X-Fi XtremeMusic & windows 7

Is this not just the same 4GB issue as Vista?

It's luck of the draw I'm afraid. If you're having problems, it's to do with 64 bit memory addressing in drivers. The X-Fi prelude drivers use different RAM addressing. If you can, try Daniel K's latest modded Prelude drivers (I think they will run on retail Xtreme Music but not OEM).
 
The gut feeling I have with the 4Gb issue is in regard to Motherboard manufacturer, I picked up on my net travels that it tends to be Asus boards that kick up the most fuss, can anyone confirm this?

I'm using an X-FI Titanium on an Abit based C2D setup with 4Gb RAM and all is well.
 
Running an X-Fi platinum on an Asus P55 ( one of the original ones with no heatsink on the card ) and its running great in Win 7 64bit using the drivers from the creative site.

It also ran great on an asus 680i board and an asus P43 board. The 4Gb RAM issue was solved ages ago by a BIOS update and as far as i know it only affected people who ran SLI + X-Fi + 4gb RAM on old nforce4 boards
 
gadgetvicar said:
It seems that the issue for the X-Fi with Windows 7 is evident with machines that have more than 4Gb of addressable memory. Can't find the link about it right now, but I installed Win 7 yesterday with 2Gb ram, and it worked fine. Added two new 2Gb sticks today to take it to 6gb, and all I get is pops and crackles. It would be interesting to know if those who have the X-fi working in Win 7 have less than 4Gb memory installed?
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Mine was fine on an asus 680i and an asus P43 both with 6Gb RAM.

Also as i said above got it working now with 4Gb on a P55 board.
 
No issues with X-fi on X38 chipset with 8gb ram. Working fine in vista and win7 64bit using DanielK's Support pack. (Downloadable Vista Driver disc + Driver updates worked fine to in Vista (didnt test in win7))
 
bleh my XtremeMusic under win 7 can't properly mute the line-in/mic so getting background noise constantly :( and the drivers are crap compared to XP can't even see a way to properly setup CMSS-3D.
 
SimonUK said:
I'm also getting Windows 7, and was thinking of getting the X-fi, but thanks to this post ill go for the Xonar, presumably the DS will work as well as the D1 just slighlty cheaper ?

Thanks
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I have the Xonar DS in my HTPC. It's very good. Not sure how it compare to the D1. The DS has only DTS support, I'm not sure if the D1 has just Dolby, or both. That probably doesn't matter if you are going to use analogue speakers.
 
Yay managed to setup CMSS-3D properly to reproduce positional audio in games in headphone mode :)

Still need to work out how to properly mute everything on the line in tho.
 
nice post, some good experience for me to take into account of upgrading a sound card.
I think atm i will stick with on-board audio in win7
 
Rroff said:
Still need to work out how to properly mute everything on the line in tho.
Click to expand...

This was annoying me too. Not on my Win 7 PC to give you the exact steps but it's in the Windows speaker volumes. You get a list of playback devices and you can mute the line in.

*EDIT*
Control Panel -> Sound -> Double click Speakers under playback tab -> Levels tab -> Click mute on Line-In.
 
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Win7 64bit + X-Fi Music here and it's fine, you need the Win7 drivers and maybe the console application* from creative. Go into the Creative Audio Control Panel and disable all the carp thats enabled by default. Switch to Entertainment Mode, disable Crystalizer etc

*under application, not driver on creative website
 
I'm getting cracking & popping on my XFi Xtrememusic ever since upgrading to Windows 7 64bit. Really annoying and it seems to happen whenever the CPU is under heavy load. I was considering buying an Asus Xonar too but will try DanielK's driver pack first.
 
I'm having the same popping and crackling with an Xfi Gamer, with Win 7 64bit.

It seems much worse in Itunes, and winamp.
With WMP12 it's better but still not perfect.

I've tried all drivers, can't work out if it's a driver issue or hardware.

I notice my soundcard shares an IRQ with my graphics card (Radeon HD4840).
But can't seem the manually overide that in the device manager.
Could this cause the problem?
 
Get a USB DAC and get away from sound cards you wont regret it no more driver problems and perfect sound. I have had XFI and Azuntech this is better this is IMO. For games and music.
 
Hammer2001 said:
I'm having the same popping and crackling with an Xfi Gamer, with Win 7 64bit.

It seems much worse in Itunes, and winamp.
With WMP12 it's better but still not perfect.

I've tried all drivers, can't work out if it's a driver issue or hardware.

I notice my soundcard shares an IRQ with my graphics card (Radeon HD4840).
But can't seem the manually overide that in the device manager.
Could this cause the problem?
Click to expand...

I've tried everything I can think of but still get this damn crackling sound. It happens when the CPU is under load and also when I re-size browser Windows. It's very odd... I've tried DanielK's driver pack but it doesn't make any difference. I'm reluctant to buy a new sound card because I always enjoyed the sound from the XFi Xtrememusic, but it's looking like I've got no other choice unless Creative pull their finger out and release some kind of fix in the next driver update. :rolleyes:
 
Hammer2001 said:
I'm having the same popping and crackling with an Xfi Gamer, with Win 7 64bit.

It seems much worse in Itunes, and winamp.
With WMP12 it's better but still not perfect.

I've tried all drivers, can't work out if it's a driver issue or hardware.

I notice my soundcard shares an IRQ with my graphics card (Radeon HD4840).
But can't seem the manually overide that in the device manager.
Could this cause the problem?
Click to expand...

I experimented more last night with this.

And the MP3 files play much smoother under WMP12 than with Itunes or Winamp. They are not perfect, but crackle and pops are far less noticible or frequent.

Why could this be?
 
Well I think I might have just fixed mine...

I moved the sound card to another PCI slot and now the crackling has gone! Interestingly enough, I reformatted and the crackling was back. So I swapped it to another PCI slot once again and the crackling vanished... I've shut down a few times and it's fine now.

So to summarise, it seems that whenever I reinstall Windows 7 I need to swap the sound card to another PCI slot in order to get rid of the crackling.
 
Yeah I've noticed this crackling issue recently (it taken me this long to realise there was a problem). Its fine for most of the time, but its either random when I'm listening to music in winamp or every time there's a lot of action in L4D! I'll try changing PCI slot, thanks.

edit: no, still a problem. Its not really crackling, the stereo cuts out sometimes, maybe its a cable..
 
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garethrobinson1 said:
Well I think I might have just fixed mine...

I moved the sound card to another PCI slot and now the crackling has gone! Interestingly enough, I reformatted and the crackling was back. So I swapped it to another PCI slot once again and the crackling vanished... I've shut down a few times and it's fine now.

So to summarise, it seems that whenever I reinstall Windows 7 I need to swap the sound card to another PCI slot in order to get rid of the crackling.
Click to expand...

Well all I can say is, that's bloody wierd!

Glad there is a solution, albeit a pain in the rear one. :p

When you 1st said you moved the card and the so called interference went, I thought it was just far enough away from whatever was causing it. Seems that is not the case. PC's eh, can be funny buggers lol. :)
 
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