Although audio doesn't garner the same audience 3D graphics and cutting edge CPU's do, it is still the opinion of many that it deserves just as much attention. With increasing numbers of games supporting 3D sound API's, the perceived realism experienced in a gaming environment has been significantly enhanced.
There are other markets besides gaming though, and Creative Labs has realized this with the release of their Live! Platinum, Live! X-Gamer, and Live! MP3+. With identical basic hardware, each of these packages caters to a different user, and in this review we'll be looking at the X-Gamer.
What criteria are used to judge the performance of a sound card? It's definitely not as clean cut as frames per second and fill rate, and there is indeed a lot of subjectivity involved since everyone has slightly different audio tastes. However, objectivity can be found in price, features, and benchmarked numbers. This is the information we're after.
Creative has targeted the X-Gamer (obviously) at the gaming community, including three complete game titles and a couple of demos. The hardware itself has changed very little from previous Live! Series cards, adding mainly the ability to upgrade to the Live!Drive or connect a set of digital speakers without having to purchase the separate daughter card from Creative Labs; both nice additions.