Sound Blaster X-Fi is a lineup of sound cards in Creative Technology 's Sound Blaster series.
98-772: The series was launched in August 2005 as a lineup of PCI sound cards, which served as the introduction for their X-Fi audio processing chip , with models ranging from XtremeMusic (lower end), to Platinum , Fatal1ty FPS , and Elite Pro (top of the range). The top-end Elite Pro model was aimed at musicians, bundled with the X-Fi external I/O box (offering phono with preamp inputs for turntables, high-impedance input for guitars, 1 ⁄ 4 inch mic input, headphone output, line-in, and full size MIDI I/O, as well as optical and RCA Coaxial digital inputs and outputs), and remote control. The Platinum and Fatal1ty FPS models both offer
196-558: A bandpass signal is sampled slower than its Nyquist rate , the samples are indistinguishable from samples of a low-frequency alias of the high-frequency signal. That is often done purposefully in such a way that the lowest-frequency alias satisfies the Nyquist criterion , because the bandpass signal is still uniquely represented and recoverable. Such undersampling is also known as bandpass sampling , harmonic sampling , IF sampling , and direct IF to digital conversion. Oversampling
294-415: A closed source unsupported beta driver providing Linux 64-bit OS support for the following Sound Blaster X-Fi series sound cards: An open-source driver is available with OSS v4 build 1013 and above. Datasheets were provided by Creative to enable ALSA driver development. On November 6, 2008 Creative finally released their driver under a GPL license. It supports x86 as well as x86-64 architectures and
392-432: A discrete-time signal . A common example is the conversion of a sound wave to a sequence of "samples". A sample is a value of the signal at a point in time and/or space; this definition differs from the term's usage in statistics , which refers to a set of such values. A sampler is a subsystem or operation that extracts samples from a continuous signal . A theoretical ideal sampler produces samples equivalent to
490-457: A moiré pattern . The process of volume rendering samples a 3D grid of voxels to produce 3D renderings of sliced (tomographic) data. The 3D grid is assumed to represent a continuous region of 3D space. Volume rendering is common in medical imaging, X-ray computed tomography (CT/CAT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), positron emission tomography (PET) are some examples. It is also used for seismic tomography and other applications. When
588-443: A serial , lane-based architecture. PCI's heyday in the desktop computer market was approximately 1995 to 2005. PCI and PCI-X have become obsolete for most purposes and has largely disappeared from many other modern motherboards since 2013; however they are still common on some modern desktops as of 2020 for the purposes of backward compatibility and the relative low cost to produce. Another common modern application of parallel PCI
686-574: A 100% value causes a 16 dB amplification. As with many of Creative's previous sound cards, the X-Fi supports SoundFonts . Additionally, the Audio Creation Mode of the card allows the use of EAX in MIDI playback via the use of controllers. This setting controls the DD sound encoder. This setting is the same as Dolby Digital Bitstream Out, only with DTS sound instead. Although Creative
784-454: A 100-pin stacking connector, while Type III uses a 124-pin edge connector, i.e. the connector for Types I and II differs from that for Type III, where the connector is on the edge of a card, like with a SO-DIMM . The additional 24 pins provide the extra signals required to route I/O back through the system connector (audio, AC-Link , LAN , phone-line interface). Type II cards have RJ11 and RJ45 mounted connectors. These cards must be located at
882-413: A Nyquist rate of B {\displaystyle B} , because all of its non-zero frequency content is shifted into the interval [ − B / 2 , B / 2 ] {\displaystyle [-B/2,B/2]} . Although complex-valued samples can be obtained as described above, they are also created by manipulating samples of a real-valued waveform. For instance,
980-495: A computer is first turned on, all PCI devices respond only to their configuration space accesses. The computer's BIOS scans for devices and assigns Memory and I/O address ranges to them. If an address is not claimed by any device, the transaction initiator's address phase will time out causing the initiator to abort the operation. In case of reads, it is customary to supply all-ones for the read data value (0xFFFFFFFF) in this case. PCI devices therefore generally attempt to avoid using
1078-419: A continuous function (or "signal") to be sampled, and let sampling be performed by measuring the value of the continuous function every T {\displaystyle T} seconds, which is called the sampling interval or sampling period . Then the sampled function is given by the sequence: The sampling frequency or sampling rate , f s {\displaystyle f_{s}} ,
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#17328015887181176-420: A device signals its need for service by performing a memory write, rather than by asserting a dedicated line. This alleviates the problem of scarcity of interrupt lines. Even if interrupt vectors are still shared, it does not suffer the sharing problems of level-triggered interrupts. It also resolves the routing problem, because the memory write is not unpredictably modified between device and host. Finally, because
1274-408: A factor so that the maximum volume is reached again. After this, the music as a whole is louder than it was before, but the maximum volume points (mostly transients ) are not as pronounced as they were before. Since this whole process is done before the final Audio CD is recorded, its effect is equally present in uncompressed audio files created from such a CD, in lossless compressed audio made from
1372-486: A flipped physical connector to prevent accidental insertion of 5 V cards. Universal cards, which can operate on either voltage, have two notches. Version 2.1 of the PCI standard introduced optional 66 MHz operation. A server-oriented variant of PCI, PCI Extended ( PCI-X ) operated at frequencies up to 133 MHz for PCI-X 1.0 and up to 533 MHz for PCI-X 2.0. An internal connector for laptop cards, called Mini PCI ,
1470-590: A front-panel drive-bay control unit and remote control, while the base model was supplied without any such accessories. All but the top model claimed 109 dB signal-to-noise ratio , while the Elite Pro model uses a higher-end DAC , with 116 dB claimed. The bottom two models feature 2 MB onboard X-RAM, while the top models offer 64 MB of X-RAM, designed for use in games to store sound samples for improved gaming performance. Launch reviews did not support Creative's claims of higher performance, however, with even
1568-485: A major thorn in Creative's side. Most digital audio is sampled at 44.1 kHz, a standard no doubt related to CD-DA , while sound cards were often designed to process audio at 48 kHz. So, the 44.1 kHz audio must be resampled to 48 kHz (Creative's previous cards' DSPs operated at 48 kHz) for the audio DSP to be able to process and affect it. A poor resampling implementation introduces artifacts into
1666-427: A much lower rate. For most phonemes , almost all of the energy is contained in the 100 Hz – 4 kHz range, allowing a sampling rate of 8 kHz. This is the sampling rate used by nearly all telephony systems, which use the G.711 sampling and quantization specifications. Standard-definition television (SDTV) uses either 720 by 480 pixels (US NTSC 525-line) or 720 by 576 pixels (UK PAL 625-line) for
1764-438: A proposed nonlinear function . Digital audio uses pulse-code modulation (PCM) and digital signals for sound reproduction. This includes analog-to-digital conversion (ADC), digital-to-analog conversion (DAC), storage, and transmission. In effect, the system commonly referred to as digital is in fact a discrete-time, discrete-level analog of a previous electrical analog. While modern systems can be quite subtle in their methods,
1862-497: A protocol so that the interrupt-request (IRQ) lines can be shared. The PCI bus includes four interrupt lines, INTA# through INTD#, all of which are available to each device. Up to eight PCI devices share the same IRQ line (INTINA# through INTINH#) in APIC -enabled x86 systems. Interrupt lines are not wired in parallel as are the other PCI bus lines. The positions of the interrupt lines rotate between slots, so what appears to one device as
1960-399: A superset of PCI, before giving way to PCI Express. The first version of PCI found in retail desktop computers was a 32-bit bus using a 33 MHz bus clock and 5 V signaling, although the PCI 1.0 standard provided for a 64-bit variant as well. These have one locating notch in the card. Version 2.0 of the PCI standard introduced 3.3 V slots, physically distinguished by
2058-571: A technology that claims to improve the clarity of digital music through digital analysis (supported by all X-Fi models, including the Xtreme Audio and X-Mod). The Sound Blaster X-Fi presents the following features, which are usually implemented with the aid of the X-Fi DSP or in software, in the Xtreme Audio model. Since its release X-Fi has caused several unsolved problems with sound glitches on various motherboards. Creative Labs states that
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#17328015887182156-488: A write must affect only the enabled bytes in the target PCI device. They are of little importance for memory reads, but I/O reads might have side effects. The PCI standard explicitly allows a data phase with no bytes enabled, which must behave as a no-op. PCI has three address spaces: memory, I/O address, and configuration. Memory addresses are 32 bits (optionally 64 bits) in size, support caching and can be burst transactions. I/O addresses are for compatibility with
2254-461: Is a local computer bus for attaching hardware devices in a computer and is part of the PCI Local Bus standard. The PCI bus supports the functions found on a processor bus but in a standardized format that is independent of any given processor 's native bus. Devices connected to the PCI bus appear to a bus master to be connected directly to its own bus and are assigned addresses in
2352-473: Is a DSP feature that provides audio enhancement. It requires Creative proprietary drivers and is not supported under Linux OS. Depending on the equipment used, CMSS-3D has 3 variants: Enabling this setting will apply special filtering algorithms in order to improve localization for sound sources located very close to the listener. Enabling this setting will apply special filtering algorithms in order to improve localization for sound sources located above or below
2450-530: Is a consequence of the Nyquist theorem . Sampling rates higher than about 50 kHz to 60 kHz cannot supply more usable information for human listeners. Early professional audio equipment manufacturers chose sampling rates in the region of 40 to 50 kHz for this reason. There has been an industry trend towards sampling rates well beyond the basic requirements: such as 96 kHz and even 192 kHz Even though ultrasonic frequencies are inaudible to humans, recording and mixing at higher sampling rates
2548-526: Is available in different versions e.g. X-Fi MB, X-Fi MB2, X-Fi MB3 and X-Fi MB5. The current version available on select laptops and desktops is X-Fi MB5. A non-OEM version of X-Fi MB3 was sold by Creative Labs but is no longer on the market. X-Fi MB3 provided an effective software version of a full X-Fi card and was also provided with a version of Alchemy that works with non-Creative sound cards to restore legacy EAX effects. Peripheral Component Interconnect Peripheral Component Interconnect ( PCI )
2646-502: Is commonly bundled with motherboards and computer systems, and is comparable to an X-Fi XtremeAudio. Bundled with some Asus and ASRock motherboards, the X-Fi MB is sold as X-Fi Supreme FX and is actually a standard Analog Devices integrated HD audio codec paired with X-Fi MB. The X-Fi features are implemented entirely in the software. Other hardware vendors sell the X-Fi MB solution simply as Sound Blaster X-Fi Integrated Sound. X-Fi MB
2744-502: Is converted to digital video , a different sampling process occurs, this time at the pixel frequency, corresponding to a spatial sampling rate along scan lines . A common pixel sampling rate is: Spatial sampling in the other direction is determined by the spacing of scan lines in the raster . The sampling rates and resolutions in both spatial directions can be measured in units of lines per picture height. Spatial aliasing of high-frequency luma or chroma video components shows up as
2842-442: Is effective in eliminating the distortion that can be caused by foldback aliasing . Conversely, ultrasonic sounds may interact with and modulate the audible part of the frequency spectrum ( intermodulation distortion ), degrading the fidelity. One advantage of higher sampling rates is that they can relax the low-pass filter design requirements for ADCs and DACs , but with modern oversampling delta-sigma-converters this advantage
2940-435: Is impractical and filters are expensive, aperture error, quantization error and aliasing can be significant limitations. Jitter, noise, and quantization are often analyzed by modeling them as random errors added to the sample values. Integration and zero-order hold effects can be analyzed as a form of low-pass filtering . The non-linearities of either ADC or DAC are analyzed by replacing the ideal linear function mapping with
3038-575: Is in industrial PCs , where many specialized expansion cards, used here, never transitioned to PCI Express, just as with some ISA cards. Many kinds of devices formerly available on PCI expansion cards are now commonly integrated onto motherboards or available in USB and PCI Express versions. Work on PCI began at the Intel Architecture Labs (IAL, also Architecture Development Lab) c. 1990 . A team of primarily IAL engineers defined
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3136-475: Is installed into a PCI-X bus capable of 133 MHz, the entire bus backplane will be limited to 66 MHz. To get around this limitation, many motherboards have two or more PCI/PCI-X buses, with one bus intended for use with high-speed PCI-X peripherals, and the other bus intended for general-purpose peripherals. Many 64-bit PCI-X cards are designed to work in 32-bit mode if inserted in shorter 32-bit connectors, with some loss of performance. An example of this
3234-431: Is less important. The Audio Engineering Society recommends 48 kHz sampling rate for most applications but gives recognition to 44.1 kHz for CD and other consumer uses, 32 kHz for transmission-related applications, and 96 kHz for higher bandwidth or relaxed anti-aliasing filtering . Both Lavry Engineering and J. Robert Stuart state that the ideal sampling rate would be about 60 kHz, but since this
3332-469: Is less than 2 sample intervals (see Aliasing ). The corresponding frequency limit, in cycles per second ( hertz ), is 0.5 {\displaystyle 0.5} cycle/sample × f s {\displaystyle f_{s}} samples/second = f s / 2 {\displaystyle f_{s}/2} , known as the Nyquist frequency of the sampler. Therefore, s ( t ) {\displaystyle s(t)}
3430-517: Is listed in the same category as the rest of the X-Fi lineup, but is only a stereo device, marketed to improve music playing from laptop computers, and with lower specifications than the internal offerings. Other external products that use X-Fi name include USB-based Sound Blaster X-Fi HD, Sound Blaster X-Fi Surround 5.1 Pro, and Sound Blaster X-Fi Go! Pro, Their internal hardware components are different for various usages and needs for gaming, surround, or audiophile standards. The audio processor on X-Fi
3528-504: Is listed in their support area. On May 15, 2009 after some communications with Creative, SUSE developer Takashi Iwai finally got a mergeable version of their X-Fi driver. On August 31, 2009 the driver (snd-ctxfi) was included in release of ALSA 1.0.21. Support for Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium HD was added on January 25, 2012 in ALSA v1.0.25 release. This driver does not support I/O Front panel and its IR, because that documentation part
3626-402: Is mathematically equivalent to an ideal low-pass filter whose input is a sequence of Dirac delta functions that are modulated (multiplied) by the sample values. When the time interval between adjacent samples is a constant ( T ) {\displaystyle (T)} , the sequence of delta functions is called a Dirac comb . Mathematically, the modulated Dirac comb is equivalent to
3724-450: Is meant to know this, and set the "interrupt line" field in each device's configuration space indicating which IRQ it is connected to. PCI interrupt lines are level-triggered . This was chosen over edge-triggering to gain an advantage when servicing a shared interrupt line, and for robustness: edge-triggered interrupts are easy to miss. Later revisions of the PCI specification add support for message-signaled interrupts . In this system,
3822-435: Is not a standard frequency, recommend 88.2 or 96 kHz for recording purposes. A more complete list of common audio sample rates is: Audio is typically recorded at 8-, 16-, and 24-bit depth, which yield a theoretical maximum signal-to-quantization-noise ratio (SQNR) for a pure sine wave of, approximately, 49.93 dB , 98.09 dB and 122.17 dB. CD quality audio uses 16-bit samples. Thermal noise limits
3920-492: Is required to implement a timer, called the Latency Timer, that limits the time that device can hold the PCI bus. The timer starts when the device gains bus ownership, and counts down at the rate of the PCI clock. When the counter reaches zero, the device is required to release the bus. If no other devices are waiting for bus ownership, it may simply grab the bus again and transfer more data. Devices are required to follow
4018-472: Is the Hilbert transform of the other waveform, s ( t ) {\displaystyle s(t)} , the complex-valued function, s a ( t ) ≜ s ( t ) + i ⋅ s ^ ( t ) {\displaystyle s_{a}(t)\triangleq s(t)+i\cdot {\hat {s}}(t)} , is called an analytic signal , whose Fourier transform
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4116-622: Is the Adaptec 29160 64-bit SCSI interface card. However, some 64-bit PCI-X cards do not work in standard 32-bit PCI slots. Installing a 64-bit PCI-X card in a 32-bit slot will leave the 64-bit portion of the card edge connector not connected and overhanging. This requires that there be no motherboard components positioned so as to mechanically obstruct the overhanging portion of the card edge connector. PCI brackets heights: PCI Card lengths (Standard Bracket & 3.3 V): PCI Card lengths (Low Profile Bracket & 3.3 V): Mini PCI
4214-413: Is the average number of samples obtained in one second, thus f s = 1 / T {\displaystyle f_{s}=1/T} , with the unit samples per second , sometimes referred to as hertz , for example 48 kHz is 48,000 samples per second . Reconstructing a continuous function from samples is done by interpolation algorithms. The Whittaker–Shannon interpolation formula
4312-517: Is to detect transients and to increase their relative volume level. As a consequence of enabling the Crystalizer, the signal is altered, and whether the result improves upon the input audio is purely a matter of perception and can depend on the type of audio being played. "CMSS-3D recreates realistic surround sound from any audio source and puts you right in the center of the action, whether you are using multichannel speakers or headphones." CMSS-3D
4410-610: Is used in most modern analog-to-digital converters to reduce the distortion introduced by practical digital-to-analog converters , such as a zero-order hold instead of idealizations like the Whittaker–Shannon interpolation formula . Complex sampling (or I/Q sampling ) is the simultaneous sampling of two different, but related, waveforms, resulting in pairs of samples that are subsequently treated as complex numbers . When one waveform, s ^ ( t ) {\displaystyle {\hat {s}}(t)} ,
4508-488: Is usually the output of a low-pass filter , functionally known as an anti-aliasing filter . Without an anti-aliasing filter, frequencies higher than the Nyquist frequency will influence the samples in a way that is misinterpreted by the interpolation process. In practice, the continuous signal is sampled using an analog-to-digital converter (ADC), a device with various physical limitations. This results in deviations from
4606-519: Is zero for all negative values of frequency. In that case, the Nyquist rate for a waveform with no frequencies ≥ B can be reduced to just B (complex samples/sec), instead of 2 B {\displaystyle 2B} (real samples/sec). More apparently, the equivalent baseband waveform , s a ( t ) ⋅ e − i 2 π B 2 t {\displaystyle s_{a}(t)\cdot e^{-i2\pi {\frac {B}{2}}t}} , also has
4704-642: The PCI Configuration Space , which uses a fixed addressing scheme, allows software to determine the amount of memory and I/O address space needed by each device. Each device can request up to six areas of memory space or input/output (I/O) port space via its configuration space registers. In a typical system, the firmware (or operating system ) queries all PCI buses at startup time (via PCI Configuration Space ) to find out what devices are present and what system resources (memory space, I/O space, interrupt lines, etc.) each needs. It then allocates
4802-431: The 'component side': if the card is held with the connector pointing down, a view of side A will have the backplate on the right, whereas a view of side B will have the backplate on the left. The pinout of B and A sides are as follows, looking down into the motherboard connector (pins A1 and B1 are closest to backplate). 64-bit PCI extends this by an additional 32 contacts on each side which provide AD[63:32], C/BE[7:4]#,
4900-828: The Audigy SE and SB Live! cards ( CA0106-WBTLF ) and thus lacking the hardware acceleration of 3D sound and EAX sound effects, gaming and content creation features and the I/O extensibility of all the other X-Fi models. The other new product introduced was the X-Fi 'XtremeGamer Fatal1ty Pro', identical in function to the Fatal1ty FPS, but made more affordable by the unbundling of the I/O panel and remote control. In 2007 Creative Technology unveiled PCI Express x1 and ExpressCard /34 versions of Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio during Consumer Electronics Show . Creative did not yet release PCIe versions of their EMU-based X-Fi cards as adapting
4998-555: The CA20K1 chip for PCIe proved to be troublesome, with the company itself reporting design difficulties, latency problems and delays. In 2008 the X-Fi Titanium series was announced, using the revised CA20K2 chip, which featured an integrated RISC processor for safeguarding against PCIe-induced latencies, a DDR SDRAM interface in place of SDRAM, and an integrated High Definition audio architecture (UAA) component. Products included
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#17328015887185096-544: The CD, as well as in lossy compressed audio from that same CD. Transients are typically found in percussive sounds, in plosive consonants of voice recordings, and during the first few milliseconds (the so-called attack phase) of non-percussive instrument sounds. All these tend to be somewhat muffled by dynamic range compression. To undo this effect, the Crystalizer uses a multiband compander (compressor/expander) with dynamically adjusted compression/expansion. Its main function
5194-710: The Fatal1ty cards with 64 MB X-RAM and an optional I/O drive bay, and the regular Titanium with 16 MB X-RAM, but the same 109 dB SNR spec as the former. Unlike the PCI cards, these cards use software-based Dolby Digital Live 5.1 encoding. In 2010 the Titanium HD was added to the lineup, featuring a new DAC with 122 dB SNR and RCA audio outputs, but dropping support for Windows XP. In addition to PCI and PCIe internal sound cards, Creative also released an external USB-based solution (named X-Mod) in November 2006. X-Mod
5292-514: The INTA# line is INTB# to the next and INTC# to the one after that. Single-function devices usually use their INTA# for interrupt signaling, so the device load is spread fairly evenly across the four available interrupt lines. This alleviates a common problem with sharing interrupts. The mapping of PCI interrupt lines onto system interrupt lines, through the PCI host bridge, is implementation-dependent. Platform-specific firmware or operating system code
5390-564: The Intel x86 architecture 's I/O port address space. Although the PCI bus specification allows burst transactions in any address space, most devices only support it for memory addresses and not I/O. Finally, PCI configuration space provides access to 256 bytes of special configuration registers per PCI device. Each PCI slot gets its own configuration space address range. The registers are used to configure devices memory and I/O address ranges they should respond to from transaction initiators. When
5488-451: The PAR64 parity signal, and a number of power and ground pins. Most lines are connected to each slot in parallel. The exceptions are: Notes: Most 32-bit PCI cards will function properly in 64-bit PCI-X slots, but the bus clock rate will be limited to the clock frequency of the slowest card, an inherent limitation of PCI's shared bus topology. For example, when a PCI 2.3, 66-MHz peripheral
5586-408: The PCI bus. Any number of bus masters can reside on the PCI bus, as well as requests for the bus. One pair of request and grant signals is dedicated to each bus master. Typical PCI cards have either one or two key notches, depending on their signaling voltage. Cards requiring 3.3 volts have a notch 56.21 mm from the card backplate; those requiring 5 volts have a notch 104.41 mm from
5684-685: The Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio, does not actually have the EMU20K1 chip but is a re-branded Audigy SE , using the same family of chips (CA0106-WBTLF), and even the same drivers. Thus, not only is all of the X-Fi–;related processing performed in software, but it also lacks basic hardware acceleration just like the SB Live! 24-bit, the Audigy SE and other budget Soundblaster models. The X-Fi Xtreme Audio does not use
5782-449: The all-ones value in important status registers, so that such an error can be easily detected by software. There are 16 possible 4-bit command codes, and 12 of them are assigned. With the exception of the unique dual address cycle, the least significant bit of the command code indicates whether the following data phases are a read (data sent from target to initiator) or a write (data sent from an initiator to target). PCI targets must examine
5880-522: The architecture and developed a proof of concept chipset and platform (Saturn) partnering with teams in the company's desktop PC systems and core logic product organizations. PCI was immediately put to use in servers, replacing Micro Channel architecture (MCA) and Extended Industry Standard Architecture (EISA) as the server expansion bus of choice. In mainstream PCs, PCI was slower to replace VLB , and did not gain significant market penetration until late 1994 in second-generation Pentium PCs. By 1996, VLB
5978-414: The audio which can be heard, and measured as higher intermodulation distortion , within higher frequencies (generally 16 kHz and up). X-Fi's resampling engine produces a near-lossless-quality result, far exceeding any known audio card DSP available at the time of release. This functionality is used not only for simple audio playback, but for several other features of the card such as the "Crystalizer",
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#17328015887186076-403: The backplate. This allows cards to be fitted only into slots with a voltage they support. "Universal cards" accepting either voltage have both key notches. The PCI connector is defined as having 62 contacts on each side of the edge connector , but two or four of them are replaced by key notches, so a card has 60 or 58 contacts on each side. Side A refers to the 'solder side' and side B refers to
6174-522: The bus configuration. It has subsequently been adopted for other computer types. Typical PCI cards used in PCs include: network cards , sound cards , modems , extra ports such as Universal Serial Bus ( USB ) or serial , TV tuner cards and hard disk drive host adapters . PCI video cards replaced ISA and VLB cards until rising bandwidth needs outgrew the abilities of PCI. The preferred interface for video cards then became Accelerated Graphics Port (AGP),
6272-464: The command code as well as the address and not respond to address phases that specify an unsupported command code. The commands that refer to cache lines depend on the PCI configuration space cache line size register being set up properly; they may not be used until that has been done. Sampling (signal processing) In signal processing , sampling is the reduction of a continuous-time signal to
6370-466: The connector for users wishing to purchase a separate X-Fi I/O box. Functionality is otherwise the same. The market segment occupied by the XtremeMusic was moved downwards, with the introduction of the (cheaper) 'Xtreme Audio' and 'Xtreme Audio Notebook' products, which, despite the "X-Fi" label, are the only products in the X-Fi line not using the EMU20K1 chip ( CA20K1 ) but an older chip similar to
6468-429: The data phases must be in the same direction. Either party may pause or halt the data phases at any point. (One common example is a low-performance PCI device that does not support burst transactions , and always halts a transaction after the first data phase.) Any PCI device may initiate a transaction. First, it must request permission from a PCI bus arbiter on the motherboard. The arbiter grants permission to one of
6566-550: The edge of the computer or docking station so that the RJ11 and RJ45 ports can be mounted for external access. Mini PCI is distinct from 144-pin Micro PCI. PCI bus traffic consists of a series of PCI bus transactions. Each transaction consists of an address phase followed by one or more data phases . The direction of the data phases may be from initiator to target (write transaction) or vice versa (read transaction), but all of
6664-445: The equivalent baseband waveform can be created without explicitly computing s ^ ( t ) {\displaystyle {\hat {s}}(t)} , by processing the product sequence, [ s ( n T ) ⋅ e − i 2 π B 2 T n ] {\displaystyle \left[s(nT)\cdot e^{-i2\pi {\frac {B}{2}}Tn}\right]} , through
6762-413: The exception of some classical music recordings) to make them sound louder at the same volume level setting, as it was found that subjectively louder CDs get more airplay and sell better. To achieve this loudness without introducing strong distortion , points in the signal where the volume reaches a maximum are compressed (which means in this case: reduced in volume), then the whole signal is multiplied by
6860-434: The impact of loud parts in movies, and also making music sound less lively. This function divides music into ten frequency bands, which can be adjusted using the sliders. There are multiple volume adjustments for different inputs and outputs on the system. The master volume affects all of these settings. The default and recommended value is 50% for all sources, which actually equates to a 0 dB amplification (none), while
6958-489: The initiator transmits the high 32 address bits, plus the real command code. The transaction operates identically from that point on. To ensure compatibility with 32-bit PCI devices, it is forbidden to use a dual address cycle if not necessary, i.e. if the high-order address bits are all zero. While the PCI bus transfers 32 bits per data phase, the initiator transmits 4 active-low byte enable signals indicating which 8-bit bytes are to be considered significant. In particular,
7056-455: The instantaneous value of the continuous signal at the desired points. The original signal can be reconstructed from a sequence of samples, up to the Nyquist limit , by passing the sequence of samples through a reconstruction filter . Functions of space, time, or any other dimension can be sampled, and similarly in two or more dimensions. For functions that vary with time, let s ( t ) {\displaystyle s(t)} be
7154-400: The integration period may be significantly shorter than the time between repetitions, the sampling frequency can be different from the inverse of the sample time: Video digital-to-analog converters operate in the megahertz range (from ~3 MHz for low quality composite video scalers in early games consoles, to 250 MHz or more for the highest-resolution VGA output). When analog video
7252-406: The kinds of functions a Mini PCI card can perform. Many Mini PCI devices were developed such as Wi-Fi , Fast Ethernet , Bluetooth , modems (often Winmodems ), sound cards , cryptographic accelerators , SCSI , IDE – ATA , SATA controllers and combination cards. Mini PCI cards can be used with regular PCI-equipped hardware, using Mini PCI-to-PCI converters . Mini PCI has been superseded by
7350-458: The listener. Environmental Audio Extensions is designed to be enabled by game developers within a game to enhance the "simulated-reality" the user is experiencing; for example, the ringing of game-world swords will sound differently depending on whether the protagonist is currently in a game-world temple vault or in a game-world open field. There are also 8 built-in EAX effects which can be enabled by
7448-621: The message signaling is in-band , it resolves some synchronization problems that can occur with posted writes and out-of-band interrupt lines. PCI Express does not have physical interrupt lines at all. It uses message-signaled interrupts exclusively. These specifications represent the most common version of PCI used in normal PCs: The PCI specification also provides options for 3.3 V signaling, 64-bit bus width, and 66 MHz clocking, but these are not commonly encountered outside of PCI-X support on server motherboards. The PCI bus arbiter performs bus arbitration among multiple masters on
7546-503: The much narrower PCI Express Mini Card Mini PCI cards have a 2 W maximum power consumption, which limits the functionality that can be implemented in this form factor. They also are required to support the CLKRUN# PCI signal used to start and stop the PCI clock for power management purposes. There are three card form factors : Type I, Type II, and Type III cards. The card connector used for each type include: Type I and II use
7644-433: The operating system. In addition, there are PCI Latency Timers that are a mechanism for PCI Bus-Mastering devices to share the PCI bus fairly. "Fair" in this case means that devices will not use such a large portion of the available PCI bus bandwidth that other devices are not able to get needed work done. Note, this does not apply to PCI Express. How this works is that each PCI device that can operate in bus-master mode
7742-453: The primary function of the Crystalizer is to "restore portions of the sound which were lost during compression". The "compression" that is meant here is not the digital file-size reduction achieved by digital audio data compression technologies like for example mp3 . Rather, the idea is to reverse the effects of dynamic range compression , an analog technique that was and is used during the production of most 1990s and newer Audio CDs (with
7840-443: The primary usefulness of a digital system is the ability to store, retrieve and transmit signals without any loss of quality. When it is necessary to capture audio covering the entire 20–20,000 Hz range of human hearing such as when recording music or many types of acoustic events, audio waveforms are typically sampled at 44.1 kHz ( CD ), 48 kHz, 88.2 kHz, or 96 kHz. The approximately double-rate requirement
7938-550: The processor's address space . It is a parallel bus, synchronous to a single bus clock . Attached devices can take either the form of an integrated circuit fitted onto the motherboard (called a planar device in the PCI specification) or an expansion card that fits into a slot. The PCI Local Bus was first implemented in IBM PC compatibles , where it displaced the combination of several slow Industry Standard Architecture (ISA) slots and one fast VESA Local Bus (VLB) slot as
8036-496: The product of the comb function with s ( t ) {\displaystyle s(t)} . That mathematical abstraction is sometimes referred to as impulse sampling . Most sampled signals are not simply stored and reconstructed. The fidelity of a theoretical reconstruction is a common measure of the effectiveness of sampling. That fidelity is reduced when s ( t ) {\displaystyle s(t)} contains frequency components whose cycle length (period)
8134-527: The requesting devices. The initiator begins the address phase by broadcasting a 32-bit address plus a 4-bit command code, then waits for a target to respond. All other devices examine this address and one of them responds a few cycles later. 64-bit addressing is done using a two-stage address phase. The initiator broadcasts the low 32 address bits, accompanied by a special "dual address cycle" command code. Devices that do not support 64-bit addressing can simply not respond to that command code. The next cycle,
8232-549: The resources and tells each device what its allocation is. The PCI configuration space also contains a small amount of device type information, which helps an operating system choose device drivers for it, or at least to have a dialogue with a user about the system configuration. Devices may have an on-board read-only memory (ROM) containing executable code for x86 or PA-RISC processors, an Open Firmware driver, or an Option ROM . These are typically needed for devices used during system startup, before device drivers are loaded by
8330-422: The same drivers as the rest of the X-Fi family (and lacks ASIO), some games do not recognize it as being "X-Fi capable hardware", and the device's hardware profile resembles that of older Live! and Audigy cards. X-Fi MB is a software solution that enables basic X-Fi features on computers with integrated audio into an X-Fi device. It requires some degree of driver support from the audio hardware manufacturer. X-Fi MB
8428-469: The serial PCI Express in c. 2004 . Since then, motherboard manufacturers have included progressively fewer PCI slots in favor of the new standard. Many new motherboards do not provide PCI slots at all, as of late 2013. PCI provides separate memory and memory-mapped I/O port address spaces for the x86 processor family, 64 and 32 bits , respectively. Addresses in these address spaces are assigned by software. A third address space, called
8526-729: The theoretically perfect reconstruction, collectively referred to as distortion . Various types of distortion can occur, including: Although the use of oversampling can completely eliminate aperture error and aliasing by shifting them out of the passband, this technique cannot be practically used above a few GHz, and may be prohibitively expensive at much lower frequencies. Furthermore, while oversampling can reduce quantization error and non-linearity, it cannot eliminate these entirely. Consequently, practical ADCs at audio frequencies typically do not exhibit aliasing, aperture error, and are not limited by quantization error. Instead, analog noise dominates. At RF and microwave frequencies where oversampling
8624-563: The top-end 64 MB equipped model falling slightly behind the older Audigy cards. October 2006 saw a minor rebranding: the X-Fi XtremeMusic edition, which was in fact a highly capable gaming card, as it offers hardware decoding and EAX support, was replaced with the XtremeGamer model. The revised model featured half-width PCB, non-gold-plated connectors, optical out instead of the digital out and digital I/O module jack, and lacked
8722-455: The true number of bits that can be used in quantization. Few analog systems have signal to noise ratios (SNR) exceeding 120 dB. However, digital signal processing operations can have very high dynamic range, consequently it is common to perform mixing and mastering operations at 32-bit precision and then convert to 16- or 24-bit for distribution. Speech signals, i.e., signals intended to carry only human speech , can usually be sampled at
8820-405: The user. This is Smart Volume Management. It is a compressor that evens out the dynamic range of any given source so that quieter sounds are louder and loud sounds are quiet. It is best used in circumstances where noise disturbance might be an issue, late at night for instance. Otherwise it is generally preferable to have it disabled as it does render the sound less dynamic, for instance lessening
8918-435: The visible picture area. High-definition television (HDTV) uses 720p (progressive), 1080i (interlaced), and 1080p (progressive, also known as Full-HD). In digital video , the temporal sampling rate is defined as the frame rate – or rather the field rate – rather than the notional pixel clock . The image sampling frequency is the repetition rate of the sensor integration period. Since
9016-450: Was added to PCI version 2.2 for use in laptops and some routers; it uses a 32-bit, 33 MHz bus with powered connections (3.3 V only; 5 V is limited to 100 mA) and support for bus mastering and DMA . The standard size for Mini PCI cards is approximately a quarter of their full-sized counterparts. There is no access to the card from outside the case, unlike desktop PCI cards with brackets carrying connectors. This limits
9114-463: Was all but extinct, and manufacturers had adopted PCI even for Intel 80486 (486) computers. EISA continued to be used alongside PCI through 2000. Apple Computer adopted PCI for professional Power Macintosh computers (replacing NuBus ) in mid-1995, and the consumer Performa product line (replacing LC Processor Direct Slot (PDS)) in mid-1996. Outside the server market, the 64-bit version of plain PCI remained rare in practice though, although it
9212-654: Was introduced in version 2.2 of the PCI specification. The PCI bus was also adopted for an external laptop connector standard – the CardBus . The first PCI specification was developed by Intel , but subsequent development of the standard became the responsibility of the PCI Special Interest Group ( PCI-SIG ). PCI and PCI-X sometimes are referred to as either Parallel PCI or Conventional PCI to distinguish them technologically from their more recent successor PCI Express , which adopted
9310-401: Was missing. Xtreme Audio that has a different chipset stayed unsupported for longer time. It is currently supported by advanced Linux ALSA driver modules but might require installation of additional packages from alternative repositories. X-Fi MB as a pure software solution has Windows as a system requirement and thus does not provide Linux support. The entry-level model of the X-Fi series,
9408-403: Was slow to embrace 64-bit drivers for the X-Fi lineup, most x86-64 architecture based operating systems are now supported. Microsoft Windows 7 includes basic driver support for many of the X-Fi series cards. Many of the X-Fi features however require the software applications provided by Creative in order to utilize the full capabilities of the hardware. On September 24, 2007 Creative Labs released
9506-420: Was the most powerful at its time of release, offering an extremely robust sample rate conversion ( SRC ) engine in addition to enhanced internal sound channel routing options and greater 3D audio enhancement capabilities. A significant portion of the audio processing unit was devoted to this resampling engine. The SRC engine was far more capable than previous Creative sound card offerings, a limitation that had been
9604-524: Was used for example by all (post-iMac) G3 and G4 Power Macintosh computers . Later revisions of PCI added new features and performance improvements, including a 66 MHz 3.3 V standard and 133 MHz PCI-X , and the adaptation of PCI signaling to other form factors. Both PCI-X 1.0b and PCI-X 2.0 are backward compatible with some PCI standards. These revisions were used on server hardware but consumer PC hardware remained nearly all 32-bit, 33 MHz and 5 volt. The PCI-SIG introduced
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