WORKS GREAT-NO PROBLEMS | PCI Express Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Professional Series

Excellent Sound Card!!! | PCI Express Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Professional Series

electronics:


	• PCI Express Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Professional Series Creative Labs Creative Labs, 2008 average customer review:based on 12 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

Fantastic Sound Improvement - But The Installation ...!

Pros:

Upgraded from the Sound blaster Platinum because it started to inexplicable snap, crackle and pop intermittently. Hoping it was a speaker problem, I replaced those first (less expensive). (I suspect that "built-in" obsolescence was initiated with some of the latest drivers, but my therapist says it might just be a coincidence. Not too sure about that, so I fired the therapist.) Short story long, moved from X-Fi Platinum with 2.1 speaker system to X-Fi Titanium Pro with 2.0 speaker system and the sound difference is phenomenal! Not crazy about Creative Labs in general BUT, they're the 800-pound gorilla in the sound card field so watcha gonna do but swallow? Hard. Unreal amount of software and apps come with it (and I cannot believe reading these Goldilocks who complain it's either too much or not enough. I guess, in that respect, Creative Labs is damned if it does and damned if it doesn't.) but the minimal install is VERY reasonable.

Cons:

For the installation, please make sure to reserve at least an entire day, have an enormous supply of your favorite comfort foods and liquor handy, and a couple of handfuls of Xanax and/or Valium at the ready (or beforehand) because it is going to be a long and very frustrating haul! And I'm a relatively savvy, intelligent and technical guy. Had the temerity to first install the card in a PCI Express 16x slot because there was a little more room. Followed the instructions to the letter and installed the applications from the Creative Labs CD. Please MIND YOU! There is this Creative Labs habit to, during the installation of its applications and drivers, to take up the entire screen so you cannot get at anything behind it. Or, if it does not take up the entire screen, after the primary window has done whatever it has done doing, a secondary - much smaller screen - will be right behind the first one! Not that you would know, because it does NOT show up in the task bar, it does not show up in Task Manager so, like an idiot, you wait and wait and wait (that's where the comfort food comes in). Until it dawned on me to move the first screen out of the way (canNOT minimize it!) to see if there was anything hiding behind it. Needless to say, my French vocabulary has expanded tremendously today. But after all this frustration, only the Microsoft driver for (something along the lines of ...) advanced digital sound thingamayig (you see, the Xanax and liquor have taken their toll) would install and, despite numerous removals of this driver from Device Manager and numerous reboots, nothing changed. Took out my shotgun, re-opened my case and moved the card to the 1x PCI Express slot and it and I pretended that the previous four hours never happened. After roughly five (5) hours (and, yes, the typical install takes a long time to install too plus, you cannot just walk away because for every breath it takes with every application installation, it wants you to pat its hand at least three or four times and tell it, "It's okay!"), everything is finally working as advertised. But my nerves are raw.

for more information click here

WORKS GREAT-NO PROBLEMS

I installed this sound card in about 10 minutes,hooked all my power up,turned on the PC,when it booted Vista installed the driver without even running the software?I personnaly have had not 1 glitch with this card or the software and the sound is excellent.I only use this for music listening so I could not respond as too how well it works for gaming.

Excellent Sound Card!!!

This is an awesome product. Simple to install. Lots of features. Nice looking. Amazing sound (specially the surround sound created for headphones). Runs all my games with crystal-clear clarity, excellent effects and positional audio without a glitch.

This is not my first Sound Blaster, so I already know that the included drivers CD is outdated and loaded with bloatware. So, for those having problems with the card I suggest that you leave the included CD unopened and instead head to Creative's web site to grab the latest x-fi driver for your card, the latest control panel and the latest alchemy version. Install them in the following order:

1. Driver.
2. Control Panel.
3. ALchemy (Vista only).

Forget anything else included in the CD unless you really need it or want to try it.

I did that and I didn't have to activate anything. The activation is only needed if you plan to use the included software and I think it is because of some Dolby and DTS codecs but I'm not sure. With just those 3 things right now my X-Fi is running perfectly fine under Windows Vista 64-bit edition. I haven't found any incompatibility yet.

***UPDATE***

So far so good. I just wanted to include a few extra tips for those having problems.

I have a motherboard with Intel chipset (MSI X48 Platinum) and I haven't had any problem, but I've heard that people with nForce motherboards are having sound problems so I would like to suggest the following actions:

1. Download the latest BIOS file for your motherboard (if available) and update it. (See your manufacturer's web site for more information on this and be careful. You could brick your motherboard if it's not done properly.)

2. Download the latest chipset driver for your motherboard. It's gonna be either from Intel, from nVidia, from AMD or from VIA. Check their websites for instructions.

3. Download the latest Windows updates.

After you have done that then you can head to Creative's web site and grab the needed files. Finally install them in the mentioned order:

1. Driver.
2. Control Panel.
3. ALchemy.

The previous recommendations can also work for people having problems with this card, but who don't own a nForce motherboard.

for more information click here

Few recognize that, with the PC's improved graphics performance, sound cards only barely matched audio performance demands. Here's a sound upgrade card that greatly improves your sonic experience. Chosen by professional gamers, the PCI Express Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatality Professional Series sound card delivers the ultimate PC gaming audio experience. You'll hear realistic EAX 5 sound effects and 3D positional audio that's so accurate you can locate opponents by sound - even over headphones. Plus, get unbeatable performance in your games with hardware accelerated audio and X-RAM. Cinematic surround sound from DVD movies - Watch your DVDs in cinematic surround sound with PowerDVD software featuring DTS and Dolby Digital-EX decoding 24-bit Analog-to-Digital conversion of analog inputs at 96kHz sample rate 24-bit Digital-to-Analog conversion of digital sources at 96kHz to analog 7.1 speaker output 24-bit Digital-to-Analog conversion of stereo digital sources at 192kHz to stereo output 16-bit to 24-bit recording sampling rates - 8,11.025,16, 22.05, 24, 32, 44.1, 48 and 96kHz ASIO 2.0 support at 16bit/44.1kHz, 16-bit/48kHz, 24-bit/44.1kHz 24-bit/48kHz and 24-bit/96kHz with direct monitoring Enhanced SoundFont support at up to 24-bit resolution 64MB of X-RAM Analog output Signal-to-Noise Ratio (A-weighted) - 109dB Connectivity - Line in / Microphone in (shared 1/8 mini jack); Speaker out (4x 1/8 mini jacks); Optical out (TOSLINK); Optical in (TOSLINK); Intel HD Audio Compatible Front Panel Header (2x5pin) Requires available PCI-Express slot in desktop PC Speaker Support up to 7.1 speakers

for more information click here

reviews: page 1, 2, 3