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Creative's Sound Blaster X-Fi Fatal1ty audio card

@ 2006/03/17

While the XtremeMusic's reasonable price tag has made it our favorite X-Fi, the card doesn't offer much in the way of extra I/O ports. It also lacks X-RAM—onboard memory that can be used by the X-Fi audio processor to store additional voices and higher quality audio assets. Creative claims X-RAM can ultimately improve gaming performance. Fortunately, both X-RAM and additional I/O ports are available on the X-Fi Fatal1ty, with a red LED riding shotgun, of course.

To explore the X-Fi's potential with X-RAM onboard and a collection of extra I/O ports at its disposal, we've cornered an X-Fi Fatal1ty for testing. Read on to see if it can match the XtremeMusic's impeccable audio quality—and whether X-RAM makes a difference in the games that support it.

Comment from jmke @ 2006/03/17

If games support that Physics calculation card maybe we might see some improvement; but I don't believe we really need it. the IQ in-game is controlled by GFX - while sound and physics do play a role, their importance should not be exaggerated

Comment from The Senile Doctor @ 2006/03/17

it would have been great to win some frames with something else than a gpu

Comment from jmke @ 2006/03/17

Quote:

We've been impressed with Creative's X-Fi audio processor since its launch, but X-RAM doesn't live up to the hype. Only Battlefield 2 and Quake 4 even support X-RAM, and neither's use of the X-Fi Fatal1ty's 64MB of onboard memory results in higher in-game frame rates or superior audio quality. That's a disappointing result,

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