Same Old Story

[Chu-Dog]

Hello folks.
Years have gone by now and I am still suffering from the snap crackle and pop that SLI brings to my 3d gaming. I gone through many iterations of chip sets and graphics cards from NVidia.
The equation for me since SLI and the X-FI has been introduced has gone like this:
Sli Nforce Chipset + 2x Top End Nvidia Cards in SLI + Creative X-FI = HORRIBLE SOUND.
Under heaving 3d gaming, the sound crackles to no end.
The "fix" I can use really sucks when you shell out the dough for a system like this:
Disable SLI.
Disabling SLI, of course renders the second card in the case useless, but also lets the Creative X-FI card sound great and crystal clear.
Even light 3d games like WoW gets the snappy crackly treatment with SLI enabled. Forget about World in Conflict or Crysis.
Man is there no official fix to this? I want fast graphics and good sound, I cant seem to get both no matter how much money I throw at it.

So before folks let me know the usual "fixes", heres a run down on parts and what I've done:
-790i Ultra from EVGA (Latest BIOS, Latest Chipset Drivers)
-2x EVGA GTX 280 in SLI (Latest drivers)
-X-FI Elite Pro (Latest non-beta Drivers)
-Power Supply is Silverstone 1Kw
-OS is fresh Vista 64 install (fully updated)
-Memory is 4gb Corsair DDR3 1600 (fully tested with Memtest)
-CPU is QX9650 mildly overcloked to to 3.5 stable

Im sure my system is very similar to many other readers here.
If there is a fix out there that does not involve Disabling SLI via the driver, I will be forever gracious.
- Chris

[SH64]

There is a quick fix ... gimme one of those 280's & you're done! :p


seriously though this is the first time i hear about this issue.

[jcrox]

Try switching from gaming mode to creation mode or entertainment mode. Also, if you have the crystallizer on, try turning that down or even off.

[Chu-Dog]

thanks for the quick response. the crystallizer fix doesnt work tho. :(

[XMAN52373]

thanks for the quick response. the crystallizer fix doesnt work tho. :(

Some guy named Dave something or other fix the X-Fi drivers better than creative could ever hope to. So good in fact, his rehashed X-Fi drivers fix and reenable more than creative has "been" able to do since they released the card. piratebay.org has them available for download but ferget the name of the files.

[Mr Bigman]

I use to bitch alot about this and now its good and i use 2 top end 280's and Xfi Platium Fatility and 8 gigs of ram and no pops but i went to an Intel chipset and i still use the 790 and 590 but i have asus cards in those that sound better anyway.

Its something to do with how the pci bus handles latencies and its more in the timings in the drivers that Creative is so stupid to fix but pci has devices that do things in realtime and there are timings and latencies that nned to be addressed in order to fix thin and yea some people had thing with older intel chipsets but those who use x38 and newer should be fine.