On Mon, 2008-11-03 at 11:56 -0500, William W. Austin wrote:
I am thinking about building another machine for "fun and
games" (to
replace an aging machine that will replace the older firewall box
here).
In particular I heard demos this weekend directly comparing the Audigy
card that I'm now using with an X-Fi card (specifically the PC Express
X-Fi Soundblaster Titanium card). I was really impressed. But trying
to read through all of the FC9 documentation (both in the distro and
on-line blogs, etc.) I cannot tell if this card should work on FC9. (Or
on the upcoming FC10).
Does anyone have any information on this one? I have tried the
archives, but searching on all of the permutations of X-Fi, XFI, etc.
have not helped.
Please feel free to answer off-line if you don't want to waste
everyone's bandwidth.
Thanks
--
Hi,
Don't get the X-Fi.
Long story short:
Since the introduction of the X-Fi, Creative refused to release the
specs of cards, claiming that it will release binary drivers ASAP.
Creative did eventually release beta drivers, but they sucked... badly.
A couple of months ago, Creative capitulated and started releasing
partial documentation to the OSS project.
ALSA is working on a preliminary driver for the X-Fi, which may appear
in next major ALSA release. (Notice the may part)
In short, don't touch this card with 10 ft pole.
Come to think about it - if you're looking for best Creative card, scour
ebay for a used Audigy 2ZS. (I did; The so-called Audigy 4 value is
nothing more that a el-cheapo software card with numerous limitations..)
- Gilboa