The X-RAM does appear to make a difference, though hardly a huge one. EAX was disabled in both tests, to keep things consistent. Testing was done by playing through a timedemo of a 16-player deathmatch, once with each sound system. Since X-RAM is automatically used whenever an OpenAL program is running, the only way to test its effect was to switch between the X-Fi and the motherboard’s onboard audio. Most Unreal Engine-based games do use OpenAL however, which suggests an obvious candidate… The game has to use the OpenAL framework to take advantage of X-RAM, which limits the available pool rather sharply. Simply put, this card has 64MB of onboard memory that supported games can use to offload audio processing chores. While just about any modern game can benefit from hardware-accelerated EAX effects, the bit that sets this card apart from the pack is the X-RAM. Regardless of effects or EQ tweaks, sound was crisp, clear and distortion-free, no matter how loud or soft it was played.Īnybody putting down the cash for a sound card with Fatal1ty’s name on it is obviously doing it for the benefits it brings to gaming. A similar improvement was gained with the crystalizer off by careful EQ tweaking in the player software, but this required constant tweaking as the source format and musical genre changed throughout the playlist. While this is a blatant lie, the crystalizer did improve the sound of the more heavily-compressed tracks. The main enhancement of interest here is the X-Fi Crystalizer, which Creative says can “restore lost detail” in compressed recordings. No audible difference was detected in either mode.
#SOUND BLASTER X FI TITANIUM FATAL1TY PROFESSIONAL SERIES DRIVERS#
The Creative drivers have a notion of mode-switching, with one mode for music and movies and another for games. The source files range in quality from a few heavily compressed MP3s to several high-quality lossless CD rips. Music testing was conducted with the songs featured in the clip above. As the same results obtained with the front-panel header plugged into the onboard audio of two different motherboards, the fault there lies with the panel, rather than the sound card. Front panel inputs were tried early on, but rejected as they introduced an unacceptable amount of line noise. Voice chat tests were also conducted this way, with a headset microphone used for input. Given the somewhat unique nature of this card’s gaming enhancements, however, we’ll be taking a brief look at how this card affects a game’s performance.Įach set of tests was conducted twice, once with speakers and once with headphones. Testing on a sound card is normally a highly subjective affair, as there are quite a few elements that contribute to sound quality. Microphone: Radio Shack headset microphone, model 33-3012.Sound: Creative Labs X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Professional Edition GPU1: ATI Radeon HD 4830, 512MB GDDR3 memory HDD2: Western Digital Caviar GreenPower 500GB SATA-II (5900RPM) single-drive mode HDD1: Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 500GB SATA-II single-drive mode RAM: 2×2GB Crucial Ballistix DDR3-1333, 9-9-9-24 default timings Testing was conducted with the following setup:
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