X-Fi Sound card

2006-06-07 08:27:06

#1

99Ram2500: Member; +6|6612

So whos running one? I just got one and instantly upon installing it not only does BF2 crash but my machine just during normal operation crashes.

Ive seen this on another similar machine and never could narrow it down, but now i know its the xfi.

Anyone else have similar problems? I get BSOD's with:

0x0000008E, 0x000000C2, win32k.sys, nv4_disp.dll, ha20x2k.sys, ha10kx2k.sys, naifilter.sys, ntkrnlpa.exe, mssmbios.sys.

All completely random and all only after installing the X-Fi, i previously had a Audigy 2 ZS which had its known BF2 problems (only able to use medium hardware settings).

Creative labs is aware of the problem since it released a year ago and doesnt have a fix.. has anyone made their own fix / hacked driver to make the X-Fi work?

2006-06-07 10:52:25

#2

[TUF]Whiskey_Oktober: mmmm...Toasty!; +91|6719|Oregon

it is the Battlefield teams fault the xf-i doesnt work with BF2. i have heard theese issues before, thats why i got a Audigy 2ZS (im not shure wth youre talking about running only on medium...mine runs awesome on high). i think (think) that there are some beta sound drivers that allow you to change some settings that would allow you to run BF2 with the xf-i card, but im not shure.

2006-06-07 11:03:55

#3

OSS-CAPT-SPEIRS: Member; +13|6730|Orange County, CA

I have been runnung the X-Fi Elite Pro for several months and have not had any problems. The sound is fantastic. I also use Turtle Beach Ear Force HPA headphones/mic that direct output from the X-Fi and they sound great as well.

I thought BF2 was supposed to be optimised for X-Fi. I have the X-Fi option in the audio setup for BF2 and have not had any problems.

2006-06-07 11:19:35

#4

137[CSi]: Headshot Specialist; +104|6835|Woodland Hills, Ca

The creative X-fi is a real hit or miss card. Sounds like you need to completely uninstall it and download driver cleaner and flush out everything creative related.

Last edited by 137[CSi] (2006-06-07 11:20:09)

2006-06-07 11:24:48

#5

Towelly: It's A State Of Mind; +399|6588|Your attic

Happy owner of a x-fi extreme music over here. Although I put it in when I first built the system, so maybe a clean Install of Windows could be the solution.

Oh and if you have an Asus mobo, theres some sort of conflict between the drivers used by each of them, there might be a fix somewhere.

2006-06-07 11:51:14

#6

99Ram2500: Member; +6|6612

Yeah it has nothing to do with a clean driver install. It will crash on a fresh o/s install w/ new drivers.

It does seem to happen more on ASUS boards, and even more specifically the nForce4 chipset.. Its not limited to that, but a good chunk of the people with problems have an asus w/ nf4.

Im hoping i can find a fix somewhere from someone that made their own driver for either the chipset, bios, or card.

Ive heard everything from its an IRQ conflict to voltage starvation on the pci bus to too much data traffic on pci bus, etc.

Some have had luck disabling ACPI, but then they can only run at one core of their cpu. Some have had luck disabling every option in the bios.

OSS-CAPT-SPEIRS, what motherboard do you use? Its not so much the card being crap but the card not completely compatible with many motherboards.

I am able to run BF2 in Xfi mode and ultra high, however sometimes it crashes when i hit "join game" and other times i can play for an hour and a half before a crash.

Im debating on a new motherboard. The nForce4 has gotta be the worst there is from my experience and reading everyones troubles.

2006-06-07 11:59:13

#7

137[CSi]: Headshot Specialist; +104|6835|Woodland Hills, Ca

I am using an asus board now. No problems what so ever, make sure that your on board audio solution is disabled in the bios and that there is no drivers installed for the onboard solution so the machine doesnt try to use that as its main audio source until you delegate the x-fi as the primary source.

2006-06-07 12:34:12

#8

acdc: Member; +37|6573|SEATTLE, WA

137[CSi] wrote:
I am using an asus board now. No problems what so ever, make sure that your on board audio solution is disabled in the bios and that there is no drivers installed for the onboard solution so the machine doesnt try to use that as its main audio source until you delegate the x-fi as the primary source.

Yeah make sure on board audio is turned OFF in the bios if your mobo has it.

2006-06-07 18:59:01

#9

99Ram2500: Member; +6|6612

Yep, audio, firewire, 2nd sata group/esata, midi, gameport, serial port and parallel port all turned off.

onboard audio drivers never seen the lights of my computer.

What ASUS board is the one youre running 137CSI, is it a nforce4?

2006-06-08 11:12:06

#10

137[CSi]: Headshot Specialist; +104|6835|Woodland Hills, Ca

Nope... x3200 chipset.

https://images10.newegg.com/NeweggImage/productimage/13-131-004-02.jpg

Click on the mobo and it will take you to its new egg page.

2006-06-08 11:12:42

#11

buford: Member; +3|6596

I run an XFi on an Asus w/ the Nforce4 chipset. Runs fine, but I know i'm one of the lucky ones.

There are lots of reported problems with that chipset / Xfi problem, but then again, most people who upgrade to the XFi are going to also be running the best Athlon chipset, which is the NForce4.

Problems are reported with all the major chipsets.

Creative seems to think it's related to the board running out of data buffer at high sound qualities.

BF has had sound issues since the original BF42.

Try different PCI slots if you can. Find one that does not share interrupts with anything else.

Make sure the BIOS and XFi drivers are the most recent.

2006-06-08 11:19:10

#12

SuB: Member; +50|6673

the "join game" button bug is 1.3 NOT the x-fi

2006-06-08 12:40:47

#13

fierce: I love [fiSh]; +167|6566

SuB wrote:
the "join game" button bug is 1.3 NOT the x-fi

Not 100% true - if you're running Creatives X-Fi Betadrivers you get crashes on "Join Game" due to a bad OpenAL 1.1 implementation. I regularly receive something like "Application Busted - OpenAL...". If i try installing official X-Fi drivers my BF2 doesn't run anymore... d0h.

2006-06-08 14:23:26

#14

99Ram2500: Member; +6|6612

Correct, not 1.3 specific.

The "Join Game" crash never once happened before. Its only happened a couple times and havent had it recently though. I also now have the random "busted app" crash.. which seems to be a whole 5 google matches.

I also could not open BF2 with the original XFI drivers.. The website and beta drivers at least load. The website release drivers had the typical problem of BF2 crashing when applying audio settings. Beta driver seems to work best.

Drivers and bios are all up to date.

Three pci slots.
#1 shares with all.
#2 shares with usb 1.0
#3 shares with usb 2.0

Crashes in any slot.

I doubt its a buffer sound quality issue, as I was getting crashes while on my desktop, and also a couple while booting.

Im considering moving to a 965 or 975 chipset, to hopefully resolve this and also allow a newer intel dual/quad chip as they become reasonably priced..

Anyone out there run a 965 or 975 chipset with an X-FI?

2006-06-09 00:49:48

#15

99Ram2500: Member; +6|6612

I downloaded DELL drivers and now its working with no crashes. I cant select xfi quality, but no crashes. Just to verify ill go back to beta, and leave xfi off, and try again.

2006-06-09 02:00:23

#16

99Ram2500: Member; +6|6612

Imagine that.. after redoing the beta drivers the sound card was not detected, redetect it and now the installation files for it say theres no compatible hardware.. BF2 says no compatible hardware when i pick XFI.. but yet its installed in dev. mgr. and works..

If i didnt live within city limits this card would become a clay target to a 12 gauge. Creative sucks ass on this one.

2006-06-09 22:56:30

#17

99Ram2500: Member; +6|6612

Some progress.

Removed card from pc.

Uninstalled as much as possible.

manually deleted creative folders and registry keys.

showed non present devices in device manager
(add environment variable, DEVMGR_SHOW_NONPRESENT_DEVICES , value of 1)
show hidden in dev mgr.

deleted all creative instances
deleted all wdm instances

searched registry for x-fi . Deleted all keys. Also noted in one part there was like a PCI VEN keys listing, pretty much any PCI card thats been installed. I deleted all of those (its not the list that shows motherboard components, i only had three groups and they were all the sound card).

Restarted.

Shut down, installed card.

cancelled windows install.

installed new beta driver.

configured for 7.1, fired up BF2 special forces, selected xfi box, ultra high, and i just played for about 2 hours with no problem what so ever.

I think deleting the registrys memory of what PCI cards have been in the machine is the ticket.

2006-06-09 22:57:48

#18

99Ram2500: Member; +6|6612

Ill update as i find out more.

Still doesnt explain why the other machine i built with a fresh o/s and similar hardware crashes the exact same why mine was just doing.

Ill try to go through the same steps on that one as well.

2006-06-09 22:58:31

#19

Cybargs: Moderated; +2,285|6714

good job this should be stickied incase if sum1 has the same problem

https://cache.www.gametracker.com/server_info/203.46.105.23:21300/b_350_20_692108_381007_FFFFFF_000000.png

2006-06-10 00:12:20

#20

Defiance: Member; +438|6668

99Ram2500 wrote:
Anyone else have similar problems? I get BSOD's with:

0x0000008E, 0x000000C2, win32k.sys, nv4_disp.dll, ha20x2k.sys, ha10kx2k.sys, naifilter.sys, ntkrnlpa.exe, mssmbios.sys.

0x0000008E: Windows XP Error
0x000000C2: Windows XP Error
win32k.sys: Windows file, common for stop errors (aka BSOD)
nv4_disp.dll: nVidia Diaplay Driver
ha20x2k.sys: x-Fi Drivers
ha10kx2k.sys: SB Live! Drivers
naifilter.sys: McAfee antivirus Driver
ntkrnlpa.exe: Windows Kernel
mssmbios.sys: Microsoft system management BIOS

You've got 2 of 9 that are possibly related. My guess? You didn't properly uninstall old drivers and installed new drivers over them causing conflict.

For the money shot, did you replace an old sound blaster "Live!" card? I replaced a sound blaster live 5.1 with my x-Fi x-music and its working magically.

Oh yeah, and download dell drivers again and I'll personally stab you in the eyeballs. NEVER EVER EVER use non-manufacturer software. Doesn't matter if you have a dell computer, if you have a creative soundcard you use creative drivers.

Last edited by Defiance (2006-06-10 00:13:41)

2006-06-10 09:51:25

#21

Zedman: Member; +3|6723|NOVA

I've been running an X-Fi Platinum for a few months now and haven't had any problems. I installed it on an old copy of XP-Pro that was running motherboard drivers. (see below for system specs.) I popped it in, installed the drivers. Launched the game, cranked up the Audio Settings to X-FI (or max or whatever) Enabled all the options for it. And had no issues. Sounds like a dream. Some things that may help are making sure you're in 'gaming mode' as I notice things sound different in games in other modes, might also cause problems, I'm not sure. I originally ran the drivers that came with the card for a while, and those worked. But I recently switched to the beta drivers. You might want to try those and see if they help.

Here are my system specs:

Abit AN8 nForce 4
AMD Athlon 64 3500+
1 GB Corsair XMS
2 120 GB HDD's (Hitatchi and Seagate)
X-Fi Platinum (running beta drivers)
[If I left anything out just let me know -- I'm not all here right now (or ever)]

2006-06-10 12:30:35

#22

99Ram2500: Member; +6|6612

Defiance wrote:
For the money shot, did you replace an old sound blaster "Live!" card? I replaced a sound blaster live 5.1 with my x-Fi x-music and its working magically.

Oh yeah, and download dell drivers again and I'll personally stab you in the eyeballs. NEVER EVER EVER use non-manufacturer software. Doesn't matter if you have a dell computer, if you have a creative soundcard you use creative drivers.

Uninstalled per creatives recommendations. It was an Audigy 2 ZS i replaced.

Another funny thing, is after installing the DELL drivers, the machine never crashed. Was not able to use X-Fi in BF2, but still, before it would crash even not in BF2. I think theres something DELL found out and fixed. Its a recent driver, 4/24 or 4/25 i think? Id bet they had customers with problems and them and creative worked a special fix for it.. its a x-fi conspiracy.

Im still confused on the other PC, a fresh O/S format and has the same crash problems. (to a lesser degree, only the ha20k, win32k.sys, nv4_disp.dll, etc). On this one the ram has been replaced, i swapped video cards between the two (so the one in it now i know ran fine with no problems).. so im near certain its nothing else. Its for a customer of mine, so Ive asked to remove the soundcard from the system entirely and see if crashes continue just to verify. Still waiting to hear back on this one.

Sunday will be a BF2 fest, so ill update if theres any crashes on the one that *seems* to be working now.

2006-06-10 12:36:57

#23

gburndred: tiga tiga tiga tiga tiga woods ya'll; +95|6636|Calgary,AB,Canada

i got the xtreme music version and it works fine

2006-06-11 21:33:10

#24

99Ram2500: Member; +6|6612

No crashes yet.

And for the ass hat that left me - karma for saying its not 1.3's problem, well boofreakinghoo, guess what.

I hit join game quite alot and it didnt crash.

Guess my 1.3 patch isnt working today.

Last edited by 99Ram2500 (2006-06-11 21:33:35)

2006-06-17 03:21:26

#25

virtualrain: Member; +1|6522

I recently rebuild my machine with a fresh install of Windows XP and went straight to the May beta drivers from Creative and BF2 1.3 patch. I got the busted app problem occassionally so I tried replacing the BF2OpenAL.dll in the BF2 directory with the OpenAL32.dll file from my system 32 folder (make a backup and of course rename the new file to match the BF2 filename). This appears to have fixed the busted app problem... several hours error free so far.

BF2S Forums X-Fi Sound card

137[CSi] wrote:

SuB wrote:

99Ram2500 wrote:

Defiance wrote:

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