Creative Sound Blaster USB

noisy1 · Post by **noisy1** » Mon Feb 27, 2006 4:01 am

[newbie!] What a great product - Thanks !! just starting to get to grips with it. Tried plugging in a Creative Labs USB Sound Blaster unit but was unable to successfully "address" each of the 6 channels available on the 5.1 outputs the unit provides. Am I doing something wrong .. or using the wrong piece of hardware?

Mike Daniell · Post by **Mike Daniell** » Mon Feb 27, 2006 10:19 am

For some reason, speaker assignments not being recognised seems to be a common problem with Creative Labs products, notably Sound Blaster and Audigy. So far I haven't been able to find out why. Can you give me an example of some device and speaker settings you have tried, and the results you get?

noisy1 · Post by **noisy1** » Tue Feb 28, 2006 8:08 am

Mike - working away from base at present so I'm unable to give specifics. As soon as I return I'll run some more tests and let you know the results. Thx

noisy1 · Post by **noisy1** » Thu Mar 02, 2006 9:13 am

I ran some tests and came up with the following results :

Signal output was present at the "Front" speaker jack of the SB USB when FRONT or PAIR1 selected in SCS

I could get no signal at all out of the SB USB "Rear" or "C/Sub" jacks - no matter what speakers I chose in SCS (except a very low output from the CENTRE speaker when FRONT speakers selected in SCS.)

Hope this helps ...

Mike Daniell · Post by **Mike Daniell** » Thu Mar 02, 2006 8:25 pm

Signal output was present at the "Front" speaker jack of the SB USB when FRONT or PAIR1 selected in SCS

That's good.

I could get no signal at all out of the SB USB "Rear" or "C/Sub" jacks - no matter what speakers I chose in SCS (except a very low output from the CENTRE speaker when FRONT speakers selected in SCS.)

That's what some others have reported. I've had people run test programs and the test programs work OK, but I regret I cannot identify why the test programs handle the speakers correctly but SCS doesn't, and apparently only with Creative Labs devices, afaik. For example, the onboard C-Media 7.1 chip on my PC handles speaker separation perfectly, as do my M-Audio, Echo Gina and Edirol devices.

noisy1 · Post by **noisy1** » Sat Mar 04, 2006 5:05 am

.. that's ok thx Mike ... I guess I need to go out and invest in an M-Audio unit for the laptop ..

Mike Daniell · Post by **Mike Daniell** » Mon Sep 11, 2006 2:51 pm

It's been a long time coming, but a new option has been added in 9.2.6 that I hope will fix this problem.

If you find you are getting issues like those explained in this topic, which I believe only occur with Creative Labs cards, then click on View / Options and select the Audio Driver tab. In 9.2.6 there is a new checkbox, labelled "Do NOT use floating point for audio channels". Tick that checkbox and then click the OK button. You may then need to restart SCS as this change will not affect currently open audio files. After restarting SCS your speaker assignments should now be working.

noisy1 · Post by **noisy1** » Tue Sep 12, 2006 3:56 am

Thanks Mike ... I'll get myself upgraded and give it a whirl ...

Mike Daniell · Post by **Mike Daniell** » Wed Sep 13, 2006 6:47 pm

I've had one report so far that says the new non-floating point option doesn't make any difference. Anyone else had a chance to test this?

noisy1 · Post by **noisy1** » Sun Nov 19, 2006 8:13 pm

Mike,

Tried again with the Creative USB on Version 9, still the same issue. Irresepctive of which output pair is selected, I can only get an output from the "Front" pair.

Mike Daniell · Post by **Mike Daniell** » Sun Nov 19, 2006 10:13 pm

If you are using SCS 9.1.6a or 9.2.7a then you need to set the Audio driver Options in SCS as follows for Creative Labs cards:

You should find these settings will give you correct speaker outputs.

noisy1 · Post by **noisy1** » Thu Nov 23, 2006 7:35 am

... thanks all OK now .. problem with driver, too

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