What does an XC tier tournament mean? do they still give ratings, abide by normal rules, etc?

The "X" would mean that there is some sort of alternate format...such as Doubles, Match Play, etc...
With out knowing which event your asking about, that would be my best answer for you.
:D

Here's the Tour information for 2007 which covers X-tiers:
www.pdga.com/documents/td/07TourStandards.pdf (http://www.pdga.com/documents/td/07TourStandards.pdf)

ok, thanks...now that still leaves me one question, considering the tourney I am considering playing apprently qualifies as an X-tier because it is in a smaller community and will be a single round fsingles format, do i still get a pdga rating for the tourney and does it count in my ratings, i think i may have heard that single-round tourneys didn't count for some reason.

X-tiers don't get rated by default because the reason it's an X-tier is usually a format that is not standard singles play. They can get rated if the TD indicates in the report that the scores are legit singles play because the reason it was an X-tier was perhaps how the divisions were determined, it was just one round, or a charity event with non-standard payouts, for example.