New Sound Card (EAX, 5.1, Win7)

Pribnik

Pribnik

Pribnik

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Hi guys.

I have had it with my Creative XtremeGamer x-Fi card. I want to change my sound card cause this one is giving me soo much grief. I've windows 7 x64 which makes it a nightmare to find good drivers. Of course theres PAX drivers etc which help a bit but I just have enough of that bs.

I am currently using the Logitech Z-5500 speakers which are really good but I can't help but feel that it's potential is thwarted by the shabby sound card... or rather the awful drivers.

Anyway, I am looking for a card that:
Priority 1!! Has stable drivers for Win7 x64.

It would be nice if it had EAX 4 or 5 support for Win7 x64 (by the way is EAX really that good for gaming?) However, I am aware that this narrows the choice to ONLY Creative and Auzentech. In fact if these two providers are in your opinion useless don't bother about the EAX.

Or is it perhaps worth getting a card that produces amazing sound and does not support EAX? (I am more fussed about the sound Quality than anything else.) Don't worry about the price (I always wanted to say that ;) ) because I am willing to pay quite a lot to get a proper sound.

Any propositions would be greatly appreciated. I put my trust in Overclockers as you guys have always been a great help :)

Thanks
 
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You could look at the Xonar series - they emulate EAX when DS3D-GX is turned on. It doesn't always work though and can cause issues so plenty of prefer to leave it off.

DS3D-GX is also useful for resoring 5.1 in legacy games that use DirectSound3D.

What sort of problems have you been encountering with the X-Fi? I've found a few features (usually obscure) that don't work properly in Windows 7 but for the most part the card is stable and functions well for gaming. Mine's an Auzentech X-Fi prelude though.
 
Well as to the XtremeGamer card. When running on the drivers provided by the creative website my sound kind of deteriorates over time whenever starting the PC anew. I mean when the PC starts the sound is ok but lets say I listen to music for some time then I play a game or whatnot and the sound basically dies. There are terrible crackling sounds etc. It doesn't matter I just want to change the card I've tried too long to fix this one.

By the way it would be nice if it had supported Dolby Digital. Or is it called Dolby Digital Live. Sorry I can't remember.
 
OK. That issue isn't universal for X-Fis but in my experience problems with X-Fi drivers (or the lack of them) is somewhat related to luck of the draw. I've had the same card be perfectly fine in one machine and not work (i.e. complete silence) with 4GB RAM in another. Similarly, I've seen different X-Fis behave differently in the same machine.

I would suggest giving the following driver a try:
http://forums.creative.com/t5/Sound...2-14-0025-Prelude-Beta1-08-07-2009/m-p/533305

It's an Auzentech Prelude Vista X64 driver, modified to work on other X-Fis. The memory access on Prelude drivers is different from standard X-Fi drivers. I've seen several people report that it sorted sound deterioration issues and popping / cracklingfor them in Windows 7 X64.

It's a little old but if you keep other stuff like Alchemy up to date it might do the trick.
 
Thanks a lot I will give it a go.

I would still like to see some propositions of other cards. I can't believe there doesn't seem to be much in a way of alternative after such a long time.
 
Ok I've installed the software you gave me. The sound is much better straight away and hopefully it will stay that way. It's like comparing listening to an old record on a tape through a vacuum cleaner pipe and listening to a band live. Thanks very much!

I would still like to swap to a different sound card but there just doesn't seem to be enough alternatives. Guess I will have to wait and see if any new cards come out.
 
Well, the Xonar cards do spring to mind. EAX is only required for older games (pretty much) or there are alternatives. The Xonars can emulate up to EAX 2.5 (I think) using the GX function, and while the drivers still aren't perfect, they are considered better than the X-Fi drivers (which to be fair doesn't appear to be difficult).
 
Marvin said:
(which to be fair doesn't appear to be difficult).
Click to expand...

lol true that.

To be honest I think there should be like a sticky topic catering on this issue. I for one would keep an eye on that sort of thread.

Win 7 is not that new now and there really should be something better for us on the market. There's a massive hole in this market in my eyes. I don't mind paying extra few pounds for something that will actually work on the newest OS that every1 is running on.

Is it really that difficult to make proper drivers for win7? (it must be :O)
 
To be honest, Asus and Creative are equally bad when it comes to Windows Vista / 7 drivers. People jump ship from one to the other because the grass is always greener.

I've had both and trouble with both but actually found my X-Fi Prelude a little easier to live with than a Xonar.
 
Might be slightly off-topic but if anyone needs it, here's another set of drivers for X-Fi cards.

http://forums.creative.com/t5/Sound-Blaster/SB-X-Fi-PCI-Install-Disc-1-0-unofficial/td-p/556496

The Daniel_K SB X-Fi Series driver 2.14.0025 does work great and it kills the crackling sound issue but for some reason (it might just be me) the DDL doesn't seem to be working properly.

I am yet to download and test that driver out (it's about 700 or so mb). I will let you know how it works once I've got it.
 
Ok I've downloaded the new drivers from Daniel_K and they work great so far.

I can easily recommend them to any1 with X-Fi sound card. Well done Daniel_K. I find it amazing btw that creative (which is not a small company run by one person) couldn't have done what one guy did... and they had the nerve to threaten him... pathetic. I will never buy anything from Creative again that's for sure. I used to love Creative... poor show Creative... real poor.
 
I agree, it's lame. If Asus sorted out their blasted DS3D-GX, there would be even less reason to look at a Creative card over Xonar. Asus had the opportunity to put a nail in Creative's coffin, by releasing reliable working drivers, with working emulation, but they fluffed it.
 
heres the problem with emulation it sometimes works well sometimes it does not...Asus have pretty much rumbled creative through in someways.

I don't have any issue with asus drivers ( althrough I do wish they would digital sign thier drivers! )

years ago I used to have a X fi but I booted it out due to being crippled by the poor drivers. that kept crashing etc I wish i did try a 3rd party driver like daniel k onces but hay
 
Just a little update. The drivers mentioned above don't work for me either. It seems I only got a little lucky and so it happened that the crackling sounds were gone but they're back to haunt me again! Dammit are there no decent sound cards out there these days that you can definitely recommend? Grrr....
 
asus's only saving grace was that they're relatively simple drivers worked pretty well from the off. The reality is, imo, they are even worse than creative as far as support goes.
 
I had my X-Fi SB0770 working in XP (after much fricking about), I had my X-Fi SB0770 working in Win7 (after much fricking about).
I then set up my system to dual boot and Win7 is OK, but I can't get my X-Fi to work in XP again.
Device not found rubbish, wasted too many hours on this.
What a load of poo.
BYE BYE Creative!

I bought a Xonar DG and it just works...
 
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james.miller said:
asus's only saving grace was that they're relatively simple drivers worked pretty well from the off. The reality is, imo, they are even worse than creative as far as support goes.
Click to expand...

Very much this.

Creative drivers seem to either be fine or cause problems immediately. I've found them to be very decent in the long term with frequent updates.

Asus drivers often give a favourable first impression but the niggles come to bite you later during use. I gave up waiting for Asus to fix some gaming issues on my Xonar D2 a couple of years back. Glad I jumped ship to a Prelude, as I think I'd still be waiting now.

The Prelude drivers aren't perfect by any means but they don't tend to give me any nasty surprises.
 
My God it's ridiculous imo. After reading your comments guys, it would seem there is NO decent sound card on the market at all!

How is that possible? It's such a huge gap! It just wont seize to amaze me how no company uses the opportunity that clearly has risen here! If one of the companies devised a SC with decent drivers they would have a huge number of potential buyers (including me :D) don't you think? Is it so difficult to actually make that work? How strange.

And it's not like win7 has been on the market for a month or something, it has already been like a couple of years right?

How long will we have to wait? Do you know if anyone is actually working towards this goal?

Oh and by the way, I have the X-Fi XtremeGamer and the newest PAX drivers work quite well, but tbh I've only tested them for a couple of days so I don't know what surprises await me in the near future. You might want to give them a try.
 
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