Deteriorating Sound Quality

[Guest]

I've recently upgraded to Vista Business, and my system informs me that
except for the drivers for an ancient scanner all is working properly.

When playing music (using a Creative SB Live 24bit card with the most recent
driver installed), all starts off well (in fact playback is better than under
XP Pro) but the sound quality starts to deteriorate badly, especially when I
open a browser. Quite often the browser itself seems to freze.

I have 3Gb RAM, with a 3.60Ghz P4 processor.

Task Manager tells me that often I am running at 100% of CPU capacity,
though the problem seems to occur at lower usage too.

I've checked everything I know to check but just can't seem to get to the
root of the problem. Can anyone suggest anything I should be looking at?

 

[Sebastian Vega]

Blame Creative for writing REALLY BAD drivers.
I have similar problems with an Audigy 2 ZS and an X-Fi Xtreme Music.
After a while playback just gets really bad or completelly stops, then I
need to open the creative control panel and click on the "restore defaults"
button which reinitializes the drivers, which makes the card work for
another while (before discovering this trick, I had to restart the system
each time)
Vista has been released since almost 9 months and has been around quite a
while before, it is really a shame that Creative still didn't manage to
provide decent drivers and software for their products.
I will never buy another Creative product again.
hal

 

[Communikator]

Hello Simon, the same thing happened to me until I started using the onboard
Realtek AC97 instead of the M-Audio Revolution that caused the pain. At this
time, M-Audio presents me a Vista driver that's still in BETA phase, so I
can do nothing but stay perfectly content with the onboard audio which is as
smooth as one could wish...

 

[Guest]

Thanks to both of you .... looking round this and other groups it's clear
that there's a common thread of difficulty experienced by people with their
sound cards (?particularly Creative ones?) in Vista. If anyone's really
cracked the problem, please let me know ... or would upgrading/changing card
make a difference?

You'd think that with all the advance notification of Vista they'd have got
it right by now or am I naive?

 

[Stephan Rose]

Thanks to both of you .... looking round this and other groups it's
clear that there's a common thread of difficulty experienced by people
with their sound cards (?particularly Creative ones?) in Vista. If
anyone's really cracked the problem, please let me know ... or would
upgrading/changing card make a difference?

You'd think that with all the advance notification of Vista they'd have
got it right by now or am I naive?

The problem most likely lies in the ridiculous specifications audio and
video hardware has to adhere to for Vista due to all the DRM restrictions
that it enforces.

Writing good and stable drivers is one thing.

Writing good and stable drivers that need to conform to arbitrary and
ridiculous DRM standards designed by Hollywood and Legal Departments, now
that's an entirely different problem.

I suspect that on-board sound & probably has the least problems because
they likely also have the least features.

Creative Labs cards and the like are more likely to contain additional
features used for recording, playback, etc that isn't present in on-board
sound which complicates the issue for drivers of that hardware.

--
Stephan
2003 Yamaha R6

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[Cal Bear '66]

I have NO problems with the Creative X-Fi at all (well flakey SPDIF output), and
I listen to internet radio 8 to 10 hours a day. Did you install any of the
applications from the XP install disk? NONE are compatible with Vista.


I Bleed Blue and Gold
GO BEARS!

 

[Guest]

Following your and Communikator's lead I've been trying to make my onboard
SoundMAX integrated Digital Audio work. The only problem is that it shows up
in Device Manager as correctly installed and working but it's not listed as
an option in the playback device window, even if I disable the Creative card.
Have I missed out a step?

 

[Communikator]

Hmmm, I just tampered with the BIOS setting that disabled the M-Audio card
and let live the onboard Realtek, this is what I recommend. The system is
likely to use the first encountered device (I think so, I'm not sure, just
telling what my pc has done).
The thing that you mention happens in my pc with the 2 network cards, one of
which is onboard - both show up in Device Manager, and although I
deactivated from the BIOS the onboard one, it still appears as up and
running.
Onboard audio works just fine for my needs - so fine that I'm afraid to
install the new Realtek drivers for fear of breaking some darned
compatibility. The only shortcoming is the money spent on the M-Audio, which
I HAD TO deactivate in order to listen normally to those Internet radio
streams (more than 5 minutes, which was the upper time limit for M-Audio but
is ignored totally by the Realtek).

 

[Sebastian Vega]

nope, just the vista driver from creatives web site.
if I use the card in "audio creation mode" it works more reliably, but in
"entertainment mode" it really sucks...

 

[Cal Bear '66]

Damn, I am very pleased with my Creative X-Fi.

Have you tried to uninstall it in Device Manager -- making SURE to check the box
to delete the driver files in the uninstall confirmation box, AND in Control
Panel > Programs and Features, uninstall the Creative Audio Console, rebooting,
and installing the latest Creative drivers again?

I really have no complaints except for the flakey SPDIF output.


I Bleed Blue and Gold
GO BEARS!