Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi MB Worth buying?

Hi,

I am just about to purchase a Dell Studio 1558 but I am wondering if the Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi MB software is really worth purchasing? Will I really get any major benefit from it, seeing that it is only a software upgrade and not a hardware upgrade?

Thanks in advance.

Cheers,

Ross

 

Spend $25 toward a real piece of audio equipment instead. All I have to say.

 

Now that Win 7 is the norm, I'd say pass. Save your money

 

Thanks very much for the replies.

I have gone without it

 

Good choice IMO, the software is pretty basic and conflicts with the normal soundcards software more than anything. Basically what it is: sound mixer/EQ software (overrides/does basically same thing as what the soundcard driver usually already includes), ALchemy support for EAX support in software/games, and Creative's MediaSource music player/file organizer tools/sound editor. It has some of the X-Fi sound enhancements like the Crystalizer and stuff but it's all done in software and isn't the same thing as the hardware solution found in the actual SoundBlaster/X-Fi hardware, ends up mangling the sound more than anything else.

 

Just download OpenAL for EAX support, everything else that the soundblaster software includes is already in the normal IDT audio drivers. Any kind of software from Creative is bloated and to be avoided.

 

OpenAL is a substitute audio API with hardware acceleration, but by itself doesn't support EAX. It will expose the acceleration/support of the hardware only, and it used to be that if any non-Creative Labs hardware supported any type of EAX, it was limited to version 2.0 or below. With Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi MB it adds software libraries that emulate EAX hardware upto at least version 4.0, and that might be worlds beyond IDT's own drivers because I doubt they even include basic EAX 2.0 support anymore (if they ever did).

BTW ALchemy is required to enable EAX is older games that use DirectSound/DirectSound 3D on Windows Vista/7 because Microsoft removed support from the API starting in Windows Vista, ALchemy emulates some of the missing features and allows you to enable support in non-OpenAL games. It still requires that you have a soundcard/software library with proper EAX support, such as Sound Blaster X-Fi MB..

But I still agree that unless you need/want these specific features, then I'd avoid this software like the plague.