Maximum PC

Hello All,
I just picked up the Creative SB X-Fi Titanium PCI-E yesterday & have a question, what drivers should I use.. the latest from creative or the daniel_k's x-fi support pack 2.0? I'm running Win XP Home SP3 32bit.
Thanks, Phil B.

Case: Cooler Master HAF 922
OS: Windows XP Home SP3.
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 2.4 MHz OVERCLOCKED @ 3.0GHz
Graphics Card: EVGA 8800GTS 640 OVERCLOCKED: GPU MHz: 620 RAM MHz: 1000
Hard Drive(s): System: Western Digital VelociRaptor 300GB SATA 6 Gb/s 32MB Cache. Storage: Seagate 250GB Barracuda 7200.10 SATA II 16MB Cache
RAM: OCZ 2x512 & 2x1GB Gold GX XTC PC2-6400.
Power Supply: CORSAIR TX650W
Motherboard: EVGA 680i SLI A2 122-CK-NF68

Install using the disk, and then update the driver and most of the software from their site.

The DanK drivers are intended for Vista users when Creative left ALchemy unattended and EAX5.0 in the rearview mirror. Alchemy has a patch, and DanK drivers aren't needed past that. That's where it get's funky IMO. The latest official driver and the Alchemy patch work fine. Some of the software isn't so fun to play with. I keep notepad ReadMe's just to remember the order. For instance, "Version 2.60.27 contains Volume Panel. 2.61.09 rips it out. I lost sound and the panel on the update: Install newest 1st, then install 61.09 skipping everything (self detecting) but the volume panel"

May I dare to say... upgrade to Windows 7? You have the hardware for it!

Doesn't change the situation. If he's in XP, he has all the features of the sound card that he paid for without hacked drivers. Upgrading out of it introduces these issues where the card downgrades in places.

Upgrading to Win7 is a great choice, but using Creative soundcards with it would be a big negative with me. AudioDG enters the mix and rapes resources like a viking pillager if one wants all the functions back. Don't want it back? Then you disable Creative functions and it's worst than onboard.

Since you're in XP, you don't need hacked drivers. Nothing to hack around.

No he doesn't! Look at his RAM.

To; All

WindowsXP has far less or fewer problems with the X-Fi than Vista or Windows 7 because Audio was moved from System Mode since the Sound Card is Hardware Based, to User Mode for where it is not meant to run. User mode works better for built-in or mobo sound because they are software based.

Chumly is dead on and I've seen the same things happening with one updated giving one thing/feature and taking away another. There no such none sense in WinXP. DK's drivers aren't needed. Use the Latest Drivers for XP from Creatives sight AFTER installing the drivers from the disc.

I don't have any problems at all, I've seen others have problems with X-Fi's in overclocked system, almost any overclock LOL! But these problems seem system specific and wayyyyyy too random to nail down. 97% of the time though, once the system was set to stock or with minor overclocking, the problems went away!

Widows vista is WindowsXP DRM version and Windows 7 is merely WinXP the Turbo Improved DRM version. Meaning can protect paths faster LOL! I don't advocate stealing and everything I use I paid for the right way. I have played with the doctored version of Vista with Protected Paths 70% removed and it gives any version of Linux a very good run for the money, shame on you Microsoft, all of aren't thieves!

There are known problems with nVidia motherboards using four sticks of RAM and X-Fi's! Creative's Forums are full of folks complaining!

3GB is ample for Win7. I'm running it on a netbook with 1GB and the OS doesn't cause me any problems.




Windows 7 is considerably more than WinXP in pretty much every respect.

As for the DRM, I've yet to encounter any problems in Win7 with any of my media. As a Canadian, I take advantage of the fact that my gov allows fair-use of any media I own, so all of my music and movies are ripped to disc and are stripped of DRM. I haven't had so much as a warning message from my OS.

I've run W7 with 512 megs of ram.





Ted

Damn .. now that must be skirting the edge of usability. How well does it run, Ted?

I run Win7 in the garage PC that has 2G of memory. It may get more just to get these sticks off the desk though.

But here's a solution: Upgrade to Win7 AND get another sound card. I like the Asus Xonar, but in one machine we have issues with Skype, and that the only issue. Skype, in that case, wants to run in XP compatibility mode and still acts funky. In mine, I don't have this same issue so I don't know what gives.

However, we go back to the root question: Use the Creative drivers, keep XP Home, and not a dollar is spent. But if you do move for an OS upgrade, you're informed of some issues.Done that too, and it's still chugging along. I installed the beta's on an old rambus machine just to see what it'd do, and it really worked fine.

Then a buddy at work wanted to geek out and to stuff his old 512MB P2 box with all the OS's I liked, put the Win7 beta (which was ultimate in form) and it was fine too once the OS's were all working together. Oddly, and I don't get this, he bought my ultimate disk off me and is still running right here in the closet. He should really come by and pick it up, but oh well...I know his time is pretty much not dictated by himself.

But for sure, it's surprisingly spunky with low memory and AGP DX7 cards. Windows Premium, not starter, was on our clamshell and was responsive. Overkill, but just had to try it