Sound problem please help!

[Kozar927]

Hi guys im new here and not sure how everything works.

I dont know if im posting this in the right forum due to the nature of the problem, but if im not an admin can feel free to move it

I recently built a very high performance PC with SLI etc.

my sound card is the X-fi titanium (with front panel) by creative

my current driver is 6.0.1.1344 (I believe this is the latest drive but im very bad at finding drivers online )

I run vista ultimate have 4 gigs of ram duo core Intel CPU @ 3.0GHZ and 2 9800 GT vid cards via SLI

I have a 5.1 surround sound system brand new that works fine on my TV etc.

I set up the sound card and installed all the software and configured everything to my settings
I play games so i opened upo creative alchemy and added my games there so surround sound works on games
and I put it into game mode

I play games and it sounds amazing
surround is perfect etc.
Now when I go to windows its awful it only is playing out of one speaker (i9 sent the windows sound options in CP for 5.1) You tube is the worst (it trys to force every sound out of my center speaker and it sounds god awful)

I do switch it back to entertainment mode for this

then sometimes it gets stuck in game mode and wont even let me change to entertainment mode and the sound is awful I have to reboot and then it lets me change to entertainment mode but still plays on one speaker in windows.

Please help

Thanks Matthew Kozar

Oh and its a x32 bit OS
sorry I forgot

 

[KSoD]

First question is this a PCIe card? It seems so.

Creative Worldwide Support > PCI Express X-Fi Titanium

From the looks of it the driver is a bit out of date. It shows 2.17.004 as the driver. But to solve your issue go into the Control Panel and select sound. There set it up for 5.1 sound as by default it is set up for 2.1 stereo sound.

Vista with 5.1 sound - TheTechArea.com

There is a guide i wrote up a while ago. That will show how to do it.

I just saw your edit. I would seriously consider checking around to see if your hardware has 64 Bit drivers. With 4GB of RAM you would be better off with 64 Bit since 32 Bit cant use 4GB of RAM.

 

[Kozar927]

I understand that and yes my hardware is 64 bit but so many things dont support a 64 bit os so im stick with 32 for now I did change that to 5.1. but ill read the vista guide thanks

I looked for the newest drivers and thats all i found is the 1 I have now
yes its PCIe

darn it I did all that in your guide and these problems persist

sorry for so many posts but just a reminder is dosent even play out of the fron 2 (left and right) just the center @_@

 

[KSoD]

There is a edit button you can use.

Are you using digital or analog plugins for the sound?

 

[Kozar927]

how do i no that?

and sorry I see edit now lol

 

[KSoD]

Check your sound settings in the Control Panel. Under one of the tabs you will see it says Digital. If that is checked then you are runing Digital. But from the sounds of it you are not.

Check your speaker setup. Could be something with that. Maybe the wires are not plugged into to the right ports?

 

[Kozar927]

no because when I go to creatives software and i test all the speakers they say front left front center front right etc. and the sounds come from all the right speakers. plus remember it works fine in games.

Also im not finding that digital thing any where? @_@

its got to be a windows thing because every test I run with creative softwere it passes and it plays through all speakers during tests etc. and game

It must be something I need to fix with windows

 

[KSoD]

Try the new drivers from Creative. They are from Aug 22, 2008 so i would think they would be more up to date than the ones form teh CD.

 

[Kozar927]

would you be so kind as to link me because I downloaded what I belived was the latest drivers from creative but I still got the same driver number under my device manager . So I assumed they were the latest. Ahh this is so frustrating! Its such a good PC but sound is very imporatnt to me. I make videos and other things and edit my music. I just want it all to sound as good as it does in games

 

[KSoD]

The link that i posted before should be it. I searched Creative and got that. So if there is a updated driver beyond that you will have to contact Creative to find out. Cause i dont see it.