Windows 7 and Creative X-Fi

[kafkef]

I removed the x-fi card and the onboard one works fine. I'll just wait 'til the drivers are fixed.

my creative xtreme gamer fatality professional (this thing needs a shorter name) works just fine on 7 with 5.1.. probably just the drivers that need an update on the other pc.

[PGHammer]

I am not hopeful but is there anyway to get sound from my Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Gamer card in Windows 7?

The Vista drivers do work in 7 (that's what I used).

Once you do that, then update the drivers (7 will then update them to 7-specific drivers from Microsoft).

[bdevy]

The Vista drivers do work in 7 (that's what I used).

Once you do that, then update the drivers (7 will then update them to 7-specific drivers from Microsoft).

Yes the drivers do work however not for 5.1 sound. Only stereo or 2.1. When tested sound will only come out of front spekers. I have tried original drivers, updated drivers, compatibility mode, admin only mode, windows update (which by the way always said that the most current drivers were installed no matter which ones were installed) and on board sound. Please if anyone got X-fi 5.1 sound to work correctly post the method that worked. The steps you took, which driver, what mode, ect. Thanks

[bdevy]

Yes the drivers do work however not for 5.1 sound. Only stereo or 2.1. When tested sound will only come out of front spekers. I have tried original drivers, updated drivers, compatibility mode, admin only mode, windows update (which by the way always said that the most current drivers were installed no matter which ones were installed) and on board sound. Please if anyone got X-fi 5.1 sound to work correctly post the method that worked. The steps you took, which driver, what mode, ect. Thanks

OK I really miss hearing sound from all my speakers. Does anyone have a definitive answer as to how i go about getting 5.1 sound from my X-Fi fatality card. What steps to take? You are all such very knowledgeable people I'm sure this can be figured out.

[XxIPxX]

http://i33.tinypic.com/mbl6xu.png

you can use the compatibility mode and install the creative drivers,

1 do not try to set 5.1 or 7.1 in the console

2 go into your playback devices

3 click speakers and then config

4 set to whatever surround you want..

in my case 5.1

5 go back to your creative console

6 set your speakers to what you want, (it has to match what you put in the playback devices)

7 Creative Player also works in Windows 7

hope this helps..

XxIPxX

[bdevy]

http://i33.tinypic.com/mbl6xu.png

you can use the compatibility mode and install the creative drivers,

1 do not try to set 5.1 or 7.1 in the console

2 go into your playback devices

3 click speakers and then config

4 set to whatever surround you want..

in my case 5.1

5 go back to your creative console

6 set your speakers to what you want, (it has to match what you put in the playback devices)

7 Creative Player also works in Windows 7

hope this helps..

XxIPxX

Thanks for the info. Just a few questions,1) Every time I try to install any driver other than the one off of the vista disc it states that it is the wrong OS. Which one did you use? 2) Did you install the consol before or after the driver and what version did you use?

Thanks

[XxIPxX]

make sure you right click the setup and go to compatibility set it to run as Vista RTM, then it will install fine..

1 Drivers

2 Console Launcher

3 Creative Player

[bdevy]

make sure you right click the setup and go to compatibility set it to run as Vista RTM, then it will install fine..

1 Drivers

2 Console Launcher

3 Creative Player

Thanks I'll try it tomorrow. Are those the latest versions of the drivers?

[XxIPxX]

yes they sure are

[bdevy]

yes they sure are

OK I'm really frustrated at this point. I followed the advice and everything installed perfectly but I'm still only getting sound out of my front speakers. When I test them under windows config for 5.1 the sound for the rear speakers comes out of the front speakers. When I go to test them with the creative console only the two front speakers are highlighted even though 5.1 surround is selected. I know my speakers are fine, they work in XP and Vista. Damn. Any thoughts anyone?

[bdevy]

OK I'm really frustrated at this point. I followed the advice and everything installed perfectly but I'm still only getting sound out of my front speakers. When I test them under windows config for 5.1 the sound for the rear speakers comes out of the front speakers. When I go to test them with the creative console only the two front speakers are highlighted even though 5.1 surround is selected. I know my speakers are fine, they work in XP and Vista. Damn. Any thoughts anyone?

After redoing everything and installing all updates I got it to work. Thanks to all and especially XxIPxX!

[XxIPxX]

admin, please keep this on top so others with problems will know how to fix it :)

thanks

XxIPxX

[bdevy]

Update: all went well except when I playback any audio or video there is no sound from rear speakers. They do test fine in the creative console and also in windows sound console. Almost had it! Any ideas?

[XxIPxX]

hmm, my rears play just fine, double check your settings..

also some audio unless eax or other surround it turned on you will only get stereo..

[bdevy]

hmm, my rears play just fine, double check your settings..

also some audio unless eax or other surround it turned on you will only get stereo..

I checked all settings and still no sound from rear speakers when playing a file. I'm stumped. I've done this a thousand times with XP, Vista, and now W7.

[Rainarrow]

Hello, thanks for the information!

I followed the instruction, but my problem is in I can't choose "Speakers and Headphone" in console launcher, which would cause it to crash(Console Launcher has stopped working) immediately in Entertainment mode, and won't get any response in the other 2 modes. Also, when I switch to the Audio Creation Mode, the "Speaker Configuration" display is empty, I think this means Console Launcher is unable to access the system API whatever it need to get the info about speakers.

I have tried uninstall/reinstall both the driver and console launcher(I didn't install any other programs), run the launcher under compatibility mode and admin mode, to no avail.

My system is Windows 7 [6.1.6956], the driver I used is the lastest ones downloaded from Creative website, their filename is SBXF_PCDRV_LB_2_18_0004.exe for the driver, and CSL_PCAPP_LB_2_60_29.exe for the Console Launcher program. My card is a X-Fi XtremeMusic, which works fine under XP and Vista, even under Linux with the newly released open source driver(only stereo though).

The mobo is a P35 based one, although I don't think it matters.

Any clue or hints?

Thanks in advance!

[PGHammer]

The install quits out and says I need to be running Vista.

The drivers work; however, the software doesn't.

Right-click the Multimedia Audio Controller, and select Update Driver (ala Vista), and follow the prompts, making sure your X-Fi Vista CD is in the drive.

[Rainarrow]

UPDATE: CREATIVE released a new driver (file name SBXF_PCDRV_LB_2_18_0008.exe, date marked as Dec 17), and solved the lack of surround support under Windows 7! Install this driver and everything will be ok.

NOTE: you still need to use Vista compatibility mode to install this driver, since 7 is not officially supported.

[bdevy]

UPDATE: CREATIVE released a new driver (file name SBXF_PCDRV_LB_2_18_0008.exe, date marked as Dec 17), and solved the lack of surround support under Windows 7! Install this driver and everything will be ok.

NOTE: you still need to use Vista compatibility mode to install this driver, since 7 is not officially supported.

Thanks for letting us in on the update. I installed them on my vista partition and all worked out fine. They sound great and 5.1 still works. I reformatted the Win 7 partition and installed the new drivers and the 5.1 checks out in the console and in windows speaker setup however when I playback music there still is no sound coming from the rear speakers. I'm stumped. I tried all the settings I could think of.

[Rainarrow]

Hello,

I can confirm my system is giving out 5.1 sound, in both movie (I use KMPlayer) and EAX games(I play CoD4 and GTA4).

I just followed the instruction that first first setup the sound devices in Control Panel, then in Creative Console Launcher.

Thanks for letting us in on the update. I installed them on my vista partition and all worked out fine. They sound great and 5.1 still works. I reformatted the Win 7 partition and installed the new drivers and the 5.1 checks out in the console and in windows speaker setup however when I playback music there still is no sound coming from the rear speakers. I'm stumped. I tried all the settings I could think of.

[kraken]

I'm having a problem in build 7000... In the console or windows setup I get sound out of my rear speakers like back left, back right I hear out of them. But when I play any music or any video I only get sound on my front two speakers! I find it weird that I get sound out of my rear speakers but not when playing something correctly...

It works in the console and the Windows set-up but when something actually plays it only is from my front two speakers!

See 5.1

But only options for two of my speakers...

build 7000

Edited December 27, 2008 by kraken613

[dovellas]

Asus P4P 800 Audio Solution ?

[Denis W. Veteran]

Here's what I observed when attempting to install drivers for my X-Fi Prelude.

The X-Fi Prelude's driver installer doesn't have a hardcoded check for Vista, unlike Creative's own installer (unless they've changed it recently). So the installer will install the drivers without the need to force on the Vista compatibility option.

If you turn on Vista compatibility, you'll get that odd bug where sound only comes out of front left/right and not centre, rear left/right, or the subwoofer. Also as the installer was configured to support Vista, you will not get an option to change speaker configuration in the fancy console or the Audio Console.

But if you install without turning on Vista compatibility, I believe the installer thinks the OS is XP. Therefore you do get the option to switch the speaker configuration in the consoles. This way, surround sound works as it should, but unfortunately X-Fi CMSS will not work for the time being. But otherwise everything else works.

[kraken]

So what drivers should I use? The ones for my X FI card? Just put them in XP computability?

[Undefineed]

has anyone had issues with the intermittent crackling? drivers used to work swell without a problem on build 6801 but seems to have screwed itself in build 7000 :(

sigh... and i've tried everything. Windows 7 so beautiful don't want to revert back to XP :( but i might go back to older crappier build

So what drivers should I use? The ones for my X FI card? Just put them in XP computability?

what you do is download the Vista version of the drivers, then extract the drivers to a folder. I'd recommend winrar since that works beautifully (www.rarlab.com). Once installed right click on the downloaded creative drivers choose extract to "download filename"\ and it will extract the setup to the folder. then what u do is go into the newly created folder, look for setup.exe and right click on it. Choose compatibility and then choose windows vista > clicky apply and then run setup. it should install ur drivers.