One good thing about Creative XiFi...

[Nowhere]

At least for now.

It turns out that at the moment when the new cards appeared, Audigy 2 took a deep price dive - new OEM version (the full one, with Firewire) can be had for 27€, now (not much more than 23€ for 24bit Live). Only bad news - it adds another item for the process of bringing my computer to tolerable capabilities range and...I'm running out of PCI slots (for now I'd like to keep Aureal card inside, I guess...)

[Wombat]

You could go USB for the WiFi?

[Nowhere]

...or audio

[Jammrock]

USB audio sucks

You could do a USB 2.0 TV tuner. There are several nice one out there. DviCo is releasing the FusionHDTV5 USB Gold this month. Beta testers on AVSforums seem to really like it.

Or go USB WiFI. There are 56 of them listed on NewEgg, going for as low as $10 after rebates.

[schmosef]

I need a new USB WiFi adapter for home but I'm waiting for the new "n" standard that was discussed before to drop first. For now I've got a 50' Cat 5e cable running from my living room to my second bedroom.

I have to say that I'm really surprised at how fast AGP has been dropped for PCIe.

When both AGP and PCI first came out, it seemed like it took much longer for the industry to adopt those technologies.

I have an AGP based Shuttle PC running @ 3.2GHz. I'm really happy with it. When I replace that computer with a dual core 64bit monster in a couple of years I'm planning on turning it into an HTPC but I'm worried that I won't be able to find a suitable AGP card with HDTV output.

I know from my distributors that there are several ATI AGP X8x0 models that they have listed but have never received delivery of, despite having persistent back orders.

[Johnny Ray]

One bad thing about the XFi, which I was unaware of: Don't even bother trying to use a PCI HBA (in my case an Adaptec 39160) and an XFi. It's a bad dream. During any heavy drive accessing you'll experience all kind of popping, static, etc. There's an extensive thread on this in the Creative forums. It's been attributed to PCI bus saturation. My Audigy2 did not do this in the exact same rig. I've tried all the solutions (changing PCI latency, card slot swapping, etc.), to no avail. Apparently Creative assumed that the only PCI card you'd have is a soundcard.

[schmosef]

roflmao!

i hate it when vendors only support their products when they are the only device installed.

I remember it was about 10 years ago that I was trying to install a SB16 into a friends PC and having all sorts of problems with resource assignment/sharing. When I called Creative the a**hat tech support guy told me to take out all the other devices (he had cards for extra COM and LPT ports) in the PC because even though there was a free IRQ for the SB16 card, it didn't like the fact that other devices were installed and mine was an "unsupported configuration".

It turned out to be a driver glitch that they eventually fixed. In those days creative was releasing new drivers every couple of months.

Thanks for the tip Johnny Ray, good to know!

[High_Jumbllama]

One bad thing about the XFi, which I was unaware of: Don't even bother trying to use a PCI HBA (in my case an Adaptec 39160) and an XFi. It's a bad dream. During any heavy drive accessing you'll experience all kind of popping, static, etc. There's an extensive thread on this in the Creative forums. It's been attributed to PCI bus saturation. My Audigy2 did not do this in the exact same rig. I've tried all the solutions (changing PCI latency, card slot swapping, etc.), to no avail. Apparently Creative assumed that the only PCI card you'd have is a soundcard.

So, their position has remained the same since the original SB Live.

[Nowhere]

Interestingly, I haven't heard about scuh problems with the Audigy (only issue was false advertising of 24bit/96kHz in Audigy 1...). But...Audigy seems to be highly evolved chip from used in Live, not new design.
So I'm afraid that Creative won't be good for some time to come - since the revamped XiFi, while based on older tech, will also use, I guess, new bus... :/

OTOH PCIe bus is dedicated, just for one device...maybe finally those problems will be over.

[Jammrock]

The Creative problems typically only manifest themselves on certain chipsets and/or with certain other PCI cards.

[Johnny Ray]

But the chipset/PCI card combo creating experiencing the problem is far from obscure in the gaming community: nForce4/A64 and best I can tell, any ultra160/320 SCSI HBA. Certainly with the Adaptec 29160/39160 (very popular workstation SCSI HBA); I'll check my LSI 320 HBA, but I expect the same result.

Again, just a heads up. Had I known of these issues, I wouldn't have purchased the card. I expected a high-end, $300 gaming soundcard to work with a high-end gaming rig.

[Wombat]

But the chipset/PCI card combo creating experiencing the problem is far from obscure in the gaming community: nForce4/A64 and best I can tell, any ultra160/320 SCSI HBA. Certainly with the Adaptec 29160/39160 (very popular workstation SCSI HBA); I'll check my LSI 320 HBA, but I expect the same result.

Popular, but crap. I really am not a fan of the 29160.

[The PIT]

One bad thing about the XFi, which I was unaware of: Don't even bother trying to use a PCI HBA (in my case an Adaptec 39160) and an XFi. It's a bad dream. During any heavy drive accessing you'll experience all kind of popping, static, etc. There's an extensive thread on this in the Creative forums. It's been attributed to PCI bus saturation. My Audigy2 did not do this in the exact same rig. I've tried all the solutions (changing PCI latency, card slot swapping, etc.), to no avail. Apparently Creative assumed that the only PCI card you'd have is a soundcard.

Via chipset by any chance????

[The PIT]

Working Nicely here loads better than the Audigy2. Just needs an headphone amp on the headphone out.

[knirfie]

€27? damn, wish they were that price here :P