X-Fi Support Syndicate & Owner's Clubhouse

[mikek75]

Ah yes, but it was Boxing Day and at least it got me out of the house, LOL.

EDIT: Colin Mcrae DiRT uses Open AL and says EAX Advanced HD on the sound setup screen

 

[FreedomEclipse]

Boxing day??? sorry i was lying in a gutter somewhere in london witha terrible headache - couldnt go anywhere

 

[mikek75]

LOL, I'm originally from London too bud, I vaguely remember Christmas there too. Quiet life in the country for me now. Its my age y'know! Too many squat parties when I was a dispatch rider...Anyone for K?

 

[kenkickr]

Last night my daughter and I watched "Tinkerbell" for the 2nd time...what can I say, I like it!! J/K I couldn't get over how much cleaner and crisp the sound is now. I'm highly impressed with the X-Fi Titanium Pro.

What's up with the activation key on the CD Sleeve? When I brought the card home I just downloaded the driver, Alchemey, DTS and Dolby packages, and the audio control center; and haven't had any issues.

 

[imperialreign]

Last night my daughter and I watched "Tinkerbell" for the 2nd time...what can I say, I like it!! J/K I couldn't get over how much cleaner and crisp the sound is now. I'm highly impressed with the X-Fi Titanium Pro.

What's up with the activation key on the CD Sleeve? When I brought the card home I just downloaded the driver, Alchemey, DTS and Dolby packages, and the audio control center; and haven't had any issues.

Activation key?

That's the first I heard of it . . . I honestly couldn't tell ya, man . . . maybe for a software demo or something, IDK . . .



@mamoose124 - it dawned on me after my last post . . . the RCA connection is probably for digital SPDIF . . .

if so, there's no digital connection to the back of the PCI-based X-Fi cards. You would need either the Digital I/O module (~$20) or the external X-Fi I/O console to connect the RCA cable.

The external consle connects to the 26-pin D-Sub connector, and your RCA connection will attach to the console.

The I/O module connects to the line_in and line_out connections on the back of the card, and converts the analogue signal back to digital (IIRC).

 

[human_error]

Thought i'd pop in here and register that i have a titanium championship edition (pci-e with front module).

It's in my system listed under my system spec (p6t deluxe, i7 920, 6gb ram, vista 64) and i'm getting serious crackling and popping with all versions of their drivers.

I've tried the card in all 3 of my spare pci-e slots (1 is in use for graphics card) and it doesn't seem to fix the issue, which looks to be driver related as if i run off vista's default drivers i get very little/no crackling but as soon as i install the creative drivers the crackling returns. I have had once when i had reseated the card in another pcie slot and re-installed all the drivers after a system restore that the card ran wonderfully (like my old xfi platinum on my old rig) with full accleration, but after the pc had been shutdown over night starting her up next day it had the crackling issues back

One other issue i get it when i am having the crackling issue sometimes game or entertainment mode won't work (no sound comes out the speakers at all for anything) and switching round to audio creation and back sometimes fixes it, sometimes it requires a full restart. When it is able to output sound but when there is no sound to play i also get a lot of noise down the speakers as well which is some sort of electrical noise (happens in my headphones connected to the front port as well, so it isn't a connection issue). The crackling seems to be some sort of excessive bass (or sounds like what would happen if i pushed a lot of base through my speakers, though it isn't the speakers themselves as they can deal with more base than what is being outputted).

I've tried the drivers on the cd, the latest whql drivers from their site (17. something) and the 17. something beta drivers from their site, the 18.something ones recently released are not available for the card at the moment I've also used the card in 3 different pci-e slots, disabled all overclocking, messed with all the settings in all the control panel options, enabled and disabled the digital output, reseated the card and nothing seems to be working, so any more ideas you guys have would be greatly appreciated.

I'm using a 5.1 philips surround sound kit which i've had for 3 years and worked brilliantly with my xfi platinum.

 

[imperialreign]

Thought i'd pop in here and register that i have a titanium championship edition (pci-e with front module).

It's in my system listed under my system spec (p6t deluxe, i7 920, 6gb ram, vista 64) and i'm getting serious crackling and popping with all versions of their drivers.

I've tried the card in all 3 of my spare pci-e slots (1 is in use for graphics card) and it doesn't seem to fix the issue, which looks to be driver related as if i run off vista's default drivers i get very little/no crackling but as soon as i install the creative drivers the crackling returns. I have had once when i had reseated the card in another pcie slot and re-installed all the drivers after a system restore that the card ran wonderfully (like my old xfi platinum on my old rig) with full accleration, but after the pc had been shutdown over night starting her up next day it had the crackling issues back

One other issue i get it when i am having the crackling issue sometimes game or entertainment mode won't work (no sound comes out the speakers at all for anything) and switching round to audio creation and back sometimes fixes it, sometimes it requires a full restart. When it is able to output sound but when there is no sound to play i also get a lot of noise down the speakers as well which is some sort of electrical noise (happens in my headphones connected to the front port as well, so it isn't a connection issue). The crackling seems to be some sort of excessive bass (or sounds like what would happen if i pushed a lot of base through my speakers, though it isn't the speakers themselves as they can deal with more base than what is being outputted).

I've tried the drivers on the cd, the latest whql drivers from their site (17. something) and the 17. something beta drivers from their site, the 18.something ones recently released are not available for the card at the moment I've also used the card in 3 different pci-e slots, disabled all overclocking, messed with all the settings in all the control panel options, enabled and disabled the digital output, reseated the card and nothing seems to be working, so any more ideas you guys have would be greatly appreciated.

I'm using a 5.1 philips surround sound kit which i've had for 3 years and worked brilliantly with my xfi platinum.

All driver versions cause isues, right?

Do you have another system with a similar operating system you could try out? There have been a few issues in the past with more than 4GB of RAM and Vista64 setups . . .


But, honestly, I get the feeling it might be due to the new hardware. There hasn't been a driver release for the Titanium cards yet since the i7 platforms rolled out . . . what you're describing sounds like hardware related issues, like the device IRQ being given too low a priority for the system (the crackling and popping is typically a result of not having enough access to the system BUS). Not being able to switch to entertainment mode sounds like a broken driver issue . . . but could still be hardware related.


For the moment, the only other recommendation I could make would be to try a clean-install of the drivers. Use the setup utility found in the Creative folders on your HDD and remove all drivers and software. Then use Driver Sweeper in Safe Mode to finish removing all Creative-related files and references. Follow that up with a good registry cleaner for anything else. Then install the drivers and software - start with the instalation CD first. If that works out and you have no issues, my best advice is to leave it alone and not worry about any updated drivers - unless you're really willing to give them a shot. In general, I've gotten to the point of recommending things be left alon once you have a driver set that works . . .

The only idea past that would require formating the HDD and re-installing the OS; once the OS is installed, install chipset drivers, then install the X-Fi drivers before any video drivers, if you can, put the card in the closest sot to the CPU - if your motherboard has onboard video, run off that first as well without any GPUs in the PCIE slots. I'm not definite on Vista, but XP only passes out temporary, default IRQs to new devices until the drivers are installed. Once the drivers are installed, it's permanent, and it's almost impossible to change a device's IRQ without some serious registry hacks.



Truthfully, though, I get the feeling it's that the drivers aren't fully compatible with the new hardware just yet - if you're not up for trying out the advice I posted just above, you might want to consider being patient until the next Titanium driver package is out . . . but, I have no idea when that would be (I'm hoping soon, the PCI cards and Xtreme Audio just recieved driver updates).

 

[human_error]

Thanks, i'll try and do a full clean of all my drivers (using driver cleaner.net) in safe mode and see if that helps. I don't think it is a hardware conflict as it did work fine once, with full acceleration, if there was a hardware conflict i'd have thought that it would have prevented it working even once...

I do have a 2gb vista 64 rig in my house i can try and use, but it only has 1 pci-e slot so i need to remove the graphics card when i test (and use onboard) which takes a while, i'll try that later today/tomorrow if a full system clean doesn't do the trick. Unfortunately i dont have any onboard video on my rig's mobo, and i only have a couple of high end gpus spare in my house, all ATi.

One other issue i noticed since i installed the new sound card is when i do get issues with it the computer never shuts down correctly, it goes to the shutting down screen and then is happy to remain there forever (i just remembered as all my G15 lcd apps were reset when i started up, as i had to just hit the reset button to get the machine to shutdown and startup after removing the creative drivers earlier...). I never had any issues like that before I installed the new card.

UPDATE: Just installed the latest whql drivers on their website onto a clean system and i'm getting the issues still I have noticed odd behaviour with it - when i hover over different things on my start menu it makes a odd noise each time i move over new ones, like a faint electrical hum, through the speakers. When scrolling through firefox pages with no sound embedded i get a faint noise that sounds like what you get if you blow onto a microphone (no my mic isn't plugged in) - this is looking a lot like a driver issue to me...

 

[mamoose124]

hmmm . . .

I get the feeling the one mini-jack connection coming from your speakers is for the left/right channel speakers. If this is true, this connection with go into line_out 1.

The RCA cable sounds like it feeds the subwoofer seperately (although I can't be 100% certain), but if this is true, you'd need a mini-jack to RCA adapter that would plug into line_out 3 (center/sub channel).

Again, this is just kinda a guess - it sounds like you have a rather unconventional hook-up configuration for common computer speakers.[/QUOTE]

Yes, the mini-stereo cable is essentially the analog signals from the left & right speakers and should connect to Line_out 1. I agree that the RCA cable needs a mini-stereo adapter on one end but since this cable transmits S/PDIF signals shouldn't it be connected to the X-Fi's FlexiJack which supports S/PDIf connections? This is where I am confused. Why hook this cable to Line_out 3 (center/Sub channel) which does not handle S/PDIF signals?

 

[imperialreign]

Yes, the mini-stereo cable is essentially the analog signals from the left & right speakers and should connect to Line_out 1. I agree that the RCA cable needs a mini-stereo adapter on one end but since this cable transmits S/PDIF signals shouldn't it be connected to the X-Fi's FlexiJack which supports S/PDIf connections? This is where I am confused. Why hook this cable to Line_out 3 (center/Sub channel) which does not handle S/PDIF signals?

Well - you're right, if the RCA cable is SPDIF, then it'd need a RCA<=>mini-jack adapter, which would connect to the flexi-jack (which is Mic_out).

If the RCA simply carries the bass signal to the subwoofer it'd connect to line_out3.

Thanks, i'll try and do a full clean of all my drivers (using driver cleaner.net) in safe mode and see if that helps. I don't think it is a hardware conflict as it did work fine once, with full acceleration, if there was a hardware conflict i'd have thought that it would have prevented it working even once...

I do have a 2gb vista 64 rig in my house i can try and use, but it only has 1 pci-e slot so i need to remove the graphics card when i test (and use onboard) which takes a while, i'll try that later today/tomorrow if a full system clean doesn't do the trick. Unfortunately i dont have any onboard video on my rig's mobo, and i only have a couple of high end gpus spare in my house, all ATi.

One other issue i noticed since i installed the new sound card is when i do get issues with it the computer never shuts down correctly, it goes to the shutting down screen and then is happy to remain there forever (i just remembered as all my G15 lcd apps were reset when i started up, as i had to just hit the reset button to get the machine to shutdown and startup after removing the creative drivers earlier...). I never had any issues like that before I installed the new card.

UPDATE: Just installed the latest whql drivers on their website onto a clean system and i'm getting the issues still I have noticed odd behaviour with it - when i hover over different things on my start menu it makes a odd noise each time i move over new ones, like a faint electrical hum, through the speakers. When scrolling through firefox pages with no sound embedded i get a faint noise that sounds like what you get if you blow onto a microphone (no my mic isn't plugged in) - this is looking a lot like a driver issue to me...

the sounds you claim when moving the mouse . . . sounds like it's picking up noise being induced by the USB on the BUS . . . this has become quite common with various audio cards, and can be tricky to eliminate.

First, though, I'd recommend trying to get to the bottom of the audio issues . . . the hanging shut-down sequence defi sounds like a driver related problem . . . perhaps try lowering your system RAM to 2GB or 3GB for testing purposes, and see how it acts overall.

also, what kind of USB devices do you have hooked up and operating ATM? Some devices, or some USB chanels, can throw a wrench in the whole works and for some reason (that I still don't understand) cause features to not work, or other strange issues.

 

[human_error]

the sounds you claim when moving the mouse . . . sounds like it's picking up noise being induced by the USB on the BUS . . . this has become quite common with various audio cards, and can be tricky to eliminate.

First, though, I'd recommend trying to get to the bottom of the audio issues . . . the hanging shut-down sequence defi sounds like a driver related problem . . . perhaps try lowering your system RAM to 2GB or 3GB for testing purposes, and see how it acts overall.

also, what kind of USB devices do you have hooked up and operating ATM? Some devices, or some USB chanels, can throw a wrench in the whole works and for some reason (that I still don't understand) cause features to not work, or other strange issues.

I've tried the system with a single 2Gb stick and the issue was still there. The hanging seems to be the sound drivers doing a LOT of work, it has resolved itself now as i left my pc for 35 mins when it eventually shut down correctly and was ok since shutdown wise.

USB devices i have a logitech G7 wireless mouse, the wireless receiver is a looong way from the tower and it didn't affect my xfi platinum card, my keyboard is a logitech G15 rev 1 with the lcd screen, those drivers are upto date and have no audio modifying applications installed. I also have a logitech joystick installed, but because the drivers for it are notorious for causing lag issues in some of my online games i am using the vista default drivers for it. I also have the USB overclocking palm device that came with my mobo, again on latest drivers.

I installed the card in another PC with vista 64 and 4gb ram but on an OEM motherboard and an AMD 4400+ in it and i still got the issues with the noise (and when moving the mouse). The usb devices in that are a logitech g11 (no lcd) keyboard and a logitech wireless mouse. I got the same issues with the different drivers available however im unsure on the stability on the oem board as after i finished testing on it i put a spare audoligy pci card into it and it isn't detecting it, although that is probably an unrelated issue. It may be that the card is faulty since it doesnt work in either rig, what do you think? (i'm gonna return it tomorrow, depending on what you think i may get a straight swap for a replacement or just get my money back).

 

[imperialreign]

I've tried the system with a single 2Gb stick and the issue was still there. The hanging seems to be the sound drivers doing a LOT of work, it has resolved itself now as i left my pc for 35 mins when it eventually shut down correctly and was ok since shutdown wise.

USB devices i have a logitech G7 wireless mouse, the wireless receiver is a looong way from the tower and it didn't affect my xfi platinum card, my keyboard is a logitech G15 rev 1 with the lcd screen, those drivers are upto date and have no audio modifying applications installed. I also have a logitech joystick installed, but because the drivers for it are notorious for causing lag issues in some of my online games i am using the vista default drivers for it. I also have the USB overclocking palm device that came with my mobo, again on latest drivers.

I installed the card in another PC with vista 64 and 4gb ram but on an OEM motherboard and an AMD 4400+ in it and i still got the issues with the noise (and when moving the mouse). The usb devices in that are a logitech g11 (no lcd) keyboard and a logitech wireless mouse. I got the same issues with the different drivers available however im unsure on the stability on the oem board as after i finished testing on it i put a spare audoligy pci card into it and it isn't detecting it, although that is probably an unrelated issue. It may be that the card is faulty since it doesnt work in either rig, what do you think? (i'm gonna return it tomorrow, depending on what you think i may get a straight swap for a replacement or just get my money back).

The Audigy, IIRC doesn't have supported Vista drivers.


The reason I mentioned the USB stuff - I've had one incident myself, and I've seen a few other incidents, where having a certain USB device will (for some unknown reason) disable some features . . . such as hardware acceleration (which includes all EAX, CMSS-3D, Crystalizer features), sometimes it's only one audio feature and not another, sometimes it prevents switching hardware mode . . .

I've seen where swapping around devices on the USB hubs can clear this issue up, other times (such as with my case), the device simply needs to be left disconnected.

It's strange, and I wish I had further knoweldge as to what causes it - whether it's and OS/chipset issue, hardware issue, or driver issue.


Hmmm . . . another thought, if you might be up for it - you could always attempt to clear out the Creative drivers again, and instead install 3rd-party drivers from over at YouP-PAX: http://hosted.filefront.com/robertmc814 . . . I believe there might be some X-Fi daniel_k drivers floating around as well, but many of those seem to be disappearing . . .

but, be aware installing 3rd party drivers is at your own risk . . . I've never gotten around to trying any of them out, so I have no idea how well they'll work. Based on community response, they seem stable . . .

TBH, I can't really think of much else aside from a possibly defective card . . . if you try 3rd party drivers, and it's acting exactly the same as it is now, it's quite possible something on the card is defective.

 

[human_error]

The Audigy, IIRC doesn't have supported Vista drivers.


The reason I mentioned the USB stuff - I've had one incident myself, and I've seen a few other incidents, where having a certain USB device will (for some unknown reason) disable some features . . . such as hardware acceleration (which includes all EAX, CMSS-3D, Crystalizer features), sometimes it's only one audio feature and not another, sometimes it prevents switching hardware mode . . .

I've seen where swapping around devices on the USB hubs can clear this issue up, other times (such as with my case), the device simply needs to be left disconnected.

It's strange, and I wish I had further knoweldge as to what causes it - whether it's and OS/chipset issue, hardware issue, or driver issue.


Hmmm . . . another thought, if you might be up for it - you could always attempt to clear out the Creative drivers again, and instead install 3rd-party drivers from over at YouP-PAX: http://hosted.filefront.com/robertmc814 . . . I believe there might be some X-Fi daniel_k drivers floating around as well, but many of those seem to be disappearing . . .

but, be aware installing 3rd party drivers is at your own risk . . . I've never gotten around to trying any of them out, so I have no idea how well they'll work. Based on community response, they seem stable . . .

TBH, I can't really think of much else aside from a possibly defective card . . . if you try 3rd party drivers, and it's acting exactly the same as it is now, it's quite possible something on the card is defective.

I have noticed that the card is picking up some usb signals from some of my usb devices (no matter what port they are in) but this only happens when running the card off of creative's drivers, when on the vista default drivers i don't get any of the noise at all, to add to the confusion when using the latest whql drivers now the card will sometimes vanish from device manager and only registry cleaning and re-installing the drivers does it return in all it's crappy noise glory. I have had a quick look and can't see any other devices with the same IRQ as the card when it is installed, however there are about a gajillion different devices under device manager so i can't manually check them all, is there an IRQ chacker that could do a check for me? (in case it has the same irq as say, a usb hub ).

I've tried fully emi shielding it with sealed water containers all around it (or as much as poss) and that doesn't affect the noise, plus when vista is set to mute i still get the noise and sounds through, almost as if the card is completely unaware it is sending the noise out, but this isn't a hardware defect as it doesn't happen when using the vista default drivers (well i don't think it is a hardware defect, but i'm more of a gpu man - sound cards are not my expertise).

I did try the PAX christmas drivers but they didnt seem to install properly, i'll give them a final attempt now - i made a thread on the creative forums where someone with a x38 is having similar problems and someone with a x58 based mobo gave some steps that made theirs work, though they had a different issue with the mic. I have also experimented with all the pci-e settings in my bios, i've tried ocing the pci-e frequency, boosting the voltage, changing the pcie-e spectrum settings (whatever they do ) none of which helped...

I also emailed creative about the issue, but i doubt they will come back with anything constructive, i was a pre release adopter of the retail version of vista ultimate 64 and they denied they had any serious driver issues to me with vista just before vista was officially released, and we all know how stable they were back then

Thanks for your thoughts with this problem, i've decided to keep the card a couple more days since it's a 2.5 hour trip to return it to see if creative - or more likely you guys can come up with a solution...

(oh and there are some vista 64 audology drivers available from creative, but i think it's a audology 2 or something, the drivers just lack 99.99% of all xp functionality).

 

[imperialreign]

I have noticed that the card is picking up some usb signals from some of my usb devices (no matter what port they are in) but this only happens when running the card off of creative's drivers, when on the vista default drivers i don't get any of the noise at all, to add to the confusion when using the latest whql drivers now the card will sometimes vanish from device manager and only registry cleaning and re-installing the drivers does it return in all it's crappy noise glory. I have had a quick look and can't see any other devices with the same IRQ as the card when it is installed, however there are about a gajillion different devices under device manager so i can't manually check them all, is there an IRQ chacker that could do a check for me? (in case it has the same irq as say, a usb hub ).

I've tried fully emi shielding it with sealed water containers all around it (or as much as poss) and that doesn't affect the noise, plus when vista is set to mute i still get the noise and sounds through, almost as if the card is completely unaware it is sending the noise out, but this isn't a hardware defect as it doesn't happen when using the vista default drivers (well i don't think it is a hardware defect, but i'm more of a gpu man - sound cards are not my expertise).

I did try the PAX christmas drivers but they didnt seem to install properly, i'll give them a final attempt now - i made a thread on the creative forums where someone with a x38 is having similar problems and someone with a x58 based mobo gave some steps that made theirs work, though they had a different issue with the mic. I have also experimented with all the pci-e settings in my bios, i've tried ocing the pci-e frequency, boosting the voltage, changing the pcie-e spectrum settings (whatever they do ) none of which helped...

I also emailed creative about the issue, but i doubt they will come back with anything constructive, i was a pre release adopter of the retail version of vista ultimate 64 and they denied they had any serious driver issues to me with vista just before vista was officially released, and we all know how stable they were back then

Thanks for your thoughts with this problem, i've decided to keep the card a couple more days since it's a 2.5 hour trip to return it to see if creative - or more likely you guys can come up with a solution...

(oh and there are some vista 64 audology drivers available from creative, but i think it's a audology 2 or something, the drivers just lack 99.99% of all xp functionality).

Sorry I can't really be of much further help, man -

TBh, what kinda leads me to believe the card might possibly be defective is how the issues mimic both hardware and driver issues - usually it's symptoms of one or the other. Although, defective cards do happen, and quite frankly, it's more noticeable than should something be defective on a video card.

Anyhow, if you do run across a solution that works, be sure to let me know!


As to asking Creative what to do - I can tell you their response without even thinking about it - clean and reinstall the drivers

Oh, and be careful fiddling with PCIE settings in BIOS - they'll affect your video cards, as well as any other devices that are piped into the PCIE BUS.

Good luck, man!

 

[MrHydes]

have anyone notest that switching beetween modes [Game] to [entertainment] and vice-versa, the cpu utilization in the task bar manager,
it jumps to almost 90% easily

and how about X-FI processes?

volpanlu.exe uses 20,200k
CTxfispi.exe 344,468k
CTXfihlp.exe 4,668k :shadedshu

not to mention...
CTsched.exe
CTaudsvc.exe

i have X-FI titanium & Z5500 in XP PRO 32 SP3

the PF usage is so high because this screen was taken after game play session
after reboot usally is under 300MB of mem usage. i have some win servces apps disabled
and wierd apps too.

 

[imperialreign]

CPU utilization will spike when changing hardware modes, but it typically won't stay that way. The spike is due to changing the actual hardware configuration that the drivers will be accessing. The change is somewhat similar to if you enable Crossfire or SLI to go from one GPU to two GPUs. There's a very intense accessing of the system to make it happen . . .



As to the services - the volume panel typically runs lower, unless you run it at startup. Personally, I prevent it from loading during startup, and just open it as needed - volume settings will stay the same, as it makes those changes within the WIN control panel. Just for example - with my setup, Volpanelu.exe uses 11,212k

some of the others can be done away with:

ctsched.exe - I believe this is the service that will routinely check Creative's site for driver and application updates . . . TBH, it's not a major necessity; as well, it's not always 100% accurate.

ctaudsvc.exe - should leave this one, required for proper operation of the device drivers.

ctxfihlp.exe - not required - allows for acessing the X-fi installed manual, as well as the diagnostics and speaker-setup wizards (IIRC).

ctxfispi.exe - allows for proper operation of the flexi-jack and headphone detection. Not needed if not used. (although, I find the amount of resources this service is using on your system to be a cause for concern . . . I've never seen it use more than 15k, usually about 7k).

 

[MrHydes]

CPU utilization will spike when changing hardware modes, but it typically won't stay that way. The spike is due to changing the actual hardware configuration that the drivers will be accessing. The change is somewhat similar to if you enable Crossfire or SLI to go from one GPU to two GPUs. There's a very intense accessing of the system to make it happen . . .



As to the services - the volume panel typically runs lower, unless you run it at startup. Personally, I prevent it from loading during startup, and just open it as needed - volume settings will stay the same, as it makes those changes within the WIN control panel. Just for example - with my setup, Volpanelu.exe uses 11,212k

some of the others can be done away with:

ctsched.exe - I believe this is the service that will routinely check Creative's site for driver and application updates . . . TBH, it's not a major necessity; as well, it's not always 100% accurate.

ctaudsvc.exe - should leave this one, required for proper operation of the device drivers.

ctxfihlp.exe - not required - allows for acessing the X-fi installed manual, as well as the diagnostics and speaker-setup wizards (IIRC).

ctxfispi.exe - allows for proper operation of the flexi-jack and headphone detection. Not needed if not used. (although, I find the amount of resources this service is using on your system to be a cause for concern . . . I've never seen it use more than 15k, usually about 7k).

thanks a lot mate

yes that CTxfispi really worries me i'll reboot later and check it, could be a worm or some
conflict/bug whatever i'll pay attention to it

what about audioengine licensing service, can it be disabled in services?

the flexijack is needed when we are using analog, so i need it, even though i switch
DAC and analog

 

[imperialreign]

As a general rule of thumb - most non-system realted services that are idle shouldn't require that much memory . . . if they do, they're either a running and busy application, or otherwise - and typically up to no good.

Not all sevices are like this, some do procure insane amounts of memory.

I'd defi double check the system with a couple of anti-malware apps, at the extreme, I'd cleanout then re-install the drivers.


I've also gotten into the habit of running a registry cleaner after any driver update, for any hardware - it's not always necessary, but tidies up loose ends and keeps everything runing smoothly.



The other services - I'm not 100% sure as to what the audio engine licensing service does. It can probably safely be disabled - It's installed on my system as well, but it's set to manual start, and has been that way for a very long time - I've never needed it. you could always try that with some of the services. Go to Start>Run>services.msc - from there you can set a service to disabled, automatic or manual start, as well as either start or stop the service itself.

For most services, setting them to manual will prevent them from loading with WIN, but will start the service if you run an application that requires it. Some, though, won't, and you'll need to manually start the service yourself (i.e. Windows Defender).

 

[MrHydes]

The other services - I'm not 100% sure as to what the audio engine licensing service does. It can probably safely be disabled - It's installed on my system as well, but it's set to manual start, and has been that way for a very long time - I've never needed it. you could always try that with some of the services. Go to Start>Run>services.msc - from there you can set a service to disabled, automatic or manual start, as well as either start or stop the service itself.

For most services, setting them to manual will prevent them from loading with WIN, but will start the service if you run an application that requires it. Some, though, won't, and you'll need to manually start the service yourself (i.e. Windows Defender).

the procedure of cleaning, and driver update you do as i do, probably we just use diferent tools, and i've checked services.msc and saw that mine allready is set to manual.

i'll provide further results on this issue later, thank you so mutch for your attention and wise support imperialreign

 

[imperialreign]

the procedure of cleaning, and driver update you do as i do, probably we just use diferent tools, and i've checked services.msc and saw that mine allready is set to manual.

i'll provide further results on this issue later, thank you so mutch for your attention and wise support imperialreign

ain't a problem, man!

Let me know what you find out behind the ctxfispi.exe services - I'm curious as to what might be causing such resource usage.

 

[Kursah]

Well, I am getting an X-Fi Platinum (card only) to replace my recently sold X-Fi Xtreme Music. I sold my card because my gaming buddy lost his onboard sound, and wanted an X-Fi, gave me the cash..I had spent all day looking, found an Xtreme Music on Ebay and Shadowfold just happened to be getting ready to sell his X-Fi and gave me dibs on it which I took up right away. Got it for a good deal, granted I'm broke and it was all the money I had left, lol I can't live too long w/onboard sound lol. Not after having my X-Fi for so long, and in my searching it seems to me that creative cards have gone up in price since I last looked a while back...that was kind of a bummer.

But I'm doing some researching on my "new" X-Fi, seems to be an Xtreme Music w/the front bay and remote junk, since I'm getting card only (which is great, I didn't want the rest! ), is there anything else in difference between the Music and Platinum series? My Music had a heatsink on it, the Platinum doesn't, it's got the sticker, but I can fix that if need-be. My Xtreme Music heatsink never really got beyond luke-warm to the touch.

I'm just curious if it might use better op-amps or have slightly better sound quality, I'm not worried about it not having X-Ram. My Xtreme Music works great in Vista x64, and made my speakers and Turtle Beach HPA2 headset sound great for everything...just curious of your knowlege of this card imperial...I'm digging through google..but I'll check back. Also please add me to the list!

 

[imperialreign]

Well, I am getting an X-Fi Platinum (card only) to replace my recently sold X-Fi Xtreme Music. I sold my card because my gaming buddy lost his onboard sound, and wanted an X-Fi, gave me the cash..I had spent all day looking, found an Xtreme Music on Ebay and Shadowfold just happened to be getting ready to sell his X-Fi and gave me dibs on it which I took up right away. Got it for a good deal, granted I'm broke and it was all the money I had left, lol I can't live too long w/onboard sound lol. Not after having my X-Fi for so long, and in my searching it seems to me that creative cards have gone up in price since I last looked a while back...that was kind of a bummer.

But I'm doing some researching on my "new" X-Fi, seems to be an Xtreme Music w/the front bay and remote junk, since I'm getting card only (which is great, I didn't want the rest! ), is there anything else in difference between the Music and Platinum series? My Music had a heatsink on it, the Platinum doesn't, it's got the sticker, but I can fix that if need-be. My Xtreme Music heatsink never really got beyond luke-warm to the touch.

I'm just curious if it might use better op-amps or have slightly better sound quality, I'm not worried about it not having X-Ram. My Xtreme Music works great in Vista x64, and made my speakers and Turtle Beach HPA2 headset sound great for everything...just curious of your knowlege of this card imperial...I'm digging through google..but I'll check back. Also please add me to the list!

added

as to your question - there's no difference between the Xtreme Music, and the card that was offered with the Platinum series. Hardware is identicle. OPAMPs, DAC, ADC, etc. There might be a difference in caps, as Creative change brands of caps occasionally, but these only have a very marginal difference on output quality between the brands. There might be a difference in the amount of RAM on the card - I've seen reports of some that have 32MB, some with 64MB. 32MB is the most common. All XM cards do have DRAM on them, though.

Sad it's not used more frequently . . . y'know, I had come to find out about a month ago that it's not just the Creative's EAX instructions that can make use of the XRAM . . . the OpenAL API has an instruction set for accessing and using XRAM, or potentially other audio-onboard DRAM modules . . . I can't imagine how invaluable this would be in Vista; heck, even ASUS could start offering onboard DRAM with their cards - then everyone juse needs to push software developers to make use of it with the EAX/OpenAL API.

Anyhow, the Platinum was one of the earlier revision packages (hence why no HS on the APU), and was removed from the market once the Fatal1ty Champion series was released, and the stand-alone Xtreme Music was removed soon thereafter as well. The only thing that the Platinum offered that stood out from the XM was the 5.25" bay Front Panel drive (which is an $80 value by itself).

Oh, and I'd recommend installing a HS on that APU!

 

[Kursah]

Cool, well I can handle having the same sound ouput and quality. I'll have to find an HS and some AC cermaique or something similar lol. We'll see how it goes when I get the card, I'm still using my buddies' rig atm . But it'll be returned pretty soon and I'll be stuck with onboard till my next x-fi shows up.

 

[imperialreign]

Creative have released a new version of the Console Launcher, version 2.60.35 for the USB Surround Sound 5.1 and USB X-Fi Xtreme Audio Karaoke

release notes:

This download contains the Creative Console Launcher application for Creative Sound Blaster® X-Fi™ Surround 5.1 / USB Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio Karaoke. For more information, read the rest of this web release note.

This download supports the following audio devices only:

• Creative Sound Blaster® X-Fi™ Surround 5.1
• Creative USB Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio Karaoke

Fixes:

• Rectifies the output delay when using line-in/microphone monitoring.

Requirements:

• Microsoft® Windows Vista® 32-bit or 64-bit, Windows® XP Professional x64 Edition or Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2)
• Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi audio devices listed above

 

[imperialreign]

Cool, well I can handle having the same sound ouput and quality. I'll have to find an HS and some AC cermaique or something similar lol. We'll see how it goes when I get the card, I'm still using my buddies' rig atm . But it'll be returned pretty soon and I'll be stuck with onboard till my next x-fi shows up.

at least ya've got a replacement en-route!


The HS doesn't have to be anything fancy . . . I've recommended before a good copper, stick-on style 40mm HS from CoolerMaster or something similar. Preferably something not too extremelly heavy, though . . . the APU is mounted via a ball-grid array, too much stress could potentially rip if off the board.

Just make sure to thoroughly clean the APU surface before applying the HS.