LiveWare! Driver update for win2k.

[Gambler FEX online 0]

ftp://ftp.ctlsg.creaf.com/Creative/drivers/sblive/lw3drv.exe

 

Tried them, still crackling.

[felix 0]

There are still some small problems like Gambler said, but I think they have improved the sound quality as far as mp3s and games are concerned.

 

But then again, perhaps it's just me wanting to believe that they are better.

 

What the hell, they work and they sound good.

1 2 3 HOORAY!!!!! ;(

 

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

Written on Win2000 using:

PII 300

Aopen AX6B

160mb RAM

i740 8mb

SBLive! Value

20gb Seagate

6gb WDCaviar

1.2gb Segate

Pioneer 32x CD-R (Slot)

Lifeview FlyVideo '98 FM

Realtek RTL8029AS 10mbit

Accton EN1660 10mbit

Aztech 3858W 56k modem

Osborne MO117 17"

 

Using 100% Australian Made recyclable electrons

[SpongeMaster 0]

The sound definitely is a bit fuller than before. This is only the driver update though. I assume the rest of the LW3 stuff will be posted later, and may allow you to tweak some other problems out.

[PatkIllA 0]

still no AC3

damn it

[Ronin 0]

Someone needs to do a study as to why there is a group of people that have problems with there SB Live no matter what drivers they use. And then there is the other group like myself that has had no problems at all running any of the drivers. I think the problem that people are having lies with some other piece of harware in there machine, like maybe there MB or something. Like I said I have not had any problems, so I would be curious to find out why other people are.

 

...

 

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

My Windows 2000 System:

 

Dual Intel 850's

Tyan Thunder 2400 MB

512 Megs Ram

Adaptec 39160 Ultra 160

1 - 18 Gig Cheetah - U160

2 - 18 Gig Cheetah U2W

SB Live Platinum

Plextor 12/4/32 - Burner

Plextor 40x UW CD-Rom

10x Sony DVD Drive

Hercules Geforce 2 64meg

Viewsonic PF815 22" Monitor

...

My Win ME System:

 

PIII 733

Asus P3C4X MB

256 Megs PC133 Mem

Adaptec U2W Scsi Card

1 - 9 Gig Cheetah 10K

48x IDE CD-Rom

CL Geforce DDR

ESS 1371 Sound Card

[Iasius 0]

I never had any problems either.

It would be a good idea if the people that have a Live post their system stats and write if they have a problem or not (and what) so we can see if there is some connection there.

 

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

My system specs:

PIII 600E @ 800 , 160mb PC100 3-3-3, Creative GeForce DDR, SBLive (never had any problems with it, yet. Liveware 2K works very fine for me), 15 GB IBM, Gigabyte BX2000@133, WinTV primio, Pioneer DVD 10x, Iiyama VM 451 (1280x1024@100Hz .

[TheSpork 0]

I 100% agree with Ronin, because I've had no troubles at all with Live!Ware2 or whatever we've had thus far. My MP3's never skip, my games play perfectly (besides my fuggin voodoo2 (now that's a different story)). I even turn on EAX in half-life and Unreal Tournament and nothing wrong happens (I'm not sure if I'm actually getting EAX, but nothing BAD happens).

 

Windows 2000 system:

Mo.Bo.: FICA SD11

AMD Athlon 500

128 megs of ram

sblive

permedia2+voodoo2

dlink NIC

Sony CDR

Mitsumi CD-ROM

 

**Added Note**

I hate you Ronin, you have WAY too much money. Want to share some with me? (your computer beats the **** out of mine)

 

[This message has been edited by TheSpork (edited 11 July 2000).]

[JediBaron 0]

I agree that there is something weird with why the Live card will work right in some systems, but not others. I myself have just fixed the damn crackling problem. For some reason the sound card seemed to infringe on the AGP's motherboard resources. When the card was configured by the motherboard it messed up, and then it kept requesting the same messed up resources which in turn messed up my Win2k drivers.

I think that I finally discovered the root cause. On my Live! card the leads on the bottom of the card where it plugs into the PCI slot are shorter than any of my other cards. I believe that when the card originally configured itself, intermediate contact between it and the board caused it to be set up wrong.

Well I placed a couple of washers under my motherboard to prop it up some. This forced the card to be 100% seated in the PCI slot. Unfortunately I also had to reinstall Win2k as it was too messed up. But after I did that, not a peep. Seems to be working flawlessly now - no problems at all.

I don't know how many other cards were made with those really short leads, but it could definately be the source of lots of problems.

Hope that helps!

[Nightal 0]

My SBlive works great too in almost all circumstances. There are only a few games such as (Sims, Shogun,ST Armada,Deus Ex, and others) that I had to turn off Hardware acceleration in order to get to work. I think that if you never play any of these games, you would never see any of the problems. This isnt even talking about the problems SBlive has with IRQ sharing and ACPI. EAX doesnt work either even if your game doesnt crash with it turned on.

 

So far LW3 is working great. Anyone tried using ACPI and IRQ sharing? Im wondering if these drivers finally fixed that.:eek

[Gerbache Kaznet 0]

Well, as for the crackling sound, I had that problem severely when I first installed win2k. The only thing that fixed it in my system was to move the sound card to a different PCI slot. I since updated my BIOS and reinstalled win2k for ACPI, but I've been afraid of using the Liveware 2 drivers because of the IRQ sharing thing. As soon as I get back to my home system I'll check out the drivers and post back my experience.

 

BTW, my system includes:

P3 500

DFI P2XBL motherboard

Asus V6800 Pure video card (GeForce DDR)

SB Live! Value

Maxtor HD UDMA

Pioneer DVD with the nifty slot loading

Lucent Winmodem (ugh! I want DSL)

128 meg. ram

ACPI HAL running everything on IRQ 11

[Dragon-Lord 0]

I am one of the people who has been having problems (no eax, crackling, etc.), and I now have some concrete info to provide based on months of testing, and especially the last few days (success!).

 

As part of my upgrade to Win2K, I added a second P3 processor to my dual mobo (SuperMicro P6DBS rev 1.02, bios 3.0). The two processors were bought at the same time and at the same place (450mhz PIII, first generation). I enabled MPS first, then ACPI, and was running SMP. I have had constant IRQL crashes, and seemingly random BSODs (kmode, irql, ntfs, you name it) ever since. Geforce freezes, IE freezes...and on and on. I have a hurricane of wind blowing across every component and nothing is overclocked, still no luck. No bios change made a difference, and no driver updates stopped the overall problem. Since I know the system was stable under win98se (single processor), or at least as stable as Win98 can be, I finally started downgrading the system to see results.

 

MPS1.4, dual processor, no APM...no change, but confirmed that only my USB and Ethernet are sharing IRQs.

 

Standard PC, single processor...solid as a rock. EAX works on my SBLive. BSOD and crashes have stopped, etc.

 

Now, even though I suspect the mobo at this point - Supermicro support is non-existant and their bios manual is nearly useless (I got more useful info from the Abit Be6-II manual for the machine I built for my wife!) - I have just installed the new LiveWare drivers and will begin upgrading the machine to first, single-processor ACPI, then, if that works well, dual processor ACPI again.

 

I am hoping the new LiveWare drivers stop the crashes at SMP/ACPI, but somehow I doubt it. If it doesn't, then I assume the mobo just can't handle everything I am throwing at it. I find it hard to believe that there are remaining issues at the OS level with W2K Pro(Purchased Retail, beta SP1 1.59RC) with SMP/ACPI (both?), so the LiveWare or Geforce drivers failing under SMP/ACPI(both?) are the next most likely suspects.

 

Now that I *can* get my system to be rock solid, I thought I would share the details of my journey in the hopes that it might help others who are at their wits end.

 

Most likely, I will be replacing this mobo in the near future for another dual PIII ready one, hopefully overclockable. Any recommendations (supermicro loses because of the lack of support issue)?

 

:}

 

W2K Pro(Purchased Retail, beta SP1 1.59RC)

Supermicro SBDBS r1.02, Bios 3.0 (dead on-board SCSI chip)

2xPIII @450mhz (not o/c)

256mb PC100 Ram in 2 sticks

3xIDE HDs (50gb total, all NTFS) and 1 Pioneer IDE DVD-ROM (all UDMA)

Geforce 256 DDR (32mb), CL AnnPro (DET v5.32)

SBLive! Platinum with digital breakout card (LW3.0)

3COM 3C905B-TX 100-base ethernet (newest driver release on 3COM site)

SIIG AP-40 UWide SCSI PCI (W2K CD drivers)

Nikon LS-2000 SCSI film scanner (drivers now released)

Sony SDT-9000 SCSI 4mm DAT (W2K)

SAF 4012 SCSI CD-Write (W2K)

Iomega Zip 100 SCSI Drive (IO 2.2.1a)

MS Natural Keyboard Pro USB

MS Intellimouse Optical USB

HP Laserjet 6L via USB printing (newest drivers on HP site)

Epson Stylus Photo 700 via parallel

Rainbow Sentinel Parallel Dongle for LightWave6

[halen 0]

I've been using Liveware2k with ACPI on an Abit BH6 1.0 and my Live shares an IRQ with my USB controller with no problems.

 

 

Abit BH6 with latest BIOS

Intel PII 400

Maxtor IDE 13.6 GB

Seagate IDE 17.2 GB

HP IDE 2X CD-RW

Creative Labs DXR3 &6x Encore kit

SBLive! Value

CL 3D Blaster TNT2Ultra

3Com 3C905B 10/100 NIC

3Com 3C509B PNP ISA NIC

Logitech Quickcam USB

Logitech Mouseman Wheel USB

Logitech Wingman Extreme Digital 3D USB

[SpongeMaster 0]

I've had no major problems. LW2 would produce an occasional pop every few hours. Haven't had any yet with the new drivers.

 

 

ABIT KA7

Athlon 700

256MB RAM

18.2GB Seagate Cheetah X15

20GB Quantum LM+

20GB WD Caviar 7200RPM

13GB Quantum KA+

Ultraplex Wide

Plexwriter 8/20

CL Annihilator2

SB Live (duh, obviously)

Tekram DC390U2W

CL DXR3 6x

Pinnacle Systems DC30 Pro

Linksys 10/100 NIC

MS Intellipoint Explorer

MS Internet Keyboard Pro

Vista Imaging Vicam (now bought out by 3com, bastards)

D-Link USB FM radio

Betty Crocker USB Belgian waffle maker addon

[FoLLgoTT 0]

Creative sux!!!

No SP/DIF out with these new drivers! I just want to listen to my THX trailers over my AC3 receiver! Now everytime I want to watch them I have to boot with Win**** 98! And NeoRage X (a Neo Geo emulator) still has stuttering sound (not with original win2k drivers)! Creative Labs has ****ty programmers!

 

FoLLgoTT

[Gerbache Kaznet 0]

Well, apparently the new LiveWare drivers are better than their predecessor. I got no distortion in Baldur's Gate, Unreal Tournament, or Quake 3. Baldur's Gate and UT were even running EAX sound quite nicely, except that I'm not too sure I like the eax support in UT too much. Everything kinda sounds like it's underwater (that's the best way I can think of to describe it.) Anyway, I'm mostly pleased so far.

[strider 0]

Damn. A lot of stuff happened in the course of time when the drivers are out. Well, like they say, it works with some set of hardwares, it doesn't with others. Me, not a single problem... well, I never notice it much anyways if there is any.

 

System configuration:

P3 750MHz (FC-PGA w/ Sloket)

ASUS P3B-F, HW REV 1.04, BIOS 1005

256MB PC100

Herc/Guill 3D Proph II GTS 64MB (std clock)

Live! Platinum

Voodoo2

AHA-2940UW

REALMagic Hollywood Plus

Intel EtherExpress Pro/100B NIC

Maxtor 27.3GB 7200RPM U/66

Maxtor 8.4GB 5400RPM U/33

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

 

System is configured with ACPI mode.

IRQ sharing is on 9.

No problems that occur frequently or often (and even if there is a problem; nothing relating to hardware).

 

I've tried the stock W2000 Live! drivers and they were fine. A few problems here and there I've encountered but nothing that is serious to me, in my opinion that is. The previous Live! drivers works fine and were rock solid and stable on my end. IRQ sharing with ACPI is working flawlessly on my system. So I'm probably one of the lucky ones out there.

 

Lastly, in response to a post regarding a certain NeoGeo emulator, try disabling sound interpolation as I've had that problem which by disabling that went away.

 

Any other questions or theories you want to add? Post them here!

 

 

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

-- Strider Hiryu

[mr_yellow 0]

I had low expectations for these drivers.. my turn to rant.

 

EAX is still broken(only tried HL)

 

Videos still skip at full acceleration

 

those are the only two problems i have. they still persist after i installed the new drivers..

 

Will attempt to remove all slive stuff and install drivers from scratch.

 

this sucks balls..

oh yeah, i'm on a bp6 too. so maybe it's still a bug with ACPI multiprocessor systems. Boo..

[ThC 129 0]

LW3 is out download that. Plus I got EAX working fine in HL with the old drivers at least it sounded like EAX (footsteps echos and what not)