What modes for X-fi?

[Krieger91]

I have a creative X-fi Gamer card. I'm really not sure what modes to use.

Obviously I have been using the modes for games and music respectively but what about some of the other options?

I use a 5.1 setup and I can't really determine which is better, CMSS 3d Stereo Surround, or Stereo Xpand? And what option should upmix be on, On/off/auto?

The crystalizer makes it sound much better too, I have it all the way up. I have heard a few odd things about the new Battlefield game not supporting hardware acceleration for sound, so people have told me to turn all this off so the game will sound correct. I am just really confused here.

Thanks!

 

[Rossi~]

Is there anyway to tell it to not touch your sound? That'll be best to be honest. Depends what the rest of your sound setup is like.

 

[obobski]

I have a creative X-fi Gamer card. I'm really not sure what modes to use.

Obviously I have been using the modes for games and music respectively but what about some of the other options?

I use a 5.1 setup and I can't really determine which is better, CMSS 3d Stereo Surround, or Stereo Xpand? And what option should upmix be on, On/off/auto?

The crystalizer makes it sound much better too, I have it all the way up. I have heard a few odd things about the new Battlefield game not supporting hardware acceleration for sound, so people have told me to turn all this off so the game will sound correct. I am just really confused here.

Thanks!

read the user manual for an explanation of all of these settings
for some generalizations:
when gaming, go into game mode, put basically everything on auto, set your games to 5.1, play
when music/movies/etc, entertainment mode is fine, keep it set in 5.1, play

basically all game mode does is increase post-processing options, let EAX run more smoothly, etc, its good for games, but can cause some distortion with stereo music input (its not bad for movies, but can still do some odd things depending on what settings are flagged on)

when Battlefield says no h/w accel, that means that the X-Fi chip itself isn't computing the audio, you can still use Game Mode (which I do suggest due to resampling features) and CMSS, Crystalizer, etc

 

[Krieger91]

I can turn all that stuff off I think, but im always in a certain mode. As far as I know.

 

[obobski]

I can turn all that stuff off I think, but im always in a certain mode. As far as I know.

you are always in one mode, yes
you can disable CMSS, Crystalizer, EQ, etc, yes
too much hype/confusion/mythos over "touching sound" methinks (if you don't want the X-Fi to "touch your sound", remove it from the signal chain)

 

[Krieger91]

read the user manual for an explanation of all of these settings
for some generalizations:
when gaming, go into game mode, put basically everything on auto, set your games to 5.1, play
when music/movies/etc, entertainment mode is fine, keep it set in 5.1, play

basically all game mode does is increase post-processing options, let EAX run more smoothly, etc, its good for games, but can cause some distortion with stereo music input (its not bad for movies, but can still do some odd things depending on what settings are flagged on)

when Battlefield says no h/w accel, that means that the X-Fi chip itself isn't computing the audio, you can still use Game Mode (which I do suggest due to resampling features) and CMSS, Crystalizer, etc

Oh I see, thank you very much. I think most of the BF:BC2 info is just the blind leading the blind. Thank you for clearing all this up!!

 

[obobski]

Oh I see, thank you very much. I think most of the BF:BC2 info is just the blind leading the blind. Thank you for clearing all this up!!

since around Vista's release (as a time marker, not Vista itself), h/w audio has become a bit more convoluted to say the least

a number of applications have gone exclusively software based (i.e: Source and many Gamebryo based games), in these cases, game mode with CMSS/Crystalizer/etc doesn't do a whole lot, aside from change a few EQ settings, and replace Dolby Pro Logic/Headphone/etc (CMSS is just Creative's own design), which may or may not be useful, but in terms of actually offloading the audio load to the card's DSP, that isn't happening (and a lot of people seem to get upset over this, the only reason, back in the day, we wanted these DSPs, was to speed things up, but think about how much power CPU has now, instead of then)

 

[Menelmarar]

since around Vista's release (as a time marker, not Vista itself), h/w audio has become a bit more convoluted to say the least

a number of applications have gone exclusively software based (i.e: Source and many Gamebryo based games), in these cases, game mode with CMSS/Crystalizer/etc doesn't do a whole lot, aside from change a few EQ settings, and replace Dolby Pro Logic/Headphone/etc (CMSS is just Creative's own design), which may or may not be useful, but in terms of actually offloading the audio load to the card's DSP, that isn't happening (and a lot of people seem to get upset over this, the only reason, back in the day, we wanted these DSPs, was to speed things up, but think about how much power CPU has now, instead of then)

Some games these days do use OpenAL, and there is hardware audio acceleration through the OpenAL API. It's an independent open-source API that wasn't effected by the new Vista/7 changes. In fact, that's what Creative's ALchemy software does, maps the Directsound3D/EAX calls into OpenAL calls.

I think ID and Epic use it for their games and engines aka Doom3 and UE3 engine based games. Probably some others out there.

 

[Krieger91]

Now I am having a little trouble determining what is better. People have told me the stereo surround 3d is better, but others have said that the stereo xpand is better. And I also have a button on my remote that I never played with or was properly explained. The "Matrix" button.

 

[taiyoyuden]

I believe you can turn DirectSound3D on in source games (and not the software based Miles Sound System) by doing snd_legacy_surround 1. On Vista/7, you would have to use ALchemy to "transmute" it into OpenAL calls for it to work properly though. I'll be testing this out over the weekend but I just installed 7 from XP and I'm not completely sure how ALchemy works with source/steam games.

 

[rmfa]

It really comes down to your listening preference. Imo, none of them are 'better' than the others...

 

[Krieger91]

X-fi is just a piece of shit, everytime I try to mess with it.. speakers stop working. I have to reinstall multiple times, it crashes, it just is annoying as hell.

 

[obobski]

Some games these days do use OpenAL, and there is hardware audio acceleration through the OpenAL API. It's an independent open-source API that wasn't effected by the new Vista/7 changes. In fact, that's what Creative's ALchemy software does, maps the Directsound3D/EAX calls into OpenAL calls.

I think ID and Epic use it for their games and engines aka Doom3 and UE3 engine based games. Probably some others out there.

I didn't say all, I said its changed and is still changing, software sound and OpenAL and so on, it isn't the same as 2000-2004 where everything was DS3D, and my comment had nothing to do with Windows 7, or Windows Vista's handling of audio, was simply a time marker

as far as id and Epic, it varies depending on the game, Mass Effect uses UE3 and has full EAX h/w effects, for example

I believe you can turn DirectSound3D on in source games (and not the software based Miles Sound System) by doing snd_legacy_surround 1. On Vista/7, you would have to use ALchemy to "transmute" it into OpenAL calls for it to work properly though. I'll be testing this out over the weekend but I just installed 7 from XP and I'm not completely sure how ALchemy works with source/steam games.

you can, but there isn't really a reason to, source's audio is excellent
also, "transcode" or "translate" would be more appropriate than "transmute" (keke what a pun )