Win 10 sound card issue

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Elf_Boy

2[H]4U
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Nov 16, 2007
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Anyone else have a Creative Labs card upgrade to 10 and find there is not a driver?

And further that the new driver is expected in October.

Anyone have a good workaround or fix?

Other then that the install went ok.
 
at least you're getting a driver...my Auzentech sound card won't work fully in Windows 10 (Auzentech went out of business)...so I have to switch to onboard audio (Realtek ALC889 codec)...it actually sounds pretty good so I might just stick with it rather then buy a new sound card
 
I have not tried this driver because my Xfi Titanium hd is working. I cannot adjust anything because the creative console doesn't work but it works nonetheless. It sucks that the drivers are taking so long. Here is a link to some drivers you may want to look at. Make sure your card is supported.

http://forums.creative.com/showthread.php?t=714135
 
Download the Daniel_K driver from the creative forums. My Titanium HD is not having any issues, and everything works, all creative functions.
 
Reason No.20 not to install Win10. I guess I am stuck with that Win10 upgrade icon in the system tray for a full year!!!
 
You need to use the drivers posted by Shoop above.

My X-fi is working fine in windows 10 Pro.
 
Yep, Daniel K's drivers are the bomb--been using them since Vista days. MS and Creative have an ongoing love/hate relationship. Between the two I wanted to rip out the hair I don't have so ripped out the old SB X-Fi Titanium instead. The DK drivers would work fine until MS decided to force another hardware update and break them. Think they finally got it settled during the last couple of preview builds--haven't tried them on the RTM so hoping they have finally stabilized. Might reinstall the SB at some point as I much prefer the software to the mess that is onboard Realtek. (Those drivers were only slightly less problematic than the Creative).
 
any unofficial Windows 10 Auzentech sound card drivers out in the wild?
 
Creatives drivers are the main reason I stopped buying their sound cards. After I did that I realized that onboard sound is now good enough that I'm not even sure I can tell a difference.

Come on, join the cheap side!
 
I've not used a Creative/SoundBlaster for years because of drivers and at one time, compatibility with Linux. However, I think that in general, unofficial community-created drivers tend to be the best for any sound card that have them.

For instance, I have an Asus Xonar Xense sound card which has served me well for many years, built on a quality chipset and with some nice hardware under the hood especially considering its age. However, I use the modded UNi Xonar drivers ( http://maxedtech.com/asus-xonar-unified-drivers/ ) instead and find them to be the most up to date and can be setup/customized for my preferences. They already have a note about compatibility for Windows 10, for instance.

There tend to be communities who package/update/support drivers for sound cards because of how varied the quality and support between manufacturers, chipsets and more. I'd look around for a well regarded unofficial driver package for your card, preferably one that already has discussed Win10 support.
 
Quix said:
Creatives drivers are the main reason I stopped buying their sound cards. After I did that I realized that onboard sound is now good enough that I'm not even sure I can tell a difference.

Come on, join the cheap side!
Click to expand...

What is hilarious (to me) is that when they finally released specs so that proper Linux drivers could be built, now the Linux drivers are *awesome*. Same (or more) features of the Windows drivers without some of the annoying quirks (like the static chirping).
 
That first link for Daniel_K's drivers is for the older version (3.3).

He has released 3.4 since then here
http://forums.creative.com/showthread.php?t=720562

I use that for my XFi Titanium and my Auzentech Prelude.

The only issues I have so far is the sound doesn't work on my XFi until I switch to Cinema mode and then back to Game mode :|
 
Shoop said:
I have not tried this driver because my Xfi Titanium hd is working. I cannot adjust anything because the creative console doesn't work but it works nonetheless. It sucks that the drivers are taking so long. Here is a link to some drivers you may want to look at. Make sure your card is supported.

http://forums.creative.com/showthread.php?t=714135
Click to expand...

Thanks

I tried those drivers.

They work.... till I reboot the computer.

Not gonna install a driver every time I turn the thing on.

I emailed Creative Labs.

They told me to use my onboard sound.
 
Haha! Gotta love Creative telling you to use onboard--I've already beat them to the punch.

There is a trick to getting the Daniel K Creative drivers to "stick" on Windows 10--apparently it was the same with 8/8.1. Install them and get the settings as you would like them then turn off the computer. Don't restart or anything else--just turn it off/shutdown. Then reboot. Oddly the settings seem to hold and the drivers become stable. At least that is the way it was in the preview versions of W10. Has something to do with the way 8/10 don't do a full shutdown or something--Daniel K explained it in one of his blogs.

Don't think the RTM has changed anything there--it should work until MS decides to do a forced update on Creative drivers. Might have to redo it all again after that. MS blames Creative, Creative blames MS and the game continues after all these years. Honestly not sure either company has a clue on writing driver code that works. Thank you Daniel K.
 
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If I get really bored one day I might try that out.

I've already pulled the Sound Blaster off my mobo.

I like the sound of the RealTek better in some games.

I was, in the past, worries about the 2-5% cpu time the audio codex was using - older systems with less cores were being maxed out in some games. Nothing maxes out the 8350 (in my experience) I dont think anything is coded to use more then 4 cores sadly. So my need for a sound card has passed.

I may end up with an Asus card at some point just because I want to check them out. I should probly look at getting better speakers at some point.
 
Elf_Boy said:
I was, in the past, worries about the 2-5% cpu time the audio codex was using - older systems with less cores were being maxed out in some games. Nothing maxes out the 8350 (in my experience) I dont think anything is coded to use more then 4 cores sadly. So my need for a sound card has passed.
Click to expand...

Hardware Audio acceleration hasn't been used in games since XP for the most part (Directsound and thus EAX, etc didn't carry on over to Vista and Win7, and almost no games use OpenAL), so that hasn't been the primary reason to get a sound card for a very long time.

Also, if you don't see all your cores being used, it's more likely because of limitations in the way your game is coded than anything else. It's depressing but many games still do the majority of their processing on a single core, using additional cores mostly for secondary tasks. Things have gotten better but it is still very much possible, and in fact quite common, to have a game using all of the CPU power it is capable of using yet still have entire cores mostly unused. DX12 is supposed to help with this, but we'll see.
 
GotNoRice said:
Hardware Audio acceleration hasn't been used in games since XP for the most part (Directsound and thus EAX, etc didn't carry on over to Vista and Win7, and almost no games use OpenAL), so that hasn't been the primary reason to get a sound card for a very long time.
Click to expand...

In fairness, it's not clear from your quote that the *reason* hardware accelerated audio went away in Vista is because *Microsoft* killed it in the APIs, not because the vendors all unanimously decided to stop.
 
I didn't even bother putting the SB-XFi in my new build. Have gotten old and deaf so sound hardly matters that much anymore. Given the sounds being nearly equal from onboard/dedicated audio I still much prefer the Creative software to that offered by Realtek. Also liked the front panel controls and I/O of the old Creative card. It is still around and might restore it at some point.
 
svet-am said:
In fairness, it's not clear from your quote that the *reason* hardware accelerated audio went away in Vista is because *Microsoft* killed it in the APIs, not because the vendors all unanimously decided to stop.
Click to expand...

And that is about the same time all the trouble started between MS and Creative if I remember correctly. Daniel K got involved about that time and then got into hot water with Creative for writing drivers that would work with MS OS. No good deed goes unpunished.
 
I used the Daniel K 3.4 drivers, worked great.

Only temporary issue is that a couple times there was no sound from my main speakers. Plugging in a headphone and then unplugging them would resolve the issue. To make it stick, there were a couple boxes to tick under the Creative driver properties under the headphone tab, something about auto detecting if headphones were not plugged in.
 
I can't wait for official support for my SB0886. It is *technically* functional right now but I can't get quadraphonic audio or my front-panel to work.
 
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