Creative X-fi soundcard users
@ Technical Discussion forum

Yes this is probably the most useless thread for most people, but for me this is one hell of a thread i've almost DREAMED to make, only because all the shit i've been through and now finally FIXED it.

It all started when i went on vacation and came back when my brother was using my PC. I couldn't wait to come home to plug in my headphones and listen to the great wonderful sound as i remember it, but when i came back it was a DIFFERENT world.. the sound was shit.. i thought it was my ears or the headphones, i thought it was the hardware, my motherboard, my psu, my ram EVERYTHING.. i just tried everything, changed every settings i could but still no fucking luck.. i reinstalled drivers like 50 times minimum and doesn't change anything.

I formated my PC 3 times, i took the soundcard out and in more than 100 times i tried new PSU, i bought new RAM.. i replaced my headphones like 4 times, changed every detail, tried every custom encoder, tried new cables... Yes i've been through fucking hell.

One time i think i have the standard sound, other times i think its bugged again... the sound just.... it's almost identical to onboard sound (Yes i ended up taking the crap out and use onboard instead as it SOUNDED better, believe it or not.)

NOW though, after fucking months i've finally found out that ONE thing; The encoders. Yes the encoders are very, very buggy with the creative shitty drivers and that was the case for me, and thats why i had the poor sound.. Creative X-FI do give the function to use Dolby digital encoder or the DTS.. what this does is giving you REAL 5.1 surroundsound instead of the default fake ones emulator that sounds like onboard. BUT what the bug is that you CANT turn it on, it says this:

the creative audio service is not started. please reinstall the application

And then it turns it off... What i thought at the start that i've always had it on OFF thats why i never bothered fixing that bug, i just didnt think it was it.. but i was so desperate to have some difference in the sound that i just wanted to mess up with this, and i found the solution:

Uninstall ALL your drivers, and don't use your CD to install it again as they're outdated, download this beta driver version instead:

http://support.creative.com/downloads/welcome.aspx?nDriverType=11#type_11

That would fix the problem for you, and you can now enjoy your soundcard with real 5.1 surroundsound in your headphones, a fucking great soundquality that you'll enjoy....

Basicly, this soundcard is pretty much SHIT without having the encoder on, if you dont have it on your soundcard is pretty much useless and you can use your onboard instead.. and the funniest part is, its just THAT part that is bugging in the drivers often, so be SURE to check that you have the encoder on, because without it you're missing of alot of things and you can pretty much throw your soundcard away

And thats it! i don't ever hope again that anyone goes through what i've been through with this shit.

And for all NON-creative users, please dont accuse it for being shit and stuff like that in comments, we all know you love your asus xonar or w/e and yes we all agree that the drivers are fucking shit in this card, BUT when having it working probably the sound is decent and all the money worth.

Enjoy and sorry if that wasn't help for you, the point of this thread is for all of those who are having the same problems as me and thinks their sound is poor this would be a great help, and to quickly find the problem with the card instead of doing stupid shit as i did because of frustration.

EDIT: fucking hell.. the difference in that is fucking unbelievable, this is ridiculous how much better that shit is.. like going from hell to heaven, enjoying life atm.

// axian Posted 6 months ago: Thu, 01 Nov 2012 16:13:53 +0000

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