Another disclaimer: I love the SBLIVE! I feel that Creative is the standard and of the amount of SB cards on the planet and there should be NO problems being able to get this card to work. I am sure that SOMEONE has the EXACT same configuration that you are having problems with and that manufactures should KNOW that plenty of people will find issues sooner or later. Many moons ago, I had issues with the AWE64 and a Matrox card. At that time, that was THE configuration (best of the best) and one game that was released crashed after 15 minutes...like clockwork! After a few months, a patch was released that ONLY fixed the "Matrox and AWE64 configuration crash problem." Did NO beta tester have this configuration?!? Configuration One:I found early on that their was an "issue" with FlaskMPEG. Every so often, a "pop" or "crackle" would come from the speakers. I did not really care much at the time, cause I was just fooling around with the idea of DVD ripping and not really serious about it since it still took WAY to long to encode a DVD and that v0.6 was NOT using SMP to the fullest that it could. I was not concerned. Then came Diablo 2. I find Diablo 2 to be a great game and have a blast playing it...until upon loading it up, after a few minutes a LOUD screeching/squall would emanate from my speakers! Ow...what a fluke! Then it started getting worse...I even loaded up the game and did NOT move my character and after only a few minutes, (MAX 10) the screeching would be there... I disabled "3D" sound, reinstalled drivers, changed IRQ's, swapped a SBLIVE! Value, SBLIVE! "normal" and returned to the SBLIVE! 5.1. Finally, I stood on one foot holding a glass of water...nothing would fix this problem! I wandered to Blizzards web site to see if any new support issues have cropped up. Nothing! I went to Creative to check up if there is any new drivers...No, but there was an interesting blurb about SMP and the SBLIVE!: Quoted from Creative's FAQ:
WHEN?!?! Released for WinXP?!?! Thanks for the help...sheesh... Anyway, since Diablo 2 was the ONLY game I was playing at the time (and still) I tore down my Dual Configuration to build Configuration number two: Configuration Two:This, after some testing, gave me NO problems with sound! Great, but this configuration was also a spare computer running Diablo 2 as a LAN server/storage character and not my "main" system. My main configuration has about the same hardware, running WinMe, but with an Asus CUSL2-C board. Further wanderings around the net, gave me some insight into the SBLive!/SMP problem...a fix? Don't use Live!Ware 3! Go figure... Since WinXP RC1 CD is almost here, I thought that since I am going to wax my drive anyway, I would give the SMP configuration another try. Thus, Configuration Three came about: Configuration Three:This developed into no problems! Diablo 2 runs great, UDMA100 kicks ass (and even reports it in the "system" properties tabs/sheets). In general, I am pretty satisfied with the out come of the new drivers. I have NOT reinstalled Live!Ware 3. I am planning on doing that right BEFORE I put a clean install of WinXP on the system...hell, why not? I am going to clean it anyway and if it DOES work, I can report that to the 3 people that visit this site. Something to take note of: With the WDM drivers, the mixer settings seem to be kind of funky. One thing is there is no "digital CD" options. Another is the bass and treble settings default to the far left (I am normally running them in the middle) and even at that state, there seems to be major distortion with bass. That may not be a concern for those of you running "PC speakers" but the audio nuts in the audience may take that into consideration...cause it is obvious with a stereo system hooked up to the card. UPDATE: July 28, 2001 @ 9:54 PM PSTI attempted to install LiveWare3 on Configuration Three before I waxed the drive for WinXP, but it would NOT install properly. AudioHQ would NOT work and it was reporting missing DLL files all the time. Needless to say, I was not really pleased, but since I was on my way to waxing for WinXP RC1, I smiled and rebooted... After installing WinXP RC1 on Configuration Three, I checked up on the previous SBLive! problems and it seems that there is no cause for alarm...The SBLive works just fine and, so far, I have not found any problems with it! A good thing, though, is that the SBLive! (WDM) drivers supported 3D SOUND in Diablo 2! I was rather surprised to say the least, about that one! Stay tuned... | System Configurations |
Number One:Dual Pentium III 1 GHz Asus CUV4X-D v1007 BIOS v4.28 4in1 driver 1 GB PC-133 Memory Elsa GeForce 2 Ultra 64 MB nVidia v12.41 drivers 3com 905C-TX-M 10/100 NIC Sound Blaster Live 5.1 Live!Ware 3 Windows 2000 SP1 |
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Number Two:Single Pentium III 1 GHz Asus CUV4X-D v1007 BIOS v4.28 4in1 driver 512 MB PC-133 Memory eVGA GeForce 2 32 MB tv out nVidia v12.41 drivers 3com 905C-TX-M 10/100 NIC Sound Blaster Live Live!Ware 3 Windows Me |
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Number Three:Dual Pentium III 1 GHz Asus CUV4X-D v1010 BIOS v4.32 4in1 driver 1 GB PC-133 Memory Elsa GeForce 2 Ultra 64 MB nVidia v12.41 drivers 3com 905C-TX-M 10/100 NIC Sound Blaster Live 5.1 Win2k WDM default driver Windows 2000 SP2 |
"Have you tweaked your OS lately?"
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Windows Service Configurations!
Includes explanations of each service and advice on which services you can safely disable!
Original content created: July 18, 2001
Most recent update: July 28, 2001
All content Copyright © 1999-2008 by Charles "Black Viper" Sparks. All Rights Reserved.