Creative Software Debugging Thread

The addon is only for encoding DTS / Dolby Digital on the fly for output. If you do not need the feature, you don't need to install it.

 

I've had a failure with the X-Fi MB application. The R2.49 driver does not detect as compatible with the application so it won't start. I'm currently downloading another copy of the R2.49 driver to try, because you guys have had good results with it.

 

If it continues to give you issue, you can roll back to a working Realtek, and then upgrade to current.

 

I just removed, safemode, driversweeper, reboot, and tested the creative console again. I'm getting the following error message:

"The current selected audio device is no supported by the application
Do you want to select another audio device now?" [Yes] | [No]

Thing is, the only audio device it lists is "SB X-Fi MB" and selecting that just brings up the error dialog again.

I could try the modded drivers but you guys said it wasn't necessary to use them, and that any driver version should work. What am I doing wrong?

 

Hm. Strange. Yeah, seems you'd better try the modded drivers - they should work. Worked with me. And after uninstalling them (2.48) and all creative stuff and installing back everything with 2.49
- everything still worked.

Concerning the DTS and DDL - yes, this step can be skipped if you don't need the functionality. And the virus there - IS actually a virus, but only affects Delphi SDK, so if you don't have Delphi - feel free to run that file. It adds the DTS and DDL SPDIF capabilities.

I will edit my how-to post with the new data, thank you for your ideas.

 

I appreciate the assistance. I'll give the modded drivers a spin this evening.

When reinstalling the drivers, I did not remove the creative suite first. I assumed that the Realtek and Creative packages were mostly independent and checked for dependency at runtime. This might not be the case, however.

 

I deleted a number of posts in this thread.

Discussion of software piracy is not allowed here; this is strictly enforced. If something is a TRIAL then it is a TRIAL, not a license to use the software indefinitely. Get some morals and purchase the software from the vendor that sells it. It doesn't cost an arm and a leg . . .

 

dang, all the steps on how to enable the creative x-fi package are gone. Can you repost the non-pirated version on how to do this? thanks.

 

there's a fundamental problem therein: creative releases the Audigy MB and X-Fi MB packages to OEMs who license their tech, and requires a license fee per system from what I understand. There is no source for these packages online that isn't an unauthorized mirror, or a hacked-up version of the applications. ASUS, who has a license to distribute both packages, makes neither of them available on their website. People have mirrored the installation files from the CDs included with ASUS, Dell, and Gigabyte products, with varying degrees of success. For a long time, daniel_k had trial versions of these suites on his blog but it appears that he has since closed that blog.

It's a tricky subject. If you own a G73Jh, you have a license for Creative SB AudigyHD MB. If you don't have the software, good luck finding a version that will work. The version included on the driver CD is very old and needs to be updated, but finding updates is tricky at best. If creative would just host their own drivers, everything would be fine, but the packages have to be customized (at least slightly) for the hardware. In theory, any HDAUDIO driver will work, once it has been modified so that the MB suites detect it as usable. This is because the Audigy and X-Fi hardware cards are HDAUDIO devices themselves.

If we modify our own drivers and install a Dell version of the software, we might get it working, but it will ask us to purchase a license we already own! If we want to purchase another license for that, the cost is not so cheap: $30.

Long story short, this entire process is grey-hat. ASUS could update the software, post it on their website, and we could just install it that way. They simply choose not to do so, so far as I can tell.

To the Mods: I respect your decision to remove content that suggests software piracy. This is a good rule.

 

well for anyone that wants to do this the LEGAL way then just skip step 4 and buy license for the DTS AND Dolby digital like someone said earlier its less than 5$ on the creative online store.

here are the steps
1.remove previous Realtek drivers and reboot
2.Install latest Realtek driver and reboot ( I did the 2.49 ones)
3. uninstall the Creative SB AudigyHD MB, reboot, and then Install X-fi software from Solor package and reboot
(perfectly legal since it's an OLD version, modified for compatibility, of a software that WASN'T EVEN AVAILABLE FOR RETAIL, and that was given away for free with motherboards)

skip the step 4 that is the only grey area so no license are "illegaly" acquired
(like I said if you do not use a license generator, aka not doing step 4, then this ISN'T ILLEGAL, and the software won't need to expire in 30 days)

THIS IS THE ONLY WAY AS OF NOW TO KEEP THE EAX 4.0 capabilities that was promised from creative for the asus G73JH and STOP all the crashing because of directX sound. (eg in "ease of access" or "steam")

optionally there is a step 5, it's downloading the ATI HDMI AUDIO drivers from the same realtek official page as earlier

btw NONE OF THE PREVIOUS DESCRIBED STEPS ARE ILLEGAL. and I repeat this is the ONLY LEGAL way to keep all of the feature of the creative software and not have any more freeze.

 

BTW guys...did u notice performance drops when using the bundled software mode creative driver in assassin's creed 2? I was running it maxed out at 4x aa and noticed there was slight sluggishness that was very apparent in the game. However, before my "restore" to factory it was running fine. I realized that it might have to do with the "bass boost", "cmss 3d" or whatever I enabled.

So..lo and behold...as I did the firsttime I got the G73, I removed the bundled cretive software...I plugged in my USB X-Fi 5.1 soundblaster and installed it. The game is running as smooth as it was before. Clearly this software thing chugs up games. You might want to consider that.

 

Same result with mine. Guess I'm stuck with the gimped version for now.

 

Where can you get this 'Solor package' of which you speak? I can' can't find it using Google.

 

google "Install X-fi software from Solor package" it's there

 

Thanks Chastity for your hard work. I followed your advice and I had the bass enabled, I have my eq set up on something besides flat, cmss is enabled on minimum, but I still get lockdowns at weird times. I was looking in this thread with mpc 64 bit open (paused and minimized with an mkv file opened in it and I'm also using ffdshow 64 bit along with coreavc and halli splitter) and while I was reading, it locked down.

Am I missing something? Also, the most important thing is after the lockdown, my bass settings seem to don't work at all. I adjust the bass in the audio center but I hear nothing happening all of a sudden.

HELP!!!!!!

 

Check your Windows Audio settings and see if the Speakers are set to Small or Full Range. (Full Range disables the sub)

 

just upgrade to X-fi and stop messing with setting cmss-3d to min and playing with other setting to make the buggy creatuve audigy software work.

how simple can it be?

 

Hello everyone,
I've been messing with these drivers trying to enable EAX for several "old" games (Beyond Good & Evil, Unreal Tournament 3, Painkiller, Universe at War: Earth Assault, etc.) using my Realtek on-board soundcard (Windows 7 64bit).

If you ever wondered, the 3DBack Sound Beta 0.1 from realtek does not work at all...

I tried the some "combinations" of drivers, right now I've just tested using:
Modded Realtek "X-Fi" 2.48 drivers + Solor X-Fi package (something I found posted by some Anonymous guy on a website that I believe is forbidden to link to in this thread, I hope it's the right one), it didn't worked.

Right now I'm about to reboot to install the newer Realtek Drivers from their official site (2.49)

Also, I have a doubt:
If the method works and I get X-Fi MB to use EAX properly, is it true that the license is 5$?, can someone give me a link? Creative's website is a bit confusing and I can't find anything there... I am willing to pay for it if it actually works after I try.

EDIT:
SoLoR's old X-Fi mod didn't work.
I'll leave Daniel_k's modification downloading for now.

I hope it works.

 

Thanks, that helped out a lot. I find it interesting that the bass levels were working before though with full range enabled. Afterwords it doesn't unless somehow creative changes it automatically.

Volume levels - Good with normalize enabled. Without it, its too low. Boost makes the volume jump which is annoying so I keep that down. With bass enabled, the first two bars on the eq can increase volume when set to -12b.

I'm getting the hang of it.

I think disabling "allow applications to make exclusive control of this device" will prevent the lock ups as well if anyone wants to mess around with that.

 

Tried that, didn't help.

 

I ended up using daniel_k's X-Fi MB v1.1 pack, which worked, but made my system even less stable than it had been with the Audigy pack. For the moment, I've given up on getting the creative suites to cooperate with the G7Jh. If anyone has any progress to report, or anything new to try, I'm willing to give it another go, but for now I'm giving up.

 

hi,

now sure how about you guys... but is there anybody who is running creative realtek hd audio panel without any lock up, or am i alone?

i am running with it for a month or so, also tried a lot of versions as you guys, but finally i found out one... so am now happy with the bass booster...

bad thing is that i am not 100% sure what needs to be uninstalled to be properly worked...

my creative audio center version is 2.00.6, realtek HD audio driver is 6.0.1.5978

 

All I know is that I managed to stabilize the stock Creative Audigy MB package using the R2.48 driver and daniel_k's latest update for Audigy MB. I had CMSS-3D enabled, along with the bass-boost. The system seemed stable.

I tried messing around with the X-Fi stuff, and after maybe 30 hours of tinkering, came to realize I should simply uninstall it all. Without any Creative software, my G73Jh-A1 is 100% stable.

... but I have no EAX, no OpenAL, and no bass-boost.

 

I just got off the phone with Asus tech support. I explained that I bought my G73 through Bestbuy and that I did not get a driver disk. I then explained that I uninstalled the creative software because it would lock up the laptop. I was told that all the drivers for the G73 where on the Asus support site and that the Creative software was not put on the laptop by Asus and therefore they could not provide it to me.

I just love being handed a line of poop... (not)

I am obviously way past disapointed with Asus!!!

I do however want to thank this community, you have changed my mind on returning this back for a refund because of all the hard work you have done...

I now have a stable laptop!!!

 

I installed the Realtek and Creative drivers from the CD that came with the G73.
I then downloaded the newest Realtek drivers.
Turned on CMSS and Bass boost and have never had a problem since.
--
6.0.1.6132 Realtek HD Driver
Whatever Creative Package that came on the CD

 

Chastity, you know if Creative has come out with an updated/non-crappy version of the software yet? Or will we forever need to hack our own settings to account for all of the technical shortcomings?

 

I've heard rumors, but nothing official yet.

 

So I recently just got the Steam lock up issue due to Creative... previously I never bothered to open up the program and never had an issue with it being installed. I happened to try out the bass boost yesterday and then Steam wouldn't load anymore.

I uninstalled the software, but I have the best buy version so no install discs for the software :[.

I'm just wondering, does the sound enhancement only work when the Creative software is open? I haven't noticed any difference in sound quality after I uninstalled.

 

The Creative software's main benefit is the easy Bass Adjustment, Headphone 3D HTRF via CMSS-3D, and the EAX4.0 support via ALchemy for some games to use.

Since you uninstalled it, you can use Realtek's Graphic EQ to adjust the sound to your liking. Tho you didn't have to. If you read my thread, you could have found a way to have it installed and not crash.

 

Hmm, yeah, I want to be able to use the Creative software again someday, but I don't have the CDs with the software in them...

Creative Worldwide Support > Sound Blaster Play!

Is this the correct software download? Or is it not possible to obtain the same stock Creative software online?

Thanks!

 

After reading a couple of time this thread, I decided to give a second chance to creative drivers (actually never tried them, I uninstalled just received my A1). So load my DVD driver and when the menu pops up, I reinstalled the drivers, reboot and activate the EQ and CMSS-3D applet. So far, I can say the sound quality suffer a big leap in fidelity. So previously my system sounds OK, but now the sound is clear and I would like to explain in in detail.

I uninstalled the creative software in recommendation of all the post in this forum, leaved the realtek drivers for awhile (now sure is stock are 2.42 or 2.44) and soon I made the upgrade to 2.48. In stock, I used to change to quality output from none to Rock or Powerful, considering there was no graphic EQ. When I move to 2.48 for my surprise, in addition to this feature, a new button for EQ appeared in the realtek control panel, but the quality still was OK. Later I moved to 2.49 (lastest) and the situation was no more different than 2.28. The annoying this with any realtek version (no creative software at all in the system) the sound/music with the EQ activated suffered of muttering in the bass. For example, for any kind of music, when a beat was played (strong bass) the rest of the sound is reduced like normalizing the overall output for the sound, rendering the equalizer sound ugly. At the end, I stopped used the realtek EQ because this symptom occurred with or without headphones (Bose ones).

Now I'm with creative (stock software 1.0) over realtek 2.49, the sound fidelity increase and Easy Access Center works good so far. Testing the rest of the system (games mainly) because the sound in windows works nice and I (finally) have correct EQ sound.

 

Glad to hear it! Don't tell Kalim.

 

That's looks like software for creative discrete audio cards. Sound works properly?

 

HAHAHA.. It seems like chastity is trying to tell us something...maybe something along the line of -- "Kalim- The 'creative' hater"

 

What frightens me is Kalim has been very quiet on the forum.

 

I know.. he's been missing from here for sometime now.. Its like he is watching our posts and waiting to pounce on us when we start Bit*hing about him..

 

New Realtek 2.50 Driver.

 

Any clue about the changelog?

 

There's a changelog?

 

There is a pdf with it. But its really vague... For 2.50 it just says costumizations done if i remember correctly...

 

Key features for "Realtek High Definition Audio Driver 2.50"
• High-performance DACs with 103dB SNR are ideal for Dolby Master Studio
• ADCs with 90dBA SNR
• Meets performance requirements for audio on PC2001 systems
• 10 DAC channels support 16/20/24-bit PCM format for 7.1 sound playback, plus 2 channels of independent stereo sound output (multiple streaming) through the Front-Out-Left and Front-Out-Right channels
• 3 stereo ADCs support 16/20-bit PCM format, two for microphone array, one for legacy mixer recording
• All DACs support 44.1k/48k/96k/192kHz sample rate
• All ADCs support 44.1k/48k/96kHz sample rate
• Applicable for DVD-Audio solutions
• 16/20/24-bit S/PDIF-OUT supports 44.1k/48k/96k/192kHz sample rate
• 16/20/24-bit S/PDIF-IN supports 44.1k/48k/96k/192kHz sample rate
• Up to four channels of microphone input are supported for AEC/BF application
• High-quality analog differential CD input
• Supports external PCBEEP input and built-in digital BEEP generator
• Software selectable 2.5V/3.75V VREFOUT
• Six VREFOUTs are supported by default, with additional four VREFOUTs available by sharing unused analog I/O pins
• Two jack detection pins each designed to detect up to 4 jacks
• Reserve analog mixer architecture for backward compatibility with AC97
• Wide range (80dB ~ +42dB) volume control with 1.5dB resolution of analog to analog mixer gain
• All analog jacks are stereo input and output re-tasking for analog plug & play
• Built-in headphone amplifiers for each re-tasking jack
• Supports both analog DC volume control and GPI digital volume control
• 2 GPIOs (General Purpose Input/Output) for customized applications
• Optional EAPD (External Amplifier Power Down) is supported
• Power support: Digital: 3.3V; Analog: 5.0V (Minimum AVDD is 3.6V)
• Power management and enhanced power saving features
• 48-pin LQFP lead (Pb)-free package
• Meets Microsoft WHQL/WLP 2.0 audio requirements
• EAX 1.0 & 2.0 compatible
• Direct Sound 3D compatible
• A3D compatible
• I3DL2 compatible
• HRTF 3D Positional Audio
• Emulation of 26 sound environments to enhance gaming experience
• 10 Software Equalizer Bands
• Voice Cancellation and Key Shifting in Karaoke mode
• Realtek Media Player
• Enhanced Configuration Panel and device sensing wizard to improve user experience
• Microphone Acoustic Echo Cancellation (AEC), Noise Suppression (NS) and Beam Forming (BF) technology for voice application
• ALC882D features Dolby Digital Live output for consumer equipment
• ALC882H features Dolby Home Theater software
• ALC882M features Dolby Master Studio software

 

That isnt a changelog - it doesnt tell us whats changed from the 2.49 version.

 

Customizations! Duh

 

Has anyone made any progress on the Creative front in the last 10 days? Any updates?

 

Sorry, I've been focusing on other projects that this one has suffered a bit. I suppose I can get to this one too.

 

Chastity,
I have a problem..Well sorta..
I had creative stuff installed when i got it and left it like that for some time. Then i got the speakers crackling/ststic issue. uninstalled creative and updated the Realtek. no problems till now.
Recently i had 2 episodes of the static issue. One was just 5 minutes back. I trued to re-install creative and turn CMSS on and all that. Installed it from the Drivers CD. But after Restart, when i try to launch Creative control panel, It says that no devices where found for it to function and closes. Now what must have I done wrong. Any fix for this??

 

I can explain that.

The Realtek drivers that ASUS releases on their website have been customized for their hardware, but in this case, also for compatibility with the Creative suite. If you use Realtek's drivers from their support website, which have not been customized by ASUS, the Creative software doesn't recognize the audio hardware and won't be able to run.

Other people have taken the Realtek drivers and tried to perform a degree of customization themselves, but this removes the certificate used to sign the driver (which is used as a certification, a "free from defects" stamp from the manufacturer and/or Microsoft). Some versions of windows do not like unsigned drivers (Windows Vista x64 especially, and Windows 7 x64 to a more limited extent).

Your choices are: 1) switch to the ASUS version of the Realtek driver, 2) remove the Creative suite, or 3) Customize your own driver (or sniff around on the internet for daniel_k's pre-customized and unsigned drivers.

Most of us have gone with option 1 or 2 for the moment, but I think everyone in this thread would like a better solution.

 

So many fails but y? I really wish Asus would just release good creative/realtek drivers. I'd love to use EAX already!

 

Umm.. you mean to say "I really wish creative would release good creative/realtek drivers," NOT ASUS!

True. although, you will really need to set up with either or. I find that the latest drivers on realteks site works well for me. Too well. Only issues i currently have are random bsods once in a blue moon. I haven't checked realteks site in a bit so I need to make sure I have the latest.

 

Oh my bad, I wrongfully assumed since Asus still hasn't come up with a solution to its missing keystrokes/horrible touchpad or workable ATI packages/vBios that they must also be responsible for the joke audio with the g73.

...So, -1 Asus fail, +1 Creative fail and total g73 fails still = Asus >>>>>> Creative