Creative X-FI Xtreme Fidelity Accelerates PC Games by 17%
Posted by: Newsfactory on: 07/11/2005 01:26 PM [ Print | 16 comment(s) ] · 3750 views
Creative Technology Ltd., a worldwide leader in digital entertainment solutions for PC users and the creator of Sound Blaster, announced that early testing of the Creative X-Fi Xtreme Fidelity audio processor revealed that it delivers a 17 percent frame rate increase in this summer?s hottest PC games.
Creative?s internal tests were performed using the PC games Battlefield 2 and Unreal Tournament 2004, on a Pentium IV 3.4GHz PC with an ABIT AA8XE motherboard, Nvidia 6600 GT 128MB graphics card, and 1GB of RAM. To perform the test, Creative switched between the ABIT motherboard?s HD audio solution, and a Sound Blaster sound card with the Creative X-Fi Xtreme Fidelity audio processor. Creative used Fraps to benchmark the results in Battlefield 2, and used the internal benchmarking tool of Unreal Tournament 2004.
HardwareZone
Creative?s internal tests were performed using the PC games Battlefield 2 and Unreal Tournament 2004, on a Pentium IV 3.4GHz PC with an ABIT AA8XE motherboard, Nvidia 6600 GT 128MB graphics card, and 1GB of RAM. To perform the test, Creative switched between the ABIT motherboard?s HD audio solution, and a Sound Blaster sound card with the Creative X-Fi Xtreme Fidelity audio processor. Creative used Fraps to benchmark the results in Battlefield 2, and used the internal benchmarking tool of Unreal Tournament 2004.
HardwareZone
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Domingo Unregistered |
#61594 Posted on: 07/11/2005 05:04 PM
Sounds like a spin job if I've ever heard one! What this REALLY means is that with quality sound enabled it slows down your games 17% LESS compared to an Audigy 2ZS. The wording makes it sound like it literally speeds the game up...which simply isn't the case. With that said - that is pretty nice...but still not THAT great. I'll get one with my next system overhaul, but have no reason to get one now. |
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Mertsch Moderator Posts: 3011 Joined: 2002-08-22 |
#61595 Posted on: 07/11/2005 05:43 PM
you are true ... but who plays without sound ? no one so the wording is not that wrong anyway ... can't await real benchmarks ... 17% is a bit high |
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Domingo Unregistered |
#61596 Posted on: 07/11/2005 06:41 PM
I realize nobody plays without sound, but the wording makes it sound like just throwing this card in and running a timedemo will give you a boost. The thing about sound is that it varies a LOT. That 17% might be with the most optimized of cases. Who knows how it'll work with a normal game that only does stereo? Is there a boost for EAX1, 2, 3, 4 or anything else? Does the video hardware matter? Will we see a 17% boost with an older video card or only a new one? How about your processor/chipset? It's just a massively grey thing. I'll wait for HardOCP or Anand to put this through its paces with different hardware/games/etc. |
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TheManko Unregistered |
#61597 Posted on: 07/11/2005 07:04 PM
The fact that these benchmarks are made with unfinished hardware also makes them pointless. It feels like they just made some tests for the heck of it and crapped their pants and wanted to show the world. Just keep quiet until there's an actual card to buy! All this anticipation is making me mad! |
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StarGazer Unregistered |
#61598 Posted on: 07/11/2005 07:30 PM
Gotta love Creative  |
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popalazarous Junior Member Posts: 5 Joined: 2004-01-03 |
#61599 Posted on: 07/11/2005 07:49 PM
theres been a bit praising up to this new tech. But i thought it was onboard sound at the moment, not a card. Is this true, or is there a card coming out as well. im waiting to see what it actually does. |
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Domingo Unregistered |
#61600 Posted on: 07/11/2005 08:37 PM
It's a card. It's essentially the successor to the Audigy series. I think the retail versions will be available in both PCI and PCIe toward the end of the summer. So far it seems promising (for a sound card...something that hasn't been overhauled in 7 years) but it's just a typical upgrade. From all of the things we can see thus far, it looks like the definite choice for a new system, but not really a "must have" upgrade for an A2 or A2ZS. |
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Domingo Unregistered |
#61601 Posted on: 07/11/2005 08:39 PM
Something I just noticed...they're comparing it to onboard sound. For all we know an Audigy 2 might do the exact same thing... |
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vacantmind Unregistered |
#61602 Posted on: 07/11/2005 10:08 PM
Creative sucks.. don't get their soundcards. Wost product ever, along iwth worst drivers ever. Besides.. let's say that it were 60 FPS.. a 10.x gain in FPS isn't that much. |
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Astro Unregistered |
#61603 Posted on: 07/11/2005 11:05 PM
.. and you have no idea what your talking about. |
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Nostromo Unregistered |
#61604 Posted on: 07/11/2005 11:17 PM
I WANT IT! I wonder when we'll find out how much it will cost? |
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Pulsar Junior Member Posts: 1 Joined: 2003-05-01 |
#61606 Posted on: 07/12/2005 05:23 AM
not compared with audigy 2 ZS. they compared with onboard adio which is fully done by CPU. so no wonder 17% increase. if they would really compare to Audigy 2 ZS the difference would be much much smaller , if any at all |
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mattross Unregistered |
#61607 Posted on: 07/12/2005 08:53 AM
If it doesn't have Dolby Digital encoding I'm not interested. So far I haven't seen anything to indicate it will. |
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WiNTERfresh Unregistered |
#61609 Posted on: 07/12/2005 09:38 AM
unless youre making a movie, wth would you want to encode dolby? |
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Fatass Unregistered |
#61610 Posted on: 07/12/2005 11:17 AM
With dolby encoding you can let your soundcard output an 5.1 AC3 signal no matter what sound source you have. Currently you can only output 5.1 sound via SPDIF if your sound source is AC3. |
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TSThomas Junior Member Posts: 2 Joined: 2003-05-10 |
#61612 Posted on: 07/12/2005 04:29 PM
& why would you want to really? The DACS on the Soundcard (Xtreme Fidelity) are likely as good as whatever receiver you'd be connecting to anyway. So why would you want to encode your audio source into a LOSSY format just so you can use a single cable. The reason it sounded better with the nForce motherboards was because they used cheap DACs. The most recent Creative cards don't use crap DACs. |
