Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium driver 2.40.0016 WHQL

[Ferrum Master]

Weirdly this driver is not for the flagship Titanium HD. But I never had any problems with the old driver, and occasionally play old EAX games on Windows 10.

Try to force the install, via device manager. If I remember correctly it was often like that. I had the card too, with ZxR is the same actually.

I knew about the argee bargee between them but I thought that was only because of what he was releasing in the Creative forums I've seen him release stuff since then on his own blog site

They had an agreement after the first case. Then it happened I again in a flash.

 

[Sora]

They patched the budget times in order to prevent the OS from BSODing, and those are the fixes in past drivers.

Nothing to do with it, 2.17.0008 was the driver that fixed Bsodding OpenAL and was the last driver that didn't drop sounds.

It's a shame creative just discarded the forums instead of archiving them, there was a lot of device testing information on there.

 

[utilizedamplitude]

IIRC that was giving away DTS connect and DD live for free when they needed to be licensed. That was fixed when Creative started to give them away for free too.

 

[Athlonite]

IIRC that was giving away DTS connect and DD live for free when they needed to be licensed. That was fixed when Creative started to give them away for free too.

Which everyone thought was bullshit because the damn cards were advertised as having it in the first place and it wasn't until you tried using it that you found out you had to pay more which stank like week old jizz so then they decided it wasn't worth a court case and gave it away like they should have done from the start

 

[spectatorx]

I'm totally surprised as this device has EOL status since very long time. I'm still a user of x-fi titanium and i just love this sound card. Having updated driver for better compatibility with latest windows 10 release is something cool to me even if previous version of a driver is working totally fine. I used to be checking creative's page from time to time up to last year and gave up my hope for any more release.

I bought this card literally 10 years ago and then it already was available on market since some time.

 

[Ferrum Master]

Nothing to do with it, 2.17.0008 was the driver that fixed Bsodding OpenAL and was the last driver that didn't drop sounds.

It's a shame creative just discarded the forums instead of archiving them, there was a lot of device testing information on there.

I meant that the latter drivers are fixing something that cannot fix this issue ie tighten up latency but if you do it the driver becomes unstable due to the nature of Windows OS. This driver is not meant for Win10, even worse, it was not meant even for Win8, just Win7, AFAIK during insiders for win8 Creative drivers were causing so much problems, the fact, that they actually fixed them to a degree they work for most is quite surprising. I just laughed hard in place arguing about buggy hardware, that he has the worst thing ever, the other one replied that he has forgotten the VIA VT bridge series lol

Well the product is over 10 years old in the core, what to expect? I would still try using different places, for example like console emulators, that also have openAL options, do they act the same. And actually for old games, consider dual boot?

 

[Apocalypsee]

Try to force the install, via device manager. If I remember correctly it was often like that. I had the card too, with ZxR is the same actually.

I tried manually update thru device manager but got an error '..... doesnt contain compatible device driver...'. I thought this will work too because in device manager the name of the card is just 'Creative SB X-Fi' but sadly don't work

 

[Sora]

I meant that the latter drivers are fixing something that cannot fix this issue ie tighten up latency but if you do it the driver becomes unstable due to the nature of Windows OS.

I don't think there is anything latency wise posing an issue, device resource exhaustion seems to be the actual issue, once you're out of xram you have no more room for channels/voices
The ALAudioDrv for ut99 allows you to configure how many voices are in use, the issue manifests sooner with more voices present as xram is consumed faster.

Reduced voices you only get it once things really get crazy and you have shooting going on constantly in later stages of the match.

This driver is not meant for Win10, even worse, it was not meant even for Win8, just Win7, AFAIK during insiders for win8 Creative drivers were causing so much problems, the fact, that they actually fixed them to a degree they work for most is quite surprising

I'm not even using windows 10, the driver has these issues since 2.40.0008 came out for 8.x and it affected 7.x, 2.40 was the first driver signed for 8.x so yeahhhh. lol.

Anyway, since there has been no openal improvements i won't be trying these on 7/8 with a self created catalog and signature i guess.

Well the product is over 10 years old in the core, what to expect? I would still try using different places, for example like console emulators, that also have openAL options, do they act the same. And actually for old games, consider dual boot?

Device age as a metric should only matter for hardware decay, graphics cards from 2004 still work if they were built with quality components with the final driver of the time.

I do believe it is a side effect of fixing an issue, i cannot be sure when the hardware MIDI bank bsods were fixed, whether that was in the 2.17 or 2.40 driver.

 

[spectatorx]

I'm not even using windows 10, the driver has these issues since 2.40.0008 came out for 8.x, 2.40 was the first driver signed for 8.x so yeahhhh. lol.

Anyway, since there has been no openal improvements i won't be trying these on 7/8 with a self created catalog and signature i guess.

What exactly are your problems? I've always been using latest drivers on latest windows (7, test builds of 8 and 8.1 and stable 8/8.1, 10) and drivers have always been working correctly.

 

[Sora]

What exactly are your problems? I've always been using latest drivers on latest windows (7, test builds of 8 and 8.1 and stable 8/8.1, 10) and drivers have always been working correctly.

to save from explaining it again.

Tbh, it seems like alDeleteBuffers is broken
Though i'm also aware the XFI driver reports support for 32bit float buffers, but doesn't actually support them...

 

[Space Lynx]

No. Un less you throw that tube amp out the loop, it doesn't bring any sort of quality, but vice versa loads of additional distortion, thats your preference and it has no connection about comparing two solid state based solutions. I build my own Tube based headphone amps also, I have nothing against them, but I call things what they are.

They are comparable. Albeit their usage is tailored towards different scenarios. Stereo = DAC implementation = distortion plots under your preferred load and without = mature decision without submerging into hearing some astral beings or fairies in the woods using device A or B.

When using Analog multichannel, it still has an edge using dedicated cards. I am in this camp still.

Digital multichannel = use HDMI, simple as that.



Have you tried reporting it?

my tube amp is a hybrid, so not full tube. but yeah its a great sounding setup, side by side with a $500 Schiit Lyr 3, my amp sounds better and only cost $135 to build.

 

[spectatorx]

to save from explaining it again.

Tbh, it seems like alDeleteBuffers is broken
Though i'm also aware the XFI driver reports support for 32bit float buffers, but doesn't actually support them...

Ok then, problems on specific applications and specific audio api calls. Still a problem. Personally i had just one problem in crysis 3 where sounds were changing their volumes on the fly and overall were all over the place wrong. Fortunately this is fixable by turning on SVM in creative control panel.

 

[Sora]

Ok then, problems on specific applications and specific audio api calls. Still a problem. Personally i had just one problem in crysis 3 where sounds were changing their volumes on the fly and overall were all over the place wrong. Fortunately this is fixable by turning on SVM in creative control panel.

Basically, I almost can't fault the driver for anything else just this one niggling issue with the OAL device.

 

[lexluthermiester]

to save from explaining it again.

Tbh, it seems like alDeleteBuffers is broken

Use DanielK's driver packs solve that problem IIRC.

 

[Sora]

Using DanielK's driver packs solve that problem IIRC.

not with a 2.40 driver.

 

[Ferrum Master]

I guess there are changes in Creative camp. Or at least better pills.

https://coconuts.co/singapore/news/...d-helping-customers-fair-lauded-netizens/amp/

 

[lexluthermiester]

not with a 2.40 driver.

Fortunately, there's been a few releases since the 2.40.
http://danielkawakami.blogspot.com/2017/01/sb-x-fi-series-support-pack-40.html

 

[Sora]

Fortunately, there's been a few releases since the 2.40.
http://danielkawakami.blogspot.com/2017/01/sb-x-fi-series-support-pack-40.html

no there hasn't, support pack is still using 2.40.00xx

 

[lexluthermiester]

no there hasn't, support pack is still using 2.40.00xx

Ah, you were referring to the driver version. It's still not a problem as DanielK's customizations avoid/fixes a lot of known problems.

 

[Sora]

Ah, you were referring to the driver version. It's still not a problem as DanielK's customizations avoid/fixes a lot of known problems.

he doesn't do anything to the driver binaries themselves, which is the source of the issue im talking about.

 

[lexluthermiester]

he doesn't do anything to the driver binaries themselves, which is the source of the issue im talking about.

Except that it's been tested and shown to have been fixed. This implies that the problem was in the configuration of the driver, not the driver itself.

 

[Sora]

I'm sorry, but you're entirely mistaken.

You might be thinking of the openal bsod issue, which danielk worked around by using auzen binaries, that has nothing to do with the hardware openal losing sound.
Or the issue where the 64bit CTOAL dll was not installed: also nothing to do with the issue im talking about (this one prevented openal from working at all in 64bit apps)

hmmm, seems someone found an application side workaround for it
https://forums.libretro.com/t/openal-enabled-windows-build/5425/3

yeah, same conclusion on oldunreal

"It seems the issue is that sounds never report that they've stopped playing."
https://www.oldunreal.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1400445026/13#13

 

[jackbluray]

Anyone tested these for the Openal audio dropped issue?
https://www.lotro.com/forums/showth...aring-quot-Sounds-(video-demo-included)/page2
https://www.oldunreal.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1400445026
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussi...reative-x-fi-owners-having-issues-with-static

Also, these are not secureboot compatible, Creative signed with whatever pca cert they had on hand instead of doing the correct thing and using the devportal.

I have tested, bug is still present.
Creative has naver solved this problem when xfi was still supported an,d the problem exist since the release of 2.40.0008 branch in 2014. I don't think the problem will be solved now.

It's very boring because some games don't work with openalsoft like diablo HD mod.


NEW! Driver 2.40.0016 is not avalaible anymore in creative support page.

 

[Sora]

some of us sent some feedback about the signing issue, its been pulled till they figure out what not to do wrong.

Jack, the issue sound loss issue doesn't manifest in the Doom3 client update that added OpenAL, instead the affected drivers cause a strange visual hitching in some cases (that doesn't occur with openal-soft or older drivers.)

it may be possible to insert a stream monitor and fix into an openal router.

 

[Ferrum Master]

some of us sent some feedback about the signing issue.

It is not about that for sure. It is about 19H1 Win10 release for sure.