X-fi Xtremegamer sound issue

[Tzacks]

Myself, and an acquaintance of mine both upgraded from xp 32 -> Win 7 64.

We each purchased a soundblaster X-fi xtremegamer sound card (PCI) quite some time ago (PC is roughly 2 years old).

Upon upgrading to win 7, the sound card fails to recognize. 'Drivermax' verifies that windows 7 is unable to recognize the device, and hence i cannot get any sound currently.

Is this a known issue?

if so how do i go about resolving it.

Sincerely,
Mark

 

[Sassa]

Hi Mark, welcome to the forum.
Go here: http://support.creative.com/downloads/welcome.aspx?nDriverType=-1#type_-1
and download v2.18.0013 Release date : 26 Jun 09.
I have Extreme Audio and it worked for me.
You can download and Console launcher, ALchemy, etc...
They worked for me too.

 

[Night Hawk]

Welcome to the Se7enforums! Tzack

The first thing to as far as the XtremeGamer card is dump the DriverMax for getting sound working on the 64bit 7. By going through the OS selector I can save you a few more steps since the application portion for the 64bit 7 is still the same for the 64bit Vista seen at Creative Worldwide Support

If you select Windows 7 64bit using the selector you'll only run across the drivers without the applications seen at Creative Worldwide Support

But lose the DriverMax for this. The Creative installers are quite reliable once you download the correct versions for each.

 

[mickey megabyte]

i had no problems at all with the aforementioned 'windows 7 64bit' 2.18.0013 driver from creative.

this is an example of one of many problems that can be experienced performing an upgrade rather than a clean install.

uninstall whatever you can see in device manager, and get rid of your xp and drivermax drivers.

once you've rebooted, install the new windows 7 drivers...good luck!

 

[Sassa]

If you select Windows 7 64bit using the selector you'll only run across the drivers without the applications seen at

I installed applications from Vista page and they work perfectly...

 

[Sassa]

i had no problems at all with the aforementioned 'windows 7 64bit' 2.18.0013 driver from creative.

this is an example of one of many problems that can be experienced performing an upgrade rather than a clean install.

uninstall whatever you can see in device manager, and get rid of your xp and drivermax drivers.

once you've rebooted, install the new windows 7 drivers...good luck!

It seems that Win 7 doesn't have driver support for some Creative cards...
I preformed clean install and I didn't have soundcard recognized (I have X-Fi Extreme Audio), but when my friend preformed clean install (he have Audigy SE), Win 7 recognized his soundcard.

 

[holo88]

same deal here. i have the driver (all my drivers) on a usb stick, so after one of the thousands of install i've done, i always have em on hand.

 

[Sassa]

same deal here. i have the driver (all my drivers) on a usb stick, so after one of the thousands of install i've done, i always have em on hand.

Me too..

 

[Night Hawk]

I installed applications from Vista page and they work perfectly...

The compatibilty between Vista and 7 is tight there where you shouldn't have any problems with most things to start with. There are always a few exceptions however but not many.

When Vista first came out Creative lacked a Vista version of the application even for the 32bit Windows at that time while still having device drivers available. The large advantage now seen with 7 is actually being able to use the previous version drivers and softwares for things like this!

At other support sites you are starting to see Vista/7 labels on updates there.

 

[Captain Zero]

Try this. It's a pack I put together for this very issue. Once installed, it never needs to be updated since it adds all the features the card(s) can support.

Cheers.

 

[stormy13]

Try this. It's a pack I put together for this very issue. Once installed, it never needs to be updated since it adds all the features the card(s) can support.

Cheers.

And sorry to say pretty much useless for someone with an actual X-Fi (no X-Fi driver included), and not that cobbled together thing that Asus put out. Also what is he supposed to do about the license for it?

For those of you having trouble getting things to install, if you haven't give this a try,

SB X-Fi Series Support Pack 2.0 (05/15/2009) - Sound Blaster - Creative Labs

If you still have problems you try installing just the driver manually, which can be done one of two ways. The first thing you will need to do is to extract the download (it is self-extracting, or you can use 7-Zip or Winrar) then,

1. In Device Manger locate your sound card (if not detected by Windows should be listed as "Unknown Multimedia Device". Right click on it and select "Update Driver", then select "let me choose", then select "have disk" and navigate to the extract folder and locate the INF (wdma_emu.inf) located in the WDM folder. That should get the driver installed and then you should be able to run the Setup in the main folder to install any of the apps that you want to use.

2. Similar to above only instead of going through Device Manager use the setup.exe found in the Drivers folder. And like above if sucessful, then run the main setup.exe to install the apps.

 

[Tzacks]

downloaded the support pack mentioned, but there is no WM folder, and the wdma_emu.inf file from step 1 doesn't exist.

Tried step 2. Seemed to work at first. Rebooted, ran the setup, same problem.
"Setup is unable to detect a support product on your system".

 

[Night Hawk]

I'm hoping the card didn't simply go belly up on you there after the 2yr. stretch you gave it. I had that happen some time back on an older build where an Audigy 2 model simply gave out without warning. And that was a bit newer at the time.

One thing you can try there if you haven't already is check to see if the card lifted up in the slot a little over the 2yr. period. Getting in there with a can of air cleaner and blowing any dust/debirs out as well as reseating the card may be the answer if the card is still good.

 

[stormy13]

downloaded the support pack mentioned, but there is no WM folder, and the wdma_emu.inf file from step 1 doesn't exist.

Had a typo, it is supposed to be WDM like this,

X-Fi\XFI_SupportPack_2_0\Drivers\SBXF\wdm

Tried step 2. Seemed to work at first. Rebooted, ran the setup, same problem.
"Setup is unable to detect a support product on your system".

Your card wouldn't have happen to have come with a Dell/HP/etc would it? If so that could also be part of the problem. For the same reason that you cannot overclock Dell/HP/etc due to custom bioses, the same thing happens with some of the other hardware that comes with those systems. In the case of sound cards it is in the form of a slightly different DevID, making it next to impossible to install the reference drivers and apps without adding the ID to the INF (can also happen with retail bought OEM cards).

If your card is one of those have a look at its properties in Device Manager (if it shows) and post the DevID, it will look like this,

PCI\VEN_1102&DEV_0005&SUBSYS_00211102

 

[Captain Zero]

And sorry to say pretty much useless for someone with an actual X-Fi (no X-Fi driver included), and not that cobbled together thing that Asus put out. Also what is he supposed to do about the license for it?

As noted in the included instructions, you use the same license code given to you on your installation CD. Once used, it becomes fully activated. And yes, it's been 'cobbled' together because of the repeated problems with this particular driver set on x64 and/or Win 7.

It's worked for 99% of people that used it but can't be expected to solve every problem.

 

[stormy13]

The only thing is that those with an actual X-Fi won't have that license, the apps run natively with the cards.

 

[Night Hawk]

Whether off the Windows Vista cd for the 32bit 7 or a download for the 64bit 7 now the primary OS I've never run into any driver problems for sound on any 7 install even with the beta releases.

The application part on the other hand tends to still need to see a shortcut pinned to the task bar on the 64bit 7 however while the 32bit sees a volume control icon in the notification area.

Creative still hasn't addressed that problem quite yet. For Tzacks the advice is to make sure the card itself is still good. If that failed for any reason it won't matter what is tried out on it.

 

[chev65]

Creative drivers suck so bad. This is all par for the course when it comes to Creative. And if you want cobbled together take a look at any Creative driver. I won't get into the license they make you pay extra for just so you can have true 5.1 out. Creative drivers FTL. Been there done that.

 

[stormy13]

I won't get into the license they make you pay extra for just so you can have true 5.1 out.

If you are referring to DDL, that is only for the cards that didn't come with it to begin with (pre-Titanium series), and is only "needed" by those that are using a digital connection; if you're using the analogue it isn't needed and CMSS3D will work just as well for non 5.1 sources.

 

[Night Hawk]

On a totally clean install of Windows here on a fresh primary the updates from Creative simply go on without hassles. The output at this of course has been with the 5.1 mini plugs the speaker set came with being analog there. That is of course with the XtremeGamer model.