rage4order

I have read mixed reviews about the Sounblaster Xfi Xtreme Gamer card and its compatibility with Window Vista and 2142. Is there anyone currently running this combo with success? I have found one for $80 new and need a card but not sure if I want to plop down the cash if its not going to enhance my performance. I appreciate the feedback. Thanks,

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Anospa

Well, I know there are Vista only drivers you can get from Creative, but yes, I've heard of issues between the 3 as well. Do a bit of googling and see if you can find anything, usually can find some decent info quickly enough.

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"Brittle?! Dude you just took a localized tactical warhead to the face." -Eroak

rage4order

Yea, I have and have read some good and bad, I just wanted to hear from the TG community specifically because I trust the opinions here and not from some bent kid who didn't have the maturity to work on his problem and just flamed creative on some random board if ya know what I mean.

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Anospa

Heh yeah. Sadly though, Creative has gone down a bit. Just got a new MP3 player, but gotta return it, keeps locking up and hard drive is clicking like crazy.

The X-Fi is a great card I can assure you, but its history hasn't been the best. When it first came out a lot of people had problems with it making hissing and popping noises with their speakers. Think the culprit was a bad optimization or something to do with the NF4 chipsets out at the time. The newer cards are problem free. Only issue I had with mine was drivers not installing well, but was easily fixed. I know Guardian's running Vista, dunno about sound card. Zoopy's another one on Vista, hopefully they'll drop in and say a few words.

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"Brittle?! Dude you just took a localized tactical warhead to the face." -Eroak

Zoopy_T

I have all three and they don't work together. Well, mostly the 2142 + (Xfi+Vista). It used to work great until Northern Strike came out, now it shrieks like mad when an orbital hit near me... This doesn't happen to everyone though just us lucky ones. I have a eVGA 680i board in case it is relevant.

machowner

I'm no expert for sure but I have read that you can turn the Xfi off and it works better with 2142. Like I said though, I read that in passing.

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Zoopy_T

Not sure what you mean by this... I can't play on the X-fi setting if thats what you mean. I play on hardware on high quality. But my God, does X-fi with Ultra quality sounds so good.

rage4order

Zoopy, with the eax setting in 2142 shut off, do you have the screeching on orbitals?

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AirTransRanger

From my own experience, nothing is compatible with Vista. I tried upgrading to Vista after its' release only to reformat my hard drive a month later to put XP back on. I'm thinking the bad upgrade was user error on my part but still would like to wait till a service pack releases till I try again.

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machowner

Yea, that is what I was talking about, when you turn on ultra high, xfi is enabled. What I've been told is that it works okay while being on high but not ultra high.

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Zoopy_T

I'd have to check, hold on.

EDIT: No shreiching with EAX off, but plenty of crackling

Anospa

Aye, X-FI + nice headphones = awesome. I hear EVERYTHING!

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"Brittle?! Dude you just took a localized tactical warhead to the face." -Eroak

Black_V!per

While Im not sure how the Xfi works with 2142, I can say it is a blast with BF2, every little detail is put threw my speakers... My only issue is that my mic jack doesnt work with the current drivers for some reason, and had to resort to a USB microphone for me to get my voice heard. I hear it has to do with the front bay device, but I really dont care, since a MIC is a MIC to me, if it goes threw a sound card or not.

Vista Ultimate 64-Bit
Xfi Platinum
2x2GB DDR2-800
AMD X2 5600+ @ 2.8Ghz
Geforce 8800GTS 320MB
Nf 590SLI AM2

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Nemesis

EAX on, but you need to turn off game mode, then it works just fine.

Sad because you don't get the same results as you would in game mode, but it does eliminate any sound issues.

Really wish they could get this sorted out, but until Vista becomes more widespread (after all the DX10 games really start to ship) then you have to take what you can get at this point.

Bad customer service on both Microsoft and Creative, but that seems like par for the course lately.

I will say that outside of 2142, I have no issues with Vista and my X-FI, so take that for what it's worth.

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rage4order

Thanks all for all the answers, Looks like I will pick up the card. Ill post some feedback next week as well.

Peace

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