Creative Releases BlasterX AE-5 Gaming Soundcard
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Gaidax
I have Creative Sound Blaster ZxR which was supposed to be their BIG thing for Sound Blaster series and I must say driver support for it is absolute ****.
Once in frikkin' couple of months I get sound gone because Windows Update updates it as Recon3D - a thing Creative did not bother to resolve with M$ so far.
Or the fact that if I try and set Fast Boot in BIOS there is a chance addon card won't be correctly detected.
Or sound channels getting messed up for Headphones occasionally when you have SBX Surround enabled, right channel becoming left, left right and the rest disappear.
Really the hardware may be good, but software and support... sheeeeesh, I never seen anything as **** as that and I bet this new product will suffer the same.
SetsunaFZero
http://support.creative.com/kb/ShowArticle.aspx?sid=126331&h=13a
Did you already tried the Creative custom PAX Drivers?
or this LesserHellspawn
I've stopped using Creative soundcards after they dropped 7.1 support. They however have a little software solution called Soundblaster MB3, which adds all the still unsurpassed bells&whistles of their superior surround support and EAX to any run of the mill mainboard onboard sound. I'm using that on top of my Realtek audio chip with a 7.1 speaker setup, and yes, it was worth the 29€.
Bleib
No problems with either Z or ZR on Win7 or Win10.
The worst drivers I've encountered have been on the motherboard and one Asus card which name escapes me atm..
I doubt costum drivers for motherboards adds proper EAX support. One of the mistakes Creative did was not to license EAX fully, other cards just emulated EAX badly.
dragonlord
$150-$180 to try and make headphones sound better with audio resolution far beyond the human ear can even hear. 5.1 speakers only (instead of 7.1 speaker support). And a color light show! ROFL.
I guess there will be suckers who'll fall for this. But, eesh. What a joke.
Paulo Narciso
Sound quality is going backwards. EAX 5 was amazing, there's nothing right now that come close.
This card is irrelevant and besides some leds, it won´t bring anything different.
Witcher29
Nothing can beat an external Soundblaster X7 card from creative, i am really done with them pci-e cards, it takes space, and when u have a SLI-setup then there is no room anymore for such a thing.
qqryq
http://maxedtech.com/
So true.
I'm not even touching Asus crap drivers, only UNi Xonar Audio Drivers (modded drivers for Xonar and other C-Media 8788 audio chipset based sound cards).
mackintosh
Haven't used a sound card since Auzentech went out of business and my HT HD went the way of the dodo. Perfectly happy with a receiver and speakers/headphones combo for all my music/gaming needs. I'm not sure what the point of a sound card is these days.
Turanis
Should be great card,I miss old Creative sound blaster cards.
From a goood guy who bring modded drivers for ASUS, C-Media and Creative soundcards:
https://danielkawakami.blogspot.ro/
Denial
https://valvesoftware.github.io/steam-audio/
It's in both UE4 and Unity now.
Also UE4 with 4.16 completely revamped it's audio system:
https://youtu.be/ErejaBCicds?t=2416
This video shows some of the new stuff including a completely modular synthesizer.
I don't know about sound quality, but I'd agree with sound "importance" started to take a back seat. But recently with VR becoming more mainstream, a lot of studios are going back and developing some pretty cool 3D sound processing stuff. Steam Audio is starting to get integrated in to the major engines:
OnnA
Where is Dolby ATMOS? (5.1.2 | 5.1.4 | 7.1.2 & 7.1.4)
Rest is Briliant:
32-bit with 384kHz !
This DAC ->>> ESS ES9016K2M SABRE32 Ultra DAC
But USD149.99 is way too much for a SC without ATMOS....
RealNC
Who needs that? I don't think it's gamers... Unless I missed something, games come with 16-bit/48kHz (or 44.1) audio.
Even my 24-bit/192kHz Xonar goes completely unused in that department. Everything I throw at it is just 16-bit/48.
Am I missing something?
qqryq
Fox2232
SHS
JamesSneed
I stopped using sound cards once we had fairly cheap speakers that could connect via USB and had built in DAC's like Audioengine does. To me its a no brainier to take money from sound card and buy more expensive speakers with a built in DAC. It sounds better and you don't have any 3rd party software to install. To each is there own but I really like this setup.
RealNC
TheDeeGee
Looks cool, but my ZxR will last another 5 years ^^
GREGIX
"With the excellent embedded audio solution housed in motherboards I figured that soundcards would have been a thing of the past..."
Wouldn't agree more...
On paper motherboards audio are fine. In ads, they are brilliant. In reality - I can clearly hear difference on speakers setup 2.0 or more/headphones and any decent sound card, starting from old xonar dx. And my mb sound card is decent. z97 pro gamer motherboard. SupremeFX...!
Second thing - if there is situation, like mine, where I have coil whine from my gfx, then...well, I hear coil whine on headphones/speakers using motherboards sound...
Third- creatives drivers my sometimes suck, but with my current zx I haven't one single problem, and it give me enormous advantage in FPS gaming, online, just because I can hear near to perfect in 3d environment where my foes are. And react fast accordingly.