kxproject SB drivers and Audigy2 ZS

Hi folks,

I tried the kxproject soundblaster drivers yesterday on my system
which runs an Audigy 2 ZS, and the drivers installed fine, mixer came
up, all fine and dandy, but: no sound!

The soundcard appears as "working" in system properties, but no matter
what kind of speakers I try in the settings or what volume / mixer
settings I use, there's no sound from the speakers.

I've read in their FAQ that the ZS is not officially supported yet,
but I was wondering if somebody on RAS has had better luck with the
kxproject drivers and the audigy 2 ZS.

Cheers in advance for any comments,

uwe



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"Ken MacKay" > wrote in message
...
What are you running for speaker setup? If just using 2 speakers or
headphones
try swapping the outputs in the kx mixer. For some reason it swaps the
outputs
by default. Had no sound initially with two different systems with SBLives
and
headphones until found this tip in the driver FAQ.

HTH
Ken

Thats interesting. Ive had similar probs before but it never occured to me
that drivers could change the outputs... i thought that was hardwired.
Cool.... i might see if my old sb live actualy does work to stick in my
second pc
Thanx for the heads up!

On Thu, 13 Jan 2005 15:53:58 GMT, Ken MacKay wrote:
> What are you running for speaker setup? If just using 2 speakers or headphones
> try swapping the outputs in the kx mixer. For some reason it swaps the outputs
> by default. Had no sound initially with two different systems with SBLives and
> headphones until found this tip in the driver FAQ.

Hi Ken,

I run standard stereo speakers (called "2.1", I think), but I tried
setting it as 5.1 as recommended in the FAQ but it didn't help. During
the speaker test which tests each speaker there is nothing but
silence, too.

How do I go about swapping the output in kmixer? While the interface
is cute, it's rather non-selfexplanatory ;-)

uwe


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Ken MacKay > wrote in
:


Uwe, I switched the inputs on the back of the SB card itself.


> BTW tried the drivers on two different win2k machines using SBLive
> values (one oem the other not) and with the oem GPL sounds fine, but
> for the other the sounds is distorted. Setting the soundcard hardware
> acceleration slider to "basic" fixes it, but the other PC runs fine at
> "full". If anyone has any ideas what may be causing this let me know.


Using a Sound Blaster Live 5.1 oem and Win xp pro. This is my experience as
well, had to go back two notches on the acceleration slider to clear up
distortion. It would seem like a step backwards except at least now the
situation seems stable, whereas before it was sometimes distorted sometimes
not.
DonS

Uwe =?iso-8859-15?Q?Sch=FCrkamp?= > wrote in
:

> On Thu, 13 Jan 2005 15:53:58 GMT, Ken MacKay wrote:
>> What are you running for speaker setup? If just using 2 speakers or
>> headphones try swapping the outputs in the kx mixer. For some reason
>> it swaps the outputs by default. Had no sound initially with two
>> different systems with SBLives and headphones until found this tip in
>> the driver FAQ.
>
> Hi Ken,
>
> I run standard stereo speakers (called "2.1", I think), but I tried
> setting it as 5.1 as recommended in the FAQ but it didn't help. During
> the speaker test which tests each speaker there is nothing but
> silence, too.
>
> How do I go about swapping the output in kmixer? While the interface
> is cute, it's rather non-selfexplanatory ;-)
>
> uwe


From the KX help file:

Front/Rear issues

These issues pertain to all Creative cards, but not to the E-mu APS and
some Audigy2 Platinum Ex cards. Creative audio cards based on the EMU10kX
audio DSP require a DAC (Digital to Analog Converter) in order to produce
analog output. In general, this task is typically performed by either
AC97 Codecs or I2S Codecs.

As a rule, Creative audio cards use the AC97 Codec for Front and
Center/Subwoofer outputs, and I2S Codec for Rear output. The AC97 Codec
is also used as an ADC (Analog to Digital Converter) and, thus, is
responsible for all on-board analog inputs. (Note that LiveDrives and
other DaughterBoard cards use different schemes).

The AC97 Codecs used in SBLive! cards are rather noisy devices (when
compared to I2S Codecs), and this leads to some quality problems. As a
rule, SBLive Rear outputs have much better Signal To Noise Ratio (SNR),
Total Harmonic Distortion (THD) and Channel Separation (acs) since they
use the I2S Codec. So, if you want to get better sound quality for music
playback it is recommended that you plug your speakers into the 'Rear
Out' and enable the 'Swap Front and Rear' kX Mixer option (the swap is
enabled by default).

The Audigy and Audigy2 cards use both AC97 and I2S Codecs for Front
output and this theoretically gives you rather good Front quality. But
nevertheless, the AC97 Codec causes some distortion and thus the same
procedure is recommended for use with Audigy / Audigy2 cards as well.

Certain Audigy2 Platinum Ex cards lack AC97 codec and thus don't require
Front and Rear outputs to be swapped.

Of course, the above should be considered as a recommendation only.

On Fri, 14 Jan 2005 16:49:24 GMT, Don Scurlock wrote:
>
> The Audigy and Audigy2 cards use both AC97 and I2S Codecs for Front
> output and this theoretically gives you rather good Front quality. But
> nevertheless, the AC97 Codec causes some distortion and thus the same
> procedure is recommended for use with Audigy / Audigy2 cards as well.
>
> Certain Audigy2 Platinum Ex cards lack AC97 codec and thus don't require
> Front and Rear outputs to be swapped.


hmm, maybe I should re-install my sblive and donate the Audigy2 ZS to
the kx project ;-)

cheers,

uwe



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