Creative Labs CT4760X Sound Blaster Live! X-Gamer

by Creative

Product Details

• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B00001P4PM
• Item model number: CT4760X
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes
• Date first available at Amazon.com: September 4, 1999

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

If you're after the ultimate gaming rush, get Sound Blaster Live! X-Gamer to take your PC games to the edge. Powered by the superior EMU10K1 audio processor, the Sound Blaster Live X-Gamer allows you to process high quality audio and effects in real time so there is never a slowdown during gameplay--even the most intense deathmatch.

The Environmental Audio standard has been implemented into today's hottest games for the best 3-D positional audio. With support for the latest audio standards, occlusion, obstruction, and up/down elevation, Environmental Audio adds realism and atmosphere to games, movies, and other audio applications. Experience the thrill of cars racing by, ships thundering overhead, and enemies creeping up from behind--sounds will literally come from all corners of the room.

The Sound Blaster Live! X-Gamer includes three full game titles that provide astounding support for Environmental Audio: Interplay's Descent 3, Electronic Arts' Need for Speed 4: High Stakes, and Eido's Thief: The Dark Project.

Utilize the full potential of Sound Blaster Live! X-Gamer when digitally connected to multichannel speakers for pure digital surround sound. With support for both analog and digital connection, the Sound Blaster Live! X-Gamer surrounds you with a full 360-degree sound for the most realistic gaming experience. When connected to the Digital Out connector of the Sound Blaster Live! X-Gamer, hear every movement of the enemy on multichannel speakers, such as FPS2000 digital speakers.

The Sound Blaster Live! X-Gamer is Live!Ware upgradable so your sound card is always up to date with the latest audio features and standards. Just download software to your reprogrammable EMU10K1 processor and get the latest updates.

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While upstarts such as Aureal captured the ears of gamers and PCI soundcards flooded the market, Creative Labs was not to be heard from. But Creative has actually been secretly working with E-Mu and Ensoniq to produce a card to restore Sound Blaster's good name. The Sound Blaster Live! is the real thing. At the heart of the Sound Blaster Live! lies the 1,000 audio MIPS 10K1 processor. Designed for E-Mu's pro-level APS soundcard, the 10K1 offers realtime pitch shifting, reverb, and features not found elsewhere in consumer soundcards. Presets such as dizzy, dreamy, or psychotic bend sounds, and the interface lets you tailor settings. The Live! also routes sound from any source through the effects engine, including CD, MIDI, or WAV files.

With the Live!, Creative has also unveiled its EAX API. Essentially an extension to Microsoft's DirectSound and DirectSound3D positional API, EAX lets programmers easily add reverb or echo to a room to make it feel the right size. Creative uses a limited version of Epic's Unreal to showcase Live!'s reverb. Creative has taken the time to tailor environmental audio presets for other games that don't directly support EAX, such as Quake II and Age of Empires. And DreamWorks, MicroProse, Epic, and Electronic Arts have signed on to support EAX in some titles.

The Live! accelerates eight DirectSound3D streams in hardware, but the upcoming Vortex 2 chip promises to accelerate 16 streams. Still, the Live! is no slouch with the current generation of games, showing no noticeable reduction in framerates. Although not fully A3D compliant, the drivers shunt A3D calls to DirectSound3D well enough for even the A3D-only game Jedi Knight to work effectively.

The card itself is chock-full of connectors. The main board sports two 1/8-inch outputs and inputs, as well as a standard MIDI/joystick port. Onboard, the card has connectors for analog modem, CD input, auxiliary input, digital zoomed-video I2S input, and CD S/PDIF digital input. Headers for volume control, PC speaker, and others litter the board as well. A second daughterboard hosts S/PDIF in and out, MIDI in and out, and digital DI for use with Creative's upcoming eight-speaker set. Out of the box, the card supports a five-speaker system. Creative is also considering adding AC3 decoding either through software or as a hardware add-on.

Up to 32MB of system RAM can be locked in for MIDI SoundFont samples. The stock general MIDI sets, including the 8MB set, sound flat, but were still above average.And its 64-voice hardware wavetable set isn't just for MIDI. Creative's SoundFont technology lets you swap out or supplement the sets for specialized sounds available for download.

Creative has aimed this card not just at gamers, but at computer music enthusiasts and sound fanatics. With the ability to do realtime effects, a bevy of digital connectors, and budding support for EAX, the Live! is a winner even at its steep list price. - Gordon Ung

Rating: 10/10

©1999 Maximum PC

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great card, ok games, May 3, 2000

By 

Richard S. Ballantyne (Houston, TX USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Creative Labs CT4760X Sound Blaster Live! X-Gamer (Personal Computers)

One of my professors last semester made the comment that sound, not video, has progressed the most in the last decade. I didn't really believe him, and was happy with my SoundBlaster 16. It's nice to be wrong. The thing I like most about this card is a feature called 'Environmental Audio'. At a control panel you can select various 'audio themes', eg concert hall, country, sewer and apply this to all sounds on the computer. It's nice to pop in a Portishead CD and click on 'Stadium' and hear her voice get even more expressive. Another interesting feature is 'Lava', which is similar to the plug-ins for WinAmp and shows CGI images in time with the music. As one would expect with SoundBlaster, compatability is no problem. The games aren't really my thing, and in retrospect I probably should have saved $30 and just got the card or the MP3 version. A year and a half ago these were great games, now they're not so hot. Creative is becoming known for having wretched customer service, to which I can attest, but you'll pobably not have any difficulty installing and using the card. I'd recommend the SoundBlaster Live! to anyone. The Live! Platinum isn't worth the money unless you are into music production.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars not bad, January 20, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Creative Labs CT4760X Sound Blaster Live! X-Gamer (Personal Computers)

i bought this card two months ago and im very impressed with it. installation is easy.its much affordable than other top of the line sound cards with almost the same performance. this is the most value per dollar u can get out there.

i really like the enviromental control. i set the enviroment sound as a stone corridor and played "legacy of kain:soul reaver" and it was amazing. it can pick up echos and errie sounds.its kinda scary cause i have a soround sound system and its like something is behind u making these strange noises and i usually play this game at night.it works well with my voodoo3 card

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good sound card with great bundled games, October 2, 2000

By 

keviny01 - See all my reviews

This review is from: Creative Labs CT4760X Sound Blaster Live! X-Gamer (Personal Computers)

I'm giving one extra star because of the 3 games bundled with this sound card (Descent 3, Need For Speed 4, and Thief: The Dark Project). They are all full retail versions, with .PDF manuals on the CDs but no printed manuals. These are 3 of the best PC games in recent years. And they also show off the capabilities of the Live! sound card.

The Live! card is a four-channel sound card, with separate front and rear audio outs that allows a multiple-speaker set up. It will enhance the sound in computer games, provided that the game is designed for multiple speakers. When used with only 2 speakers, I don't notice a big difference in sound quality compared to old Sound Blaster cards. Hence, your speaker setup should be up to snuff to really take advantage of the Live! card.

If you have a multiple-speaker setup and want to watch DVDs on your PC, this Live! card doesn't quite help. There is no Dolby Digital decoding ability in this Live! card. You either need to get an external DD decoder, or wait for the upcoming Live! 5.1 card which will have built-in DD decoding.

The Live! card is also able to produce digital audio (which sounds cleaner than analog). Unfortunately, the Live! XGamer or MP3 card doesn't come with a digital I/O daughterboard that is needed to get digital audio. Only the more expensive Live! (the original version) and Live! Platinum come with the digital I/O card. The digital card can be bought separately, however, but you need to buy directly from Creative Labs. Also, the digital audio comes out of a DIN connector on the digital I/O card. So your speakers must also have the same DIN connector. Speakers that have it include the "FourPoint" and the "Desktop Theater" line of speakers (all are Creative Labs' products, no surprise).

Another specialized feature of the Live! card is Environmental Audio (EAX). Opinions vary widely as to its merits. It's basically a way to make sound more realistic in games; for instance, EAX could make footsteps sound differently on the streets than in a tunnel, as it should in the real world. Games that use it should have the EAX logo printed on the box. My opinion is that its effectiveness depends largely on how it's used in a game. In Half Life, the EAX sound is fantastic. All the 3 bundled games support EAX, I believe, so hear it for yourself.

If you think of buying a Live! card mainly to play your DOS games, keep your old Sound Blaster. My experience is the Live! card cannot always provide SB16 emulation under Windows; some games either won't run or sound funny. Even if you are able to boot to DOS 6.22 on your PC, you still can't run all of the DOS games (e.g. some of the pinball games from 21st Century); some games would crash or not recognize your sound card. To enable SB16 emulation requires you to load EMM386.EXE in CONFIG.SYS, and that may cause problems to some old DOS games. To those who look forward to replay your old DOS games, better not to throw away your old SB card just yet.