Creative Labs is the defacto standard for PC audio since the early 90s. Even when competitors came, Creative Lab's Sound Blaster line of sound cards wins by default because most games will work predictably with them. Thanks to Windows 95, that changed. Any game that was made for Win95 used the Windows subsystem for graphics, sound, and input. Any audio card would work relatively predictably! But customers still bought Sound Blaster cards (though some were skeptical when they moved over to PCI cards) because that's what they knew.
Flash forward to today, and PC audio is now included on almost every motherboard. Most of them are basic stereo, while others have offered up to 7.1 surround sound. The feature still missing from these (as well as other add-in sound cards) is hardware acceleration of DirectSound, which is what most video games used for mutli-channel sound.
OpenAL is now being used as DirectSound is not supported in Microsoft's newest OS,
Windows Vista. This breaks hardware acceleration on most games made for Windows since 95! Thankfully, Creative Labs found a way around that by offering software that translate DirectSound API instructions to OpenAL in real time, which allowed hardware accelerated audio (this frees up CPU resources for the game) in Vista once again.
Even after all this time, the modern Sound Blaster line of cards (Live, Audigy, and X-Fi) are the only audio cards that offers hardware accelerated audio with the exception of nVidia's short-lived Soundstorm (the only integrated audio solution that didn't suck).
In the Box
With the Sound Blaster Fatality FPS, you get the card and an I/O box that goes into a free external 5.25" drive bay. The remote is also included, as well as 2 AA batteries for the said remote. You also get several advertisement cards, a warrantee card, a quick install sheet, color-coded sticker for the bracket (to color code the jacks), and an installation CD.
Installation
Like many PCI cards, the Sound Blaster X-Fi Fatality FPS gets installed pretty easily depending on your case design. The I/O slips into the 5.25" drive bay and is connected to the X-Fi with a flat ribbon cable. It requires power from a floppy Molex connector. As for the remote, just slip in the included AA batteries in and you're done.
Installation was easy, but took quite a lot of time. Installing just the bare driver is possible, but you lose out many of the functions you paid for. A lot of user support forums highly suggest installing from the CD, then updating the driver from the web, which is counter-intuitive for techs that have dismissed the CD and just installing the latest driver from the manufacturer's website. The software that the CD installs takes much longer than just installing the bare driver, but it's necessary if you want to use every feature it offers (especially the included remote).
The card does have a Fatality logo that lights up red on top of the card when the computer is on. This allows for people with clear side panels to see it (along with probably half a dozen other lights they may have already installed).
Different Modes, Features, and My Impression
The different modes allow for you to customize the settings for each different listening situation. There is the Entertainment Mode, Gaming Mode, and Content Creation Mode.
Entertainment Mode allows for you to adjust settings specifically for watching movies or listening to audio. You can play with the 24-bit Crystallizer, which is suppose to bring clarity to low bitrate compressed audio such as MP3 and WMA. It also up converts audio CDs, which is suppose to give it a cleaner sound. I believe it's really nothing but a customized and nerfed equalizer. There is definitely a change in sound quality, and the perception is better sounding audio. However, I felt it was like turning up the treble and volume a bit. The Crystallizer effect can be adjusted like a volume control. You can do a "Super Rip" of audio CDs, which rips the CD and applies the 24-bit Crystallizer in real time to the extracted audio.
In Gaming Mode, there are many options for positional audio and sound effects. This includes the much updated EAX Advanced HD 5.0. This allows for environment audio effects for added realism to games. I find this very effective more with headphones than with speakers. I can consistently tell where almost every noise is coming from in a 3D environment. There is also the CMSS 3D, which allows for virtual 3D audio for 2 speakers or headphones. I play a lot of Battlefield 2142, and this feature alone makes it worthwhile to own an X-Fi and a must for headphone gamers. I was shocked to hear a virtual 3D audio solution that actually worked! This is also one of two X-Fi cards that have 64 MB of X-RAM. Games that support the X-RAM to cache sound samples will make it faster to process audio.
Lastly, the Audio Creation Mode allows for extreme customization of sound including bit-accurate settings for digital inputs. This allows for audio signals that have not been processed. Think "reference audio" and people who call their speakers "monitors". It also has advanced features for MIDI composers, using the X-RAM to store audio samples for use.
Issues
People have reported distortion, audio clipping, or clicking when playing certain video games. When it gets bad enough, it will blue-screen and crash.
I have personally experienced this with Battlefield 2142. After several minutes into the game, I would hear clicking and clipping. After a while longer, it would freak out and play random audio samples in a loop. Sometimes it gets better (goes back to just clicking and clipping), or it gets worse and hurts your ears. If it didn't get any better, it would crash and a blue screen of death (BSOD) would appear, blaming a file that is related to the X-Fi driver.
To this day, Creative Labs still did not have a resolution to this issue. Some say it is related to nVidia's nForce chipset. However, reports from users with other chipsets have been sighted.
It was originally thought to be the PCI latency, which can be adjusted using a 3rd party applet. However, this did not solve the issue, while for some it reduced or delayed the problem.
The workaround is to disable hardware acceleration, which defeats the purpose of purchasing the X-Fi in the first place. However, many have resorted to this until Creative Labs finds a real solution. Many have criticized that Creative is not interested in fixing the problem and was pointing their fingers at nVidia. Creative could not reproduce the problem in-house.
It is believed to be a driver issue by the community, while some believe the reason why Creative is tight-lipped is because it is a hardware issue on the X-Fi itself, which is not repairable with just software alone.
Conclusion
While the X-Fi works and sounds great, for certain games, it just falls flat. I personally only found one game in my library that I have an issue with (BF2142), but with others, it plays fine and sounds beautiful. This includes the popular World of Warcraft.
While I certainly want to recommend the purchase of the X-Fi, if you play any of the games affected, I would advise you to stay away until further development.
