What’s happening with X-Fi audio and Win10 versions 1903 and 1809?

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Microsoft has already admitted that the new (not yet released) Win10 version 1903 knocks out audio on Creative’s premium — and relatively pricey — X
[See the full post at: What’s happening with X-Fi audio and Win10 versions 1903 and 1809?]

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The same warning appeared in Insider build 18875 (20H1) but NOT in 18885 (20H1). So maybe it is fixed in the Insider builds. That could mean it will get a general release soon.

--Joe

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woody

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That’s why I still keep my W8 DVD – there’s support for all my current hardware until 2023, although AMD already kind of gave up on updating Radeon drivers for W8.1…

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X-Fi drivers and Windows haven’t played nice with each other since the product launch.  This is nothing new.  Do what I did and just use onboard audio.  It’s as good, if not better, than Creative these days.

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Well, not really, take SNR for example:

1/ ALC887 – 97 dB(A)

2/ ALC892 – 95 dB(A)

3/ ALC1150 – 98 dB(A)

4/ X-Fi – 109 dB(A)

Not to mention less interference with other mainboard components etc.

Frankly, I’m quite surprised that the company still releases drivers for 13-year old cards. Very nice of Creative.

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TweakHound, doriel, Microfix, Elly, warrenrumak

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@radosuaf

ALC892 and has an SNR of 97-dB

The ALC1150 actually has a 115dB SNR.

The ALC1220 on latest generation mainboards has a 120dB SNR.

https://www.realtek.com/en/products/computer-peripheral-ics/item/alc892

https://datasheetspdf.com/pdf-file/716525/RealtekMicroelectronics/ALC892/1

https://cdn.datasheetspdf.com/pdf-down/A/L/C/ALC1150-RealtekSemiconductor.pdf

So it’s in the ballpark based on the figures.  The 1150 and 1220 are decent codecs for audio playback; I’d say you only need more if you’re doing actual professional audio work, or have a very discerning ear that wants headphones and a DAC (over speakers, you probably won’t notice a difference.

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Note:  The one thing that can improve by having a card (aside from the card having a high quality DAC itself, like the SoundBlaster X-Fi Titanium HD, which is different than the other X-Fi cards in this way by having a dedicated headphone DAC), is that a card raised off the mainboard can have reduced crosstalk or EMI noise.

Motherboards starting at about $120-130 and up usually implement a setup where they use different layers of the board for audio channels; that is, the left uses one board layer, and the right another.  This is done to reduce or eliminate crosstalk, and to separate the audio circuitry from layers that might cause noise.  This does not always succeed perfectly, but onboard audio has come a long, long way since the older onboard codecs, and the ALC1150 and ALC1220 bear that out.  If you’re getting noise in your headphones using onboard audio though, especially under times of high system load, a dedicated sound card may help.

It may also be a reason to check the quality of your power supply, too.

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radosuaf

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1. ALC1150 and ALC1220 are available on very expensive mainboards only. I’d pay 5$ extra for a better audio codec and 60$ for features I won’t ever use

2. I already have the X-Fi.

The choice is quite simple.

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@radosuaf,

The ALC1220 is generally on middle-upper end boards and higher.  However, price on the ALC115o has come down quite a ways in price, and it’s looking like the ALC1220 is set to replace the ALC1150 on a lot of boards.

The AsRock H370 Performance mainboard has an ALC1220 audio chip and is in the $105-120 range depending on who you shop at. Also has a B360 mainboard in that price range with that codec as well.  Gigabyte’s ALC1220 boards start around $120. ASUS, being more expensive, calls theirs “ROG SupremeFX HD Audio Codec S1220A” to appear superior and starts at $150.

So if you’re already in the market for a board, you really don’t have to settle.  I went a little higher end and got a Gigabyte board for myself this week on sale at $180 (I wanted higher-end voltage regulation, but that’s still far from top-end) and I got the ALC1220, but there are boards considerably lower that have it.

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my old HP pavilion media center m8417c desktop computer has Realtek ALC888S audio chip which also has SNR of 97dB (same as the ALC892 on my custom built PC using a Gigabyte board)

http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/datasheets/ALC888S_DataSheet_1.2.pdf

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Interesting.

I had a Creative X-Fi Platinum in my system.  I added a second Geforce GTX 1070 for SLI, and due to card slot arrangement, couldn’t enable SLI without removing the card to allocate more PCIe lanes for the second video card.  I plugged the X-Fi into a slot that didn’t share with the second PCIe x8 slot.

I couldn’t get it working again.  This was two weeks ago, running Windows 10 1803 (since upgraded to 1809), fully patched.  After some frustration, removing drivers, even using a cleanup utility from Creative for them, removing all apps, and reinstalling (two different versions of drivers, I tried twice), I couldn’t get the card to detect. I used my onboard Realtek ALC1150 instead, which worked perfectly, and to my surprise (at least on 5.1 Logitech X-530 speakers) sounded equal.

The X-Fi’s main difference from a higher end Realtek codec is that it had hardware processing for positional audio.  Microsoft dumped DirectSound3D, and made positional audio (surround sound) a function of the CPU instead, so the main reason for an X-Fi is gone (unless you have games that use Creatives ALChemy software, or OpenAL).  Performance won’t differ because modern CPUs are so fast.  The only time you’ll have a difference is if your sound card has a high-quality DAC and you use headphones, and/or if the card has a headphone amp.  Some mainboards at the high-end add such features as well, or you can use a USB DAC.

I’m doing a hardware upgrade this week to an i9-9900K.  I’ve decided to stick with the new onboard ALC-1220 codec on the new Gigabyte mainboard I’ve purchased.  I loved my Creative card, but sometimes, you’ve just gotta let go.

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You might want to check Bios settings for PCI for that sound card if you have not already.

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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anonymous wrote:

I’ve decided to stick with the new onboard ALC-1220 codec on the new Gigabyte mainboard I’ve purchased.

It’s not a cheap mainboard, is it?

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My preference is to send the audio out in digital format to an audio system and have that gear do the digital to analog conversion.  I’ve gotten amazing sound out of onboard audio this way.

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the X-FI audio problems should be fixed in recent updates for both 1809 (KB4494441) & 1903 (KB4497936) and later. Creative may also release new drivers for X-FI sound cards either by end of May or sometime in June that will work in newer Win10 versions

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[EP]

NEW X-FI audio driver v2.30.0012 (WHQL) available:

https://old.reddit.com/r/SoundBlasterOfficial/comments/bs4lh2/xfi_20k1_drivers_for_windows_1903_beta/

this one should also support many other X-FI sound cards like XtremeGamer, XtremeAudio, XtremeMusic, etc. ; supports 1903/19H1 and any current 20H1 builds

• This reply was modified 6 years ago by EP.

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radosuaf

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radosuaf, Creative has officially released new X-FI XtremeMusic audio drivers on the Creative web site Tuesday June 25 (version 2.30.0012)

https://support.creative.com/Products/ProductDetails.aspx?catID=1&subCatID=208&prodID=14066&prodName=X-Fi%20XtremeMusic&subCatName=X-Fi%20Series&CatName=Sound+Blaster&VARSET=prodfaq:PRODFAQ_14066,VARSET=CategoryID:1

better late than never

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E-MU Tracker Pre USB-Audio/MIDI 1.0 Device is also affected. Disapears after update, works fine when back to 1809.

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