X-Fi problems, please help

VortX

VortX

VortX

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Joined
24 Jan 2007
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Guildford
Hello, I have had my X-Fi Xtreme Gamer card for about a month now, and ever since I have had it I have had problems:

1. Windows Vista randomly stops audio and sometimes starts up with a loud distortion. To fix it you need to restore the audio settings to default. - Software issue

2. Star Wars Battlefront 2, random louad distorion/buzzing occurs every now and again.

3. Multiple games and applications, experience random crackles and buzzes.

4. Battlefield 2142, when a mass amount of things happen at ounce i.e. Orbital strike, EMP strike, Walker shooting at the same time I get a continuous stream of crackles and pops. - I did find however If I switched the 'Mode' from 'Game' to 'Entertainment' the problem was solved, however audio quality was degraded.

Things I have done and have not resolved the issue:

Resitted the Sound card
Resitted the Sound card in a differnt PCI slot
Turned off X-Fi CMSS-3D
Turned off X-Fi Crystalizer
Disabled EAX effects
Installed latest drivers off creative website - ran clean up apps after and before
Installed latest drivers of Windows Update - ran clean up apps after and before
Installed drivers that came with CD - ran clean up apps after and before
Disabled onboard audio and other unnecessay BIOS options

I also had an error before that whenever I had my case audio ports plugged into the 'Front Panel' socket on the card I would get crackling, when unplugged it was fine.

My hardware:
X-Fi Xtreme Gamer
Intel Core 2 Duo E6600
ASUS Commando - Chipset p965
4GB Crucial Ballistix
Nvidia Geforce BFG 8800GTX

My system is overclocked aswell, however I don't belive any of my settings could effect my sound card. My system doesn't usuall crash if it does it is most liekly software. I have ther latest chipset, BIOS, drivers and patches installed. Is there something I am missing or am I in dead lumber?
 
It says its for games though... the problem in windows Vista happens the second Windows vista kicks in.
 
Yeah I am having some very wierd issues. I believe however they are all software, but there is nothing I can do about it becuase I have to wait for creative to create a new driver which they seem to be extremly slow at acomplishing. My old onboard Intel sound had updated drivers more often then the most popular sound card in the world lol.
 
did try to post a thread but it wouldn't allow me, i presume server problem. I must admit creative have not amazed me thus far lol
 
Ok, I have concluded that the problem in BF2142 and most probably all the others and most definitly software. I installed BF2142 with the latest pacth on Windows Vista x64 Ultimate. The fluttering, buzzing is gone. So it only happends on XP... What could be causing this then?

Things that are differnt about the 2 systems:

One is Windows XP pro and the other is Windows Vista
One is 32bit and the other 64bit
They have different drivers (XP version, Vista version)
Vista has the newest DX isntalled June 2007 whereas XP doesn't, it has the previous version.


Ok... so the game patch is the same, the settings are the same, the drivers are both the latest ones. However people were saying a conflict with the 8800 which is the card I have, however the person above said his problem occured with a nvidia and ati card. If the problem is software then when I installed the differnt drivers for the sound card the problem didn't change. However XP has the standard Nvidia drivers whereas Vista has the newest BETA ones, could this be causing it?

Ok, things I am going to have to do to find out what is going wrong:

1. Install the latest DX (June 2007) on XP.
2. Install the latest BETA driver from nvidia on XP

If neither of these things change the errors in battlefield 2142 then it is most likely:

1. Differnet operating system
2. The differnce of 32bit and 64bit
3. The different Sound drivers (however changing these under XP had no effect.

I believe I have done everything else in the software department. I reinstalled 3 different sound drivers under XP and the last time, I manually went through the registry and deleted anything with either 'Creative' or 'X-Fi' in it, but no effect. I did also reinstall the latest BF2142 patch, the only other thing I can try is to do a clean isntall of BF2142. Now I know a little more about what is going wrong and concluded its not hardware does anyone else have any suggestions?
 
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Ok, I have installed the same DX on both systems and no change, do its nothing to do with directX
 
I went to installed a BETA driver on XP but I already ahd the latest one, so I installed the standard 158.22 version. I also found out that the buzzing and flikering only occurs if you move the player . For instance If the artlilary is going off infront of you and you spin around it happends. So my guess is its something to do with the surround sond. But I disabled and enabled the 'CMSS-3D' option in the X-Fi console and it made no different. I will try and fiddle around with what ever surround sound options I find and let you know how I get on :)
 
Jokester said:
There's also a known issue with Vista64 and 4GB of RAM, remove a stick and see if that fixes it.

Jokester
Click to expand...

No, its not Vista that is having the trouble with BF2142, it couldn't be better infact (belive it or not :p ) Its XP that has the wierd issue. Vista is the one that sometimes has a loud buzz at startup or no sound at all, but this can quickly be solved by just click 'restore default' in the Creative audio console.
 
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