Digital out options from a X-Fi card?

[morikaweb]

I'm having trouble deciding on which option is the best bet for digital out from my HTPC using a X-Fi card.

Option One is a "X-Fi XtremeGamer Fatal1ty Pro" with a "Digital I/O Module" addon.

Option Two is a "X-Fi XtremeGamer Fatal1ty Pro" with a "Home Theater Connect DTS-610" addon.

Option Three is a "X-Fi Elite Pro" which comes with a "X-Fi I/O Console"

So which one would people recommend? My primary concern is sound quality, and proper Dolby Digital connection to my receiver.

[stanger89]

Do you need the gaming features? If not, why are you getting an X-Fi? Onboard will work fine for movies and video. If you're an audiophile, you might want an add-in for CD audio, but in that case, again you wouldn't want an X-Fi.

[morikaweb]

I would not use onboard as it slows my system down. And yes I know "Modern CPU's can handle it" but why? Why not simply have the DSP handle it and use the CPU for other things?

As you seem to think the X-Fi is not the best what would you recommend? I have not been able to find anything but Creative with a full DSP. Personally I despise Creative with a vengeance and miss my Vortex... So do you know of a full hardware sound solution other than Creative for less than a grand?

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by morikaweb

I would not use onboard as it slows my system down. And yes I know "Modern CPU's can handle it" but why? Why not simply have the DSP handle it and use the CPU for other things?

Slows it down for what? Game effects are the only thing I can think of that an audio card offloads.

As you seem to think the X-Fi is not the best what would you recommend? I have not been able to find anything but Creative with a full DSP. Personally I despise Creative with a vengeance and miss my Vortex... So do you know of a full hardware sound solution other than Creative for less than a grand?

Honestly, I'd probably just stick with onboard anymore, but I don't game. I've got an M-Audio Revolution 7.1 in my HTPC, but driver updates are non-existant so it's basically end of the line with XP. Auzentech cards are popular, maybe an X-Meridian, X-Mystique, or X-Plosion.

[morikaweb]

Originally Posted by stanger89

Slows it down for what? Game effects are the only thing I can think of that an audio card offloads.

? Most of the audio work is done by the DSP including the MP3 decoding. You really should take a look at the reviews of the X-Fi line. In gaming your looking at probably a 5% FPS increase (and thats just with normal sound and not with EAX which is your "gaming effects"). Now recording say 2 tv streams, well playing a movie at 1080p well streaming video to another system in the background seems more intensive than most gaming sessions I can think of so I'm assuming I'll get better performance with the audio work offloaded to the DSP.

Auzentech sounds interesting, not a fain of C-Media codecs but their Auzen X-FI™ Prelude 7.1 sounds very interesting. I will have to do some research into their products and quality.

[stanger89]

I know you don't want the "it doesn't matter" answer, but really it doesn't.

MP3 playback, that's what like 0% CPU as is?

And if you're using the digital out, AC3 is just getting passed through untouched, so there's nothing offloaded there. And I highly doubt the X-Fi can handle AAC audio, so that gets done on the CPU anyway.

And the X-Fi definitely can't handle DD+ or any of the other new formats in hardware, so there's no benefit there, the only place it would even make a difference, ie with HD DVD or Blu-ray.

[morikaweb]

Well we will simply have to agree to disagree on the benefits of a hardware DSP. I believe in their merits and am willing to pay for them so lets leave it at that.

I do thank you though for showing me the Auzentech cards. I will defently be going with the "Auzentech Prelude 7.1" for my card. Great sound quality, full EAX support, OpenAL support, full Dolby support (practically every spec) and on and on. And the best part: No creative drivers on my system !

All I can say is this card rocks, and I have no idea why I did not find it before so thanks for opening my eys

[stanger89]

Does that mean you've got the Prelude in your system? Are the drivers really not Creative, and by that I mean not Just Auzen rebadged Creative drivers.

[morikaweb]

Don’t have it yet but it is on order from my supplier. The drivers have to be completely different from the creative ones to support the completely different architecture surrounding the X-Fi CA20K DSP, and the far more complex feature set available on this card. Check out this review to give you an idea of the cards power:

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum...-1-review.html

[stanger89]

That's the same chip as in Creative's X-Fi. I don't see anything about decoding anything in hardware in that review. And certainly, such decoding would only be done in the included software (as there's not a standard for hardware decoding audio).

And the drivers certainly do look like rebadged Creative drivers:
http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/08/..._x/page10.html

[m1abrams]

Originally Posted by morikaweb

Well we will simply have to agree to disagree on the benefits of a hardware DSP. I believe in their merits and am willing to pay for them so lets leave it at that.

I do thank you though for showing me the Auzentech cards. I will defently be going with the "Auzentech Prelude 7.1" for my card. Great sound quality, full EAX support, OpenAL support, full Dolby support (practically every spec) and on and on. And the best part: No creative drivers on my system !

All I can say is this card rocks, and I have no idea why I did not find it before so thanks for opening my eys

Looking at the review, those are just rebadge Creative Drivers. And to reinforce what others have said. You do not need anything other than onboard audio for a HTPC. Only exception is if you are using Analog outs and not digital then you may want a card with high-quality DACs (only reason I can see one doing this is for HD/Bluray). However nothing any of these cards offers will reduce the CPU load on a HTPC. You just are not doing anything all that fancy. One exception to that rule is if you use AC3Filter in a non-passthru mode, however if you are connecting to a decent receiver it is HIGHLY recommended that you do NOT do the 5.1 mixing on the computer and let the receiver do it. Again no sound card built will improve the performance of AC3filter.

Unlike games, the media we are playing back is static. So their is very little need for a fancy audio chipset. EAX is only for games you do not want to mess around with those effects on music or video cause it just makes things sound worse in that type of media.

Now if you plan on playing games on this HTPC then by all means get an XFI based card, I have one for my game pc and love it. But for a strictly HTPC it makes no sense at all. Save the money and buy more hard drives or another tuner.