Well the Xi-Fi supports
ALL EAX versions from the original up to 5.0 (Called EAX Advanced
HD).
From a gamers point of view,
this is as good as it gets... positional audio in games from years gone by
up to the best gaming sound in the latest games... and yes... connect a digital speaker set to it, it
would be a shame to use the analog connectors....
Just do a search of
PC Apex on "Xi-Fi" and read all the threads from regular members here, they are all
pretty 'baffled by it...
As for the driver issue.... yes I've had some problems with my old Soundblaster Live! but they were solved
by new drivers... never had any problems with my Audigy 2.... even installed the latestt drivers for it the
other day, they are from jan. 2006... go figure!
One other important thing, imho, the Creative cards don't tax the processor as much as other sound
solutions do... might make a few frames difference...
All in all... I just see one reason to look beyond Creative and that is when doing very specific audio jobs...
Just my 2 cents....
TDR
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edit ....well.... waddayouknow! I found a review!
 | Quote: |  | | | | | | | | | | Conclusions
When we looked at HDA's first entrance into the discrete sound card market, the X-Mystique, we saw an excellent piece of hardware that introduced a much sought-after feature with it's Dolby Digital Live encoding abilities. Quite simply, the X-Plosion has topped that achievement, and by quite some margin. The addition of DTS Connect may not be a show-stopper for everyone, but it is bound to attract a fair amount of excitement and interest, and rightly so. From our testing however, the biggest news should perhaps be the improvements in overall audio quality that have been made with the X-Plosion, with it giving a substantially better showing than its predecessor, and more than giving the SoundBlaster Audigy a run for its money. Sure, it may not quite be an X-Fi (That may well be a comparison for another day), but everything it does do, it does exceptionally well.
As with the X-Mystique, the X-Plosion's biggest falling point is in its gaming performance and featureset - The lack of support for the latest, greatest EAX functionality may well put off gamers, and sadly is something we will most likely never see change with Creative Labs having the stranglehold on the discrete sound card market they currently do. This is a real shame, as a combination of Dolby Digital or DTS encoding alongside EAX would make for a gaming experience par excellence. As it is however, using Dolby Digital Live or DTS Connect does add to the gaming experience, so if you can live without EAX 3.0 and upward support, and don't mind a heavier performance hit from using hardware 3D sound, then the X-Plosion may still be able to tempt even avid gamers.
However, the big draw of the X-Plosion is, in most cases I suspect, the ability to play back audio and video content in multi-channel surround sound regardless of source, and in this regard HDA's effort excels. If you aren't a hardcore audiophile, then you may well be tempted to save some money by going for the X-Mystique instead, but if you like the idea of DTS support and the higher quality output on offer here, then you can't go far wrong with the X-Plosion, and you're guaranteed a purchase that your ears will thank you for. | |  | |  | |
Read on here;
http://www.elitebastards.com/cms/ind...1&limitstart=3