X-Fi Zone
X-Fi Models

Discover the SoundBlaster X-Fi models. What are the differences, what do the models have in common.

X-RAM Explained

What does X-RAM really do? Read about the extra 64MB onboard RAM on the SoundBlaster X-Fi.

-->

Sunday, June 22, 2008

New X-Fi Drivers

At the beginning of June Creative released a new set of X-Fi drivers for Windows XP and Windows Vista. It's an unsupported beta drivers release. If you don't feel comfortable with betas don't install this update.

Filename: SBXF_PCDRVBETA_US_2_18_0000.exe

This download is a beta driver providing Microsoft® Windows Vista® and Windows® XP support for Creative Sound Blaster® X-Fi™ series of audio devices. For more details, read the rest of this web release note.

Take note of the following:

* THIS IS AN UNSUPPORTED BETA DRIVER. There is no technical support for this driver.
* We recommend that only experienced users install this driver. Do not install this driver on a system used to perform critical tasks.
* Users who are looking for stable drivers should wait for the final release. When this happens, user should install the latest Sound Blaster X-Fi series driver available.

This download supports the following audio devices only:

* Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer Fatal1ty® Professional Series
* Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Platinum Fatal1ty Champion Series
* Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeMusic
* Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer
* Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Platinum
* Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Fatal1ty
* Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Elite Pro
* Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi

Full release note after the break

Added Features:
To find out if your audio device supports the following features in Windows XP, click here.
For systems using Windows Vista

* Dolby® Digital and DTS® driver decode re-established for sound cards that included decoding in their Windows XP drivers (Not applicable for products that included a 3rd party software DVD player license in the package).
* DVD-Audio playback re-established for sound cards that included the application in their Windows XP software suite (For Windows Vista 32-bit only).
Requires the latest Creative MediaSource DVD-Audio Player Beta software. Click here to download.

Fixes:

* Resolves issues of intermittent and random application/system crash when playing games or running applications that use EAX®, DirectSound®, OpenAL and/or ASIO features.
* Resolves issue of volume mapping leading to very soft volume level in systems using Windows Vista with Service Pack 1.
* Resolves issue with distortion and noise occuring in systems with 4 GB of RAM or greater.

Known Issues:

* X-Fi CMSS®-3D feature is not available in Windows Vista 64-bit.

Requirements:

* Windows Vista 64-bit, Windows Vista 32-bit, Windows XP Professional x64 Edition, Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2), Windows XP Media Center Edition (MCE) 2005 or Window XP MCE 2004
* Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi audio devices listed above

Notes:

* Do not install this driver for Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio.
* To install this driver
1. Download the file onto your local hard disk.
2. Double-click the downloaded file.
3. Follow the instructions on the screen.

As always the latest X-Fi drivers can be downloaded from Creative's (updated) Support page here.

» Continue reading New X-Fi Drivers