X-fi 2 is Coming!

For all you X-fi guys out there, some info has come down the pipe to me regarding the development of a X-fi 2 by Creative Labs. Some of you might have seen the previous thread with the driver Pic's those are for a new card.
details are sketchy but from what I have been told the DSP will remain the same, no doubt as it costs alot to develop new ones. They're may be other features added that is as much as I know. A friend has and has been testing the drivers for the X-fi 2 RC 1 and he said driver relaes RC 1.1 will be out soon. Usually driver leave the factory before the cards do. Given Creatives labs ways of updating it will probably be a new X-fi with slightly better sound quality comapre A1 to A2 etc...
I will keep the forum posted.

 

What do you mean A1 and A2?
It's a revision of the card?

 

Audigy 1, Audigy 2...

 

http://forums.guru3d.com/showpost.php?p=2080730&postcount=17

12-30-2006, 17:30

 

What I mean is, it seems the X-fi 2 is a revision card as it does still contain the original 20KX DSP. We know this is standard marketing tatic for Creative.

 

I hope this time Creative Labs have learned their lessons from the first X-fi soundcard; popping/cracking sound issues, for example.

It's always nice to see some new soundcards coming, whether it's a CMI-8788 OXYGEN HD, EMU20k1 or Envy 24 etc. based soundcard.

 

Pop and crackle is not creatives fault, but rather a fault in the bios.

 

Oh yea, but pop in a new soundcard (other brand) and "pop" all sound issues are gone

Think I'll get the X-fi 2, might be interesting to compare it with the other high-end cards...

 

Im sure they added DTS DLL and all the "Today" stuff to keep their market share from Auzentech, Blue Gear...

Arrrg, bough an X-Fi too late, or too soon!
Oh well, it's still a lot better thant SB Live.

 

The person I was talking with said he didn't notice any "new" technologies within the drivers.

 

Maybe it is from both sides: Creative Labs and the motherboards manufacturers; if they are working more closely together, the nforce 680i's sound issues (when using two geforces 8800 and a X-fi soundcard) would not exist; luckily there's a hotfix for the problem, well for e.g. eVGA and BFG.

 

Anyting about the 650i's CT? I have looked but haven't found anything I think the thing is they get sloppy when folowing the PCI spec so when the are put together you get issues.

 

Agree and playing the blaming game wouldn't help the customers.

 

A hotfix wich doesn´t work....latest bios and still killer pops..

 

I also can't find any info on the nforce 650i sli with those SCP problems.

Maybe not every nForce 650i user have two geforces 8800GTX/GTS and a X-fi sound card.

Also I have seen many reviews on the nForce 650i (and 680i) sli mainboard; some of the reviews use one videocard, or they test the mainboard with two Geforces 8800, but nothing is mentioned about which soundcard they use. Maybe they are using onboard sound or even no soundcard?

 

People with 2x 8800 in SLi probably don't care about X-Fi because they don't need the acceleration and most of today's onboard solution is good enough for them with EAX 2.0 and Direct3D. They are probably busy with killing their enemies and couldn't care for a good sound in games, I know a friend that plays games with a cheap headphones on an onboard solution but still enjoy himself.

 

YOu ook through the forum and you will seee that is a common thing. Guys with brand new high end gaming rigs and using onboard sound chips. It is very sad indeed and they would enjoy everything more with a investment into the audio department.

 

Eww, eww, and EWW!

Yes, you can still enjoy your game without the latest in sound hardware, but as we've stated to people posting in this forum interested in buying a soundcard: you buy a good soundcard to increase the immersive experience of the game, not to increase your FPS.

Back on topic, I'm not too surprised about the idea of an X-Fi 2 (the X-Fi series, while good, could always be better) as it would be pretty silly for them to get comfortable with a 'good enough' product, especially with all these other great looking soundcard options from other companies.
What I'm more eager to find out would be what the X-Fi 2 might have over the X-Fi:
- better hardware support? (eg: that crackling thing)
- better implementation of their HRTF algorithm for CMSS-3D w/ headphones?
- other technologies like the Crystalizer?
- EAX 6!??!? (rofl, I doubt it as EAX 5 adoption isn't that high ATM, and seeing as OpenAL will be the way to go in Vista)

Either way, the news will be catching my eye as more tidbits become available. Thanks for the heads-up Robscix.

 

I don't have a SLI 8800GTX rig, but even I had one.. A soundcard would still be very important to me The soundquality is much better, especially with the X-fi

 

do the current x-fi's have digital out ? (spdif)