Dear Creative (X-FI Xtrememusic & Battlefield 21

Question

Dear Creative,?I really enjoy your X-FI ExtremeMusic product. I think it's a tremendous piece of engineering, and represents?an excellent?final result in audio quality. Virtually all my games work as expected - except Battlefield 242. As with the other members of the forum, I am able to play the game with medium settings in Hardware mode,?or X-FI modem in the "Entertainment" mode setting. Unfortunately, all these options required a reduction in quality. The alternati've for me is horrible static which eventually leads to a BSOD. My equipment:?AMD Athlon 64 3200+MSI Socket 754 (MS-745)XFI Xtrememusic.5GB RAM300GB HDXP Home SP 2EVGA 7600GT CO6. Speaker Setup (Logitech X-630, I think)?Nothing on my system is overclocked. I had the fortune and misfortune of sending my soundcard in for warranty repair. This resolved an overheating problem I had with the card, and I do appreciate the speedy service. However, the static problem with BF242 still exists. We can now rule out any benefits associated with a higher firmware version on the soundcard. Battlefield 242 has been patched to version .5, and this has not had a positi've impact on the problem. As of this date, I am using?the latest drivers on your website. I would be grateful if you could post a confirmation of the problem, and steps being taken to remedy the issue. Again, please keep up the good work as I do think the XFI series is a tremendous product line.
Regards,EnterfrizeMessage Edited by Enterfrize on -24-200602:56 PM

Answer 1

I have experienced this too. It seemed to be the worst when I use speakers cranked up very high as well as my device volume being cranked to over 90%. I would get awful digitized noises (not analog distortion or clipping). It was terrible. It did manifest itself the most in Camp Gibralter 64 player conquest when there were MANY audio events happening... between VOIP, arty, gun noises, defib noises and the like, after about 5 minutes of gameplay in hardware mode with the volume cranked, my X-Fi would do this too.
Now for the solution:
I realized that when I play with headphones, I turn the headphones volume on the headset itself all the way up and turn the sound card down to keep from murdering my ears... never had a problem in 242 when playing headphones... using speakers with the speaker system and the X-Fi volume cranked I would get the wierd noises and problems in 242. I honestly think at high volume the X-Fi works WAY too hard in 242 with hardware acceleration along with high volumes/pre-amping in the card.
So, what I did was use Arctic Silver thermal adhesi've and I installed a heat sink on my X-Fi processor. The heat-sink seems to be doing the trick. So far I have been in 20 minute matches with the volume on 90% on the X-Fi and have not heard any glitches at all. I do hear minor clipping on the arty strikes but nothing like the digitized garbage sounding noises that I was hearing. Hope this helps you guys out.
PotShotScott