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Gaming!

Of course there's this thing I absolutely needed to do with the X-Fi card, play games! Creative has a lot of love for us kind of people, the gaming mob, with its new EAX 5.0 and Advanced HD you are certain to get the best sounding experience out of your games. 

Lord of the Rings - Battle for Midle Earth

This LOTR Battle for Middle Earth is one of these games that supports EAX, EAX 3.0 to be precise.

I set the game to 7.1 channel surround sound and friends I cannot explain to you in full how much fun a 7.1 gaming experience is. Oh wait, perhaps I can. Do you remember when you played your first multiplayer game? Going from stereo to Pro Logic to true 5.1 or 7.1 gaming is that same feeling. Oh my gosh and dear 'whatever' what an incredible difference this makes.

Configure your X-Fi card in Gaming mode and off you go. You'll immediately hear EAX kick in as it works like a charm, deep and rich environmental sounds there's pretty much nothing like that among the competition. I stated in previous Audigy reviews already, but once you see the eye of Mordor over that battlefield while creeping at the left behind you hear the voice: "I SEEEE YOU". Well, the first time that happens you'll get goose bumps and you'll probably need an underwear change, seriously! It's one fabulous sound experience. If you ask me if I can hear a difference over the Audigy series then I'd have to say no though.

Many sounds are everywhere at the highest possible audio quality. When you move over the entire map, audio will follow precisely. If you 'fly' over water then you'll hear the water going from the front o the back and left to right depending on how you maneuver.

Battlefield - VietnamOn older title but hey, we can enable EAX 3.0 and it is out of this world.

This game is what positional sound is all about. Sounds at the right place, volume and effect at the right time. In BF Vietnam everything is right. On your far left you hear someone shoot and on your rear right you'll hear a 'snap' from that bullet. The game, for some reason, sound better then on the Audigy series, the spectrum is a little wider and sound more dynamic, it seems a little synthetic but that's the quality of sample the programmers used. I think the Crystallizing process actually makes this game sound better. They however make up for it with the bitching fine soundtrack.

Battlefield 2
Hey I already showed you some benchmarks, you didn't think I was gonna leave out the subjective hearing test for it huh? First things first, read our review that is right here. Choosing between the standard hardware and specific X-Fi mode did not make a sound difference at all, since it had no effect on performance either this is leading me to believe that the game in X-Fi mode simple handles more sound voices. 60+ who will tell, I don't know. But again the effect is stunning and amazing. Positional sound and of course fully supported EAX Advanced HD sound effects.

If you want an extreme sound experience, well sorry but you need a Creative card like the Audigy or now X-Fi. Mortars and rockets that are sounding positional perfectly while I can hear bullets fired at me as that one sniper is trying to get me. Of course with stealthy moves, running and a knife you will deal with that sniper right? Enemy IQ is luckily still not the strongest point of the game :)

If you ask me directly what EAX brings over standard 3D sound to this game sound wise, well cinematic sound effects people. And these effects are not being calculated by your CPU, nope the X-Fi manages so it does not have an effect on performance.

Medal of Honor - Pacific Assault

Can you guess already what kind of games I like?

Graphics, gameplay, sound... is there anything that is not good with this game? Seriously one of the best titles to date. Configuring the game we again notice we can enable EAX 3.0, quite a popular format. Clearly 4.0 and the new 5.0 standards are not widely supported just yet. I'm going to be short on this game, sound is extraordinary.

If there ever was a reason to get a multi channel speaker setup, then this game is it. You start off in the game as Tommy Coughlin, a Marine that you have the fortunate chance to play on your computer in your safe place of living. Tommy and his three friends from boot camp are making their way towards Tarawa Atoll. What ensues is a horrific gunfight that will no doubt end up killing you.

The sound accurately depicts the horrendous sounds of war. Guns are sounding hards and the deep, menacing sound of grenades and bombs going off near you. The capabilities of sound in this game are first demonstrated in the Pearl Harbor level, where you obviously get exposed to a major attack. You will go wild in that 7.1 sound setup.

Shooting, voices everything is just perfect. You are in the middle of a sound experience that is just breathtaking. Please you gotta have at the very least a 5.1 setup, and with a X-Fi card, well you'll go wild.