Finally! New Vista X-Fi Drivers!

They good drivers then??
I have been thinking of getting one of them cards but wasn't so sure due to all the hassle with Vista. Not that we have Vista installed on any PC yet but will have most likely soon after the release of SP1.
Our hardware is around for years going from the better new PC's to the old only run older games ones so been holding off buying of soundcard.

No update to XP though... Creative are going down hill with driver and software support im afraid.

Wouldnt be suprised if Auzentech had something to do with creatives new drivers for vista either

There is a work around where you can get your hardware acceleration back in Vista. It's called the
ALchemy project which is not maintained by Creative.


More info can be found here

Wow, they work and i'm FINALLY using my xfi plat. Been waiting for AGES for these!. WOOT.

@Trunkz_Jr

Did you like sorta get the idea for your name and avatar off me? nice co-incidence hehe

I have an onboard x-fi card with Vista 64 installed and it doesn't see the card at all. All it says in the control panel is High Def Audio Device. I tried installing the correct drivers and it doesn't recognize it. Anyone heard of this?

Dose this fix the static problem?

I noticed that since I have oced my processor that every now and they there is a loud staticy noise the reaks from my speakers and blows a hole in the wall. I am missing both my arms now because of this sound... PLEASE TELL ME THEY FIXED THIS ERROR!!!!

That's because you don't understand what you are talking about. All Vista eliminated was the DirectSound hardware absrtraction level, whchi ran at the same privilege level as the kernel (although some diagrams show it below kernel, but I don't think there's a sub-kernel level). As a result, if it crashed, it crashed the entire system. Also, with Creative, it was one of the leading causes of system instability, which is something that people complained about. Since MS can't fix that (it is Creative's code), it crashed the system, MS's goal was to make the system more stable, they moved the API to the user level entirely. Now it only crashes the app that uses it. It was not just the sound, either. Similar changes came about with WDDM (display drivers).

OpenAL is an API that many consider superior to DirectSound, and it is still present in Vista.

Blame Creative.

Can you please cite the source / rationale for this statement that seems to be proliferated all over the place. And don't reference the Gutmann idiot. And while you're at it, please explain how come that goal is accomplished by eliminating DirectSound direct hardware path but maintaining one for OpenAL, which accomplishes a similar end.

No there wouldn't be, because the statement that it was done for DRM is nonsense. Mind you, I am not a proponent of DRM, but I do firmly believe that people that are after MS since Vista's release on the issue of DRM conspiracy are either poorly informed, or stupid, or both. But that's a separate topic.

In terms of where my rationale comes from. Well, first, it's good system design practices, which is not any one source, but many, going back to original Intel documentation as to how they envisioned the protected mode OSes to run, Unix system design (or rather what little I recall of both topics), and the general conclusions that the kernel privileges are just for the kernel, or else you will have a bitch of a time catching instability issues.

Second, it's my experience with Creative drivers and their demonstrated ability to bring a system down, often fatally (for the system; that is requiring restart).

Thirdly, that would be something like http://blogs.msdn.com/larryosterma [...] 71346.aspx, which is a brief explanation as to the reasons. Each of those points may be expanded and discussed in further detail, which they have been but I am lazy at the moment to find the links.

And your statement re: OpenAL makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. It's kinda like Billy Madison's explanation of industrial revolution.

What does OpenAL have to do wih signing drivers any more than anything else (say DirectX for gfx, or other features of the sound card drivers for non-Creative cards, etc)? OpenAL is an API which is not only similar, but often considered better than DirectSound3D, and it has a direct path to the driver / hardware. And signing drivers is actually a good thing, I don't know how anyone could argue that it isn't (well, I heard some arguments but they are all pretty weak), and that's for x64 anyway (so you mean to say that MS really cares about DRM, just not in the 32-bit version?!)

Glad I quit buying Creative products. Horrible horrible drivers are the reason why. You guys had too wait far too long for this. And sounds like it's still not working the best.

You're right in them not working very well. I get hard crashes every so often. Once a day, every 6-8 hours, depends. I cant pinpoint exactly what circumstances it crashes on but I can tell you that its either a BSOD, or a hard freeze where I can only push the restart button. Creative has Shatty drivers, and unfortunately these new ones, while returning functionality to the xfis, are still unstable and do not represent what I recieved under xp.