How to play games on TI-89 Titanium?

ASUS Xonar D2 or Creative X-FI titanium?

• I want to buy a soundcard and I have to choose between xonar d2 or x-fi titanium. I have Logitech z-5500 speakers and I mostly play games, then listen to music then watch movies. I've read many reviews of these two cards and I can't decide witch one to choose. I know that x-fi supports EAX 5.0 and xonar supports only 2.0, but it also "kind of" supports 5.0 as well via Direct3D GX technology. 1. What the hell is that Crystalizer? Does Asus have something like that? 2. How about drivers? Does Creative include more features in drivers or Asus? How about Windows 7 x64 compatibility? 3. Which one sounds better with Z-5500? 4. Which one is better in gaming? 5. Which one is better in listening to music, watching movies?

• Answer:

  The crystalizer is some application that allows you to manipulate the sounds you'll receive in different programs. I believe it has custom profiles like gaming, music, movies, etc. where it's supposed to sound better in those environments when set to those profiles. I'm pretty sure Asus has a similar application but maybe not to the same extent. I would check both company's websites to see if they have drivers out for Windows 7. In most cases all my hardware and programs have been working fine in 7 even without drivers for it. I'm pretty sure that at least Creative has drivers for 7 but from what I've read their drivers are pretty bad and they cut functions out of the cards which is why this guy named Daniel K custom made unofficial drivers that made their cards work better unfortunately they made him stop even though he was making their product better for free. Google him if you want more information on them and Creative's drivers. I'm not sure how it'll sound with your system but I'm sure both would sound decent. I know creative cards have a bad rep for having crackling and popping noises time from time but if you read through reviews for both cards on newegg I'm sure you'll find similar complaints because I'm pretty sure they're based off the same chip. The x-fi would techinally sound better in games with the eax 5.0 but it's really up to whatever you think sounds best. Eax just supports more directional noises, voices, and effects with each revision as far as I know. I think from the reviews I've read through in the past the Asus card sounded better in games and movies.