Confused about Audigy 2 ZS Platinum driv

The X-Fi screwed up my system, so I returned it. So now, I've got an Audigy 2 ZS Platinum waiting for me at home (for a whopping $70 thanks to the $00 rebate at buy.com...zipzoomfly.com has the same rebate if buy.com doesn't have it anymore) and I'm wondering which drivers I should install when I get home?
Anyway, I hear some people getting better sound with the X-Fi drivers for this card, and of course I want the best sound possible out of this card. Should I download the X-Fi drivers (Platinum, to coincide with my card, I would imagine?) from the official Creative site?
Should I just go with the beta Audigy drivers from the official site? ...or the ones from station-drivers? Or are they the same? ...or should I just use the ones that come included on CD with my card?
Also, I know installing the X-fi drivers doesn't give you features like the Crystalizer and the X-Fi CMSS-3D headphone mode, but does it use the same control panel? Judging from pictures in reviews, the Audigy drivers have those old ugly looking control panels that my old Li've card used, while the X-Fi has new nice more modern looking ones.

All the issues you guys are talking about have been reported in beta stage of these new drivers. I would say none of them has been fixed yet. The only solution for now is to use previous drivers which work fine or use some modified drivers which fixes some issues, but not all. Your choice.
[url="http://connect.creativelabs.com/windows/Lists/Audigy%20Issues/AllItems.aspx">Bug List[/url]
Message Edited by ronon0 on 08-07-2008 :47 AM

Similar Messages

Some confusion about files on the hard drive and those in LR

i have been importing files directly into LR and at the same time creating a folder in My Pictures where the original files are stored. i then edit in LR.
in order to save and then backup up edited files i export them to another folder marked "fotos 2010 LR", the first folder being "fotos2010'.
my confusion is having both folders. i know that if i delete the original folder it will also delete those corresponding files in LR.
reading this over now i suppose i could export to "fotos2010" folder and write over original files but im afraid to do that. is that a good idea?
am i doing something wrong? i feel like i'm missing something about LR works.
thanks
harvey

The best way forwards rather depends on how far you have gone with your 'new' catalog.
On the one hand you have an 'old' catalog that contains your edits and your collections, but because you moved the original files and folders outwith LR the catalog, and it's record of the files it knows bout, is 'disconnected' from the source files.
On the other you have a 'new' catalog that knows where all the pictures are but doesn't have your changes and collections.
If you haven't done much work with the new catalog you might be better to open the original catalog and update it with the location of files it has lost sight of. In library mode right click a directory showing errors and select 'Update folder location'. Depending on the scale of your mix up this might be quite time consuming, proceed slow and sure and all will be OK in the end. What you won't have after this is any work you've done in the new catalog.
If you've done a lot of work in the new catalog then you are better off staying with it and trying to recover work from the old catalog. You'd have to do the updating of links discussed above first but having done so you can then write the changes made by LR out to the original pciture files. The 'picture' doesn't change but the file now has a list of changes applied by LR stored in a manner that can be interpreted by LR and other programs (technically not within the file itself but an associated side-car file). With the old catalog open select 'Save metadata to File', with the appropriate pictures selected. Once the data has been written out you can open the new catalog and 'Read Metadata from Files' to get the new catalog to be aware of the changes held within the picture file. That won't recover your collections however, I think you're stuck there. I don't know of a way to 'export' a collection and 'import' it into a new catalog. Given that a collection is essentially a list of picture files that LR knows about I can't really see how it would be possible given that the original problem is that the old and new catalogs have a different idea of where the original source photo files are.
My gut feel - Unless the help here has made you pretty confident I'd stick with the new catalog, take the hit and recreate the collections from scratch.
Cheers

Gigaworks and audigy 2 zs platinum lip sync is

Can smeone form creative please help me with this issue.
I have loads of external dvd players, a pacific, an xbox, 4 yamadas, accoustic solutions, scanvision, etc etc.
This is what is happenning, i am connecting the pacific dvd players optical out (or coaxial) It makes no difference as they both do it.
Press play to watch dvd, and start watching movie, the longer the movie plays and even in the first 5 minutes of playback the lip sync starts to go out, this is with the use installed decoder checked on soundcard and doly digital decode slected instead of default, spdif byass.
If i stop or pause the dvd and press play the lip sysnc comes back in, then it gradually goes out again.
Now it is not the dvd player. as it does this with the xbox as well, and the yamada, etc etc, this is on a clean installation of win xp pro, the only things that are in are chipset drivers, gfx card driver and the full installation of the audigy 2 zs platinum driver disc.
I connect the optical out or the coaxial ut to the optical in on aud 2 zs plat li've bay, and the same with the coaxial in on aud 2 zs plat li've bay, but only one at a time.
Can someone tell me why this is doing this, i am 98% certain i do not get this from using aux 2 in.
Also it always says unknown or invalid spdif signal in the decoder options.
Also it fails to initialize the dolby digital decoding when inserting the coaxial cable sometimes or rather 8 times out of ten, i have to either restart dvd player, or restart computer to get sound back.
I am not happy with either the s750 speakers whilst playing dvds or the audigy 2 zs card, the speakers are not very loud whilst playing most dvds and teh lip sync is not acceptable, i have used a dtt2200 and sb li've 5. witht the same dvd players and i never had this issue, granted this was on another computer, so i wil be try the s750 with the new computers onboard 7. sound chip to see if i get same issues, then i will be moving the sound card into another pci slot but i should not have to do this, as creative should have already tried this card in all available pci slots in all manufacturers motherboards to test the compatibility, if this issue remains can someone at creative tell me if they will give me a refund for the hardware of gigaworks s750 and audigy 2 zs platinum as www.dabs.co.uk will not give me a refund for these the speakers have only been in use for at most 2 weeks but are 3 weeks old and aud 2 card is about 0 weeks old but have only just been tested on my new computer as of at most 4 days as thats went i got all the other hardware to build up computer and i am most unhappy that dabs tell me they only do a refund or replacement upto 28 days, so creative it looks like the refunding of my money will fall to your company, but then after all it is your hardware, so you maybe can force dabs into giving me a refund , as after all it is your hardware and you will be able to reimburse dabs .

I tried it into all available pci slots on a fresh clean install of windows xp even the exclusi've pci slot was used, and even ehen it was in the other pci slots, it was not sharing an irq with anything anyways, it still does it whilst decodint the Dolby Digital Stream.
Have tried the driver updates for the card and it still does it.
I have the audigy 2 zs platinum witht the li've dri've I/O .
I have taken this card out and put my soundblaster 5. platinum card in, and the li've dri've IR that came with that card, and using the optical in or the coaxial in the same way as the Audigy 2 zs plat li've dri've ,and it decodes the 5. with perfect lip sync, however this is not true dolby digital decdong on the sb 5. card as you have to use the CMSS feature anyways on this card, so even though the ac-3 decode is ticked, it aint true Dolby Digital Decoding anyways.
So i took that card out, and put in my older audigy Platinum 5. card, and teh li've dri've that came with that card, and formatted windows, etc, then after xp went back in installed the audigy drivers etc, then connected the coaxial cable from external dvd player and This also plays the 5. with perfect lip sync, but again however this is not true dolby digital decoding on the audgy card, even tehough the option is selected ac-3 spdif decode in audio hq, You still have to use the CMSS feature to get kind of 5..
I know this to be true as when the 7. Audigy 2 zs plat card is in, when you play dvd from external dvd and use the optical or the coaxial to the fron of the li've dri've that came with audigy 2 zs plat, you get the Dolby Digital Logo appearring on the monitor screen to tell you that it is decoding etc, and teh Quality is very good and you can hear that it is a Dolby Digital 5. stream, APART FROM THE FACT THAT THE AUDIO GOES OUT OF SYNC WITH THE PICTURE.
So I know it has to be down to the actual hardware of the audigy 2 zs plat soundcard or the hardware in the Li've dri've that came with the audigy 2 zs plat soundcard. Its a shame that a lot more people that have bought this pruduct ie the audigy 2 zs platinum version, would not test there li've dri've soundcards dolby digital decoding using an external dvd player, so as we could get a better idea of the problem, AS there are only a couple of other users on this forum that have this harware and they have the same problem, so is it because these cards are faulty, or is it inherint in the hardware that cannot be fixed, cos it aint in the software, but how can we find out when no one seems to be able to tell for sure that a driver update will fix it.
Also Does the Audigy 2 zs platinum Pro suffer from this same lip sync issue whilst using the external dvd players optical out to the optical in to decode dolby digital 5. streams.
Saying as i spent over ?400 on the s750 gigaworks speakers and the Audigy 2 zs platinum soundcard, and that they are only 3-4 months old, and have just been installed into my computer (ie just opened within the last 2 weeks) i am really shocked to learn that nothing can be done and i have wasted a lot of money to get something that cannot do what it is advertised to do, And www.dabs .co.uk are reluctant to refund me my money on the basis that they only do refunds upto 28 days, so in my situation although i purchased the goods 3-4 months ago, i have only just got round to teseting the goods, as i needed the other bits to build computer up , like the case mnotherboard etc etc.
Come on creative, whats the score with this hardware.

Audigy 2 zs platinum front drive bay mic2 not worki

hey all I finally got my AD_EXT wire to make my audigy 2 card work with the front dri've bay but the problem now is I am in vista ultimate 32bit, all drivers installed right, all cables plugged in but the mic2 is not working....... I'm using a dynamic mic Samson Q7 microphone with the XLR cable. This microphone I heard does not need a preamp so it should powered up.
I called creative and the guy supposed to send me a article to read to fix it but so far no luck in my email about it.
anyone staff members here know the link to that article?

Maybe this will help out:? Under Control Panel ---> Sounds and Audio Devices --> Hardware I have the following list. CD-RW SOHR-5239SDVD_RW ND-3550AMPU-40 Compatible MIDI DeviceUnsupported Standard Game Port - Location: on PCI BusCreative SB Audigy 2 ZS (WDM) - Location PCI Slot 2 (PCI bus 5, Device 7, Funtion 0)Creative Game Port - Location: PCI Slot 2 (PCI bus 5, device 7, function )Audio CodecsLegacy Audio DriversLegacy Video Capture DevicesVideo Codecs?All of them are listed as "Working Properly". The MPU-40, the unsupported game port, creative SB Audigy 2 ZS, Audio codecs, legacy Audio Drivers, and the Creative Game port were all uninstalled prior to my latest re-installation. When the windows install wizard popped up, I cancelled, so everything on that list was installed using the latest creative ZS Platinum driver for x64.

Audigy-2 ZS Platinum Application problems with New driv

Hello Creative Labs,
I recently downloaded and installed your newly released drivers for my Audigy-2 ZS Platinum card, and some of the software features have now stopped responding and fail to load.
<div class="DownloadDate">Release date: 7 Jul 08<div class="DownloadFileName">File Name: SBAX_PCDRV_LB_2_8_000.exe<div class="DownloadFileName">**?
** This is the patch file name and date released **
<div class="DownloadFileName">?<div class="DownloadFileName">?<div class="DownloadFileName">I Have owned SB products for my entire Computing life, and they have all performed with outstanding results on both Win/98se and XP for me.<div class="DownloadFileName">?<div class="DownloadFileName">The problem I am having since the new Driver update is with the Graphicic Equaliser software, it fails to load now with this new driver release, it gives a small box with a prompt saying "CTEQ.exe !Out of memory", then a larger box pops up about the dimensions of the old Graphic EQ GUI with Equalizer on the header, and a message in the box saying "TODO: Place dialog controls here"
<div class="DownloadFileName">?<div class="DownloadFileName">My microphone is also no longer visible to adjust in the Volume control Main window, I can set my microphone to be the recording device elsewhere in the Windows sound settings, but it no longer is visible to adjust in your Software programs made for my Audigy-2 ZS Platinum.<div class="DownloadFileName">?<div class="DownloadFileName">I see that many other users are also having similar problems, can we expect another update with fixes for the Control panel software to resolve these problems.<div class="DownloadFileName">?<div class="DownloadFileName">Thank you for your time, I look forward to hearing a response from the Creative team on this issue.

All the issues you guys are talking about have been reported in beta stage of these new drivers. I would say none of them has been fixed yet. The only solution for now is to use previous drivers which work fine or use some modified drivers which fixes some issues, but not all. Your choice.
[url="http://connect.creativelabs.com/windows/Lists/Audigy%20Issues/AllItems.aspx">Bug List[/url]
Message Edited by ronon0 on 08-07-2008 :47 AM

Help Audigy 2 ZS Platinum w/ I/O Drive and Remote + Logitech Z55

hi, I am wondering if i connect the optical digital output in the front of the Audigy 2 ZS Platinum to my Logitech <B>Z5500</B> optical digital input, will i be able to get sourround sound when i play CD or mp3 files? If it works, do i need to change some settings? Or is there a way i can get sourround sounds through the <B>Z5500</B>? If i cant get sourround sound, never mind. thanks alot.

The 4 pin connector is plugged in and the larger 4 pin connector is plugged into the power supply but I've got a spare power cable just like it that I want to try and I can't seem to unplug the smaller connector. Is it even possible to do this?

Help Audigy 2 ZS Platinum w/ Internal I/O Drive and Remote + Logitech Z55

hi, I am wondering if i connect the optical digital output in the front of the Audigy 2 ZS Platinum to my Logitech Z5500 optical digital input, will i be able to get sourround sound when i play CD or mp3 files? If it works, do i need to change some settings? Or is there a way i can get sourround sounds through the Z5500? If i cant get sourround sound, never mind. thanks alot.

Audigy 2 ZS Platinum - Midi, Soundfonts, Squeal of Death

Hi, I bought the Audigy 2 ZS Platinum to get professional Soundfont playback triggered by an external midi keyboard, Soundfont creation using Vienna, and ideally Cubasis with ASIO.
I'm having major problems: When I try and play Soundfonts from either the SoundFont Bank Manager or Vienna, after a couple of minutes I get a high-pitched tone and the computer locks up. I've heard this is the infamous "squeal of death," but am unsure of the fix on my particular machine:
Gateway V800CSE computer
Windows 98 SE
Intel Celeron 800 MHz processor
Intel Santorini motherboard
Intel 810e chipset
BIOS update to P05
192 MB ram
Intel Ultra ATA Storage Driver 620
DirectX 9.0c
2 PCI slots
Power Supply: Astec ATX90-3405 (90 watts)
The computer is generally rock-steady - I can spend hours using applications like Firefox, Wordpad, Acrobat Reader, etc. with no crashes. Audio CDs seem to play fine for hours through the Audigy 2.
I've done the equivalent of a clean sweep: wiped the drive and restored from backup to a pre-Creative state, then reinstalled the Creative stuff. No help.
The squeal/lockup happens whether I use the on-screen keyboard or an external midi keyboard, and regardless of what banks are loaded - even small banks like the default 4MB GM presets. It seems to happen at some random point during Soundfont usage, anywhere from one minute to 30 minutes into a session - but it always happens.
I'm not playing difficult passages with a lot of polyphony. In fact the squeal of death sometimes happens when playing just a simple melodic line. I tried allocating more ram in Soundfont Bank Manager, but this didn't seem to help. Creative Diagnostics shows no problems.
I've heard that turning off ACPI sometimes eliminates lockups with Creative cards. However, Windows 98SE installs ACPI by default, and my BIOS doesn't let me turn it off. I understand that by installing from a command line and using a setup switch I can install Win98SE without ACPI. But although I'm handy with computers and good at following instructions, I don't know command line syntax.
Could someone please walk me through the steps? Let's say I boot from a floppy, activate CD-ROM support, get the A-prompt, and put the Windows 98 SE CD in the drive. (Are those the initial steps?) Now what are the exact command lines I would use to run the setup switch, which is something like setup/pi ?
Please help. The card is of no use to me if I can't get professional Soundfont operation. I will have to return it.
I've tried uninstalling the WDM drivers and installing the VXD drivers using Creative's CTZAPXX. That seemed to stop the squeal of death, but greatly limits midi functionality. For example, the WDM drivers recognized that my Audigy 2 ZS Platinum has two sets of midi inputs/outputs: one on the gameport, and one on the platinum drive. It's the platinum ones you can use out of the box, because the adapters are included. Under the WDM drivers, I could choose the second midi port and my external keyboard would trigger the Soundfonts. But under the VXD drivers only one midi port appears in Control Panel or midi apps, and I guess it's the gameport, because all notes from my external keyboard hooked up to the platinum drive's midi input are now ignored. I reinstalled the VXD drivers, but same result. The platinum drive is definitely hooked up; the audio inputs and outputs are working, and my external midi keyboard is definitely sending midi notes.
Could Creative or anyone please confirm that the VXD drivers don't see the platinum drive's midi port? Is there a workaround? If the WDM drivers are unstable, and Win98SE users have to fall back to the VXD drivers to get reliable operation, then could Creative please include a gameport-to-midi adapter in the box, so platinum customers can still use midi?
Are there any other reports of the squeal of death with the 810e chipset?
I'm using DirectX 9.0c. Is this appropriate, or should I be using an earlier version?
The power supply on my machine may be a bit wimpy. Could that be a problem? The published specs are:
Wattage 90 watt
Input 90 - 135 V, normal 115 V
180 - 265 V, normal 230 V
# Output + 3.3 V (0 A min, 6.0 A max)
# + 5 V (1.0 A min, 10 A max)
# + 12 V (.02 A min, 1.5 A max)
# -12 V (0 A min, 0.2 A max)
# + 5 VSB (0 A min, 1.4 A max)
Finally, how often is the squeal of death solved by simply exchanging the card? (It's only a week old.)
Thank you in advance for any help you can give me. Best regards.
M_Harrisson

M_Harrisson wrote:
- No, my BIOS doesn't have "PCI Config 32 Clock Retry."
I took some time to look back in my archives. The canonical SOD problem was seen on WinXP on certain Dell systems using Intel motherboards incorporating certain new (at the time) Intel chipsets. I have the i815 chipset referenced in my archives, though not the i810. Dell systems, such as the 8100, did not have access to said BIOS setting, and needed a BIOS update enabling the bit to resolve the SOD problem.
The main variant of the problem did not occur with the VxD drivers at the time, because those drivers were able to enable BIOS settings. WDM drivers were not permitted to change BIOS settings, so the problem did surface with them on susceptible chipsets. Unless there has been a change in this area to the VxD drivers, your reporting hangs with them implies implies a different problem.
- My other PCI slot was occupied by a Rockwell 56K modem, but I've done a clean reinstall (WDM) without the modem card. I haven't done enough testing to fully report on results. I did get the squeal of death after an hour, but it could be related to a public domain soundfont that was not well-behaved. (Or maybe the Audigy 2 ZS is not well-behaved!)
I really don't think there's a way a soundfont can cause the PCI bus to seize up. I think it would be a good idea to try moving the soundcard to the slot the modem was in, if you haven't already.
In mentioning my computer's power supply, I was relating this to the squeal of death, not the midi port on the platinum drive failing to appear under the VXD drivers.
So was I, although I was keying on your use of an external keyboard, probably incorrectly. You are describing your system as very stable unless the soundcard is used a specific way, and I didn't get the sense that there would be much difference in power requirements involved in that.
I'm thinking that PCI systems are designed to function within certain tolerances. A 56K modem card might make lighter demands on PCI resources than an Audigy 2 card. The modem's handshaking protocols might make it oblivious to momentary timing errors, while the Audigy 2 card might be less forgiving of a wimpy power supply or a PCI subsystem that's not quite up to par. Just a theory. Anyway, I may try the card in another machine and see if it fares better. Wish it weren't so finicky!
That's not bad thinking, and trying it in another machine is a great idea, though one often not very practical for customers who may only have one machine available.
Last night I was noticing that with my external keyboard driving the platinum drive's midi input, there are random delays. The notes will be tight for a few seconds, but then a couple of notes that were played cleanly on the keyboard will spill over each other like dwarves tumbling out of a silly car. Is this a known issue with the platinum drive's midi port when playing soundfonts, or could this be a symptom of an underlying timing issue with my PCI subsystem? (I know there may not be an easy answer to questions like this.)
Has anyone compared the "tightness" of gameport midi vs. platinum drive midi? Is gameport midi any tighter? (I'm on a budget, and don't want to shell out for a gameport-to-midi adapter only to get more of the same.)
I've not heard of this particular complaint before and I have listened a lot. PCI-level problems tend to be of the nature of snap-crackle-pop symptoms (or hangs). What you describe sounds more like a problem with something like interrupt lockout. Without knowing Windows internals very well, a driver coping with lots of recoverable errors might cause that, or if a device causing lots of interrupts is sharing an IRQ with the soundcard, or sometimes multiprocessing support has weaknesses which lead to interrupt latency issues.
When loading and unloading different soundfonts, is memory fragmentation much of an issue? (either PC memory or the Audigy 2's internal memory?).
It can be an issue with being able to load very large soundfonts, but not really much otherwise. The A2 doesn't really have internal memory.
With the Audigy series you're no longer limited to 32 MB soundfont banks. You can load much larger banks into PC memory, but the PC has to send chunks of sound data to the Audigy as needed. I'm wondering if this has impacted stability. Maybe it requires some intensive bursts of data to be sent from PC memory over the PCI bus to the Audigy 2 card.
That part is done on demand, and is driven by what you are playing at the moment rather than everything in the soundfont. If the system is sufficiently memory-tight, allocating more system memory to soundfont storage might lead to excessive paging activity (which could also be behind erratic sluggishness in the system's response to MIDI keyboard events). (In fact, 192MB of system RAM doesn't sound like a lot, even for Win98, when you need to dedicate MB's of it to soundfont storage.)
Does anybody know if there are things you can do during a long session to defragment memory so that no holes develop?
Problems in that area are far more likely to be expressed as dropped notes that to be behind system hangs.
Vienna reports that the Audigy 2 ZS has 12 MB DRAM in Synth A and 12 MB DRAM in Synth B. Does that mean it has a total of 24 MB onboard RAM?
It probably means that 12MB of PC system memory has been allocated to shared use by the two virtual synths. If you have set soundfont memory larger than that and Vienna still says 12 MB, it's probably simply a bit confused in its assumptions. The soundcard doesn't have onboard RAM, although the soundcards Vienna was written for do.
-Dave
[email protected]

Audigy 2 ZS Platinum

First of all, Hi this is my first post here. I own an Audigy ZS Platinum Pro, an SB Li've, and have been a loyal Creative customer since the Soundblaster 2.0 6bit I fitted to my 386SX. I've been working in I. T. for 3 years in various roles, from C++ programming to IT Management. I'm currently certified as an eMCPA, MCP, MCSA, MCSE, MCSA&MCSE+Messaging, and am about to complete a VCP and soon?a Cisco Unified Messaging cert. I'm far from uninformed, I guess that's what I'm trying to get across. Now some other facts:- Windows Vista has been available to corporate customers since November 2006.- Windows Vista has been available to retail customers since January 2007- Windows Vista SDK including Driver SDKs have been readily available since early 2006. Yes you read that right.
Now, I like most people downloaded the Audigy 2 ZS Plat Pro drivers for XP and found they didnt work under Vista. Things like the scale of the volume controls was way off - but Surround sound was strangely enough working. I have a full surround sound system with either SPDIF or just RCA inputs. I use either, I'm not that fussed. I could not use these drivers as there were so many bugs under Vista (the XP drivers) that it wasnt workable. I then waited for well over a month. Eventually, Creative release the first beta drivers for the Audigy 2 ZS Plat Pro under Vista 32bit. I install these drivers, and find to my dismay, everything sounds absolutely terrible (I'm not sure how the quality can be so bad?) and also the rear channels won't work. No SoundBlaster applications are installed. It's like I'm using the worst onboard sound ever invented with the world's worst driver and application support. At this point I'll remind you?I paid over $450 for this card and external box. That is a massi've expense and one I only outlayed due to my previous faith in Creative. I already had my suspicions about the quality of the drivers due to the way the previous XP drivers had been bundled into 3 files then a patch and then that was changed, and it was all very seemingly mismanaged. Anyway the drivers bomb out without warning on January 2th, which I was very much less than impressed with.When I first hit the Creative site that morning, the updated drivers were NOT available. That is absolutely unacceptable. Later that day, the current drivers were posted. With massi've warning labels like "THESE ARE AN UNSUPPORTED BETA DRIVER. DO NOT USE THESE....<continues like this>" I download these and install them, and find to my dismay CMSS might be present but it's implementation is very very poor and I'm getting truly abysmal quality through the rear channel. It's like somebody ripped the DAC out and replaced it with one they bought from a 25cent bargain warehouse. I then change volume settings and attempt to use some of the features of the card and find that practically nothing that is present in the XP drivers is actually working in these drivers. There is no point using these drivers other than to hear Windows sounds. They are buggy, suffer from massi've quality problems, and do not include any of the features that I bought the card FOR and also cripple my home stereo/theater sound reproduction to the point it's not worth bothering with. So thanks, Creative, for because of your drivers alone, I'm now dual booting to XP and having to wait to actually begin using a new operating system, for absolutely no reason other than the incompetence displayed by Creative. Not anyone elses, the Video card has been working fine since Vista Beta , and every single other device in my system including USB sticks and third party disk controllers, all work great under Vista. Every single, and I mean every single, one of these other manufacturers had a software team that was worthy of the hardware. I'm afraid that I can't say the same for Creative Labs. The software is truly terrible now, you need to fix this situation. In closing, let me also remind you that it is now the 2st of February, 2007. These unsupported beta drivers have been my only option for well over a month. Prior to this drivers that were barely alpha release drivers were my only option, and prior to that - I had no option. This is completely unacceptable. Microsoft did not just spring Vista on the market; SDKs were made available 2 months in advance and even futher in advance for hardware vendors. Please stop blaming Microsoft or implying it is their fault for implementing DRM. This was documented, published, warned about in advance, and any software or hardware manufacturers caught behind the 8 ball like this should be truly ashamed, and fully expect to lose the vast majority of their Enterprise level customers, which filters down to the IT Media, which filters very quickly down tos Consumers. Once your products are recommended AGAINST, on major websites and in major IT publications, the retail customer will no longer select Creative. Do not be complacent, it will happen if nothing changes and extremely rapidly. This will take a long time for the user base to forget too, we will be suspicious and never trust Creative for many years. Neither I, nor my businesses, will ever buy a PC with a Creative component in it again, and I have written to local Computer publications stating the same. I am removing my Creative hardware from the systems, and will move to another high end manufacturer that does have current Vista drivers. Believe me people there are cards out there with better SNR and all of the features and more, with driver support. This shows a real lack of commitment to the customer base on behalf of Creative. This post is not intended to start a debate. It is a letter from myself, and my?local I. T. community, to Creative, for comment on by the community. Everyone should realise that the software development lifecycle for a modern I. T. hardware vendor needs to be tracked closely to the operating system vendors' releases and patch levels. Creative, are not behaving with any professionalism. This is not an operating system being delayed, this is a driver, the tools for which have been made readily available to Creative by Microsoft directly for over 2 months, Creative manufacture the hardware, and to add insult to injury Microsoft worked with hundreds of hardware vendors to ensure Vista compatibility. For the Creative Vista drivers to be in this state of disarray on February 2st 2007 is a terrible reflection on Creative, showing a massi've lack of planning. Pardon me for asking, but is everyone at Creative asleep?On behalf of the I. T. Community at large, I hope Creative acknowledges our disgust.?Travis RoeMessage Edited by troe on 02-20-200709:52 PM

Well so far this only Issue Im having with my my Audigy 2 ZS Platinum Pro drivers , it's the sound is Crappy, but to be honest, it look like a performance Issue , cause if im not in a game the sound is quite better, but as soon I've let my music play during a game, the Sound Goes to So So to BullS**T. Im in IT since a long time, I won't tell all my degree and so but..! Im a pro..!?While Running Game my Sound card decrease my performance. And sometime I need to restart cause Cracking noise get over the game. I can be 2 Weeks without restart Needed...!If there any Beta Drivers Available I would like to be on trials...!BTW IM not just blaming Creative for Drivers and Issues, developing Drivers under Vista is Really new,Hardware layer are really not the same as all windows OS..! So keep up the good Work Guys..!We can blame Bill and is friend to have create a New Layer :P but I won't cause in year, everything will be Perfect..! now it's just too new ?Thanks,?here is my Spec. AM2?DualCore 4800 +4 gig Ram DDR2 800 Mhz OCzAsus CrossHair MotherBoard.5Tera in SATA RAID WDAsus 7800 GTX GeforceAudigy 2 ZS Platinum ProRunning under Vista Ultimate ( Registered with Real Info, Im a MSDN Subscriber + MCP )??

Audigy 2 ZS Platinum S/PDIF input is "dead" on Windows 7 x64

My experience with the Audigy 2 ZS Platinum edition soundcard?pretty bad, after I bought a new machine with the following specs:
OS: Windows 7 x64 ultimate
CPU: Intel I7 920 3.7 ghz
Memory: 6 gb
Motherboard: ASRock X58 Extreme
Dual NVIDIA GPUs: 2X NVIDIA GeForce GTX 285 in SLI
Sound: Creative Audigy 2 ZS Platinum Pro
Everything has been updated to the newest drivers.
The soundcard works fine in games and for general use. But I didn't buy this expensi've (back then) soundcard just for that. I want to use it for recording music on it through the optical digital input especially. Just like I did when I used it on Windows XP with no problems at all.
First and biggest problem:
S/PDIF as input in WaveStudio 7 (7.2.00) most often generates this message:
"The specified audio device is already in use."
and thus nothing is being recorded.
Maybe it should tell me what exactly is using it, for nothing else to my knowledge is using any audio?
Worst part is that sometimes (just on a rare occasion) it actually works. Until I reboot the system that is.
But a system that only works after a lot of struggle and only out of maybe 25 times is useless.
Second problem:
"What u hear" feature is more or less unreliable and therefore useless (most often no sound at all)
Third problem:
The volume mixer is awful compared to the one in Windows XP (most inputs missing and not really working that well if at all)
Driver update?
The soundcard drivers hasn't been updated since june, I think. Maybe it was about time to start fixing all the problems? I've read people having the same type of problems with the X-Fi Platinum card. I would be willing to buy that card?if it would solve the problem, but from what I've read I dare not. I just want a card with decent digital and analogue ports and a headphone jack. All mounted on front or top.
Help please?

**update**
I went and bought a new optical cable to see if the one I was using wasn't good enough and that was just a waste of 20 bucks.. Still nothing, I hope some one around here can tell me if they have the problem I do with any of your sound blaster cards.. I'm starting to think that maybe my card has just poofed on me. I don't think thats the case because everything else works fine.. I read also where the bit stream tab will show up as invalid signal with dolby/dts even though it's working correctly. I was thinking thats the case because like I said, the dolby digital logo pops up when My PS3 sends audio to my audigy card..Message Edited by NeutralGold on 09-8-200708:36 PM

HELP! Hey, (Yeah YOU!) I need some HELP with an OEM Audigy 2 ZS Platinum Pro SB0360 installat

Hi Everyone.
I'm new here so I'll try to be kind and make lots of helpful friends, especially folks at CL.
Do you like a challenge?
Try this on for size.
My problem.
I'm working on a PC for a doctor friend. It's a Gateway P4 dual 3.0 gHz "Media Center" unit.
He let the antivirus proggie lapse and it was full of spybots, trojans and some missing stuff his kids (he says) had done (little kids like to click on stuff and he has 4 kids under 6 years old...).
Anyway, I needed to re-install the whole system back to the original state. GW2K docs seemed to make that a piece of cake.
Everything went well until the turkeys at GW2K threw me a curve - their CD re-install system just stinks. The CDs don't seem to AUTOSTART very well, the OS looks different than original (fo example - just plain ole XP Home instead of the neat-looking "Media Center" branding on the startup splash page), and then I got to a real problem.
The SB0360 Audigy 2 ZS (Platinum Pro, I think) driver from GW2K installed OK, but the associated apps CD keeps spitting back that it doesn't find a "Sound Blaster" card.
The Device Manager says its a Creative SB Audigy 2 ZS.
I've tried to use updates from CL but they also spit at me - "No Sound Blaster found, Exiting".
It seems that the Plug and Play only likes the GW2K driver, but the Apps CD don't like the "Creative" part, and so it balks. The CL drivers give the same message.
GW2K tells me to contact Creative Labs or (haaaa) SAM'S, the purchasing store.
Talk about the royal runaround...
Anyway, anyone got any good ideas?
I can't seem to find anything on the net to help.
I'm about Google-ed out.
Thanks in advance!
P.S.
I do have sound, Music CDs play fine and Windows sounds work OK.
I just need to install those Audigy Apps from the GW2K CD...
Message Edited by GrimWeeper on 2-02-2004 03:0 AM

Anybody wants to help me ?I wait your answer for my question...!
Thanks

Audigy 2 ZS platinum pro and msvcrt.

scard: Audigy 2 ZS Platinum Pro
OS: Windows XP SP3
msvcrt.dll: 7.0.2600.552 located only in windows\system32 and windows\ServicePackFiles\i386
I tried to update the driver. (Full uninstall of the previous one as per the FAQ plus some cleaning tools like Driver Sweeper, Driver Cleaner, regcleaners etc) I started getting MANY msgs about "different".exe - ENTRY POINT NOT FOUND "The procedure entry point _mbsnbcpy_s could not be located in dynamic link library msvcrt.dll" (the"different".exe contains eg. CTRegSvr.EXE among others).
After restart the driver works but I don't have access to any Creative tools like the mixer for example. It's just the sound working. Nothing else.
I uninstalled everything again. After the previously described cleaning proccess I tried to reinstall the old driver from the installation CD. Same thing. Many errors during the installation proccess about "ENTRY POINT NOT FOUND on msvcrt.dll".
Any Ideas?
I appreciate the help
Pan

Problem solved.
Uninstall/Reinstall SP3 did the job
Pan

Audigy 2 ZS Platinum Pro not recognised by Vista 32 b

Hi
I cannot get my new computer to recognise my Creative Audigy 2 ZS Platinum Pro Sound Card. Have tried a new mobo, interchanged video cards, HD's, ram, and just about everything else that could ever possibly be incompatible with hte sound card. Have even tried different power supplies. I have all latest drivers installed and have disabled the onboard sound card in the bios.I've had the card for over a year now and it used to work well in my old computer running XP.
Can anyone help
Thanks.
My system: Asus P5K Premium/Wifi, EVGA 8800GTX, Corsair 2GB DDR2 800, Creative Audigy 2 ZS Platinum Pro, 50GB WD Raptor HD + 250GB Seagate, 620w Corsair power supply, Vista Home Premium 32 bit.

Sound card recognition issues are usually related to software/driver conflicts. I had an Audigy2 that thought it was an Audigy once! I'm confident that a FULL remove of Creative files will solve your issue. It did for me anyway.We've made a list of all the problem Creative files & entries that need to be removed here.http://nomoregoatsoup.wordpress.com/...tall-problems/ After that, your drivers will install properly.Hope this helps

Audigy 2 ZS Platinum + SPDIF out + GTA San Andr

Hi,
I've recently bought an Audigy 2 ZS Platinum and I must say I'm very pleased with it.
I'm using an external audio receiver on witch I can only connect coaxial or optical. I've read the thread about digital connections and I know that its impossible to get surround sound with SPDIF in a game because it doesn't use an audio player (I have an ac3 encoder).
The problem is that GTA San Andreas (witch worked perfectly with my older sound cart (stereo)) plays his sounds as surround sound EAX, witch you all know is useless with SPDIF. The result is surround sound out of my front speakers only. So I'm missing about 70% of all the sounds (No voices, engine sounds, etc)
When I looked in the audio settings in the game I noticed that its impossible to change any settings at all (stereo/surround, EAX, Dolby, etc)...
I've tried many things, like setting my computer to stereo (sound and audio devices). I have even tried to use the analogue socket (only the stereo connection) but nothing seems to work...
Btw, I noticed another weird thing, in the THX console I can't select what speaker settings I have witch I could on an previous install (I had some di'ver probs.) In the console for the speaker settings the same problem but there I can select the option: "synchronise with configuration screen". But when I change the speaker settings there it changes back to 5. at start up....
Who knows a solution to this problem?
Thanks in advance, Thomas Voortman (Netherlands)

You did not install yout drivers correctly.
. Download the latest drivers from the Audigy 4 Pro section.
2. Right click on the downloaded file and select to extract it somewhere.
3. Go within the Folder, and find Drivers subfolder.
4. There should be an executable there. Run it.
5. Select to uninstall your current drivers, and make sure the option "Remove Creative shared files ..." is selected.
6. Restart and install the new driver using the same executable, while also checking the "Overwrite shared files" is selected!
Now you shouldn't have problems with the THX Console. I also had the smae problems and the Enviroments were also missing form the EAX Console. It was because I didn't select that overwrite option.

Audigy 2 ZS Platinum: Optical cable doesn't recognize DTS 5.1 on Vista

Hello!
This is my first trheat, where I've been search other discussions about this subject, but noyone helpt me.
I have a Inspire 7. switched on a Audigy 2 ZS Platinum, that has a IO-DIN to connect external features (see here: http://images.americas.creative.com/...large/4659.png)
Then, I used it to play guitar without problem. But, now I want to switch on my Xbox 360 with optical cable, but it is working only stereo way. When I switch to 5., occrus a?BIP and the sound stay mute.
My doubt is: the optical in recognize only stereo sounds? How can I get 5. sounds on my xbox 360?
OBS: The sounds effects on Windows games?and DTS movies are perfect on 5. channels. The problem is concentrad on optical cable only.
PC configuration:
Q6600
6 Gb RAM
video card nvidia 8800GTS
Windows Vista 64 bits
Creative last driver (SBAX_PCDRV_LB_2_8_000.exe )
Inspire 7.

Hello KokChoy-CL.
Many thanks for your support!
I've been reinstalled the drivers and changed the options of your link, now the DTS 5. effects are quite working on my xbox.
Again, thank you!
Lucio.

Confused about Audigy 2 ZS Platinum driv

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