X-Ram - Overclock.net

chanster · 03-23-08

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If you are new to Xram,Xram is quality ram instead of high performance ram.....X-Fi cards have Xram from 2mb to 64mb...

The Main benefit of Xram is that the file being processed can be stored on the card itself instead of the Host's memory......But in real life performance it wont make much of a difference as most of us use at lest 1gig of ram...For processing audio very little ram is needed...... Thus there is a advantage....Components of the card such as the DAC and APU has access to that audio file at any given time,through the use of a data transport.When the component(DAC,APU etc) is given permission to access the file, the transport pulls the file to allow the component access to it, which then processes the file, and moves it back into the data BUS where it's then accessed by the next component.This allows lots of audio streams to process within the card instead of the info having to be sent to the Host's memory.....
The more memory the card has the more audio processors the APU can handle.....

Creative advertises, The game audio streams is to be loaded in to the onboard ram.....which would give a very small frame rate improvement(2 or 3 FPS) because the system memory is not used! In real life Xram acts as a temporary storage for processing......which reduces the traffic on the bus.......So the difference you get in Xram cant be measured by FPS....You can measure it by hearing.....It will reduce the lags of EAX effects etc.......

Come to a conclusion
Xram is not designed to improve system performance......It is designed to handle more voices/effects and to process them quicker so that ull get a better experience when playing a game........
Also Lots of ppl including me says that Xtreme Music and Gamer FPS doesn't differ much..The advantage of the FPS is Xram...There are only a very few games that take advantage of Xram some of them are Doom3,Dirt,Pray etc...those games too will utilize about 8 or 10mb out of 64...In the future as the games develop, Xram will also be benefited a lot....The more EAX effects the more ram needed, which results in less lags,richer sound etc.....So in the future one can argue that Gamer FPS DOES have advantages over Xtreme Music....
Also one must remember Xram is not a large difference over models like Xreme Music,XG although advertised like that.........The Xtreme Music is a excellent all around card for the price but not dedicated to gaming as the FPS.....In contrast the Elite Pro which is the best sounding X-Fi card which is not designed for heavy games either.........The FPS can handle more voices/effects and process them faster than the XG resulting in smooth gameplay audio effects.......

Well thats about it...Xram.......

X-Fi cards that have Xram

Xtreme Music=2mb
Xtreme Gamer=2mb
Platinum=2mb
Xtreme Gamer Fatal1ty=64mb
Xtreme Gamer Fatal1ty Platinum=64mb
Elite Pro=64mb
Auzentech Prelude=64mb

SZayat · 03-23-08

Interesting read

But what is EAX? I've seen other sound cards have this feature like ASUS Xonar, although they don't have a creative chipset built-in.

chanster · 03-23-08

Environmental Audio extensions.....Real world audio environment

Link,Link2

*Duckydude* · 03-23-08

Interesting, maybe you should add in a list that says which card have what amount of X-Ram.

chanster · 03-24-08

You mean Xtreme Music 2mb FPS 64mb etc?

*Duckydude* · 03-24-08

Quote:

Originally Posted by chanster

You mean Xtreme Music 2mb FPS 64mb etc?

Yeah, except you forgot to list the Auzentech X-Fi Prelude, which has 64MB of X-Ram

.

chanster · 03-24-08

Done thanx...Slipped my mind actually hehe.....

MrSpock2002 · 03-25-08

Thanks for this post chanster!

fps_dean · 03-31-08

In actuality it increases the traffic on the bus because it needs to get the data there, at least with Creative. If it works right it would be great, and if Creative's over-bloated drivers didn't negate most the benfits, or the card did not pop like it's going out of style, play random loud noises or cause bsods...

It's a great concept but until I see it work right and not negate any performance with over-bloated drivers then it's useless IMO.

Maybe I need to check out the Auzentech to see how it works when done right from what I've been reading...

It would be cool if I could queue up mp3s to play on the card and not use cpu resources while I game since most games don't use most of the XRAM currently.

Bakes · 04-01-08

SZayat: Asus Xonar does not have full EAX, it has software EAX. Creative cards have hardware accelerated EAX, which means that they put less load on the CPU.

fps_dean: I'm sorry your card is having these issues, I for one have no problem, and have only noticed speedup since I installed my X-Fi. Remember, X-Fi has 51 million transistors, and the drivers are complex, like graphics card drivers. Yet I don't here you slamming 100MB+ graphics card drivers.

03-31-08	#9 (permalink)
fps_dean New to Overclock.net Join Date: Mar 2008 Posts: 14 Rep: 1 Unique Rep: 1 Trader Rating: 0	In actuality it increases the traffic on the bus because it needs to get the data there, at least with Creative. If it works right it would be great, and if Creative's over-bloated drivers didn't negate most the benfits, or the card did not pop like it's going out of style, play random loud noises or cause bsods... It's a great concept but until I see it work right and not negate any performance with over-bloated drivers then it's useless IMO. Maybe I need to check out the Auzentech to see how it works when done right from what I've been reading... It would be cool if I could queue up mp3s to play on the card and not use cpu resources while I game since most games don't use most of the XRAM currently. Last edited by fps_dean : 03-31-08 at 04:19 PM

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X-Ram

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