New Creative X-Fi Vista 32/64-bit Drivers Released

[malware]

Creative has released some new X-Fi drivers for Windows Vista 32/64-bit. This download supports the following audio devices only: Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeMusic, X-Fi XtremeGamer, X-Fi Platinum, X-Fi Fatal1ty, X-Fi XtremeGamer Fatal1ty Pro, X-Fi Platinum Fatal1ty Champion Series and X-Fi Elite Pro. Do not install this driver for Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio. The Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi series Vista Driver 2.15.0004 fixes:
Resolves an issue for Windows Vista 64-bit systems with 4GB RAM
Resolves loud speaker noise when restarting your computer
Resolves an issue that causes OpenAL games not to respond

DOWNLOAD (http://us.creative.com/support/downloads/)

Source: Creative (http://us.creative.com/welcome.asp)

[b1lk1]

Poor slow Creative. Auzentech released a fix for these issues and more over a month ago for their X-FI Prelude...........

[Weer]

Poor slow Creative. Auzentech released a fix for these issues and more over a month ago for their X-FI Prelude...........

So I should get the Prelude?

[b1lk1]

So I should get the Prelude?

Absolutely. The Prelude is built 10000 times better than anything Creative could ever hope to build.

[imperialreign]

Absolutely. The Prelude is built 10000 times better than anything Creative could ever hope to build.

I'd have to disagree on one X-Fi card - the Fatal1ty. It's completely different from the other X-Fi models.

Anyhow, I thought the 2.15.0004 drivers had already been released, as I've had that driver listed as current for Vista for a while now - although Creative's site says Nov 07?! Unless, this is the same driver just updated :wtf: but, why would it be the same dirver version number? :wtf: Odd.

[WarEagleAU]

Im just glad to see working Vista Drivers. Creative is the bomb in the sound card industry, but I think they are taking that position to laxative. Auzentech has come out with some nice cards and so has Asus and Razar.

[imperialreign]

my only gripe with the Vista drivers, is that Creative has let the XP users fall by the wayside - by no means are the XP drivers "complete" . . . but, we haven't seen any XP driver updates in over a year now . . .

Honestly, I'm glad to see other companies getting into the audio card market - more choices, plus difference in architecture, style, and execution should really get Creative back on the ball like they were years ago. IMO, they've become way to complacent.

[tigger]

wonder if thats why gears of war dont work on vista,it just kinda freezes up,the openal games locking up thing?

[imperialreign]

doubt it - you could always remove and reinstall the OAL drivers, but, it's probably just somewhat buggy Visat drivers - Creative is still ironing out the kinks . . .

[AddSub]

Ugh, Vista is such a mess. Shitty Creative drivers are the least of it. Some personal observations on my primary machine: 3DMark2006 is about 11% slower, 3DMark2003 is about 14% slower, and 3DMark2001 is 78% slower (19k vs. 34k). GLExcess runs @ 2-3FPS max, final score being less than 1k (vs. 26k on 2K/XP), this is due to shitty implementation of OpenGL. HD Tune benchmarks report much slower read/burst rates on my RAID0 (about 20% slower overall) and CPU usage is reported (in HD Tune) about 30% higher than 2k/XP (31% vs. 39% in Vista). WinRAR benchmark (3.71) also shows about 8% slower performance. Encoding with VirtualDub takes similar performance hits. Every game and/or applications either runs slower or it fails to run at all.

Also, you can forget about serious overclocking. On three separate machines (one of mine and two of various family members) I have run into problems with Vista and overclocking. For example, my primary machine (<-- info on the left) does not boot unless I take the overclocks almost back to stock settings. My CPU is just fine @ 3.05Ghz with 2k/XP (18+ hours Prime95 stable), best I could get Vista to boot with was 2.6Ghz.

[Wile E]

I'd have to disagree on one X-Fi card - the Fatal1ty. It's completely different from the other X-Fi models.The Auzentech is still built much better. Better components used all around.

[Mussels]

hugely unrelated ranting

keep your overclocking failures out of this thread - its about creative cards.

I'm going to try extracting these in winrar and see if they work on the audigy 4 i have, some of the previous drivers worked like that.

edit: installed/workin fine on my audigy 4. definately an updated version too, since the latest A4 drivers are 6 months old.

[imperialreign]

The Auzentech is still built much better. Better components used all around.

very much so - although, not saying the components used on the Fatal1ty are cheap, bottom-end stuff, either. If you're lloking for a good audio card, and a bit on a budget, the Fatal1ty is a good fill in.

Don't get me wrong, If you can afford the extra $50-$60, I'd recommend going with an Auzen, too.

[Mussels]

I've got an auzen X-plosion and its inferior to my audigy under vista - it sounds worse, and has a lot less control (no bass boost/working equaliser)