ok, forget about the hard modding. I just need some software driver fix to make the decoder tab appear in audio console.. anyone else have any ideas? links to the drivers i need what versions and anything else special that I need to do?
Recap:
Dell OEM SB0460/SB0470 - Xtrememusic
Windows XP SP2
No Decoder TAB in Audio Console.
No Dolby or DTS logos in Main Screen of the Console Launcher.
In regards to your first statement, wpcredit, not sure if and/or how well it would work - or if would even work for XP. It might be worth a shot, but without any real knowledge of the software, I have no idea if you'd run the possiblity of fubaring your card . . .
First, I would attempt to change the Vendor ID stored in XP's registry (make sure to properly backup your registry first!) [more info here:
registry hardware values], Creative's Vendor ID is
0x1102- if Creative's driver packs only double check with the vendor ID stored in WIN, it might go ahead with the install. If it actually queries the hardware . . . you might be out of luck, as (aside from possibly wpcredit) I've never heard of any software that can change a hardware components vendor ID without being able to flash the hardware's BIOS.
Well, if the official Creative drivers won't work . . . you could also try daniel_k's drivers (I believe these are the most recent):
http://www.driversdown.com/drivers/Creative-X-Fi-Daniel_K-driver-2.20.0000.0-WinXP-2003-Vista-2008-Win7_87836.shtml
OT, kind of
Have you guys seen the thread on realtek x-fi mod by ketxxx?
Here.
All cool. But.
I don't get this guy... He modded the realtek driver to add x-fi features. (that he btw hates
) Everybody says how better their onboard sounds now with X-Fi. Free X-Fi sound so to say. Cool. The guy says he aint doing wrong or illegal cus he is not asking for money.
(going by this rationale - well, if someone burns your car or rapes your hamster whichever means more to you - just for kicks, not for money - is it allright with you? Is it?)
He says he "just" copy-pastes bits into text files - that does not make it OK either. It is still someones intelectual property, isn't it? Not going to say this there cus this guy is insane and anyone saying else is labeled "a troll"
(read my sig) But I feel he is actually taking what's not his. If I wrote this code and he grabbed it like that and gave it out to everyone I would not like it... I mean there is a difference between unlocking certain features and freely copying code written for device A into driver for device B. By doing that you effectively undercut A.
I have used several Creative products and still running X-Fi in my PC. It is a good product and I doubt it is all software only. (I remember reading a lot of the processing chip was dedicated to calculate resampling. I can't imagine soft modding can take care of that...)
Anyway, I just thought this should be said somewhere.
I agree with btarunr's post . . . he's not doing anything "illegal" ATM - but were he to do the same to drivers that you have to pay for (i.e. after the 30-day trial is up), then there's an issue. As to the Creative bashing - meh . . . I think the majority of it is unfounded, as many of the bigger issues people seem to have are starting to crop up with competing audio cards as well (mostly ASUS).
As to being able to better your audio quality with those drivers . . . that's 100% questionable, subjective and hard to discern (partly why I requested someone to test the output audio quality with RMAA before and after installation of the drivers - I'd do it myself, but I don't have a RealTek equipped motherboard). Sure, the majority of Creative's "features" (such as EAX, CMSS-3D, Crystallizer, etc.) are software based and onboard chipsets (as well as chipsets on competing audio cards) are capable of executing these instructions, as far as full functionality and accuracy is concerned, X-Fi APU equipped cards will be able to execute those instructions many times better than competing hardware . . . the majority of the software effects, and how many can be rendered at a single instance, are dependant upon the number of hardware and software voices an audio processor is capable of - in effect, it's abilit to multi-task.
The only thing that the drivers actually do, is tell the audio hardware
how it's supposed to be processing the audio - you can easily fool people into thinking the audio quality is much better than it is by applying slight reverb and echos tweaks, amplifying certain frequency ranges, and normalizing channel volumes (for example, what the Crystallizer feature does, see this page for more info:
http://ixbtlabs.com/articles2/multimedia/creative-x-fi-part2.html). The
real audio quality, though, is fully dependant on the capabilities of the hardware that's involved with the output stream processing . . . specifically the primary DSP, the DAC and output OPAMPs.
I'm very leary of any claims that state to increase real audio quality by applying a simple driver or software package - the stream itself might be cleaned up a little by processing it differently, but the actual audio quality dependant on the hardware will not change.
Anyhow, it's nice to see Creative starting to open up their software functionality to other hardware manufacturers, especially EAX. I'm hoping this trend will continue.