Static noise from soundcards encountered with Nvidia dual SLI graphic configurations

[dsopocy]

This same symptom appears in Win7 64-bit systems with NVIDIA nForce4 chipsets and a single graphics card (GeoForce 6800 in my case) and more than 3GB of RAM for most X-Fi sound cards (X-Fi XtremeMusic in my case), but to a much more severe extent. Even system sounds are affected and sound services cut out altogether after a few minutes (as opposed to only occurring in the most resource-taxing games). Cracking and popping is omnipresent while sound services are running and system events cause louder pops and sound ga


ps.
Sound services can be restarted by changing sample rate, but sound stops again after a few minutes. I have 6 GB of RAM. The problem disappears completely when I cripple my system by limiting RAM to 2 GB. I did not experience this problem with either XP or Vista Ultimate 64-bit. None of the Creative?beta drivers for X-Fi XtremeMusic, including the latest (2.8.003), have had any impact on this problem.

Creative: Please extend the X-Fi Titanium solution you developed for dual SLI configurations in collaboration with NVIDIA (referenced by Admin KokChoy-CL earlier in this thread) to correct the above problem that is affecting most X-Fi cards all of the time in Win7 64-bit systems with nForce4 chipsets and more than 3GB RAM.

Dale

My system specs are:

System Manufacturer/Model Number: Dell XPS/Dimension 600 /Model Dell DXG05
OS: Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit RC, Build 700
CPU: Pentium D 3.20 GHz (Intel64 Family 5 Model 4 Stepping 4)
Motherboard: nVidia nForce4 SLIx6; Dell Phoenix BIOS PLUS v.0 A
Memory: 6GB 667 MHz DDR2 + ~4GB ReadyBoost
Graphics Card: OEM nVidia Geoforce 6800 256MB
Sound Card: OEM X-Fi XtremeMusic (Model SB0467); OEM Realtek AC'97 (Disabled in BIOS)
Monitor(s) Displays: Dell 2007FP (2" Flat Screen) Screen Resolution:600 x 200 x 32-bit
Hard Dri'ves:

3, Maxtor 7 L250S0 SCSI Disk Device 232.8Gb;
NVIDIA STRIPE 465.66G;
HL-DT-ST DVD+-RW GWA464B ATA Device;
TSSTcorp DVD-ROM TS-H352C ATA Device

Message Edited by dsopocy on 05-25-2009 0:59 PM

[dwh]

dsoopocy,

You're using a beta driver on an unreleased operating system, and you're surprised there are some issues? I think the workaround you describe, running with 2GB, is just fine, and you shouldn't be trying to tie this to a problem thread in a public forum.

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.<

-Dave
dwh@cfcl.com

[dwh]

KokChoy-CL wrote:
Dear Sound Blaster users,

Creative and NVIDIA have been working together to address an incompatibility issue that occurs when some Sound Blaster X-Fi audio cards are used with SLI GPU configurations on some nForce motherboards. The compatibility issue manifests itself as crackling or other audio distortion while playing some games.

After a collaborati've debugging effort, the root cause has been identified as an interaction between arbitration logic issue inside the nForce chipset and Sound Blaster X-Fi. In some cases while using SLI, audio operations can be excessi'vely delayed resulting an internal buffer underflowing inside the audio card which results in crackling.

A software solution has been devised. NVidia and Creative both agreed that the easiest and fastest solution was for Creative to implement this via a driver update. The audio driver update is available today as a beta version under Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Beta Driver 2.7.0007.

Please try it out and give us your feedback.

NVIDIA and Creative.

Does NVIDIA intend to fix its bus arbitration in the longer term?

-Dave
dwh@cfcl.com

[csaba73]

KokChoy,

Adding to DWH's question - and when will the beta version be officially released (I am happy this solved the crackling problem-at least for me-but I really prefer not using beta software)

thanks
csaba

[Kok-Choy]

Dwh wrote:
Does NVIDIA intend to fix its bus arbitration in the longer term?

-Dave

dwh@cfcl.com

Hi Dave,
The driver includes arbitration logic fix; unfortunately we are unable to comment on Nvidia's release.

csaba73 wrote:
KokChoy,
Adding
to DWH's question - and when will the beta version be officially
released (I am happy this solved the crackling problem-at least for
me-but I really prefer not using beta software)

thanks
csaba

Hi Csaba,
The official release is estimated to be available by end-June, barring unforseen circumstances.

[graz68]

And again I ask, what about us with the non titanium cards, i.e. X-FI Extrememusic?

[jmacguire]

I have successfully used the Titanium drivers with Non-Titanium cards. I unrar the Creative executable file, or simply go to my temp directory and copy it from there. Then I manually browse to it, from device manager. I used Titanium drivers on my X-FI fatality PCI for 3 months before I bought my Titanium.

Cheers,
jmacguire

[npoljak]

Well that's interesting. Can anyone else confirm? I would sure like some **bleep** support for my PCI Elite Pro, but I'll take all the improvisation in the world to fix it.

[gouki]

jmacguire wrote:
I have successfully used the Titanium drivers with Non-Titanium cards. I unrar the Creative executable file, or simply go to my temp directory and copy it from there. Then I manually browse to it, from device manager. I used Titanium drivers on my X-FI fatality PCI for 3 months before I bought my Titanium.

Cheers,
jmacguire

that does not work, i tried it, and after some improvisation the titanium drivers were installed on my xtreme gamer, but the device wouldnt start ( exclamation mark )

[budeone]

The only way I can get my system to work is to lower the ram. I saw this is a prev post. I want to be able to use my 4 gig with 64 OS. I have a gamer series and its getting old.