Curse

EternalTempest · Aug 20, 2006, 01:36 PM // 13:36

Wanted to give you a heads up for Audigy 2 ZS owners, they did have newer drivers in the "Beta" X-Fi - SBXF_PCDRVBETA_LB_2_09_0001.exe. There even MS-WHQL certified.

Please note the following warning with this driver in there notes:
* THIS IS AN UNSUPPORTED BETA DRIVER. There is no technical support for this driver.
* We recommend that only experienced users install this driver. Do not install this driver for critical tasks. Users who are looking for stable drivers should wait for the final release.
* This beta driver expires on 22 September 2006. When this happens, users should install the latest Sound Blaster X-Fi driver available.

Attached is a screen shot of the installed driver (and ms-whql) on my system.
This driver is dated 06/06 vs the 01/06 newest driver on creatives web site if you selected Audigy 2 ZS.

Numa Pompilius · Aug 20, 2006, 02:22 PM // 14:22

I have an Audigy 2 ZS, and I get crackling whenever there is a loading screen.
I use the newest official Creative driver, 2.08.0004.
Will try to get hold of the beta driver.

Big_Iron · Aug 20, 2006, 02:22 PM // 14:22

I've updated to the latest "supported" X-Fi driver and I'm still getting it too. I'm not going to try the beta, but if someone else would like to try and report back here, that would be great!

BTW, someone mentioned headphone earlier. I'm getting it with speakers and headphones. Also, as mentioned earlier, it only seems to happen during battles.

EternalTempest · Aug 20, 2006, 02:48 PM // 14:48

Complete Re-Edit

Go to creative labs web site, go to support, then download, choose X-Fi then any of the X-Fi cards, choose os (assuming windows xp) should provide a list of drivers
http://us.creative.com/support/downl...pe=0&x=25&y=16

(SBXF_PCDRV_LB_2_09_0001.exe)
(SBXF_PCDRVBETA_LB_2_09_0001.exe)

In reguards to the Audigy 2 ZS, both the X-Fi "beta" and latter "official" appears to have the exact same drivers and same "patch notes" including fixes for "crakling" in some cases.

Ver - 5.12.18.1181 dated 6/1/06 and both are MS WHQL certified. The officila lastest for the Audigy 2 ZS from created was back in Janurary 2006.

If you run the installer, you will get an error about unsupported card but if you extact the files and run the setup.exe from within the driver folder, it will do an upgrade of the drivers.

To extract the programs try your favorite file compressions / decompression software.
I use Power Archver 2006 but I think 7-zip should work.
http://www.powerarchiver.com/ (Shareware)
http://www.7-zip.org/ (Freeware)

Just right click on the file (exe) and should give you an option to extact the files.

Once Extracted, go to the Src\Drivers\ folder and run setup.exe, On my system it went to updating driver's please wait, then asked for a reboot.

Let me know if this works too, I will let you know if I get any crackling myself - it happened but it's very rare for me on GW.