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Anyone use the Creative DDL/DTS encoder pack?

S

Sycraft

Supreme [H]ardness
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I picked it up to play with it for my new reciever. It works, it encodes the audio and sends it to the reciever... But it distorts sound sometimes. It isn't a case of the speakers or amp distorting or anything, I can switch over to analogue inputs and have no problems. It is the encoder.

Rather annoying.
 
Ive had it for a number of years on my auzentech prelude, always worked fine for me. sent out to my receiver via DDL in xp and DTS in 7.
 
Defined as the signal is clipping. It is attempting to encode volumes louder than it can. You can't turn it down, since the volume control is non functional when in encoder mode.
 
Found both the reason and the solution.

The reason: Creative's own drivers have problems with the DTS encoder for some reason. When used with it, they drive the signal to too high a level, causing clipping. Since you can't reduce the volume overall, the only solution is to reduce app volume. This does NOT affect Auzentech cards.

The solution: Modified Auzentech drivers. The famous Daniel K has modified the drivers for the Prelude to work with Creative cards. They do not have the problem. So you use that driver, and then the software that came with your card. The combo works great.

This just reinforces with me that I'm going to buy one of their HDMI cards when it comes out.
 
Sycraft said:
Found both the reason and the solution.

The reason: Creative's own drivers have problems with the DTS encoder for some reason. When used with it, they drive the signal to too high a level, causing clipping. Since you can't reduce the volume overall, the only solution is to reduce app volume. This does NOT affect Auzentech cards.

The solution: Modified Auzentech drivers. The famous Daniel K has modified the drivers for the Prelude to work with Creative cards. They do not have the problem. So you use that driver, and then the software that came with your card. The combo works great.

This just reinforces with me that I'm going to buy one of their HDMI cards when it comes out.
Click to expand...

yeah I was going to say, I have volume control on my Auzentech with DDL enabled, it just resets the volume control when you first set DDL ("Exclusive control of audio device")

no idea on DTS (Don't have Vista/Windows 7, so dont screw with that)
but glad to hear you've got it working
 
Ya I think it works a little differently in Vista/7 than in XP. DDL also isn't affected by the volume control. Reason is probably because Vista handles volume differently. There's no "wave out" volume setting in Vista, for example, that is always 100%.

Whatever the case, Creative needs to go take a long walk off a short pier. I'm a big fan of their CA20k1 chip, but they fail at the drivers.

When the X-Fi HomeTheater HD comes out, I think I'll get one if reviews are good. Auzentech seems to be able to take Creative's chip and implement it with good drivers.
 
Sycraft said:
Ya I think it works a little differently in Vista/7 than in XP. DDL also isn't affected by the volume control. Reason is probably because Vista handles volume differently. There's no "wave out" volume setting in Vista, for example, that is always 100%.

Whatever the case, Creative needs to go take a long walk off a short pier. I'm a big fan of their CA20k1 chip, but they fail at the drivers.

When the X-Fi HomeTheater HD comes out, I think I'll get one if reviews are good. Auzentech seems to be able to take Creative's chip and implement it with good drivers.
Click to expand...

whats really ironic here, is that (from my understanding) Creative actually has a yes/no option on Auzentech's products, and the drivers are basically the exact same thing, as in, Creative writes a base driver, and Auzen just makes minor changes to support their hardware

thats a pretty sad day, if you ask me, for Creative's products, if they're really that cripled by drivers that make Auzen's boards so wonderful to use

we're not even talking fully re-written drivers, just slightly modified...

and given that normally when some 3rd party OEM does modifications, it kills the drivers (like those Asus or Leadtek "enhanced" drivers for GeForce cards.....*sigh*)
 
Sycraft said:
Ya I think it works a little differently in Vista/7 than in XP. DDL also isn't affected by the volume control. Reason is probably because Vista handles volume differently. There's no "wave out" volume setting in Vista, for example, that is always 100%.

Whatever the case, Creative needs to go take a long walk off a short pier. I'm a big fan of their CA20k1 chip, but they fail at the drivers.

When the X-Fi HomeTheater HD comes out, I think I'll get one if reviews are good. Auzentech seems to be able to take Creative's chip and implement it with good drivers.
Click to expand...

Ah, the genius that is creative :)
 
obobski said:
whats really ironic here, is that (from my understanding) Creative actually has a yes/no option on Auzentech's products, and the drivers are basically the exact same thing, as in, Creative writes a base driver, and Auzen just makes minor changes to support their hardware
Click to expand...

If Creative does write the driver I wonder why they don't use it. The prelude driver I'm using is actually fairly different from the X-Fi driver I was using. Basically the Prelude driver is a UAA driver, which is the new "Vista" was of doing things. It isn't required, but it is a better way of handling audio interfaces.

Now it wouldn't surprise me that it took time for Creative to write this, after all their first Vista X-Fi driver was just a port and fixup of their X-Fi one. However, if that's the case... Why not use this one? Not only does it fix a problem with DTS encoding, it is just all around a better/more efficient way of doing things in Vista/7.

Whatever the case, if Auzentech has the good drivers, theirs are the cards I want to support. Also as I've said, HDMI audio interests me. Over all I'm pleased with the quality of the DTS Interactive audio, but it could be a bit better. Primary it raises the noise floor a bit vs straight PCM from the card.

I'm just glad I can make use of the Auzen drivers with my card. My receiver only supports MultEQ XT on digital inputs. It really is a technology that's worth the price of admission IMO. I'd be annoyed if I was limited to using it on 2-channel sources.

As for the class action, ya I'm sick of hearing about it too. File it or STFU. I think it is just people throwing a tantrum trying to get Creative's attention. Well guys, it doesn't work, so drop it. Either decide their products are worth the hassle and keep buying them, or decide they aren't and give your money to someone else.
 
Sycraft said:
If Creative does write the driver I wonder why they don't use it. The prelude driver I'm using is actually fairly different from the X-Fi driver I was using. Basically the Prelude driver is a UAA driver, which is the new "Vista" was of doing things. It isn't required, but it is a better way of handling audio interfaces.

Now it wouldn't surprise me that it took time for Creative to write this, after all their first Vista X-Fi driver was just a port and fixup of their X-Fi one. However, if that's the case... Why not use this one? Not only does it fix a problem with DTS encoding, it is just all around a better/more efficient way of doing things in Vista/7.

Whatever the case, if Auzentech has the good drivers, theirs are the cards I want to support. Also as I've said, HDMI audio interests me. Over all I'm pleased with the quality of the DTS Interactive audio, but it could be a bit better. Primary it raises the noise floor a bit vs straight PCM from the card.

I'm just glad I can make use of the Auzen drivers with my card. My receiver only supports MultEQ XT on digital inputs. It really is a technology that's worth the price of admission IMO. I'd be annoyed if I was limited to using it on 2-channel sources.

As for the class action, ya I'm sick of hearing about it too. File it or STFU. I think it is just people throwing a tantrum trying to get Creative's attention. Well guys, it doesn't work, so drop it. Either decide their products are worth the hassle and keep buying them, or decide they aren't and give your money to someone else.
Click to expand...

I agree on both points :)

regarding why they dont use the Auzen driver they paid a fortune to help develop:
no f'ing idea in hell

I remember ixbt or guru3d (Forget which, both are credible enough imho), talking about how the X-Fi Prelude just uses a repacked X-Fi driver, with a few changes, apparently Creative won't then take this driver back and re-release it for their own products, maybe they actually can't, I don't know, very interesting though

honestly I've yet to use an audio interface thats entirely hastle free, and I can't say modern Creative boards are anywhere near the worst (people really need to stfu about "ALchemy is hard" or whatever before I get my ISA based soundcards out and demonstrate what "pain in the ass" really means...)

from what I've read on UAA, it is required for Windows Vista Logo cert, but it isn't Vista exclusive, apparently theres a way to get it working in XP (http://www.eggheadcafe.com/software/aspnet/32228449/uaa-hd-devices-in-winxp-s.aspx (basically you get to tell part of your drivers that you have SP2, and some other ridiculous crap, I'm not touching that, everything works as it should for me, but if anyone is curious enough to try it, I'd love to hear results))
 
The best experience I've had driver wise is with the IDT (formerly Sigmatel) HD audio chips on Intel motherboards. Their drivers are WHQL certified, one of the few audio drivers that are, and seem to just work. However while the software is good, the hardware is rather cheap. They don't have a good opamp on their output, so my low impedance headphones hiss, and their sound quality is a little shoddy on speakers. Then of course there's the "no EAX thing".

All in all I'll put up with Creative's crap to get the better hardware. However Auzentech seems to do Creative better than Creative, so I'm likely to switch.

Who knows, maybe Creative wants out of the end user market? Maybe they want to sell 20k chips to other companies and have them do the end user bit.
 
Sycraft said:
Who knows, maybe Creative wants out of the end user market? Maybe they want to sell 20k chips to other companies and have them do the end user bit.
Click to expand...

I'd be down with that, if they just went nVidia style, and provided chips to other vendors
 
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