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 -- GPG Fingerprint: 2E 13 20 22 9A 3F 63 7F 67 6F E9 B1 A8 36 A4 61

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 Uwe Schürkamp wrote:

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> 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 > > >

"Ken MacKay" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:qQwFd.208415$[email hidden]... 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 -- GPG Fingerprint: 2E 13 20 22 9A 3F 63 7F 67 6F E9 B1 A8 36 A4 61

Uwe Schürkamp wrote:

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> > 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. >

Running 2.1 here as well, surround or stereo only work fine in the test. But I still hear some sounds even with 5.1 selected. > How do I go about swapping the output in kmixer? While the interface > is cute, it's rather non-selfexplanatory ;-) Open the mixer and in the master panel (hit top right button), there is a button for "Toggle 'Swap Front and Rear' mode" (just to the right of the "fx" button). Either that or plug the speakers into the rear output instead of the front output at the back of the soundcard. From what I've read the sound quality is supposed to be better from the rear outputs than from the front which is the reason they swap the outputs by default. The default "aqua" skin does leave something to be desired, mainly proper labels. :-) Try one of the other skins... most of the others actually label all the switches and buttons (I like the Mackie skin). 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. Ken

Ken MacKay <[email hidden]> wrote in news:ebPFd.208793$[email hidden]: 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?= <[email hidden]> wrote in news:[email hidden]:

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> 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.

Don Scurlock wrote:

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>>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

Thanks Don. For me it was a step backwards as the creative drivers were stable in GPL (no sound distortion) with the slider back one notch. Ken

On Fri, 14 Jan 2005 16:49:24 GMT, Don Scurlock wrote:

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> > 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 -- GPG Fingerprint: 2E 13 20 22 9A 3F 63 7F 67 6F E9 B1 A8 36 A4 61