Should I Add It?

[Raife]

I have a X-Fi XtremeGamer Fatality Professional series sitting here not installed. I am wondering if it is worth popping in my new build (see below). I am currently using the boards sound. I have had some game freezes where the screen and game freeze, but the sound loops - like it is stuck. Didn't know if adding the sound card would help or just dork things up more (I have heard sound blaster has not done a good job with Vista drivers.)

 

Q9450

790i Ultra

9800GTX x2 (SLI)

4gb DDR3 1600 (2x2gb)

2 raptors (Raid 0) - OS/programs

2 1tb spinpoints (Raid 1) - Data

PC Power and Cooling Turbocool 1200

2X Sata DVD burners

Vista x64 Ultimate

[wevsspot]

You paid good money for a nice card. No harm in popping it in, loading the drivers and objectively deciding for yourself which route is better. I'm sure the X-Fi is going to have superior sound reproduction, not to mention EAX support and some other goodies that probably aren't available with the onboard sound solution.

[iKillSteal]

Grab the danielk's drivers if you're going to be using it with vista. They fix a lot of stuff that didn't(intentionally) work before but a few things are still out.

[davidst]

yep

[ir_cow]

if you using Vista i suggest getting those 3rd party drivers or you're going to have issues.

[hardnrg]

I have had some game freezes where the screen and game freeze, but the sound loops - like it is stuck.

That's just your whole rig being unstable... if you aren't OC'd, I'd suggest manually setting voltages on the CPU and RAM, and setting memory speed/timings manually

 

If you are OC'd... you're not done yet heh

[Raife]

Ok I disabled my onboard in the bios, uninstalled the realtek drivers, rebooted safe mode, ran driver cleaner, shut down, installed the card, booted into safe mode and installed the Daniel K drivers, shut down plugged in speakers, and booted up -> No sound??

 

When i try to open the Audio Console to configure my speakers I get an error box that says

 

"The audio device supoorted by this application in not detected. The application will exit."

 

No conflicts in Device Manager - shows up as Creative SB X-fi

 

This is the file I downloaded says it is X-Fi 64bit Vista??

 

Anybody have any ideas??

 

UPDATE

I just went into the control panel and clicked on Sound - the X-fi came up, but it appears only the SPDIF is active and none of the other jacks are.

 

Any ideas?

Edited June 6, 2008 by Raife