Creative Audigy 2 / 2 ZS OpenAL BETA drivers

19-04-2005, 14:14

Has any one tried the new BETA drivers Creative have released for the Audigy 2's? The new driver fully supports OpenAL (games such as DOOM 3, and UT2K4 use this) to improve game performance and to accurately place where sounds would "realistically" sound (such as EAX using multiple channels to perform effects).

I have them installed on my system, and so far I havn't found any bugs in them. UT2004 sounds much better with these new drivers.

What do others think?

Ramrod · 19-04-2005, 14:18

Downloading atm.................

nffc · 19-04-2005, 14:21

May have to try it. They can't be worse than the current ones.

19-04-2005, 14:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by nffc

May have to try it. They can't be worse than the current ones.

So true

Ramrod · 19-04-2005, 22:46

Using them atm....very good!

nffc · 19-04-2005, 23:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ramrod

Using them atm....very good!

Are they much of an improvement generally over teh bundled Audigy 2 ZS drivers, I've D/Led them but haven't got the guts to install them.

Do you need to uninstall the previous ones or does it update over the top?

20-04-2005, 00:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by nffc

Are they much of an improvement generally over teh bundled Audigy 2 ZS drivers, I've D/Led them but haven't got the guts to install them.

Do you need to uninstall the previous ones or does it update over the top?

Well I'll tell you I find it much easier to pin-point locations of where sounds are being played with these new drivers, not to mention it states "Improvement in all games that support OpenAL" which seems to be true so far.

I installed them over the ones I have now, basically an update. Windows may say they are not signed though, so watch it.

nffc · 20-04-2005, 00:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by Electrolyte

Quote:

Originally Posted by nffc

Are they much of an improvement generally over teh bundled Audigy 2 ZS drivers, I've D/Led them but haven't got the guts to install them.

Do you need to uninstall the previous ones or does it update over the top?

Well I'll tell you I find it much easier to pin-point locations of where sounds are being played with these new drivers, not to mention it states "Improvement in all games that support OpenAL" which seems to be true so far.

I installed them over the ones I have now, basically an update. Windows may say they are not signed though, so watch it.

I'll try it. It's not as though I can't easily remove them and revert to the bundled ones is it?
__________________

Dunno whether it's psychological but the music somehow sounds better, the sub sounds a bit more bassy as well.

I'll have to see if I notice anything...

jamesclarke555 · 20-04-2005, 00:53

Just a heads up...

If you have an Audigy 1 or Audigy 4, you can still use these drivers. Extract the archive with WinRAR, navigate to Drivers\Support\I386 and run the file ctzapxx.exe

keithwalton · 20-04-2005, 01:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by nffc

May have to try it. They can't be worse than the current ones.

Oh they can, at least with my audigy 2 plat they are. They're as stable as a 3 legged mountain goat on a snow hillside in springfield.
Eax, speaker control all cause my computer to hard lock when trying to load them with those drivers on. They do mention it in there readme that there are some minor compatibility problems with the rest of there apps. Minor my backside i'd hate to know what they call a majour problem.

Apparently these are lightyears better, i'm about to try them.
http://forums.ngohq.com/index.php?showtopic=560

nffc · 20-04-2005, 01:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by keithwalton

Quote:

Originally Posted by nffc

May have to try it. They can't be worse than the current ones.

Oh they can, at least with my audigy 2 plat they are. They're as stable as a 3 legged mountain goat on a snow hillside in springfield.
Eax, speaker control all cause my computer to hard lock when trying to load them with those drivers on. They do mention it in there readme that there are some minor compatibility problems with the rest of there apps. Minor my backside i'd hate to know what they call a majour problem.

Apparently these are lightyears better, i'm about to try them.
http://forums.ngohq.com/index.php?showtopic=560

It's still a beta, report it to them.

All I can say, is that I've installed them tonight, I can access all the setting things, EAX works fine, on my Audigy 2 ZS Platinum... only thing is, it reset all my settings grr.

Richard M · 20-04-2005, 07:46

I'm not about to install these, I've been running beta drivers for 2 weeks, 64-bit ones.

20-04-2005, 08:03

Havn't had a single problem with the extra apps, they all seem to work fine.

Ramrod · 20-04-2005, 08:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by nffc

Do you need to uninstall the previous ones or does it update over the top?

I deleted my old driver first.........

Richard M · 18-07-2005, 23:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by Electrolyte

Has any one tried the new BETA drivers Creative have released for the Audigy 2's? The new driver fully supports OpenAL (games such as DOOM 3, and UT2K4 use this) to improve game performance and to accurately place where sounds would "realistically" sound (such as EAX using multiple channels to perform effects).

Yeah, great sound positioning!

Using EAX 4.0 in Doom 3 Resurrection is buggy as hell in stereo or surround modes.

The problem is where ever a monster appears from, the sound will always come from that speaker e.g. when using headphones you hear a monster approach from the left but even if you turn around the sound will still come from the left and not the right!
It's obviously not updating the positioning data correctly, the standard Doom 3 sound does not have this problem and sounds fine on a 7.1 system, although you have to set Windows to 5.1 and then set the amplifier to upmix to 7.1 - Doom still does not recognise 7.1.

One other issue is that the reverb effects are too overdone, although this is welcome on headphones because they don't reverberate naturally like speakers do.