Creative: PCI-Express Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme

[Blín D'ñero]

Source: Creative: PCI-E Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme

PCI-express interface.
Made for Vista. EAX went out. Alchemy in.

Hmmm...

[Cobsy]

I dont understand that, but the card is probably good

[Blín D'ñero]

I found a better quote.
Source: http://www.xtremesystems.com/

Questioning Sound: Interview with Darragh O’Toole
Posted by: comment on Thursday, September 13, 2007 - 10:26 AM


Creative Labs has been sitting firmly on the market for discrete soundcards for years, but may be witnessing harder competition as Asus (Xonar D2), Razer (Barracuda AC-1) and Auzentech (X-Fi Prelude) are trying to take their share of especially the enthusiast and gamer segments.

That onboard and semi-onboard sound solutions are constantly improved upon doesn’t exactly make things look brighter for Creative.

Focusing on the latest announcement from Creative on bringing a PCIe based X-Fi soundcard to the market this coming October, Christian “Delta” DeBono, from over at playREACTION, has posted an interview with Darragh O’Toole, senior brand manager for audio @ Creative Labs Europe.

Central themes touched upon by DeBono are the timing of the PCIe release, the supposed latency issue accompanied by PCIe and the components quality - especially of the OP-AMPs.


Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio PCIe. Image courtesy of The Inquirer.

playREACTION Interview: X-Fi PCI-Express 2007
[ Gaming News ] posted by Delta* on Thursday, September 06, 2007 11:48 AM
Interview with Creative Labs' Senior Brand Manager for Audio with regards the PCI-Express edition of the X-Fi series.

Creative are finalising their first X-Fi Xtreme Audio retail card in PCI-Express format. Set for a October release, this new card is serving as an integration test for Creative's PCI-E cards. Altough the Xtreme Audio may not be gamer's nirvana, we have been promised that the rest of the series will follow in the near future. In the meantime, read our interview with Creative Personell, straight from cloudy Dublin

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

pR: Welcome to this playREACTION interview. Can you please introduce yourself and your position at CLE?
DO: Hi Christian, my name is Darragh O’Toole and I’m Senior Brand Manager for Audio with Creative Labs Europe based in our HQ here in Dublin, Ireland.

pR: Did this project start right after the launch of the First X-Fi soundcard back in October 05? Or rather as a response to Asus world’s first high-end PCI-Express soundcard?
DO: We had always planned to port the range to PCI-E, but there were some initial design challenges involved which had to be overcome, given that the bus design was primarily oriented at high capacity data transfer so it was always “on the cards”.

pR: You didn’t go straight to a PCI-E interface with the first installment of the gaming and elite edition. Previous claims stated that the overhead of the PCIe was dire for audio packets. What has changed since then and why the move to the new interface now?
DO: Given that most motherboard vendors opted to retain PCI on most boards and as PCI-E slots primarily focused on support for graphics cards we had time to iron out any audio transfer issues before the switch became essential for some newer motherboards.

pR: What technical characteristic have been improved over the EMU20K1 APU? And how will the new one be labeled?
DO: The DSP features of the X-Fi APU will remain unchanged, it’s simply ported to the PCIe bus so it’s more of an interconnect change rather than a core technology change. The key is to provide the same great experience people enjoyed in XP over PCI in Vista over PCIe. The PCIe cards will be fully UAA compliant and feature 4 stereo outs in place of our traditional 8 channels from 3 jacks config.

pR: What’s your thought about the effectiveness and need for EMI shields found on modern audio cards? Will X-Fi cards ever be issued with these protective piece?
DO: When it comes to the crunch, circuit design is going to yield more effective benefit than a shield and this is borne out by the lack of EMI shielding on pro-audio cards like those from E-MU and many other DSP based cards costing several thousands of dollars.
While I’m not ruling it out, before you implement it, it’s nice to know that they can be shown to be more than cosmetic. Plus, if your machine is pumping out sufficient interference to seriously affect your card, it’s time to think about changing your power supply!

pR: There has been various procedures by X-Fi users where they modded output opamps for improved audio quality. Will there be any improved components on this card? (referring LM4562 etc)
DO: We are continually reviewing the components used for the range and there is an obvious cost-benefit consideration to ensure the cards remain within the realm of affordability, but we are likely to ensure that our high end cards still stand head to head with the best of what’s on the market at launch.

pR: The X-Ram support was only supported by Battlefield and Quake/Doom latest games as far as I know. What near future games will be take advantage of the onboard memory? Will it make its way to the new X-Fi series again?
DO: Yes, as it’s automatically available for any OpenAL titles that choose to use it, we will continue to support X-Ram on the X-Fi 20K1 based range

pR: What specifications can we expect and will the new series follow the same release procedure (Xtrememusic, Fatal1ty Elite Pro)?
DO: I can’t really comment on the full range as yet, but we will continue with the 4 discrete stereo outs + optical i/o layout + front panel internal connector for the PCIe versions.

pR: Speaking of different releases, should gamers take it for granted now that the card targeted at them will be a fatal1ty imprinted edition?
DO: Yes, we will continue with our Fatal1ty series for the pro-gamer, with the DSP and X-RAM getting the highest performance from your machine and yielding the best possible audio mixing and 3D spatialisation. It also features gold plating and expansion options. The Xtreme Gamer range however offers an excellent value full DSP option for those who don’t require the expansion and X-Ram and for those who are less frame rate obsessed and more casual gamers, the Xtreme Audio range, now also in notebook format will still give them a huge increase in game immersion over onboard audio.

pR: Will there be an option to output HDMI content before it hits DACs? How does this whole HDMI and HDCP chronicle will effect PC gaming and Movies on the same machine?
DO: This is an area which is still pending a final industry standard for interconnecting your audio system to the HDMI out on your graphics card. We are working with the leading partners on different approaches, but there are some key issues that still need to be resolved on a hardware and OS level. As the standard progresses, audio data will most likely need to be sent encoded over the audio pins on the HDMI cable for decoding at your external decoder which will require fast processing to ensure no latency is experienced for movies and gaming. For a lot of gamers who use headphones, it’s not really much of an issue, more for those using surround sound systems.

pR: Can you explain clearly what radical changes did you undergo with regards the previous question? Does Creative still have a direct path to the audio cards? And what about games that are built in DirectSound3D played on Vista? What audible difference does this bring into play now that they’re lacking EAX?
DO: We can still talk directly to the soundcard via OpenAL, so that means that games have a secure direct path to the card for full hardware acceleration and Creative Alchemy allows us to “transmute” any DX game to OpenAL.
The benefit is in the quality of the HRTFs and effects that are being processed in hardware, giving you much more positional clarity, more accurate environmental information and rich realistic effects. It really is night and day difference, just try playing Bioshock with onboard audio.

pR: Are there any new speaker sets planned for the near future for both Gigaworks and Inspire series? If so, what improvements will they boast?
DO: Currently the Gigaworks Programer G500 and its wireless rears sister set the G550W remain our flagship gaming product. The Inspire range recently underwent a design change but still retained the tweeters that give that edge of clarity.

pR: Any concluding comments on the future of this sector and what to expect from Creative in the near future?
DO: Creative will continue to cater for the add-in soundcard market as the modder community and pro-gamer will continue to opt for a modular system to ensure they can keep pace for as long as possible with their base system, a flexibility as yet not available in notebooks. Notebook sales however continue to grow like wildfire and our range accordingly has grown, with Xmod, Xmod Wireless, Xtreme Audio Notebook launching this year to bring the X-Fi experience to an even broader community. Our partnerships with motherboard vendors and 3rd party souncard manufacturers will also continue and we’re delighted to see Auzentech’s new board hit the market this year. Overall, expect to see more X-Fi in more places than ever before as the portfolio of products featuring this tech expands into headphones, speaker sets, MP3 docking systems and who knows where else!

We thank Darragh for his time and words.