SB X-FI sound card Vista driver problem.. Driver not being recognized....

[Aran]

<p>Hi everyone, I was hoping someone could help out with a sound card problem.  My system has a Sound Blaster X-FI (music extreme) sound card.  I was able to use the X-FI sound provider in EQ2 under sound options when using Windows XP.  However, after upgrading to windows Vista and upgrading the X-FI driver to Vista's most current Vista driver, EQ2 no longer gives me the option of selecting X-FI as a sound provider.  My only choices are Miles and Dolby, and both sound horrid compared to the sound I was getting when X-FI was the sound provider.  I have reinstalled  EQ2 hoping it would allow me to choose the X-FI driver with no success.  I even removed and reinstalled the sound card driver which did not fix the problem. My sound card works fine with other programs.  Several Sony technicians were unable to provide me with a solution.  So.... can anyone provide ideas to rectify the problem?  Thank you in advance! <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[Telloh]

<p>It may have something to do with the fact that the DirectSound API in Vista has been removed in favor of a software based solution, namely openAL. It also doesn't help that at the moment, creative's drivers for Vista are sub-par. Creative has a program called, alchemy. I'm not sure if it supports EQ2 yet, but you  might give that a try. It is very simple to use. Basically, it converts all the DirectSound calls to openAL calls. </p>

[TSR-GarethC]

Alchemy has been verified to work with EQ2 by Creative; we haven't tested it here.

[antwar]

<p>personally, i see NO reason to continue to support creative... sure they are the only halfway decent sound card manufacturer out there right now, and i know there are others, but not as comprehensive on the products, but i mean come ON.... creative has gotten VERY lazy... they should have had this whole thing figured out LONG before vista was released for the beta testing, and should have probably had a new card with drivers designed to take those software based calls and accellerate them via hardware. openAL is something CREATIVE made up, not microsoft, and now they are trying to cram it down developers throats, simply because they have the market almost cornered on hardware sound cards.</p><p>not only that, but with alot of newer systems/motherboards including Digital sound outputs in both coax and optical variants, i see no reason to support creative's current attitude. sure onboard is not as good as a seperate card, but onboard quality has gotten leaps and bounds better in the recent years.</p><p>just my 2cp</p>

[Brocha]

I had to remove the eq2 settings file to get it to recognize my x-fi, it now works fine with alchemy, so I have eax 4. Backup your eq2_recent.ini file and then remove it from your eq2 folder and see if you can configure your x-fi, oh and install alchemy for added fun.