Audigy 2 or Realtek on Vista

[Polarman]

I had some hiccups with Vista freezing very intermittently (could be days before freezing).

I decided to remove my Audigy 2 ZS card with all related drivers and crap and enable the onboard Realtek with the 1.80 drivers (I know that 1.81 came out yesterday) to see if this would cure the problem. It seemed too but... Turns out that the real problem was bios related. Go figure.

Anyway... Since the onboard Realtek is enabled and working great by the way. I'm wondering if i should put back my old Audigy 2 ZS or sick with onboard HD.

I would like to note that Realtek had Vista drivers since version 1.48 and there now at 1.81 according to the readme file. That's 33 version releases since Vista came out and there WHQL certified too.

Creative Labs on the other hand as 2, yes TWO driver versions released since Vista came out and those are NOT signed. X-fi drivers 4th version are not signed also. A quick look on Creatives forum looks very ugly. People are downright furious at Creative labs not doing "sqwat" about drivers/software for the Audigy/X-Fi series. Some vow never to buy any Creative products again. XP users are left in the dark ages too because no updated drivers came out in over a year now. Too add insult to injury, you have to buy Alchemy for Audigy (10$) in order to decode EAX.

I don't know if Realtek can decode EAX or not, but they have more frequent driver releases for both AC97 and HD audio.

What do you think?

[clavicle]

I am in a same boat as you. I cannot ditch my creative audigy2zx platinum pro for vista, because vista is full of troubles for my audio card.

Though the issue you mentioned, that vista froze (in your case bios related) never really happened with me.

I think for me better deal is to stick to XP and use Creative card. The quality of sound using realtek doesn't appease me that much.

Realtek supports eax but the quality is still questionable.

So may be there is light in the future and creative gives us better drivers for our cards!

[hclarkjr]

here are a couple of drivers and things for audigy 2 sound cards

http://www.3dacc.net/forums/f35/vista-audi...d-drivers-2877/

http://nomoregoatsoup.wordpress.com/2007/0...-windows-vista/

here is the driver i am using with no trouble at all vista ultimate 64 bit http://uk.europe.creative.com/support/downloads/

[clavicle]

here are a couple of drivers and things for audigy 2 sound cards

http://www.3dacc.net/forums/f35/vista-audi...d-drivers-2877/

http://nomoregoatsoup.wordpress.com/2007/0...-windows-vista/

Nice find. I will try it soon!

[kartel]

Hey guys I got a SB Live! 5.1 SB0100 and it works awesome on Vista with the 2002 driver!

I have everything even stereo out and wave contol.

Check it out!

http://forums.creative.com/creativelabs/bo...ding&page=1

[Polarman]

here are a couple of drivers and things for audigy 2 sound cards

http://www.3dacc.net/forums/f35/vista-audi...d-drivers-2877/

http://nomoregoatsoup.wordpress.com/2007/0...-windows-vista/

I previously posted these modded drivers here

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=106937

I'm not too inclined on using modded drivers. There not signed either. For now, i'll stick with Realtek until my next "cleanup" wich will be soon.