Features – X-RAM, and Audio Modes
Feature: X-RAM
Video cards have been using onboard buffers for a long time, so it’s no surprise that we’re seeing more SDRAM on sound cards as our appetite for more detailed audio increases. The idea is the same as that on graphics hardware – you gain better performance (lower latency) by swapping information between the onboard cache rather than going across the PCI bus. Also with the onboard RAM you can support much in-game audio sources (more voices or effects on a Battlefield 2 and UnrealTournament 2004 for example) or uncompressed audio (requires less processing) thanks to the buffer.
The Fatal1ty and Elite Pro models (like above) feature X-RAM which benefit
media creators and future games.
However there’s a catch – not all software may be designed to take advantage of X-RAM. Much like RAM on a video card, developers need to specifically program support for X-RAM, so how useful X-RAM will be is entirely up to the game and software developers.
As cool as X-RAM may appear to you, it will not benefit users who prefer using their hardware for music or media playback. X-RAM is purely for media developers and gamers at the moment.
Features: Audio modes
Creative has included a mode switcher with their X-Fi products in order to optimize how the sound card performs. There are three modes: Entertainment, Game, and Audio Creation. Changing to Entertainment increases the Crytalizer priority so it can give better sounding audio for your source. With Game mode, you get more priority for X-RAM and SRC usage. Recording audio in Audio Creation mode will give you 96Khz/24bit sampling, and better SRC performance.
The following table outlines some of the capabilities of each setting.
|
|
Gaming |
Entertainment |
Creation |
|
Video Game Frame-Rate |
YES |
NO |
NO |
|
Hardware 3D Audio Processing |
YES |
NO |
OPTIONAL |
|
Environmental Effects |
YES |
OPTIONAL |
OPTIONAL |
|
High-Resolution Audio Playback |
NO |
YES |
YES |
|
Audio Enhancement Processing |
NO |
YES |
OPTIONAL |
|
2-Channel to Multi-Channel Up-Mix |
OPTIONAL |
YES |
NO |
|
Multi-Channel Audio Recording |
NO |
NO |
YES |
|
Hardware MIDI Playback |
NO |
OPTIONAL |
YES |
|
Hardware Effects |
YES |
YES |
OPTIONAL |
|
Sample-Synchronized Record and Playback |
NO |
NO |
YES |
|
Low Audio-Streaming Latency |
NO |
NO |
YES |
|
Bit-Accurate Audio Capable |
NO |
OPTIONAL |
YES |
The catch to all this is that you have to manually switch modes each time you want to take advantage of X-Fi’s particular technology. The driver is not smart enough (at least for the moment) to detect if you’re running a Direct 3D game, or if you’re playing MP3s or video. I prefer manual control anyway since software is often not smart enough to understand your preference.
