X-Fi Support Syndicate & Owner's Clubhouse

[imperialreign]

I tried Ubuntu (Gutsy Gibbon), OpenSuSE 10.2, Fedora 7....all of the most popular distro's already fail. It's funny how Linux users (on an average) spend at least four hours to properly install a new device...automotive techies change a car's engine in that time while Windows users connect the device, insert the CD and five minutes later they're using it....and yet the Windows users complain of 'complicated' drivers.

or Linux users firmly stating that their OS is easier to use . . . sorry, I haven't been sold on it, yet - much like Vista. Hell, I'd prob rather install Vista than run Linux as of now. There's too many 1337 in the open source realm, IMO. It's a shame it has to be that way, too . . .


Wish I could be of help to ya with the Linux drivers - but I know absolutely nothing when it comes to Linux OS and driver installations/issues

 

[Neziak]

I just got my X-Fi XtremeGamer today and it thankfully it works with my cases AC97 front panel. I found it quite troublesome to keep opening the console to change modes at first but I found this program. X-Fi Mode Changer
It installs a tray icon where you can change modes easily. Sorry if this has been mentioned before.

 

[btarunr]

You can do that by right-clicking the Creative Console Launcher and selecting the mode you want from the menu. It has Application profiles, yay!

 

[Deleted member 24505]

Just thought i'd say.i'm using my card with a co/ax digital out to my sony amp.sounds cracking and it works fine on 5.1.

 

[imperialreign]

I just got my X-Fi XtremeGamer today and it thankfully it works with my cases AC97 front panel. I found it quite troublesome to keep opening the console to change modes at first but I found this program. X-Fi Mode Changer
It installs a tray icon where you can change modes easily. Sorry if this has been mentioned before.

thanks for that link - I'll give it a shot, too . . . I might end up adding that link to post #1.

Just thought i'd say.i'm using my card with a co/ax digital out to my sony amp.sounds cracking and it works fine on 5.1.

first off . . . damn dude, where ya been around these parts?! Ain't seen you on TPU in quite some time!

Otherwise, did you mean to say you were having an issue with your sound?

 

[Wile E]

thanks for that link - I'll give it a shot, too . . . I might end up adding that link to post #1.



first off . . . damn dude, where ya been around these parts?! Ain't seen you on TPU in quite some time!

Otherwise, did you mean to say you were having an issue with your sound?

No, he was saying it sounds really good.

 

[omi5cron]

i need some simple advice, sorry if this is not the corrcet place to post this. i recently got a Fatal!ty X-Fi card and I/O drive component, but i need a replacement for the AD_EXT ribbon cable. should i just email Creative, as there is no sign of that cable anywhere on there, except as part of an I/O upgrade package. frankly, i REALLY want to get a rounded cable substitute. i know it needs to be 40 pin, and UN-blocked. i have been searching for an hour, and i must be using the wrong terms. any info or directions would be greatly appreciated. if this is incorrectly posted, please let me know. i don't wish to hijack a thread!! thanks again!

 

[Alex Clarke]

Thanks for the detailed information imperialreign.

I've been running my Sound Blaster X-Fi Fatal1ty for a few weeks now on Windows XP Professional x64 (after ditching Vista) and have only experienced problems after upgrading to the latest drivers.

After installing the latest drivers I became victim of the X-Fi crackling/popping issue. Even simple sounds, when played in Windows would stutter - making music and games unplayable!

The drivers I'm using are Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi series Driver 2.15.0006 (63.05 MB).

What's annoying is that everything was working fine before installing these latest drivers.

I've tried to uninstall the drivers and reinstall the old ones, but when doing so I get a BSOD. This occurs as the old drivers are being installed. I think it has something to do with the latest drivers updating my sound card's firmware. Whatever the cause of this problem, I cannot install the old drivers.

I did some troubleshooting and even reinstalled my OS, but the problem was still there.

In the end I turned the sound card's Hardware Acceleration down to Basic. This resolved the issue. However, now I can't benefit from the X-Fi's built in memory and any of the EAX features.

After all this I found your guide!

I've read the section regarding crackling/popping issues and tried the fixes, but been unsuccessful.

Do you know of a way to fix this or will I have to wait for Creative to release new drivers?

 

[btarunr]

Try Driver Cleaner. You have to remove all traces of a newer driver from your system before you install an older one to avoid version-conflicts and related errors.

 

[imperialreign]

i need some simple advice, sorry if this is not the corrcet place to post this. i recently got a Fatal!ty X-Fi card and I/O drive component, but i need a replacement for the AD_EXT ribbon cable. should i just email Creative, as there is no sign of that cable anywhere on there, except as part of an I/O upgrade package. frankly, i REALLY want to get a rounded cable substitute. i know it needs to be 40 pin, and UN-blocked. i have been searching for an hour, and i must be using the wrong terms. any info or directions would be greatly appreciated. if this is incorrectly posted, please let me know. i don't wish to hijack a thread!! thanks again!

s'all good. You're talking about the 5.25" front panel drive, correct? If so, do you by chance have a pic of what the end of the cable looks like?

I'm pretty sure you can use a standard 40-pin IDE ribbon, like what you would use to hook up older HDD and CD-ROMs. Although, I can't say 100% for sure. If you might be able to provide a pic of the old one, that'd help.


@Alex Clarke - if btarunr's suuggestion of Driver Cleaner doesn't for some odd reason work (I can't imagine it wouldn't), you could give Creative's method a try as well.

right click on your Start button and select 'explore' Navigate to C:\Program Files\Creative\Sound Blaster X-Fi\Program and run the application entitled 'setup.exe'

when the Creative Driver Update Utility opens, click the box labeled "Overwrite existing shared Creative audio driver files," then select "Driver Uninstallation," and check the box labeled "Delete all shared Creative audio driver files." Finally, hit the 'OK' button. The utility will completely clear XP of all traces of Creative hardware and software.

next, install the driver from the update package first - and check your audio playback before you go adding software from the Installation CD.


Also, not really sure it will work in this case . . . but, do you have an option in BIOS to adjust your PCI latency? If so and you haven't tried it yet, raise it one notch. It may or may not make things better, and my gut feeling says it won't - but worth a shot, anyways.

If neither of these methods work, my best recommendation would be to stick with the drivers from the Installation CD, or whichever version worked for you last. Some versions of WIN XP don't seem to be compatible with newer X-Fi drivers (Windows XP Media Center, for example, the only driver version that is known to function properly is on the CD). If Creative releases any XP beta drivers, you can give those a shot, but they might not neccessarily fix the issue, either.

 

[4PLaY]

Hello XSS, I received an X-FI in a cardboardbox with 2 CDs one was a sampler and one I don't know what, How can I identify what type of XFI I have?

 

[btarunr]

Give us a pic if you can.

Visually inspect the card. There should be a model number (eg: SB073A, SBxxxx). What do you see?

 

[omi5cron]

i found a temporary fix for the broken I/O ribbon cable. what you see in the pic is an old ribbon cable from a very old PC. it has the 40 pin connector and none are blocked. i have used this successfully, but i really want a round cable. this is really ugly!! in fact, so was the original ribbon cable! any ideas on finding a round , compatible cable? i would mod this one, but it has the two connectors for slave/master drives, so no go. any help would be appreciated. oops, pic not loaded, i will try again later.

 

[Alex Clarke]

Try Driver Cleaner. You have to remove all traces of a newer driver from your system before you install an older one to avoid version-conflicts and related errors.

I used the Creative application (found on my original X-Fi drivers CD) to remove all traces of the new drivers. This has been recommended by many others X-Fi users (so my Google search tells me).

I also manually checked for any files left behind before installing the old drivers.

At the moment, I still think this is a firmware issue and the old drivers will not install correctly with cards using the new firmware.

if btarunr's suuggestion of Driver Cleaner doesn't for some odd reason work (I can't imagine it wouldn't), you could give Creative's method a try as well.

right click on your Start button and select 'explore' Navigate to C:\Program Files\Creative\Sound Blaster X-Fi\Program and run the application entitled 'setup.exe'

when the Creative Driver Update Utility opens, click the box labeled "Overwrite existing shared Creative audio driver files," then select "Driver Uninstallation," and check the box labeled "Delete all shared Creative audio driver files." Finally, hit the 'OK' button. The utility will completely clear XP of all traces of Creative hardware and software.

next, install the driver from the update package first - and check your audio playback before you go adding software from the Installation CD.


Also, not really sure it will work in this case . . . but, do you have an option in BIOS to adjust your PCI latency? If so and you haven't tried it yet, raise it one notch. It may or may not make things better, and my gut feeling says it won't - but worth a shot, anyways.

If neither of these methods work, my best recommendation would be to stick with the drivers from the Installation CD, or whichever version worked for you last. Some versions of WIN XP don't seem to be compatible with newer X-Fi drivers (Windows XP Media Center, for example, the only driver version that is known to function properly is on the CD). If Creative releases any XP beta drivers, you can give those a shot, but they might not neccessarily fix the issue, either.

The 'setup.exe' file you mentioned does not exist on my system. I simply downloaded and installed the new Creative drivers and have not (and will not) install anything from the CD.

As mentioned above, I'm pretty sure the reason I can't install the old drivers is due to the firmware update applied by the new drivers. The reason I think this is because I couldn't install the old driver even after a complete format!

I also doubt that the drivers on the CD will work (again due to the new firmware), but have not tested this.

I've just changed my PCI Latency (for all devices it looks like) in the BIOS. It was set to 8 (out of 31). So, I set it to 31... and my X-Fi now works with the new drivers and hardware acceleration set to max!

My motherboard (LANPARTY UT RDX-200) manual states:

PCI Latency Timer (CLK)
This feature is used to select the length of time each PCI device will control the bus before another takes over. The larger the value, the
longer the PCI device can retain control of the bus. Since each access to the bus comes with an initial delay before any transaction
can be made, low values for the PCI Latency Timer will reduce the effectiveness of the PCI bandwidth while higher values will improve it.

By default the value is set to 8 and the max (as mentioned above) is 31.

Do you know why this default value of 8 is used? Also, will setting this value to max (or much higher than 8) have any adverse affect on my system performance?

Thanks for the help so far and, fingers crossed, everything will keep on running fine!=.

 

[Alex Clarke]

Ok, here's another update.

After reading up on PCI Latency (just a Google search) I found that it is best not to set the value too high in the BIOS.

So, I changed the value from 31 (max) to 9 (1 above default, which was causing me issues) and my X-Fi still worked!

I wanted to confirm that it was this PCI Latency setting that had been conflicting somehow with my X-Fi, so I changed it back to the default setting of 8.

Windows loaded fine and I was able to play some music and a little Battlefield 2 (sound on max settings) without any issues.

What does this tell us? I don't really know!

Changing the PCI Latency value has obviously fixed the problem (hopefully for good), but the problem doesn't return if I undo this change.

Hopefully this information will help someone else out.

 

[imperialreign]

@Alex - the setup file I mentioned is the same exact application as the driver utility on the X-Fi installation CD. Typically, when doing an install of the drivers, etc, from the CD, it should be copied also to the HDD. No worries, though.

As to PCI latency, it's a measurement of how long of a time a device is allowed to have access to the systems PCI BUS. The BIOS will specify a default setting that WIN interpets when managing device intertupt requests. Not all BIOSes have an option to change this setting, though. By increasing the latency, you're providing more clock cycles for a device to have access to the BUS. With short latency times, it becomes harder for the sound card to transfer files from SYS MEM to the card and back, and can typically lead to audio clipping or partially processed playback.

Typically, setting a high setting shouldn't damage your system, it would just lead to a somewhat instable state, and very long wait times for components, which would slow the system down overall. I wouldn't have recommended putting the latency setting to max, nor would I have recommended leaving it there, either. But, there should be no harm done to your system.

Glad to hear it's running fine now, though!

 

[Alex Clarke]

Well... I did set the PCI Latency back to default (as mentioned above) and my X-Fi worked fine.

However, after playing a few songs (using Windows Media Player 11) I noticed some crackling and popping (nothing as bad as before).

So, I moved my PCI Latency up by 1 (again) to 9.

All seems to be fine now.

Thanks again for all your help.

 

[Russtavo]

Think I have a handle on the problem - Taken from Wikipedia:

Applications communicate with the audio driver through Sessions, and these Sessions are programmed through the Windows Audio Session API (WASAPI). In general, WASAPI operates in two modes. In exclusive mode (also called DMA mode), unmixed audio streams are rendered directly to the audio adapter and no other application's audio will play and signal processing has no effect. Exclusive mode is useful for applications that demand the least amount of intermediate processing of the audio data or those that want to output compressed audio data such as Dolby Digital, DTS or WMA Pro over S/PDIF. WASAPI exclusive mode is similar to kernel streaming in function, but no kernel mode programming is required.

It seems Media Player/Centre is using exclusive WASAPI, hence why it works great and third-party apps like PowerDVD aren't using it, thus my problem. Seems there is no solution

Ok for those that remember my posts and who helped me, I have solved my problems by ripping out the X-Fi card and putting in a Sweex C-Media based card, and used the Open Source drivers. Everything now works as expected in all apps!

 

[Heichef]

You got it. I'll do it over the weekend. Meanwhile I have to mod an end-to-end 3.5mm jack cable. Since I'm testing the Linux drivers for the SB X-Fi (which seem to be specially programmed not to work), I have a SB Xtreme Gamer running in this machine now.

Hi!
Hope you had success with those problematic Linux drivers.
Do you have any news on the Prelude's high volume distortion in RMAA tests?

Thank you in advance.

 

[Mistral]

Hello,

I've had a "Sound Blaster X-Fi Platinum Fat Champion" for quite a few months now, without any problems if I dare add.

Thing is, I now have 4x1GB RAM and cracking galore in ViSHTA64 if I turn on the thing (sorry, can't remember the exact name) that lets you use all 4GB.

Anyhow, my question is as follows: are there any fixes for that?

 

[imperialreign]

Hello,

I've had a "Sound Blaster X-Fi Platinum Fat Champion" for quite a few months now, without any problems if I dare add.

Thing is, I now have 4x1GB RAM and cracking galore in ViSHTA64 if I turn on the thing (sorry, can't remember the exact name) that lets you use all 4GB.

Anyhow, my question is as follows: are there any fixes for that?

TBH . . . not that I am aware of

Did you upgrade to the new driver version that was released last week?


<edit>

in the meantime, I'll research it some . . .

 

[Mistral]

The 06 from march 14? I did. IIRC, even in 04 there was something about them having fixed the 4GB problem, but as lots of users can attest to, that clearly isn't the case.

 

[imperialreign]

The 06 from march 14? I did. IIRC, even in 04 there was something about them having fixed the 4GB problem, but as lots of users can attest to, that clearly isn't the case.

Yeah, the driver details mention something about fixing an issue with 4GB of RAM, but it doesn't offer much further info.

TBH, I hadn't even known there was an issue with 4GB systems . . . I'm still digging for further information on it; perhaps I can turn up some kind of info of value - if I can at least get a better idea about what the specific issue is and what is cause/affected by it . . .

 

[Alex Clarke]

Just a quick update, my problem as reported in earlier posts (crackling/popping issues) here is back!

I too am running a system with 4GB of memory (and memory hole enabled in the BIOS).

Unlike Mistral, however I'm using Windows XP Pro x64 as my OS.

I might actually contact Creative about this issue as the old drivers ran fine!

 

[Myssi]

X-Fi fatal1ty modechange problemo.

Not sure if this has been already answered here somewhere, search funtion didn't bring out any usefull results and I got bored going through these posts somewhere around page 20.

But anyways, having odd issue with the mode changing software, it seems to be stuck on Game mode for good, when I try to switch into Entertaiment or Audio creation mode I get the following Audio Console error message.

'This operation cannot be carried out. This may be because the audio device is in use. Please quit all audio applications and games, and try again.'

The funky thing is that I'm not running any audio programs, even shut down IRC-client and Messenger.
It slapped the game mode on by itself and now it refuses to let it go. I've had the card for about 5 days now.

I've re-installed all the software and changed the card into different PCI slot, with and without the frontpanel and still nothing.
Drivers are newest ones I could find on Creatives website ofcourse, everything else works just perfectly, all the CMSS thingies go on and off like they should, it detects when I plug my headphones in and so on.

System specs go something in the lines of
Asus P5B-deluxe, onboard sound turned off.
Intel C2D E6600 @3.37Ghz
2Gigs of DDR2 800Mhz
Vista home premium 32bit
Club3d 8800GTS320
And ofcourse X-Fi Fatal1ty pr0 XtremeGamer with that frontpanel thingie.

Ventilation should be ok, Antec P182 with one 120mm fan blowing air to the case infront, 2 at the rear taking it out.
All drivers and BIOS are up to date as far as I know.

Edit. It worked Ok for a while and then it jammed itself into the game mode.