As I have stated a few
times before, when it comes to 3D Audio gaming, Creative
cannot be beaten. The X-Fi consolidates this position with
further gaming improvements; most obviously EAX 5 support is
now available. 3D voices supported have increased to 128,
although in this regard a decent few soundcards have offered
this or more for some years. RightMark 3D Sound reports the
following:
Device: SB X-Fi Audio [9400]
OpenAL 1.0
Features:
Hardware 2D Buffers 127
Hardware 3D Buffers 127
EAX 1.0: Available
EAX 2.0: Available
EAX 3.0: Available
EAX 4.0: Available
EAX 5.0: Available
The 127 values above
refer to secondary buffers. There is also a primary buffer,
i.e. 128 are available. As mentioned before, X-RAM allows
the X-Fi to cache audio in supported titles, providing
improved performance – on the X-Fi Xtreme Music and X-Fi
Platinum only a 2MB buffer is available, while the X-Fi
Elite Pro also features 64MB X-RAM. Similarly, OpenAL
provides optimised access to the soundcard hardware in
supported titles.
Certainly X-RAM and
OpenAL are of no use unless you own supporting titles. At
time of writing only Battlefield 2 and
Quake 4 provided support for X-RAM,
for example. OpenAL support has larger title support
however, e.g. Soldier of Fortune 2, Grand Theft Auto: San
Andreas, Unreal Tournament 2003 – some other titles
are
listed here.
Having acquired
Sensaura over a year and a half ago (and Aureal well before
that), X-Fi integrates certain of their 3D Audio
technologies – MacroFX most obviously is new to EAX 5, and
take a look at the CMSS 3D tab of the Audio Console in 2/4.1
Output mode:
Beyond these changes,
X-Fi still supports true 3D positioning in 2.1-7.1 Output
modes. As far as I’m aware no other soundcards even support
true 6.1 positioning in games only virtual in some cases,
even the lists of other soundcards supporting true 5.1
positioning in games is pretty low, too.
Headphones/2.1 Speaker
output mode has been nicely improved over previous Creative
soundcards (CMSS-3D being rather effective). 4/5/6/7.1
output modes haven’t changed as noticeably, if at all,
although they were already better than much of the
competition anyway, so it is a moot point.
