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Sound Cards Soundcard help.

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Old 04-May-06, 01:59 AM   #1 (permalink)
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Default X-Fi - What are the technical differences between gaming and entertainment mode?

I haven't been able to find much info on this, was wondering if anyone here knows what exactly they do? Some sites report a minor increase in FPS in games in gaming mode.

Something weird happens in entertainment mode with me, the center speaker output is distorted and "tinny" soundling like an extremely low quality mp3 or something when I use the cmss3d options.

So now I just switched to gaming mode and use the matrix switch on my logitech 5.1 system to upmix a mp3 to all channels.

Man, audio stuff can be so confusing!
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Old 04-May-06, 02:03 AM   #2 (permalink)
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I have some suspicions, but I am not sure as I do not own an X-Fi nor do I know all the hardware used in it's manufacture.
I can do some research on it though and get back to you.
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Old 04-May-06, 03:36 AM   #3 (permalink)
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Money shot:


Gaming Entertainment Creation
Video Game Frame-Rate: YES NO NO
Hardware 3D Audio Processing: YES NO OPTIONAL
Environmental Effects: YES OPTIONAL OPTIONAL
High-Resolution Audio Playback: NO YES YES
Audio Enhancement Processing: NO YES OPTIONAL
2-Channel to Multi-Channel Up-Mix: OPTIONAL YES NO
Multi-Channel Audio Recording: NO NO YES
Hardware MIDI Playback: NO OPTIONAL YES
Hardware Effects: YES YES OPTIONAL
Sample-Synchronized Record and Playback: NO NO YES
Low Audio-Streaming Latency: NO NO YES
Bit-Accurate Audio Capable: NO OPTIONAL YES


Quote:
Gaming mode is optimized for creating a multitude of hardware accelerated voices and processing them to create the best real-time 3D that audio developers can throw at it. With up to 127 3D + EAX voices, extremely complex effects are possible. Under this mode, X-RAM can be used to assist in the storage and playback of audio files.

Shamelessly ripped from here.

Seems that game mode lets you go to town with eax and the x-ram. I saw some benchies and obviously it depends on what's going on hardware wise but you could be looking at 20% performance gain fps wise.

Where are all the x-fi games!!!
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Old 04-May-06, 08:43 AM   #4 (permalink)
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Darn, I want one of those..... but I guess I'll have a big fight on my hands with my wife if I buy
yet ANOTHER piece of hardware.... but it's tempting!!!

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Old 04-May-06, 10:13 AM   #5 (permalink)
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Old 04-May-06, 10:16 AM   #6 (permalink)
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If she has ears that work then she'll know.
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Old 04-May-06, 01:19 PM   #7 (permalink)
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Thanks, Zombi3, thats good info!
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Old 05-May-06, 04:50 PM   #8 (permalink)
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I noticed that with the X-Fi, that in some games EAX won't work when in Entertainment mode. I wish there was a way to have it switch on the fly.
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Old 06-May-06, 08:07 AM   #9 (permalink)
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another thing ive found is if you're playing css with teamspeak (don't know about other games), if your mic is connected to the flexijack on the front and you change maps it sets back to the rear one. Means you have to alt tabo ut ot set it back to get ts going again.

I should really report it I suppose.
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Old 12-May-06, 02:01 PM   #10 (permalink)
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I have the same problem - I ended up buyin some adaptors from radioshack to use the jack on the back of the card.
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Old 12-May-06, 02:14 PM   #11 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ator
I noticed that with the X-Fi, that in some games EAX won't work when in Entertainment mode. I wish there was a way to have it switch on the fly.

yeah too bad they can't add something in so you can have it automatically switch to a mode when a program starts up. so i can have a list and choose which modes to change to when i start up, say, city of heroes or guild wars and then if i start up a media player it will switch back to entertainment mode and such.
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Old 12-May-06, 06:54 PM   #12 (permalink)
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Like ATI tray tools can create a shortcut for a game that will load up your OC when you start it. That kind of thing.
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Old 13-May-06, 03:35 PM   #13 (permalink)
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Actually I believe there is a 3rd party app that does just that - saw it on the Creative official forums.
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