RIP Auzentech

[Dent1]

JCgeny (you have erockers old avatar - really confused me) had the winning solution - all the cmedia drivers are available via that french site, they just link you right back. the x-mystique seems to use the 8770 drivers, and it installed and gave me all the software controls i need to fix the audio.

so thanks to this thread i now have a working windows 8 setup

For future reference for the members of the TPU community and guests reading. Traditional Auzentech cards use C-media chipsets, so new drivers can be found on C-media's website.

If you have a Auzentech / Creative hybrid card, you will have to wait for Creative to release new drivers. Don't hold your breath.

 

[Mussels]

For future reference for the members of the TPU community and guests reading. Traditional Auzentech cards use C-media chipsets, so new drivers can be found on C-media's website.

If you have a Auzentech / Creative hybrid card, you will have to wait for Creative to release new drivers. Don't hold your breath.

the x-fi cards have modded drivers on the pax forums. looks like we all have alternatives for now.

past windows 8 we're in trouble, but meh. we can manage for now.

 

[catnipkiller]

This company was a joke. The drivers they had online would not work with my card only the cd drivers worked. They told me my pc did not support the sound card but it works fine on cd drivers. I hope they never sell pc parts ever again.

 

[eidairaman1]

They are gone bro. Its odd they got hyped few years ago in pc mags...

 

[Dent1]

They are gone bro. Its odd they got hyped few years ago in pc mags...

To their credit their cards were top notch. Generally every review was glowing. I think the hype was well deserved at the time.

IMO they shouldn't have did that deal with Creative. They should have kept the C-media chips, C-media drivers were solid and stable.

 

[Mussels]

To their credit their cards were top notch. Generally every review was glowing. I think the hype was well deserved at the time.

IMO they shouldn't have did that deal with Creative. They should have kept the C-media chips, C-media drivers were solid and stable.

the deal with creative killed them. the deal was that for X years they could ONLY release cards with creative chips, and that creative would control the drivers.

we all see how that turned out - excellent company killed off (my auzen was low end from them at the time, and its STILL got awesome analogue quality and DD live encoding, now that c-media drivers can be downloaded)

 

[Dent1]

the deal with creative killed them. the deal was that for X years they could ONLY release cards with creative chips, and that creative would control the drivers.

we all see how that turned out - excellent company killed off (my auzen was low end from them at the time, and its STILL got awesome analogue quality and DD live encoding, now that c-media drivers can be downloaded)

The funny thing was when Auzentech emerged, Creative was still a monopoly.

Auzentech had a very strong offering, high quality components, Dolby Digital Live and DTS Interactive with no false advertising, no hoops to jump through, and with stable drivers.

So they enter this crazy deal with Creative only to get crushed by the monopoly they were initially successful fighting against.

Who are we left with now for dedicated sound? Asus and Creative. It's only a matter of time before Asus gets crushed.

I have a feeling that dedicated sound cards will disappear, Creative will start integrating their chips directly on the motherboard (onboard) a bit like Cmedia and VIA.

Why doesn't ATI and Nvidia can get a Dolby Digital Live license for their video cards? If they're trying to make their video cards more HTPC friendly this should seriously be considered IMO.

 

[Vario]

Theres other brands like http://www.esi-audio.com/products/julia/.

There will always be professional level sound cards.

 

[Kursah]

Kursah,

The strange thing is normally when companies folds there is a few articles floating around the net or an official closing words from the company thanking you for your support. The Auzentech site is definitely down though.

Ya I know. I've been watching for years as they went quiet. I'm just assuming it's all over and they did just go out quietly..or maybe they're looking to strike back...maybe something happened and was announced and it wasn't big enough to hit many radars? Who knows...but ya the site's expired and the last update was for 8.1 drivers...before that was over a year for Windows 8 drivers...then years for the Windows 7 driver. Can't say I needed better drivers though.

I bought this Forte and they were all the rage. I never really had issues with the drivers...the buzzing static was only happening when I left music paused too long...I'm not sure if that was drivers or hardware...I would ASSume drivers.simply stopping and restarting the song took care of that. It's been a good card...but then I had great luck with my Creative X-Fi Xtreme Music too.

Mussels I'll try to update the OP with links and such...I don't really have time to do much though. But if people want to post legitimate links or maybe we can talk W1z into hosting some Auzen drivers (I like this one! ).

 

[Mussels]

i'm with dent1. i want a soundcard (preferably in my GPU) with DD/DTS and onwards encoding support.

 

[Dent1]

Theres other brands like http://www.esi-audio.com/products/julia/.

There will always be professional level sound cards.

Agreed, but this is for a different market, not gaming or movie playback, but more a niche music production e.g. MIDI input for connecting a guitar or other instrument.

 

[remixedcat]

For those wanting better sound a DAC/amp is better anyways.

I love my Fiio so far. And it's not even that high end. Muuuuch better than my onboard realtek as well as my audigy 2 zs.

 

[tordogs]

This site has lots of the Auzentech drivers. Thanks to HardOCP member SirMaster.

http://lucca.hardforum.com/rewrite/...php&id=1&match=1&source=none&destination=none

 

[m0nt3]

I think they had to strike a deal with creative, because ASUS had struck a deal with c-media for the oxygen-hd chip, that the x-merdian was using.

 

[RejZoR]

For gaming Creative is better anyway. Had one C-Media card (Asus Essence STX) and i was far from impressed. Raw hardware specs are great but in-game 3D positioning sound was just pathetic. Couldn't sense a thing where anything is was coming from. But with any Creative card, easily.

 

[Mussels]

For gaming Creative is better anyway. Had one C-Media card (Asus Essence STX) and i was far from impressed. Raw hardware specs are great but in-game 3D positioning sound was just pathetic. Couldn't sense a thing where anything is was coming from. But with any Creative card, easily.

that depends on the games - creative had a monopoly, so many games were surround sound ONLY on creative. warcraft III was a great example - EAX for positional surround, anything else was just duplicated stereo.

that had nothing to do with hardware or being superior, as you could always use EAX emulation to get the same sound on other cards (via a modded copy of the alchemy program always worked for me)

 

[RejZoR]

I'm not talking about EAX or speakers number, i'm talking about how a soundcard renders 3D sound to the speakers (be it stereo or surround). And in this case, Creative wins hands down easily. Only card that was ever a serious competition were Aureal Vortex 2 based cards back in 1998 or so. Realtek HD Audio and C-Media, they are great for music and movies, but very bad for gaming, because you just can't take advantage of the sound like you can with SB X-Fi or SBZ cards in 3D game world. Because i simply need to know where enemies are with pinpoint accuracy. And that works with SBZ (and it did with X-Fi that i had before, the Auzentech X-Fi Forte).

 

[Mussels]

I'm not talking about EAX or speakers number, i'm talking about how a soundcard renders 3D sound to the speakers (be it stereo or surround). And in this case, Creative wins hands down easily. Only card that was ever a serious competition were Aureal Vortex 2 based cards back in 1998 or so. Realtek HD Audio and C-Media, they are great for music and movies, but very bad for gaming, because you just can't take advantage of the sound like you can with SB X-Fi or SBZ cards in 3D game world. Because i simply need to know where enemies are with pinpoint accuracy. And that works with SBZ (and it did with X-Fi that i had before, the Auzentech X-Fi Forte).

the only reason they had better accuracy was the monopoly on the software tied to them... the software crippled non creative cards.

 

[Nordic]

I'm not talking about EAX or speakers number, i'm talking about how a soundcard renders 3D sound to the speakers (be it stereo or surround). And in this case, Creative wins hands down easily. Only card that was ever a serious competition were Aureal Vortex 2 based cards back in 1998 or so. Realtek HD Audio and C-Media, they are great for music and movies, but very bad for gaming, because you just can't take advantage of the sound like you can with SB X-Fi or SBZ cards in 3D game world. Because i simply need to know where enemies are with pinpoint accuracy. And that works with SBZ (and it did with X-Fi that i had before, the Auzentech X-Fi Forte).

You play Ns2. Have you seen anything different in positioning with it? I went from a xonar DG to an azuntech prelude and saw no difference in positioning. Sounded better but I could tell where people were just as well. Now I have gone to this Aune t1 and it definitely is not as good in positioning but that doesn't surprise me.