Why does Liveware 3 for Windows2000 suck?

[Mondain98 0]

These drivers suck, hard.

 

So far, I have lost: Hibernate mode, Standby mode, and the ability to run Half Life... all due to the Windows2000 "compatible" Liveware 3.0 drivers.

 

I own a SB Live! X-Gamer, and well, I'm pissed. So far Creative Labs support for this card in Windows2000 is extremely poor. What kind of comapany releases drivers that inherently BREAK integrated Win2k functionality.

 

 

Does Creative know their drivers have major, major problems? Has anyone called them, or taken the time to rip open their case and find their serial numbers, just to send them a tech support email through their website?

 

If you are having any problems with these drivers in Win2k, feel free to vent here.

[Mondain98 0]

Sorry, I know the Live!Ware 3.0 drivers for Windows2000 arent out yet; they are due out mid-may.

 

The suck-ass drivers I am referring to are the "Live!Ware for Windows2000", currently available at http://www.soundblaster.com/liveware/w2k/

 

THESE are the drivers that blow

[Arin 0]

strange, half life ran with mine. the first time i tried it it crashed, but it runs fine now with eax.

[AcidDrone 0]

I agree they killed my sound in q3 and made some of my mp3's distort. ATM im just using the drivers that came with win2k...

they work fine

 

------------------

-Acid

[Mondain98 0]

Crazy **** is happening with Half Life in Win2k for me.

 

It would start, lock after a few seconds, then bring me back to the desktop with an error dialog, saying I cannot "remove a physical drive while it is in operation" or something to that effect! The dialog mentions how to "remove a device", etc. Did the same thing with my cdrom too.

 

The ***** of it is, when that happens it totally removes that physical drive from my system.. ie- any logical drive letters i had on that physical disk are no longer listed in Explorer (including the cdrom when it happened with the cdrom).

 

Why am I the only person on the planet who cant get Half Life to run on Win2k!? I'm even using an actual, legit, storebought Win2k Pro cd.. I mean, wtf..

[Galilee 0]

I get a real crappy sound in UT when using EAX. have to turn ot of or the crackling and sparkling destroys my computer.

Hope the LW3 will fix things.

Have no problems in HL and Q3 thank God.

[Arin 0]

the only real problem i have seen is that some games eax will not work right, or turn off. but i am upgradeing from my monster mx300 which crapped in w2k so mabey i am just ammune to such crappyness, but anwasy, since i dident totaly uninstall my a3d drivers, i have a3d support in quake 3!

[Colm 0]

The crackling and distorted MP3's can be fixed....

 

Just turn down the hardware acceleration 1 notch at

Control Panel>Sounds & Multimedia>Audio>Playback>Advanced

 

I have seen no performance loss, amd MP3's now play perfectly

[Ronin 0]

WOW!!

 

That's funny, I have had no problems with the new drivers. I did a clean install and all sound works fine for me. I don't think the drivers are the problem for most people it must be a hardware issue.

 

I have the SB Live Platinum.

 

 

...

[tristan777 0]

i am running those crappy win2k drivers as well. i first got them for eax but i am beginning to wonder if i still want them. half-life seems to run alright with it. in quake 3 and in UT i get an extremely loud crackling noise that nearly deafened me when i first ran quake 3. i got quake 3 after i installed the drivers so i'm not sure if it's the driver's fault or what... as far as UT the noise just started today. its not the same noise as in quake but its just as annoying and the funny thing is it just started today, even though i have had the drivers for a month or so now... i'm not sure if it's driver related or what?

[Dragon-Lord 0]

I got a great one on top of all of this...

 

If the SBLive is in my machine, it *will* freeze randomly. These random freezes had me looking everywhere because it looked like IE, then Q3, then UT, I mean everywhere. Finally, I pulled the card and the random freezes went away.

 

The slot doesn't matter. The IRQs (shared or not) don't matter. Standard or Fully accelerated doesn't matter. DRIVER revision doesn't matter (the WDM shipping with W2k and the Liveware 2000 *both* freeze my system).

 

The reason it freezes during IE is that I had a sound attached to start navigate events.

 

The reason is freezes during lots of file downloads is that W2K plays a notify sound at the end of each event.

 

The reason is freezes during games and windows media events is self-evident.

 

I have heard a lot of posts on this group about "random freezes" caused by IE, live, etc. I hope this helps some of you solve your problems.

 

This really seems like what was causing my problems, but then again, I could be wrong.

 

:}

 

BTW I am running a Supermicro P6DBS, Dual 450mhz P3, with 256mb ram, geforce ddr, sblive with digital card (grr), and all the trimmings.

[Skywise 0]

hmmm..sounds to me like you have a smp bug with the live... try removing one of the processors and change to an ordinary HAL. If you don't know how check the posts on ACPI.

 

Creative always did have problems with multiprocessor systems...

[Dragon-Lord 0]

BTW, I forgot to mention that everything works fine under W98se...

 

:}

[Dragon-Lord 0]

Sky-wise,

 

I too suspect that the freeze is SMP related, but since these drivers are notorious for being crapola regardless, I thought I'd throw up another example to that effect.

 

The error is generally IRQL STOP...

 

Seriously, though, removing the second CPU is not an option for me. I do serious CGI on this machine and "I need the speed." :}

 

Since every other driver/card etc. on this system works flawlessly under SMP, I don't think it is too much to ask Creative to get their ****e together on this one.

 

In the meantime, does anyone know of a sound card that *is* reliable under SMP? I hesitate to buy an Awe32/64 from Creative, for obvious reasons.

 

Thanks,

 

:}

[Dragon-Lord 0]

Last note.

 

Microsoft certified all of these driver revs, even the one burned onto the CDROM, for Pete's sake. What does *that* say about the entire certification process????

 

:}

[Ronin 0]

I'll say again!

 

Not all of us are having problems. And judging by the numbers of replys to this thread I would say this is an isolated problem.

 

My system:

 

Asus P3B-F

PIII 733

256 Megs Ram

Adaptec 39160 /Ultra 160 Scsi

2 18 gig Cheetah HD

System is all Scsi

CL SB Live Platinum

CL Geforce DDR

and so on....

 

I have no sound problems at all.

 

Maybe you should upgrade hardware or something.

 

...

[MSGuy 0]

I have an SB Live! Platinum at it works perfectly under Windows 2000 Pro. Even my live drive works. I couldn't be happier with Creative Labs. I think the problem most of you are having is some other type of hardware conflict that is causing this strange behavior. Just because this was not happening under Win9x doesn't mean jack! Windows NT is a completely different animal so bring up that is pointless. Try doing a fresh install with minimal hardware in there and see if the problem persists. Also try a Bios update.

[Dragon-Lord 0]

Bull****...give us *some* credit, man, okay? :}

 

My particular problem has occurred since the very first install of Win2k (MPS or ACPI). In fact, all of my subsequent reinstalls seem to have been due to this one problem. I am using the latest bios from SuperMicro (2.2).

 

If I pull the SBLive card, the problem goes away in W2K. Yet, all works fine in W98.

 

This points squarely at the DRIVERS for the card under W2K...or the OS itself (unlikely, since none of my other drivers are exhibiting problems).

 

It is well documented, here and elsewhere, that all of the Live drivers released to date have hardware level DMA stomping problems - causing corruption of sounds, failure to allow mixing multiple wave samples (under w98, you can select 32 simultaneous sources), and thoroughly munged EAX support. I am not the only person with these problems...check this board and the creative newsgroups.

 

So, my question is, to those who say these drivers work great under W2K, whether or not you have full EAX support in Unreal Tournament (for example) under Full DirectSound playback acceleration (as enabled under DXdiag.exe)?

 

That is the real test of whether or not these drivers really work as good as the Win98 counterparts. To date, I have yet to hear a single confirmed "yes" to this question...

 

:}

[Dragon-Lord 0]

Oh, BTW, the updated LiveWare for 2000 FAQ on the CL website now says that EAX support won't be out until a future driver/software release...

 

:}

[MSGuy 0]

There is no reason to get defensive about the whole thing. Clearly these cards are working on some peoples systems. When you assume other people have done things that you think are simple that is when you get into trouble.

[Seldzar 0]

Can you say touche?(Add little french thingy on the E =)

 

I still don't see that resounded "YES" for full acceleration playing UT and perfect sound.......anyone?.........anyone?......

 

I didn't think so.......

 

Hey Ronin, at the risk of starting another flame war =) this is awesome advice:

 

"Maybe you should upgrade hardware or something." especially the "or something" part. Hehehe =-o)

 

calm down there fella

 

MsGUY you say your live is working perfectly, so is mine at standard acceleration, but the question is is yours set to standard or FULL accleration?

[Dragon-Lord 0]

The BIG Update...

 

I just pulled the SBLive! (with Digital I/O card) from my system and replaced it with a CL Blaster 16, and my machine has been working flawlessly ever since. I made the assumption that this card had been around long enough that NT/SMP issues in the drivers were resolved some time ago. Seems as though I was correct.

 

I'll try the SBLive! again when the new drivers come out *and* a hundred people on this group say they rock... :}

 

Peace of mind for $50...not bad...

 

:}

[scarecrow78 0]

Just as a side note, i have win2k installed with the live ware drivers and I have been having problems as well. I called Creative and the guy on the phone (after badgering him as to why the Live needs its own IRQ as he was teling me) said that the Live was not ACPI compliant and that they didn't have any plans to make it so because he said that it was MS that said it was needed and until it becomes standard they werent going to implement it. I calmy notified him that it was part of the PCI specification and that Creative needs to get their crap together.

[Dragon-Lord 0]

you should send your info to the CL Sblive! newsgroup...they would go ballistic!

 

:}