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The Unknown Ghosts

The Sound Blaster X-Fi Fatal1ty


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It doesn?t seem to output multiple sounds (voices) through the channels. So during GRAW I can?t always tell where bullets/sounds are coming from. The Creative X-Fi series supports 128 separate channels. Hopefully I should notice a difference. I can?t really complain the Audigy 64bit was really cheap. I guess you get what you pay for.:frown:

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OMG!!!

 

I went round Broks house last night (mainly to mock him for spending so much on a sound card), that card is amazing.

 

I played 3 rounds last night and averaged about 13 kills a round.

 

Its almost as good as having a wall hack, if I saw someone killing people the way I was last night I would say that there hacking, its that good.

 

The surround sound system it uses is amazing, if anyone was close to me I could tell EXACTLEY where they were, there was no way anyone would be able to sneek up on you without you knowing, it really is amazing.

 

If yoy want to up your game to a new level buy this card, at £85 it is a bit expensive - mine arrives tommorrow :D

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The XFI Extreme music version is about ?50. Apparently it's the same card only cut down a bit (as fars as connectors go). It still has the channels and the on board processor etc. Might be a better option for the more cash strapped of us. Mine arrives on Monday.

By the way John, are you using surround sound headphones or regular ones with the virtual surround sound??

Quote

"Many of the EAX features never really impressed me, but with the CMSS-3DHeadphone setting enabled, you get the most immersive sound experience yet in a video game. The effect encompasses you with a believable 3D field. You can hear sounds all around you, front, sides, behind, above, and below. There are still some mixing issues that affect the immersion, but this is much better than Creative's past efforts. It is much better than the Sensaura3D 2.0, in my opinion, especially with the MacroFX.

To give you some sense of what I'm talking about, I first used to our reference Terratec DMX 6-fire with Sensaura3D. This setup provided a very transparent and accurate sound field. Then came the X-Fi with EAX HD 5.0. A game like BF2 makes situational awareness very important, which makes sound very important. With EAX and CMSS Headphone, it was easy to gauge which direction, height, and how far away a sniper shot was, thus making easy work to sneak up on the guy to knife or shock paddle for the big points.

Comparing EAX with and without CMSS, it was not possible to do the above without the CMSS. Without CMSS, just regular EAX, some sounds were reversed, like the engine sounds in tanks and buggies. If I'm not mistaken, engine sounds should come from where the engine actually is, in the back. Other sounds, like reverb and ambient (turret whine), were not accurate either, by being too little.

 

With the CMSS-3DHeadphone setting, the game provides you with a lot more sound information and sucks you fully and completely into the game. The EAX features actually seem to work, providing occlusion, masking, and reflection, among all the other bits of reverb and crispy, detailed gun sounds. Did you notice that ejected shells will make different sounds depending on the ground texture? I didn't until the X-Fi."

 

Sounds like the mut's nuts to me fellas. It increases your frame rate as well. In about 90% of games it's about 10% !!!! Makes sense as the burden of sound is taken away from your processor. Don't even get me started on the fantastic on board sound that we get these days!! All my games ran about 25% faster when I got my Audigy 2. We should all get one. I think the WD grenade accuracy has just been explained!!

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Tweak,

John uses surrond sound headphones (I know because we have the same set!) you cang et them from here (I think there great btw):

 

http://www.steelseries.com/products/steel_sound/steelsound_5h_v2/information

 

BUT I have read quite a few reviews that say you dont have to use surrond sound, by some witchcraft they make stero headphones work in surround sound, although I doubt that would be as good!

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Tweak,

John uses surrond sound headphones (I know because we have the same set!) you cang et them from here (I think there great btw):

 

http://www.steelseries.com/products/steel_sound/steelsound_5h_v2/information

 

BUT I have read quite a few reviews that say you dont have to use surrond sound, by some witchcraft they make stero headphones work in surround sound, although I doubt that would be as good!

Those headphones aren't true surround sound headphones - they are just stereo phones. With the USB version offering 'virtual' 7.1 sound.

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