Do the Compaq Audigy drivers improve sound quality?

Tweekerr · Jul 10, 2002

I am using the drivers that came with my Audigy card and if I play a game like Counterstrike the sound will sometimes hiss or crackle. For example, I slash a wall with a knife and the sound crackles. Is this something that the Compaq drivers would fix?

Maxvla · Jul 11, 2002

i highly doubt it... but try it anyways.

Tweekerr · Jul 11, 2002

Would the crackling issue be because the card is defective? Everything else works fine. Has anyone ever had this problem before?

Malakai · Jul 11, 2002

if your on WinXP, u need to install the driver updates from www.creativelabs.com

Tweekerr · Jul 11, 2002

Installed those, didn't do anything...I did, however, listen to the sound wavs from counterstrike and it's just the fact that they aren't the highest quality. I mean the knife slashing wall one sounds really hissy but some of them are clean.

FIZZ3 · Jul 11, 2002

Guess you found out alredy, but just in case: no they will not. In general, the best drivers for particular components comes from their maker, in this case Creative, not Compaq.

Mpegger · Jul 11, 2002

FIZZ3 said:
Guess you found out alredy, but just in case: no they will not. In general, the best drivers for particular components comes from their maker, in this case Creative, not Compaq.

But since Creative does next to nothing in regards to driver updates unless a big company forces them to... :beer:

Because of that I'm no longer a Creative fan. I purchased a SB Live! Plat (not 5.1) within the first month it came out for Win98SE. The same drivers that are on the CD that came with it, are the same drivers available to this date. No wdm drivers. No updates. No patches. Nothing.

Meanwhile, plenty of other sound card manufacturers have updated thier drivers many times. Thats not to say that the current drivers I have aren't good. They work fine. But when others are already using wdm drivers, and I have applications which dont function properly without wdm drivers, well, this Creative card will soon be gathering dust once I get a real sound card.

dansonang · Jul 11, 2002

it crackles beccause yr speakers are not producing the sounds correctly. My old cheapskate speaker crackles with an audigy but not wif my new altec lansing 2100 speakers. Sounds dun even distort at max volume. Cool

FIZZ3 · Jul 11, 2002

Mpegger said:
But since Creative does next to nothing in regards to driver updates unless a big company forces them to...

Because of that I'm no longer a Creative fan. I purchased a SB Live! Plat (not 5.1) within the first month it came out for Win98SE. The same drivers that are on the CD that came with it, are the same drivers available to this date. No wdm drivers. No updates. No patches. Nothing.

Meanwhile, plenty of other sound card manufacturers have updated thier drivers many times. Thats not to say that the current drivers I have aren't good. They work fine. But when others are already using wdm drivers, and I have applications which dont function properly without wdm drivers, well, this Creative card will soon be gathering dust once I get a real sound card.

Sure I agree Creative is less than stellar, yet I would not count on Compaq one-upping them. I also guess wdm drivers are more important for audio-editing purposes than MP3/Game use... the latter being more the target audience for Creative than the former. Not to excuse them or anything hehe.

FarEast · Jul 11, 2002

Actualy the compay ones are better than the ones on the CD. As they have been updated with the new patch ( No need to download them also the install is much cleaner)

Maxvla · Jul 11, 2002

Tweekerr said:
Installed those, didn't do anything...I did, however, listen to the sound wavs from counterstrike and it's just the fact that they aren't the highest quality. I mean the knife slashing wall one sounds really hissy but some of them are clean.

thats what i figured it was. all problems aren't always hardware related.

TruckChase! · Jul 11, 2002

FIZZ3 said:
Guess you found out alredy, but just in case: no they will not. In general, the best drivers for particular components comes from their maker, in this case Creative, not Compaq.

The drivers aren't made by Compaq, they're made by Creative. For some reason creative hasn't realeased them on their website yet. The drivers are definately worth a try.

As far as the crackling sound goes, do the following:

- The SBLive/Audigy MUST be on it's own IRQ. It's a really picky card. It won't even share with usb ports without crackling.

- Verify that none of your volume levels are above 80%. Anything higher could cause too much gain, and then you'll get clipping. (which sounds like a crackle)

- Depending on your motherboard, George Breese's "PCI Latency Patch" may do the trick. Head over to viahardware.com and pick it up if you have a KTxxx based motherboard.

- Pray that creative labs starts making better equipment & drivers.

I did that stuff and my crackling is gone. (I didn't need the PCI Latency patch, but some users have reported great success with it)

Malakai · Jul 12, 2002

TruckChase! said:
The drivers aren't made by Compaq, they're made by Creative. For some reason creative hasn't realeased them on their website yet. The drivers are definately worth a try.

As far as the crackling sound goes, do the following:

- The SBLive/Audigy MUST be on it's own IRQ. It's a really picky card. It won't even share with usb ports without crackling.

- Verify that none of your volume levels are above 80%. Anything higher could cause too much gain, and then you'll get clipping. (which sounds like a crackle)

- Depending on your motherboard, George Breese's "PCI Latency Patch" may do the trick. Head over to viahardware.com and pick it up if you have a KTxxx based motherboard.

- Pray that creative labs starts making better equipment & drivers.

I did that stuff and my crackling is gone. (I didn't need the PCI Latency patch, but some users have reported great success with it)

god i cant believe i forgot about that

yes, it needs its own IRQ. check your mobos info to find which PCI slot uses its own IRQ, and put the audigy in that.

mine needed its own slot on my 8KHA+, but i did not need the latency patch.

Tweekerr · Jul 12, 2002

My biggest concern is if the hissing/crackling/popping/etc is a result of the card being defective. It's not, right? These problems are generally just caused by software aren't they?

Malakai · Jul 12, 2002

Tweekerr said:
My biggest concern is if the hissing/crackling/popping/etc is a result of the card being defective. It's not, right? These problems are generally just caused by software aren't they?

the IRQ thing can do it too

FIZZ3 · Jul 12, 2002

TruckChase! said:
The drivers aren't made by Compaq, they're made by Creative. For some reason creative hasn't realeased them on their website yet. The drivers are definately worth a try.

Aha that's a different story then. Strange that Creative should supply new drivers to an OEM and not take the trouble of putting them on their own website. Oh well.

james.miller · Jul 12, 2002

have you tried turning the volume down? i get the same problem with my muse xl (yeah i know its crap but anyway) i found that it was because of the indvidual sliders (cd,wave ect) were up to high.dont ask me why,cause i really dont know.
try turning them down anyway.it might work.its worth a shot

Mpegger · Jul 12, 2002

FIZZ3 said:
Aha that's a different story then. Strange that Creative should supply new drivers to an OEM and not take the trouble of putting them on their own website. Oh well.

Because they'd prefer you call them up and they charge you for the driver cd itself, and the shipping.

Still like Creative?

FIZZ3 · Jul 13, 2002

Mpegger said:
Because they'd prefer you call them up and they charge you for the driver cd itself, and the shipping.

Still like Creative?

Haha such a scam.

I've not liked creative since the day I received a European version of my soundcard with all sorts of uncivilized languages on its driver/bloatware CD, but not English... and yes, installing just the drivers BSODed my poor clean Win98SE. This was just before they released their sole update driver for the Live series soundcard, which I happened to have.

But hey, it's not like there is much choice in the soundcard arena.

dansonang · Jul 13, 2002

what uncilcilised language are u talking about. i bet you are the one who is uncivilised. don't you know that the language u see is chinese?

Do the Compaq Audigy drivers improve sound quality?

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