Eck

That message appears whenever you uninstall SBLive software of any modern vintage (circa post vxd Liveware 3).

Simply CTZAPP in your favorite base version (I recommend starting with the Audigy 2 ZS cdrom's 402 version).
You can then run the ctcomp patch on the Audigy 2 software's Audio/Setup folder and magically, the software will notice that you have your Creative card installed!

For details on what I've installed after much experimentation, see my reply to the "help!!" thread below.

CTZAPPing in your favorite driver will fix that problem for whatever version of drivers/software you want to use.

Dennis

pr0digal jenius

may hafta try tht on ym friend's audigy OEM....thanks, and uh, as I haven't talked to ya before(even tho u been here since january), welcome to DH...pull up a chair and stay a while

Eck

Thanks for the welcome PrOdigal jenius. I've actually been reading (lurking?) here nearly since the site started. I usually register to forums when I've got something to ask or contribute. But I learn and am amused by reading the various posts. Easy Cd Hard Drive Reformatter was one of me favorites. (I switched to Nero long ago.) Well, that might have not have been from here but you get the point. Lots of help gained by perusing the Radeon posts, and lately with all the experimenting with my Live card. I've been using Driver Cleaner for quite a while as well. It's a great site!

According to a poster at Rage3d, Creative is working on a new driver/software set for the Live based on what EMU has for its Audio Production Studio. It seems that the folks tweaking that driver give in and buy an Audigy most of the time. Well, I've still got my PC Works 2.1's, and most of the time I've got to use my Sony MDR V-6 headphones because the walls here are too thin and my neighbor calls the police over noise if I just watch Jay Leno with the volume low! I don't think I'll be bothering to buy new sound cards or speakers as long as I'm living here. Hopefully, Creative will help make the Live (which they are still selling, with that "future-proof" claim still staring me in the face when I drag out the old box) compatible with newer technologies. Or, at least release a set for the masses that will optimize the card to its full audio potential without needing to mix and match driver and software across all the different sets. I mean, the card works fine with what they've got, but if they're continuing to sell it they should dedicate some resources ($) to optimizing it. It's amazingly better with this user mixmatching but I doubt most folks want to bother with all this downloading and tweaking.

pr0digal jenius

creative has some of the worst software around(altho i musr say...the new ZS drivers are rock solid).....but they don't care b/c they KNOW people wills till buy b/c their hardware is far and away the best there is

dj_stick

i stick with the kX drivers for my creative cards… n with a trick the APS drivers can be put on a Live! aswell (win9x only though)

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Eck

Hey DJ Stick,

EMU's latest version is only for 2000/XP. That's the one the folks at Rage 3d are tweaking and using with the Live card. And, since Creative is (according to those posts) doing some tweaking of their own with them, there is some hope for a set that is good for both gaming and music. The reports say that Creative is abandoning the UDA (unified driver archetecture) format and is creating seperate sets optimized for either the Live, the Audigy, and the Audigy 2.

I don't think most will risk fooling with the APS stuff though. The user created sets on that other forum have good reports, but the user has to also download specially created EAX files, change registry entries, struggle with XP's System File Protection (which isn't a problem with the Audigy 2 ZS drivers since they are Microsoft signed), etc. I'm not going to mess with it. Especially since combining some of the info in the great guides here have everything in my Live sounding great at the moment.

But, it will be interesting to see what Creative will produce, since it is concentrating on optimizing the drivers and software for the specific cards. I'm looking forward to it!

Dennis

dj_stick

i haven't read about the latest APS drivrs - but being a pro-card it wouldn;t have EAX as such i don't think

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Eck

Although the pdf manual states that it doesn't, the guys who experimented with the driver on their Live report that EAX is functional. They speculate that EMU advertises that they don't because of potential licencing problems.

And, one of the posters has a link to drivers, and later links to EAX and Soundfont workarounds that according to him make the drivers use most of the assorted EAX presets (no mention of a parametric eq) and make XP keep the unsigned SFman.dll (I guess overwriting in safe mode).

So, it looks like they work, but with a bunch of workarounds and additions by the user community there. I would question the overall stability of user patched audio drivers. Yeah, I'm using the Audigy 2 ZS drivers and Audigy 2 software, and PlayCenter 3 on my system, but none of this is with user put together software. The only change is the patch to allow Creative's later software to install on the Live (ctcomp). That's very different than what's going on over there with the APS driver being jimmy rigged to run the Live cards! It's sort of like 3dfx card users are depending on because the company that made the hardware folded. Creative is going strong (and then some)! There's no reason for users to need to resort to fooling with all this stuff. The 252 based drivers and software works fine (except for users with Live Drives). It's just clear that the later unified drivers and updated software do make the card work (sound) better. But I'm looking forward to whatever comes of Creative's current Live driver/software development. There should be no reason for users to need to resort to even what I and others are doing to run the later than official versions. I'm looking forward to being able to simply run the install cdrom, reboot, then run an official Creative update downloaded from the internet that optimizes the card to its potential use with today's updated technology. That's how they worked the current Unidriver pack, but it uses 2 year old driver and software versions that have obviously been improved upon with the Audigy 2 stuff.

Dennis

Eck

Oops.

Went back and read the other forum's post again. The EMU APS driver is a seperate entity from the one I said requires downloading EAX presets and what have you. The EMU has its own mixer and software, but those that used it reported EAX to work regardless of what the EMU APS guide says. So I was right about that.

The other driver I mentioned is older than the 252 set, but is a driver only XP/2000 set that was designed specifically for the Live. It was meant to be part of the scratched Liveware 3.1 that fell prey to the driver team being reassigned to work on UDA sets for the Audigy series. This set works with the old Surround Mixer from Liveware 3.0, but requires a registry change to prevent a crash on shutdown from Devloder32. The tweaker also offers a download with those EAX presets that give you all those that came with the Liveware 3.0.

I would rather continue to use the 443 Audigy 2 ZS driver and the updated software that all sounds great than go back in time to an unfinished Creative driver set with problems! But, those using that set say their LiveDrive's now run on XP, so I guess there is value for some. I never had a LiveDrive. I believe this topic has been off track, but interesting, ay? I hope folks get their card's running!

Dennis