in the the case and it didn't not seat 100 percent in my mobo. I tested old sound cards and they fit fine. The new card did not, however.
 

leosuth

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Yes, disabled the onboard audio - I use Cakewalk Sonar to compose, and my existing card was a PCI card, so when I upgraded my computer I had to go with the onboard and the sound was frightful, so I got my Xtreme card, so I disabled - very decidedly - the onboard :)

I'll have to check whether I still got the old card drviers installed, but I'm pretty sure I got rid of them.

Someone suggested turning the 'listen to mic' option off - which sound sensible - except this card doesn't appear to have any such option. I'm (still) using Windows XP :ange: