How bad Are Creative soundcards

[ayoub_ibrahim]

Originally posted by Helevitia
Waht happened to the "I dont have any problems iwth my SBLive!? I would have voted for that. I had major problems with a MX300.

Dave

I think that TP & Greebe are on the case to extend the poll!

[Greebe]

I have yet to hear anything from The PIT... you out there?

[MultimediaMan]

SBLive...

Actually, in Win9X, the SBLive is a pretty decent card. I currently own two, and I am well-pleased with the sound quality. The S/PDIF output on that card rivals my Toshiba DVD/HDCD Player, and that's not bad.

Creative, on the other hand, has been anything BUT Creative when it comes to driver and feature support...

MIDI support for the SBlive isn't bad, but again...Creative hasn't given us anything new; To Wit:

Remember the 5.1, 7.1 Channel support we were promised with the Digital DIN connector on the original SBLive? Where did that vanish off to?

What about LiveWare? It's been like 2 years since we've seen anything there, either.

Even the Platinum 5.1 does not offer 5.1 EAX support...and that really sucks because Creative only mentions this inside the box, in the manual, in teeny tiny type at the bottom of the back of the instructions...In other words, thay are selling a NAME, not the Features therein.

What about Audigy? Another Thread, I know, has already started a dicussion, but let's be real:

Again, Creative has merely done an Al Gore and re-invented the same chipset with a couple of new features that probably will not be supported in the end. But you can be sure that we the consumers, will get it "in the end" because of Creative's false promises and lack of driver development if we buy this card.

[nehalmistry]

fixes

HERE ARE SOME FIXES

these are fixes i found on the net for the crackling problemand possible any other problems u are getting with the sb live, even though i dont have a live! i have a awe32 and had the same problem... im not sure if these would work.. but worth a try...

bios:
pci delay transaction - 0
pci device timer latency - disable
pci master read caching - disable
pci master-time out - 0

fix:
there is a fix for the 686b chipset specifically to fix sb live problem

http://www.viahardware.com/download/viapfd100.exe

my fix:
this worked for me.... i didnt have the options for the bios.. so i overlocked the fsb which upped the pci clk.... well it worked.....


apparently the problem is when the ide bus is accessed in udma board and sound is being played on the sb live! ... i have even heard that data loss is possible.. although rare....... and other problems.. etc.... search on the net u can get lots of info on sb live's problems...

[The PIT]

Crackling is also due to the debugging code left in the latest DX and you need to to turn it off. The easy way is search for the directx control applet on the internet and use that.

[The PIT]

Now the poll has been altered lets continue.

[Jorden]

What if I have a Creative card but not an SBLive! ???

Have you installed a SBlive in the following boards and have had problems

I've got no problems with my SB 32 PnP on an Asus board anyway

[cbman]

No problems with a Sound Blaster 16 PNP in my Slow computer and no problems with the Sound Blaster PCI 128 in the other (815, BX, and ALI has all been used before)

[Dr Mordrid]

Pit,

If debugging code with the latest Dx is a problem how does that explain issues under Dx5-Dx7? Did they have debugging code too?

Dr. Mordrid

[Wombat]

You wouldn't have any problems with the ISA cards.

Data loss is possible, even without the Live!, but having a Love seems to make the problems happen about 100 times more often, at least.

[J1NG]

<B>but having a Love seems to make the problems happen about 100 times more often</B>

Thay's true, I don't have a love right now, and everything works!

J1NG
Sorry, couldn't resist... I'll be a good boy and go now

[cbman]

Not true about the ISA cards... if you don't know what you are doing and decide to mess with the unlabeled or oddly notated jumpers you could be on the recieving end of a day of fun

Or even better... if you mess with someone else's jumpers it could cause your day at work to become a nice ringside seat to a mental breakdown...

[Clevor]

Poor 3D sound quality

The Soundblaster Live cards have a muted volume in 3D games compared to the A3D cards. It's so bad I have a 5.1 Platinum card I never installed. I am currently running a Diamond MX300 running on the last set of drivers from Aureal. I recently bought 2 more spare MX300 cards for $26 each.

I have 2 computer gaming rigs and may never run a SB card in either. Unfortunately, the Vortex cards don't have W2K drivers.

[The PIT]

Dr Morbid.
All I can say is that someone else came up with the solution I tried as did several others and it worked. If you've got crackling under win2k give it a spin it don't hurt to try it.

Sorry I got to mention that I noticed that crackling got introduced with the lastest DX however on my BX I didn't notice very much but I sure did on the Via. Now nice and quiet unless you turn the volume up to the highest and you can listen to the harddisk working.

[Wombat]

I only use the digital output on my Live!, and there's no noise that I ever notice on this setup.

We should mention whether we're using the analog outputs or not.