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Huge Creative X-Fi Problems

Saturday, May 20th, 2006
at 6:48pm

Seems as though a few of Creative’s customers are none too happy. With their petition, they demand:

Immediate fix for crackling and popping on X-Fi sound cards. It have been ten months and still, there is no fix or any statement about work progress from Your company.

Immediate fix for Creative Entertainment Center. We demand more than just one, outdated 800×600 resolution which makes everything look unacceptable, mainly on every modern LCD monitor.

Immediate cleanup in X-Fi software. We demand Creative to make it’s software less bloated, Mode Console themes to be built on anything else than uncompressed BMP files, Mode Console Audio test files to be compressed (not bloated WAV files), unnecesary processes to be gone, all consoles to be more responsive (especially Entertainment and Audio Creation Consoles).

Immediate release of a new version of Entertainment Console with access to all the tabs from all of them, not just from main Menu-Tab. Actual Entertainment Mode Console design is not ergonomic and we simply don’t like it this way.

Immediate release of any Creative supported tool for fast and unlagged autoswitching X-Fi Modes or:

TOTAL ABANDONMENT of Three Mode Setup idea and taking us back to the XXI century where all other sound cards and even onboard audio doesn’t force users to loose some features to get other features work. We ask Creative: Why “The most powerful Audio processor in the world” can’t offer us all of it’s features simultaneously like all it’s predecessors did and like all other sound cards do? The X-Fi processor is supposed to be “The most powerful audio processor in the world” (as advertised on the X-Fi boxes!) doesn’t even offer a hardware Dolby Digital 5.1 Encoder while a lot of competition sound cards, even the cheaper ones do and even though none of them doesn’t have feature sets to switch.

Immediate fix for all known driver bugs. We do understand that are a lot of bugs to be fixed, but we also do know that it have been seven months since the last driver release and a lot of those bugs should be fixed by now.

And I was actually considering buying an X-Fi with my next computer. Guess I might have to skip it until I hear these headaches have been resolved. Your customers have spoken, Creative - are you listening? Nobody on the planet has ever liked your software.

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17 Comments

Jirvin Loh

May 21st, 2006
at 10:37am

“Popping and crackling” sound. I’m no longer alone. ;-)

I think the X-Fi series soundcard do exists some driver related (I hope) bugs.

Months ago; I did tried out my X-Fi Fatal1ty FPS on several PC, those “crackling sound” seems happened more frequently on earlier mainstream PC (like P4 Northwood with PC2600 DDRSDRAM/PC-133SDRAM) than on high-end PC (Pentium 4 Prescott with above 1GB of PC3200 DDRSDRAM). Perhaps there is some hardware synchronous problem around.

Well; to me, that (Crackling & Popping) is the only unacceptable bugs. After all, it’s a good product and it did fulfill my video gaming’s needs. But from your above list, I did realize even more weak point. Hehe…

Good job Chris. :-)
Have a NICE day.

Aryeh Goretsky

May 23rd, 2006
at 11:47am

Hello,

Chris actually brings up an interest question: How often does one need to update their sound card?

While it is reasonable for gamers to want to replace an on-board (HSP or software codec-based) sound card with a hardware (DSP-based) solution to move the overhead of processing audio away from the CPU, or add support for additional connections not provided by the on-board sound (different S/PDIF connectors, 7.1 support, et cetera) is there really that much benefit to mainstream users to invest $200.00USD or more for a replacement sound card?

With message threads such as http://forums.creative.com/creativelabs/board/message?board.id=soundblaster&message.id=61926 on Creative’s own support web site, it appears even high-end consumer sound cards have problems with resource utilization.

From personal experience, I have found that the limiting factor in enjoying sound from a game or DVD movie is not the sound card, but rather the speakers used with it. In my experience, a $60.00USD sound card connected to a $4,000.00USD sound system provides a much more richer, immersive and enjoyable experience than a $200.00USD sound card plugged into a $300.00USD sound system.

It might be a better experiment to see if improving the speaker component of the computer’s audio sub-system provides a better experience than replacing the existing sound card.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

Bobbsmithe

July 6th, 2006
at 12:20pm

Just to let you know, Creative has released a new driver which fixes most of the problems that people have had with crackling. Just letting you know.

Bayli

October 23rd, 2006
at 4:47am

It might be caused by static? I started getting this crackling problem after I was resetting cmos and accidentaly touched my sound card. It sometimes crackles, sometimes doesn’t. I don’t know what causes it, yesterday it worked without any cracking now it does that, stronger with midi music for some reason.

antares

December 14th, 2006
at 5:15pm

I’m a professional music creator and I don’t recomend non of the X-fi souncards. I had too many problems with its products and rigth on its web specs it says:

“Lowest Latency, Most Precise ASIO Recording!

Experience the recording performance that only Sound Blaster X-Fi can deliver! The Sound Blaster X-Fi engine delivers the lowest latency recording performance ever seen in this price-bracket with latency as low 1ms. Most importantly it does so with 0% CPU load!”

well, that a big stupid lie!! I have spent $5,000 super computer (the most fastest) and ASIO mode recording at 1ms, sounds like crapping and farts and my pc’s CPU runs at 30%. I could make it run with 5ms but CPU’s it still runs over 20% and BOOM, a big stupid blue screen comes!!

Buy enything related with creative labs, exept X-fi ****!!

antares

December 14th, 2006
at 5:20pm

Lowest Latency, Most Precise ASIO Recording!

Experience the recording performance that only Sound Blaster X-Fi can deliver! The Sound Blaster X-Fi engine delivers the lowest latency recording performance ever seen in this price-bracket with latency as low 1ms. Most importantly it does so with 0% CPU load!

http://www.soundblaster.com/products/x-fi/technology/audiocreation/

C R A P !!

greenthumb_be

January 27th, 2007
at 4:11am

problems with connectivity with xbox 360 (cracink sound) please fix thise chit

Palamedes

February 28th, 2007
at 12:51pm

They didn’t fix a fu**! There are folks out there who spent around 200 bucks for a high end, extreme fidelity sound card which looks golden and sounds like nothing than extreme ****!

I’ve read suggestions such as “cover your sound card from ur graphics card using a massive and grounded metal plate. Well, read again: A GROUNDED METAL PLATE!

I cannot believe I have to build Faraday cages within my case in order to get my soundcard working. This was DEFINETELY my last purchase of Creative’s hardware. I would be better up by designing a soundcard myself, even if I have absolutely no ideal how to do that, I could easily place my two year old daughter within my case an tell her to rumour around - effect would be the same.

Ash

March 6th, 2007
at 12:33pm

I have had this card along with some Creative 7.1 speakers for quite a while and had nothing wrong with it… you must just be doing something wrong because i use it for music, games, dvd’s… And NOTHING is wrong with it.

Mccutheon

June 13th, 2007
at 7:32pm

Right Ash, thousands of people must be doing something wrong *rolls eyes*.

Card worked beautifully for me until I “upgraded” my system to Vista. Not a single problem or crackle on XP. It’s obviously a driver problem in my case.

Alex93053

June 15th, 2007
at 11:04am

I bought the Xtreme Audio Version of the card and I am extremely disappointed about the software. I have no way to switch the modes. I’ve tried a fresh XP install without success. I’ve tried all the drivers from the Creative website without success. I’m stuck in entertainment mode when I bought the card to make music.

Never buying a creative product again. :(

Badvock

June 23rd, 2007
at 11:03am

Yeah ash you are right it must be the 1000+ consumers who are doing something wrong, heaven forbid we should think that creative have ballsed up and don’t seem to care. The card Is good, it just doesn’t work in high end systems very well. The crackling and popping occurs during any on screen video playback with SLi ebabled, more ofthen than not the card will simply cut all sound and replace it with a lovely high pitched whine that sets even dogs teeth on edge. the drivers are unnecessarily huge and bloated and so far the latest drivers simply replace any sound output completely with a series of snaps, crackles and pops. The most galling thing is that creative don’t seem to give a toss, there are a huge number of users complaining of issues and there is little or no response from creative. I want the card to work I really do……it just doesn’t!

charles

July 8th, 2007
at 9:03pm

i have a xfi sound card, although i m like most of you guys out there. i spent some mony too my card is the xfi extreme music. my modeswitcher works fine but some of the software doesnt work. ive contacted creative about it. i just wondering if they are going to do anything about this good soundcard.

Aaron

July 19th, 2007
at 2:37am

Well i have to say this is complete ****. Vista has been out for almost 2 years that any (developer would know of) I find it complete S*&^% that Creative labs still does not have a driver that fixes this crackling BS… further more i have a Inspire 5.1 5700, and guess what?!?! the DIN connector has a differnt pin arrangement. What i mean is that there is no way to get 5.1 from my CREATIVE XFI to my CREATIVE DIGITAL 5700……. since the connector is proprietary then i can not really make another cable which i actually investigated trying.

The other thing is that using the toslink out to my 5700 is **** if i want to hear my dvds and get the 5.1 or the DTS i have to open my speakers in (control panel) and set the SPDIF OUT as default. If i want to hear clicks from IE and basic wav sounds i have to set the speakers as default.. WHAT THE F*&^$

This is the last creative product i will ever own, i dont care about the games out there that have all this blaa blaa sound EAX ****. It’s pretty bad that my onboard 5.1 audio works flawlessly with vista, and my $200.00 XFI Platinum works like UTTER ****…… ANYONE WANNA SUE FOR FALSE ADVERTISING!?!?!??!

Richzig

August 27th, 2007
at 8:48pm

well, I feel your pain. the Vista drivers for most of Creative’s cards really suck. I don’t have an X-fi, but I have 3 SB cards : SB Audigy SE, SB Live 24-bit, and an old school year 2000 SB Live. I have not been able to find ANY drivers for Vista that make any of these cards run properly. every single driver/app pack I have downloaded hasn’t worked right. Yeah, the Live, and the Live 24 bit are old, but the Audigy SE should work 100%. I tried installing the Vista drivers for it, but it claims that I all ready have newer drivers installed. WT*???? I got it to work ok by manually installing around the setup package, but the nagging issue that haunts me now is that none of the apps included in the driver bundle work. but the even more frustrating issue is that I can record audio, but I cant monitor the line in!!! I have good signal, it records fine, but if I want to just monitor the line in so I can verify what I am recording through my speakers, it just doesnt work. I uncheck the little box in the crappy Vista sound line in menu thats labeled “do not monitor”. I know that has to be unchecked for it to work (verified it with another computer installed with Vista). I really want to go back to XP, after 4 months of Vista/Creative use, I just can’t put up with Creative’s (and Vistas) nagging bugs. oh yeah, and did I mention I can’t even get my Live 24-bit to work? even though I manually install the WDM drivers, it just doesn’t work either.

Kyle

December 13th, 2007
at 6:02pm

At least you guys have it easy. I can’t play any game for more than 4 minutes without my computer completely crashing. It either restarts itself or freezes. It is the sound card that is doing it and I am not going through all the steps to tell you how I figured this out because it has taken me a freaking month to figure that out… which means by the time I figured it out it was too late to return this piece of sh*t card.

I am a dj and I dj from my computer. Can you imagine what it would be like if my computer crashed in the middle of a Gig? Do you think I would be able to ever find work in this town again? no.

I have been going back and forth with creative support and they are very quick to repsond. However, after 3 emails back and fourth NOTHING they have put me through has worked. What a load of ****. Last creative product I will ever own.
They better start testing their **** on vista before they release it.

How can their highest-end card not work well with high-end systems? wtf?

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