Creative Gives In, They Open-Source Their X-Fi Driver

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Creative Gives In, They Open-Source Their X-Fi Driver

The Sound Blaster X-Fi sound card driver for Linux from Creative Labs was awful. That's simply the nicest way to put it. The driver was home to many bugs, initially only supported 64-bit Linux, and it was arriving extremely late. The open-source drivers supporting the Creative X-Fi drivers have also been at a stand still. However, Creative Labs today has finally turned this situation around and they have open-sourced the code to this notorious driver. The source-code for the Creative X-Fi driver is now licensed under the GNU GPLv2.

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=13083

[marakaid]

As you English native speaker say: Hell is frozen over!
Now the other 3 nearly impossible launches are waiting:
UT3,DNF, Steam.

[srouquette]

Finally !!! :)

[SyXbiT]

we're all better off sticking with the oxygen powered sound cards.

[ppanula]

OMG! Finally i can install eg. Ubuntu to my Game-PC...

Hope this will go quickly to ALSA...

[gladiac]

Am I still dreaming? Creative for the win! :D (finally)

[izual]

Are there ANY information if they will release specs, or whatever, for the I/O Modules?

[DanL]

Creative's not making money anyway, so they don't have much to lose. At least this makes their fanboys happy. I can't believe how many Linux users own X-fi's, considering how horrible the support is, but apparently some people are happy making ill-informed purchases and being brand slaves.

[EmbraceUnity]

I wish I hadn't bought this stupid soundcard two years ago. I did know it was supposed to be a linux machine, but since I had such good experiences with linux hardware support, I figured I wouldn't have any problems.

So of course I buy an ATI graphics card and a Creative X-Fi.... oh brother.

Things have finally shaped up though. I now have 100% open source drivers running on my system.

[izual]

Creative's not making money anyway, so they don't have much to lose. At least this makes their fanboys happy. I can't believe how many Linux users own X-fi's, considering how horrible the support is, but apparently some people are happy making ill-informed purchases and being brand slaves.

Come on, everbody has a litte masochist inside himself :D

Well, I do not own a X-Fi but back in early 2004 I was impressed by the Audigy2 cards. Today I think a onboard card, like an ALC888, is sufficient. X-Fi makes sense if you are a (hardcore)gamer under Windows.

But I still love those I/O hubs ^^

[unix_epoch]

One thing the previous Creative cards were always good for was budget music production, using the kX drivers in windows and as10k1 and other tools on Linux. The simple EMU10k1 DSP was easy to program in 10k1 assembly. I still have a Live 5.1 in my system because of that. If the X-fi DSP can be similarly programmed (and if it can do hardware 3D then it probably can), then Creative might become interesting on Linux once again.

[spikestabber]

This driver works well in 2.6.27 on an Auzentech Prelude, and supports hardware mixing and resampling of multiple sound sources just like the 10k1 chips do. SPDIF I/O works as well.

Of note, 24 bit output spits out garbage fuzzy sound. I'm sure once Takashi takes a crack at this driver any bugs will be fixed in no time.

[pfunkman]

Come on, everbody has a litte masochist inside himself :D

Well, I do not own a X-Fi but back in early 2004 I was impressed by the Audigy2 cards. Today I think a onboard card, like an ALC888, is sufficient. X-Fi makes sense if you are a (hardcore)gamer under Windows.

But I still love those I/O hubs ^^

The ALC888 is a good chip but a properly working Xfi sounds far better and has no interference from the MOBO. So saying it only makes sense for games is really not true.

[mycroes]

It's good to see yet another company open source a driver. I think the phoronix article doesn't really make clear how important it is for users to have open source drivers, and thus how good it is of creative to have open sourced this one.

Just today I was looking at X58 motherboards, when I came upon the MSI Eclipse SLI. That really seems to be an amazing motherboard, and it comes with an X-Fi on-board. It does use a card for the connectors (looks like PCIe-x1), but it seemed like the chip was on the motherboard itself. I was thinking about what a waste it would be to buy it just because of the soundcard. I also tend to forget that I don't really need a sound-card, because I have Logitech Z-10 speakers which are connected via USB. However in the future I might need a second sound output (doesn't really matter how, just that I can control it seperately) and I don't like having unsupported hardware at all, so this is definately a good thing...
Regards,

Michael

[ethana2]

Creative was the Largest Hold-out Hardware Vendor until this announcement, who will take their place?

[makomk]

It's good to see yet another company open source a driver. I think the phoronix article doesn't really make clear how important it is for users to have open source drivers, and thus how good it is of creative to have open sourced this one.

Just today I was looking at X58 motherboards, when I came upon the MSI Eclipse SLI. That really seems to be an amazing motherboard, and it comes with an X-Fi on-board. It does use a card for the connectors (looks like PCIe-x1), but it seemed like the chip was on the motherboard itself. I was thinking about what a waste it would be to buy it just because of the soundcard. I also tend to forget that I don't really need a sound-card, because I have Logitech Z-10 speakers which are connected via USB. However in the future I might need a second sound output (doesn't really matter how, just that I can control it seperately) and I don't like having unsupported hardware at all, so this is definately a good thing...
Regards,

Michael

As I understand it, the "X-Fi" sound that comes with some motherboards isn't really an X-Fi at all - it's just a cheap, dumb integrated sound solution, with all the 3D support and processing done by software running on the computer. (Apparently, at least a couple of the standalone X-Fi cards - the Extreme Audio and Extreme Audio Notebook - are basically the same, which means they have Linux support but offer no real advantage to Linux users over onboard sound.)

[mycroes]

Creative was the Largest Hold-out Hardware Vendor until this announcement, who will take their place?

I think nvidia will, and already has... nvidia has a history of creating binary drivers, often very incompatible. Other than nvidia I think we'll have to focus on motherboard manufacturers. For example gigabyte has some nice stuff that only works in windows (some powersaving led feature has been mentioned on phoronix iirc, I also have it but my case is closed for about 99.99% of the time). Also Apple has a way of not supporting stuff in Linux, like the iPhone or iPod Touch. Ever since I stepped away from my Mac Mini I have only synced my iPod Touch once, and just for music.

[mycroes]

As I understand it, the "X-Fi" sound that comes with some motherboards isn't really an X-Fi at all - it's just a cheap, dumb integrated sound solution, with all the 3D support and processing done by software running on the computer.

I could be entirely wrong on this (and I'm certainly not an expert in this area), but I thought I read something about the card on the MSI Eclipse SLI being one of the real hardware ones, and especially not a software card. I could of course be wrong, so if I'm going to buy anything with a creative card on it I now know to double check the capabilities.

[deanjo]

LOL they better change the download page.

http://support.creative.com/downloads/download.aspx?nDownloadId=10792

Notice the Nice EULA


CREATIVE END-USER SOFTWARE LICENSE AGREEMENT (for Web Software)
Version 2.9, September 2006

PLEASE READ THIS DOCUMENT CAREFULLY. YOU HAVE AGREED TO THE TERMS OF THIS AGREEMENT BEFORE DOWNLOADING THE SOFTWARE FROM THE INTERNET.


LICENSE
Grant of License
The Software is licensed, not sold, to you for use only under the terms of this Agreement. This License Agreement is your proof of license to exercise the rights granted herein and must be retained by you. As between you and Creative (and, to the extent applicable, its licensors), Creative retains all title to and ownership of the Software and reserves all rights not expressly granted to you.
Creative grants to you the right to use all or a portion of this Software provided that
(a) the Software is not distributed for profit;
(b) the Software is used only in conjunction with Creative's family of products;
© the Software may NOT be modified; and
(d) all copyright notices are maintained on the Software.]


No Merger or Integration
You may not merge any portion of the Software into, or integrate any portion of the Software with, any other program, except to the extent expressly permitted by the laws of the jurisdiction where you are located. Any portion of the Software merged into or integrated with another program, if any, will continue to be subject to the terms and conditions of this Agreement, and you must reproduce on the merged or integrated portion all copyright and other proprietary rights notices included on the originals of the Software.


Limitations on Using, Copying, and Modifying the Software
Except to the extent expressly permitted by this Agreement or by the laws of the jurisdiction where you acquired the Software, you may not use, copy or modify the Software. Nor may you sub-license any of your rights under this Agreement. You may use the Software for your personal use only, and not for public performance or for the creation of publicly displayed videotapes.


Decompiling, Disassembling, or Reverse Engineering
You acknowledge that the Software contains trade secrets and other proprietary information of Creative and its licensors. Except to the extent expressly permitted by this Agreement or by the laws of the jurisdiction where you are located, you may not decompile, disassemble or otherwise reverse engineer the Software, or engage in any other activities to obtain underlying information that is not visible to the user in connection with normal use of the Software.

In particular, you agree not for any purpose to transmit the Software or display the Software's object code on any computer screen or to make any hardcopy memory dumps of the Software's object code. If you believe you require information related to the interoperability of the Software with other programs, you shall not decompile or disassemble the Software to obtain such information, and you agree to request such information from Creative at the address listed below. Upon receiving such a request, Creative shall determine whether you require such information for a legitimate purpose and, if so, Creative will provide such information to you within a reasonable time and on reasonable conditions.

[pfunkman]

Got them installed and it works well and suonds much better than the OSS drivers.

[radzh]

Too little, too late.

I will not support Creative anymore, no matter what they'll do. Hope 'em die soon and their successor won't be that stupid.

[pfunkman]

Too little, too late.

I will not support Creative anymore, no matter what they'll do. Hope 'em die soon and their successor won't be that stupid.

Not that creative dont deserve some knocking due to their terrible support but if your going to go around avoiding companies that have ever shunned linux you may as well build your computer out of cardboard and macaroni.

[deanjo]

Too little, too late.

I will not support Creative anymore, no matter what they'll do. Hope 'em die soon and their successor won't be that stupid.

I concur 100%. I personally refuse to touch a creative product ever.

[Dragonlord]

I wish you good luck touching no hardware with questionable Linux support if you wish to do high quality and high performance sound programming ( aka games ). If you only require a mediocre sound solution then there are many around but if you need something worth the trouble then simply saying "no" to such companies is a problem.

Now that the drivers are open I expect some better drivers in the near future. Just hoping the team forming around this driver won't be as moronic as some other OS teams.

And yes, I have an X-Fi in my development rig and yes I knew that Linux support is most probably going to take a lot of time. This is why I have two cards... X-Fi for when I develop under Windows and another for Linux ( not as good, but 3D sound I can develop on Windows if required ).

[radzh]

Not that creative dont deserve some knocking due to their terrible support but if your going to go around avoiding companies that have ever shunned linux you may as well build your computer out of cardboard and macaroni.

You know, i don't really care. They don't care 'bout me, i don't care 'bout them.

Creative is dying. Going GPL is kinda desperate measure for them, and not some kind of good will. So i'm glad them dying. Anyone so ignorant and unrespectful to customers should stay six feet under.

Now tell me more about those cardboards, i'm oh so scared.

[spikestabber]

You know, i don't really care. They don't care 'bout me, i don't care 'bout them.

Creative is dying. Going GPL is kinda desperate measure for them, and not some kind of good will. So i'm glad them dying. Anyone so ignorant and unrespectful to customers should stay six feet under.

Now tell me more about those cardboards, i'm oh so scared.

Creative can simply fire most of their employees and keep going for many years just off patent royalties alone. They won't be going anywhere anytime soon.

[radzh]

Creative can simply fire most of their employees and keep going for many years just off patent royalties alone. They won't be going anywhere anytime soon.

It's all the same to me, as long as nobody ever will make us Linux users feel like second-class customers.

[cruiseoveride]

So... sales were slow or what?

I'm still never ever going to buy a Creative card.

I bought the X-Fi Platinum when it first came out, returned it the next day.

I'm really annoyed at the way they treated the Linux community. ATi gets away with it, because you can never really use the card to its full potential on Linux, cos there are no games or hardcore CAD apps. But with soundcards, Linux has support for multichannel audio, recording, mixing etc.. so we can use the card to its full potential.

I'll only reconsider Creative, if they can make something twice as good as the Maudio1010 and at half the price.

[downhillgames]

I for one am glad they did something that will probably produce some beneficial, though far from optimal results. Took long enough, though... Can you say EPIC FAIL?

Speaking of EPIC FAIL...
Creative's not making money anyway, so they don't have much to lose. At least this makes their fanboys happy. I can't believe how many Linux users own X-fi's, considering how horrible the support is, but apparently some people are happy making ill-informed purchases and being brand slaves.
Creative, whether they are making money or not DID make a great product, and they called that product the X-Fi. A lot of people, not just "fanboys" bought one and saw/see real-world improvements in their gaming. You know, that thing that Linux fails miserably at, in every conceivable sense of the word (I can't alt-tab? wtf?). These people get a real kick out of life, they don't care so much about "FOSS" that they boycott actually useful and beneficial products just 'cuz the company behind it won't open-source their trade secrets. Quit your god damn trolling and go thread crap somewhere else, FOSStard.

That's enough out of me.

[izual]

The ALC888 is a good chip but a properly working Xfi sounds far better and has no interference from the MOBO. So saying it only makes sense for games is really not true.

That's one of those never ending discussions.

[amorpisseur]

Hourra ! Hourra ! Hourra !

[conholster]

Quit your god damn trolling and go thread crap somewhere else, FOSStard.

That's enough out of me.

Wow, just wow...

[yoshi314]

looks like some people can't get over "linuxhater stopped blogging" thing.

[deanjo]

I wish you good luck touching no hardware with questionable Linux support if you wish to do high quality and high performance sound programming ( aka games ). If you only require a mediocre sound solution then there are many around but if you need something worth the trouble then simply saying "no" to such companies is a problem.



It's not a problem at all, there are excellent alternatives for gaming and linux, such as the CMI 8788 based cards. The <3-5% performance drop is negligible if it exists at all.

[EagleDM]

Best Drivers Ever!


Just make and make install, reboot and that's it !!!

First time I heard my beautiful X-Fi on Linux and I'm already mixing music and sound on Pulse Audio with 0 problems on Intrepid.

Now if this guys figure out a way to output multichannel I will be more than happy :)

I bought a Xonar DX just because X-Fi didn't have proper drivers, now I have both playing on Linux.

Also, please, stop bitching about, Creative opensource the drivers, what more do you want, I know it's late, but there will be a lot of happy X-Fi owners out there with this release, Drivers are the most stable ever (comparing it to previous creative ones and OSS alternative) and are the easiest to install.


Congrats Creative, this is the way to go, Now i have a really opensource system, Creative + ATI + Intel, now I need a better 2D driver for my 4870x2, i don't want to use fglrx

[DeepDayze]

Nice to see this happen and now the developer community can take this code and clean it up to produce a driver worthy of inclusion in the ALSA codebase. I am sure that any missing pieces can be quickly replaced. Creative should then thank the opensource community for helping them produce a robust driver for their cards.

[MaestroMaus]

It's not a problem at all, there are excellent alternatives for gaming and linux, such as the CMI 8788 based cards. The <3-5% performance drop is negligible if it exists at all.

You know that was not his point right?

If you don't: his point was that if you would turn down all software/hardware developers that have turned Linux a cold shoulder at some point in time, you would end up having almost nothing to run Linux on.

Also, more importantly, there is no room for all the haters. Every new piece of open sourced hardware/software is a small victory for Linux, as it is then possible to give better support for it, which makes it more efficient/user friendly, which could lead to a better OS and a bigger market share. So instead bitching, we are better served with applauding every new developer that open sources it's product.

[EagleDM]

Gaming with a software rendering soundcard is not so happy flowers, for example I have both, xonar DX and X-Fi in both vista an ubuntu, if you compare them under Vista, the EAX and 3D positional audio in the Xonar Drivers is a joke compared to creative, that's the sad truth, you cannot play any game, the majority will play in plain stereo.

Listening to music is another thing completly, Xonar far surpasses X-Fi quality.

If X-Fi drivers comes with hardware accelerated mixing, remember that X-fi is a very powerful chip and can render 3D posicional voices in stereo up to 128 at the same time without ANY CPU cycles used and has ver good quality at it so, give it time, now we have opensource drivers so, creative is not our enemy anymore in linux, and, after 4 hours of listening music with this new driver I can safely say that it sounds BEAUTIFUL compared to the Xonar, even in Linux, Creative did a good job tunning the internal filters for optimal quality, the only thing that is left to do is implement multichannel.

[MetalheadGautham]

Does this mean its safe to buy a Xi-Fi card now ?

I am thinking of a basic card since I use my PC as a guitar AMP with GNUitar and Jack Rack.

[Thetargos]

I actually have always respected Creative for the quality of their hardware. When the Live! drivers were released circa 2000, and the specs were share I was very excited and respectful of Creative. They since produced the Audigy which required only minor adjustments in the drivers and then the Audigy 2 sound cards (based virtually on the same engine as the Live, but improved with the EMU10K2 chip), however Creative did not release much documentation for the Audigy series of cards (so no 24-bit output, no 96KHz support, etc. Then came the X-Fi and Linux support was ditched for Vista support (support which in opinion of many Creative X-Fi owners was sucky at best). Creative has struggled to even on the Windows market due to several problems plaguing their drivers on Vista (flaky OpenAL support, ALchemy not working right all the time, etc). When they first released the drivers on Linux I dreamed about EAX on Linux, and we do have that to some extent (at least being able to program the DSP with 10K1 assembly for different effects), but there is no way of controlling this programatically through a coherent API (like EAX) on Linux (not that it couldn't be written... but may be it wouldn't be used as much as on Windows); but we don't have EAX as such... Now with this release from Creative, I wonder if they will actually work with the community for having some sort of OpenAL+EAX hardware backend for their hardware-acceleration capable hardware (Live! - X-Fi).

I have bought and recommended Creative hardware (Emu10K*) on Linux for one reason: Feature support. They are/were about the only audio cards whose features were virtually all supported (with some notable exceptions like THX and DolbyDigital/DTS, due to third party lack of support). Other than that: Hardware mixing, digital input/output, multichannel output/input, etc. I wasn't planning on buying an X-Fi card, to tall the truth, nor I ever felt that I needed something greater than my Live! for my audio needs. But when people asked, that was what I recommended, and still do...

Now, since deanjo pointed it out, there seems to be two contradicting licenses there, one from the website and one from the code itself, the code seems to be GPLv2, but the website states other terms of use and license, which prevent the code to be fully GPLv2 compliant... what gives? At any rate, I hope these drivers mature enough in time, and by ALSA 1.0.19 become part of the normal driver stack.

[Keefa]

Can I get _any_ sound with these drivers and the I/O console of Elite Pro?

[EagleDM]

forget about the "conflicting licences" they just copy and paste the default licence of their private drivers on top of the free public driver, just read the GPLv2 inside the drivers, that's the one that matters.

Also, remember, this is the FIRST time ever creative launches a totally free open source driver in history.

Creative also pointed out in the forums that they have plans to continue to develop the drivers with help of the comunity, there are already a fix to their drivers with support for X-Fi Titanium, if you read the forums, creative is now actively taking notice of their drivers and the community, I suspect this interaction (as all open source interactions) will speed up the process of a working 5.1 full OpenAL driver.

I would say, it is very safe to buy a Creative X-Fi now, due to the way the drivers have taken from now on...

[yogi_berra]

ATi gets away with it, because you can never really use the card to its full potential on Linux, cos there are no games or hardcore CAD apps.

- XSi
- Maya
- RealSoft 3D
- RealFlow
- VeriCAD


Yep, no hardcore 3D apps at all...:rolleyes:

Sarcasm aside, the reason ATi now AMD is allowed to "get away" with less than stellar OpenGL support is because nVidia has awesome support and pretty much has the graphics workstation market sewn up even with all of the API breakage that the community throws at them :p

The real question should be however: Do we now have EAX under the GPL, or did they remove that before they relicensed it?

[The_Monkey_King]

I know we go all apes**t when a company develops MS drivers before Linux, if ever it does have a Linux driver. But there are two reasons for a company to behave this way: single set of rules for the largest platform (customer base), and relying on the kindness of strangers.

Think about it: a company has finite capital to spend on new product development as well as current product management (and of course, R&D). They are going to try to sell to as many customers using the lowest cost profile. Right now, that means MS. Yes, it supposed to have a standardized computing platform but each distro has its own set of gotchas and development cycles.

The second part is that Linux started out as alternative, user base driven type of system. yes, thoughts of profit probably were in there, but open source is completely different than for-profit camps.

So for a company to maximize profitability, why not go with the greatest user base and also see if anyone out there was willing to try create their own set of drivers as open source? By neglecting a user base that already goes off and does their own thing is probably not a hard choice. Also one other point: open source is not friendly to non-disclosure. You might think a company's hardware profile is not that exciting but to the company any amount of time they can enjoy market dominance beofre copy catting takes place, means more opportunity of running the market. As soon as everyone else catches on, then you have to ensure your R&D has the next latest and greatest ready to deliver and re-establish market dominance.


I hate it works this way. I have my own beef with ATI/AMD and wished they could deliver drivers that are as functional as their MS drivers at release time, instead of two years later.




Creative also pointed out in the forums that they have plans to continue to develop the drivers with help of the comunity, there are already a fix to their drivers with support for X-Fi Titanium, if you read the forums, creative is now actively taking notice of their drivers and the community, I suspect this interaction (as all open source interactions) will speed up the process of a working 5.1 full OpenAL driver.

[Vadi]

As as 64bit user who saw near-zero improvement on jave of 64bit even in the open-source version, I have to say, I'm not overly excited about this.

[4midable]

Phoronix: Creative Gives In, They Open-Source Their X-Fi Driver

The Sound Blaster X-Fi sound card driver for Linux from Creative Labs was awful. That's simply the nicest way to put it. The driver was home to many bugs, initially only supported 64-bit Linux, and it was arriving extremely late. The open-source drivers supporting the Creative X-Fi drivers have also been at a stand still. However, Creative Labs today has finally turned this situation around and they have open-sourced the code to this notorious driver. The source-code for the Creative X-Fi driver is now licensed under the GNU GPLv2.

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=13083

Wow!!! really good to finally have the drivers on the way. The question I would ask is, how much good will have Creative lost by dragging the chain? For me, having had mine since 2006, I now have a full ONKYO system having left the other "out in the cold" and Creative with it. Like others I have moved on to Hi definition 1080p TV + sound, and a bad taste in the mouth.

[pfunkman]

That's one of those never ending discussions.

No its not. Whether its worth the cost difference is the never ending discussion. Whether an Xfi puts out higher quality sound than the alc888 chip is undeniable fact.

[halfmanhalfamazing]

I think nvidia will, and already has... nvidia has a history of creating binary drivers, often very incompatible. Other than nvidia I think we'll have to focus on motherboard manufacturers. For example gigabyte has some nice stuff that only works in windows (some powersaving led feature has been mentioned on phoronix iirc, I also have it but my case is closed for about 99.99% of the time). Also Apple has a way of not supporting stuff in Linux, like the iPhone or iPod Touch. Ever since I stepped away from my Mac Mini I have only synced my iPod Touch once, and just for music.


I wish nVidia would open source soundstorm. :-(

[deanjo]

- XSi
- Maya
- RealSoft 3D
- RealFlow
- VeriCAD


Yep, no hardcore 3D apps at all...:rolleyes:

Sarcasm aside, the reason ATi now AMD is allowed to "get away" with less than stellar OpenGL support is because nVidia has awesome support and pretty much has the graphics workstation market sewn up even with all of the API breakage that the community throws at them :p

The real question should be however: Do we now have EAX under the GPL, or did they remove that before they relicensed it?

You forgot the 10,000 pound gorilla Pro/E

[liqor_mortis]

I thought Pro/E dropped linux support with the last release?

[MNKyDeth]

For myself I am really glad this has happened.

The last add in sound card I bought was an Audigy2zs. The SB0350 models of the Audigy2zs cards are/were the best cards for Linux imo.

I don't like dmix and software mixing. It just adds more trouble to the configure stage for getting proper audio. The Audigy2zs cards did this for me so I never had to mess with dmix or anything for sound playback from multiple sources at the same time.

This is why I am excited over this news. If the X-fi cards are capable of the same multi-channel sound source playback without any hassle then I will definately pick one up. The sound quality would almost have to be superior to even the audigy2zs I would think. :)

I never use onboard sound chips as they are all flaky with static or just don't have that rounded sound feeling. They would either be tingy or bassy but never have good output. That's why I love my Audigy2zs's. I have these in all my comps currently and even buy ones that are either still new or in still new condition so I can sell them in my Linux box's that I sell.

Nothing I have ever done for sound in Linux has come close to the usefullness of an Audigy2zs for sound. Hopefully the X-fi cards will be my new cards that I look forward to using instead of buying $30-160 Audigy2's.

[Thetargos]

Indeed! And that is why I have been recommending people to get Creative Emu10K* based cards for Linux for the longest time! Of course they are not the only ones that provide these features (especially hardware mixing), but are the highest profile ones that do. I wonder if any of the other CMI-based high-end cards also do hardware mixing and up to how many sources? Oh, and wasn't originally the DSP of the X-Fi called EMU20K1 (or was that another chip/architecture different to the X-Fi)?

[EagleDM]

Actually, for your consideration, I "DID" try what you want to know..

I put my Audigy2 ZS in stereo configuration (disabling the rest of speakers) and trying out different programs, musics and EQ settings and then I put the X-Fi back in... the results are staggering to say the least.

The quality that is coming out of the X-Fi is simple astounding, it even rivals my Xonar DX in linux (Xonar is doing better in windows for now).

Comparing X-Fi in stereo with Audigy2 is like comparing seeing a flower or a kick in the balls (quality speaking).

You cannot compare the two, Audigy2 lacks the deep bass quality the X-Fi is outputing on the fronts (I have a VERY good pair of Yamaha 200W RMS speakers with a 100W x 2 Receiver), X-Fi definetly sounds "Hi-Fi-ish" on Linux now, I actually like it A LOT, and I'm some kind of audiophile so, take my consideration.

Actually, I don't think you need Crystalizer at all in Linux for now.


PD: X-fi is Emu20k1 and DO hardware mixing in the current driver (or so it seems)
PD2: I have xonar dx (c-media oxygen hd based, yes, both cards on the same machine, i'm a freak) Oxygen HD DOES NOT support hardware mixing, at all, I use Pulse Audio for that.

[KohlyKohl]

Are these drivers only working with the 2.6.27 kernel and above? I installed on OpenSuSE 11.0 with 2.6.25. Everything installed fine, the module is inserted just fine, however, there is no sound.

[liqor_mortis]

I think it's only working on 2.6.27. The module wouldn't build with 2.6.25 for me.

[Thetargos]

What API does the driver use? OSS or ALSA? If ALSA, maybe in the spirit of good-ol' ALSA the driver is muted when inserted, and are you able to run the mixer from the console (alsamixer or if you have PulseAudio running alsamixer -c 0)?

[PGHammer]

OMG! Finally i can install eg. Ubuntu to my Game-PC...

Hope this will go quickly to ALSA...

In fact, the open-source driver *does* work in Ubuntu (in fact, I'm *using* it in Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex right now, listening to an audiobook in the background, as I type these words).

(watches the 1st Tactical Bombardment Squadron ("The Prokchops") practicing acrobatics in the distance over several partially-frozen demons)

[PGHammer]

What API does the driver use? OSS or ALSA? If ALSA, maybe in the spirit of good-ol' ALSA the driver is muted when inserted, and are you able to run the mixer from the console (alsamixer or if you have PulseAudio running alsamixer -c 0)?

It's ALSA-native (thus the existing ALSA mixer and tools will work). I'm using the drivers right now.

[swalko]

Are these drivers only working with the 2.6.27 kernel and above? I installed on OpenSuSE 11.0 with 2.6.25. Everything installed fine, the module is inserted just fine, however, there is no sound.

I haved same problem too. Before i haved oss4 and i think that oss4 rewrited some alsa libraries. After reinstalling alsa, alsa libraries, alsa utilities and other sound/alsa related packages X-Fi is running in all apps.

[EmbraceUnity]

If you have a front panel, it wont work. You need to plug your stereo or headphones into the back of your computer.

[Thetargos]

Just curious, could someone running these drivers provide the output from:


cat /proc/asound/pcm


and


cat /proc/asound/devices

Please?

[EmbraceUnity]

edward@edward-desktop:~$ cat /proc/asound/pcm
00-02: ALC882 Analog : ALC882 Analog : capture 2
00-01: ALC882 Digital : ALC882 Digital : playback 1 : capture 1
00-00: ALC882 Analog : ALC882 Analog : playback 1 : capture 1
01-00: X-Fi 20k1 : WaveOut/WaveIn : playback 8 : capture 1


and


edward@edward-desktop:~$ cat /proc/asound/devices
2: : timer
3: : sequencer
4: [ 0- 2]: digital audio capture
5: [ 0- 1]: digital audio playback
6: [ 0- 1]: digital audio capture
7: [ 0- 0]: digital audio playback
8: [ 0- 0]: digital audio capture
9: [ 0] : control
10: [ 1- 0]: digital audio playback
11: [ 1- 0]: digital audio capture
12: [ 1] : control

[Thetargos]

Interesting... I find these two tidbits especially interesting... Hopefully these will get sorted out with the help of the community and Creative working together on the drivers:

edward@edward-desktop:~$ cat /proc/asound/pcm
01-00: X-Fi 20k1 : WaveOut/WaveIn : playback 8 : capture 1

There seems to only be 8 analog playback channels (i.e, roughly 8 different sources can produce sounds simultaneously) with this driver (hardware issue?), while the snd-emu10k1 driver on both Audigy(2) and Live! cards yields:


00-00: emu10k1 : ADC Capture/Standard PCM Playback : playback 32 : capture 1

Supposedly the driver on Live! cards could only use up to 24 different sources instead of the whole 32 ones, I'm not sure about Audigy(2) cards, though.

The number of devices seems to be less that those found with the snd-emu10k1 driver as well... I'm sure this is mostly due to the difference in architecture between the two chips, and the degree of support for the chips in the drivers, not to mention that the snd-emu10k1 drivers are very mature and support most of the features found on Emu10K1/2 cards (with the notable exceptions being 24-bit audio, sample rates of 96KHz and 192KHz), which for some are the most notable features of the cards, anyway (compared to the Sound Blaster Live!), oh, and IIRC the DSP's environmental effects engine is also supported (not quite EAX, but AFAIK it is programmable through the use of the as10k1 assembler [found in the alsa-tools package]).

This is the output on my Audigy 2 ZS:


cat /proc/asound/devices
2: : timer
3: : sequencer
4: [ 0- 0]: hardware dependent
5: [ 0- 1]: raw midi
6: [ 0- 0]: raw midi
7: [ 0- 4]: digital audio playback
8: [ 0- 4]: digital audio capture
9: [ 0- 3]: digital audio playback
10: [ 0- 2]: digital audio playback
11: [ 0- 2]: digital audio capture
12: [ 0- 1]: digital audio capture
13: [ 0- 0]: digital audio playback
14: [ 0- 0]: digital audio capture
15: [ 0] : control
16: [ 0- 2]: hardware dependent
17: [ 0- 2]: raw midi
18: [ 0- 3]: raw midi



edward@edward-desktop:~$ cat /proc/asound/devices
2: : timer
3: : sequencer
4: [ 0- 2]: digital audio capture
5: [ 0- 1]: digital audio playback
6: [ 0- 1]: digital audio capture
7: [ 0- 0]: digital audio playback
8: [ 0- 0]: digital audio capture
9: [ 0] : control
10: [ 1- 0]: digital audio playback
11: [ 1- 0]: digital audio capture
12: [ 1] : control

[entropy]

Is there a way of having 'bass' and 'treble' control
for the hardware mixer with the current driver?
Having a quick glance at ctmixer.h the driver apparently
does not feature those.

Btw, is there any documentation available for the newer
generation of cards (at least under NDA)?

[hobbes]

I own a SB Live! and I'm kind of curious how is going on the development of the X-Fi open source driver.

I'll be looking on the market soon for a new sound card. (Xonar or X-Fi)

Does 5.1 channels actually work?

Anyone?

[EagleDM]

No, it was stated a lot of times.

Current Open Source Creative X-Fi drivers DO NOT output 5.1, only stereo output.

BTW: Stereo output is pretty good, judging by the quality of the sound, It seems creative did configure correctly the output filters on the X-Fi, because it sounds as good as in Vista/XP, but currently, only stereo is available.

[EagleDM]

The Xonar does output 5.1 perfectly, but has a problem with the ALSA Mixer, the hardware DOES NOT support a "master volume" and as such you have to use some sort of software mixer to control the master output, such as Pulse Audio, aside from that, I have both cards on the system, Xonar and Creative X-Fi, both running at the same time in Ubuntu 8.10 and even to my astonishment, X-Fi does seem to output a cleaner quality sound with Stereo music than Xonar in Ubuntu, the totally opossed picture to Vista where Xonar does have better quality sound.

[hobbes]

The Xonar does output 5.1 perfectly, but has a problem with the ALSA Mixer, the hardware DOES NOT support a "master volume" and as such you have to use some sort of software mixer to control the master output, such as Pulse Audio, aside from that, I have both cards on the system, Xonar and Creative X-Fi, both running at the same time in Ubuntu 8.10 and even to my astonishment, X-Fi does seem to output a cleaner quality sound with Stereo music than Xonar in Ubuntu, the totally opossed picture to Vista where Xonar does have better quality sound.


Right now, I'm very inclined to buy a Xonar D2 or its PCIe version.

But, it will be necessary to upgrade my mobo too, and it can take a couple of months to buy the right hardware (ATI/Intel/Nvidia...)

But, things can change. Until the day, I actually purchase it. If by chance, the Creative X-Fi starts to output 5.1 by then, I'll change my mind on a heartbeat.

Let's hope for more development.

Thank you for replying.

[Enverex]

Has anyone actually picked up this driver? (i.e. ALSA). As it seems like they released it back in September and it's just been dead in the water since then, no-one working on improving it or fixing the bugs and no acceptance into ALSA.

Does anyone have any word on this?

[pfunkman]

Has anyone actually picked up this driver? (i.e. ALSA). As it seems like they released it back in September and it's just been dead in the water since then, no-one working on improving it or fixing the bugs and no acceptance into ALSA.

Does anyone have any word on this?

that does actually seem a bit strange. The only thing i can think of is that after so long there probably where not that many people left waiting for the xfi drivers so its now a low priority? I couls be wrong but i am curious to know how many where still waiting by the time this driver rolled around.

[cruiseoveride]

I returned my XFI, 2 days after buying it.

[EmbraceUnity]

On the creative download site, it asks you to agree to a EULA before downloading the x-fi source driver. I refuse to agree to this EULA. Is there any way I can download it without agreeing?

[spikestabber]

The EULA is full of shit, the driver is GPL. You'll notice it is when you look in its contents. Besides, you bought an X-Fi, I'm sure you already agreed to the EULA at least once.

[RealNC]

You don't have to agree to the EULA. You just have to click the "Agree" button. Clicking an "Agree" button and really agreeing are two different things :D

[KhaaL]

Sorry for reviving an old thread, but can anyone give an update how X-Fi support is going in the .31 kernel? I haven't seen anything about it in the recent changelogs.

[d2kx]

Sorry for reviving an old thread, but can anyone give an update how X-Fi support is going in the .31 kernel? I haven't seen anything about it in the recent changelogs.

I am not 100% sure, but I think I've heard that it is supported since Linux 2.6.31-rc3.

[EmbraceUnity]

It has been working for me out of the box, no problems. I think even since rc1. Except the front panel doesn't work just like with all the other X-Fi linux drivers

never buy anything from Creative.

[KhaaL]

It has been working for me out of the box, no problems. I think even since rc1. Except the front panel doesn't work just like with all the other X-Fi linux drivers

never buy anything from Creative.

yeah i can also confirm that its worked OOTB with me too in karmic. however, i just installed 2.6.31-rc4 in jaunty and it got me nowhere. is there something more to the kernel that ubuntu has added in karmic than the vanilla kernel?

[cybcode]

I'm an Ubuntu user and I've been using my onboard Realtek ALC883. I'm considering getting an X-Fi XtremeGamer. Am I likely to notice much of a difference?

I don't play games much (obviously) -- I want the card for music. AFAIK, the interesting features of X-Fi cards (entertainment/gaming modes, EAX, crystalizer) are not available under Linux, so I wonder if the sound of the "vanilla" configuration is really any better than what I currently have.

I'm not much of an audiophile, but I do own a decent pair of headphones (Sennheiser PX100) and notice a huge difference between them and the stock earbuds that come with audio players.

Thanks.

EDIT: My question may not be directly related to the thread's subject, but I found no other forum/thread dealing with this, so I thought I'd give it a try anyway.

[pfunkman]

I'm an Ubuntu user and I've been using my onboard Realtek ALC883. I'm considering getting an X-Fi XtremeGamer. Am I likely to notice much of a difference?

I don't play games much (obviously) -- I want the card for music. AFAIK, the interesting features of X-Fi cards (entertainment/gaming modes, EAX, crystalizer) are not available under Linux, so I wonder if the sound of the "vanilla" configuration is really any better than what I currently have.

I'm not much of an audiophile, but I do own a decent pair of headphones (Sennheiser PX100) and notice a huge difference between them and the stock earbuds that come with audio players.

Thanks.

EDIT: My question may not be directly related to the thread's subject, but I found no other forum/thread dealing with this, so I thought I'd give it a try anyway.

If you just listen to music then your onboard would probably sound better. Im not sure what benefit there would even be to the gamer in linux, i dont think many games support hardware acceleration anyway.

[cybcode]

If you just listen to music then your onboard would probably sound better. Im not sure what benefit there would even be to the gamer in linux, i dont think many games support hardware acceleration anyway.

Why would my onboard sound better than an X-Fi? I thought it should be the other way around.

[Kano]

Best use SPDIF and then the cheapest onboard will sound the same as an expensive card.

[BlackStar]

I'm an Ubuntu user and I've been using my onboard Realtek ALC883. I'm considering getting an X-Fi XtremeGamer. Am I likely to notice much of a difference?

I don't play games much (obviously) -- I want the card for music.
ALC883 is the bottom line of realtek's integrated chips. Integrated sound cards tend to have low SNR (i.e. audible hissing when you turn up the volume, which tends to become worse when you are using the mouse or scrolling a webpage). Chips in the ALC88x series also tend to amplify the lower frequncies, making music sound somewhat muffled. Finally, they tend to sound much better at high sampling rates (96KHz instead of the default 44KHz), so trying that might be worth it.

Note: the above is for analogue sound only. Go digital (spdif) and the ALC will sound as good as anything else on the market.

Almost any discrete card will have better SNR and will offer more balanced sound. If you have a good enough set of speaker or headphones, the difference should be quite audible - however if you are to pick between better speaker or a sound card, the speakers will make a larger difference.

If you are to pick a card for Linux, avoid X-Fi chips for now. Most Xonar's have raving reviews so they are worth checking out.

[cybcode]

Best use SPDIF and then the cheapest onboard will sound the same as an expensive card.

But my budget is limited and external DACs are quite pricey and harder to find. Besides, sound cards have DACs in them, so why would I want an external one? Sure I can get a really good external one, but it'll surely cost much more than an X-Fi.

[deanjo]

But my budget is limited and external DACs are quite pricey and harder to find. Besides, sound cards have DACs in them, so why would I want an external one? Sure I can get a really good external one, but it'll surely cost much more than an X-Fi.

It's not only the DAC's that you should be worried about with headphones. Usually most cards have a piss poor headphone amp and things are just as bad as integrated solutions. If your going to look at headphone use I would recommend looking at solutions such as the Azuentech X-Fi Forte or the Asus Xonar Essence STX that are designed for satisfying headphone use and come with far better headphone amps then most other cards.

[pfunkman]

Why would my onboard sound better than an X-Fi? I thought it should be the other way around.

If you where on windows i could see it but on linux with the horrid drivers your onboard will still probably sound better. Without hardware acceleration there gos most of the reason to own an xfi anyway.

If its between the xtremegamer and your onboard i would stick with onboard. There are also better options to look into as well.

[germulvey]

I'm currently using the driver and ubuntu 9.04. I didn't really expect it to work. But it does. Using my headphones with no issue apart from having to turn down the volume so as not to go deaf. The sound is damn good too.