Law212 wrote on Yesterday, 15:34:

Creative Sound Blaster Z SE PCIe High-Performance Gaming and Entertainment Soundcard | Sound Core3D 116dB Signal-to-Noise Ratio (70SB150000004)

Overall, the card is ......
It’s no longer an X-Fi with hardware sound processing.
And not yet an AE with a decent headphone amplifier.

You should stay away from the Recon 3D/ZXR lineup.
As far as I know, despite having the same chip as the AE, there are no longer any drivers for them.

shevalier wrote on Yesterday, 15:45:

Well, if you don't consider the top-tier DAC CS43131 from Cirrus Logic (whose DACs are used in your own X-Fi, just a bit more bu […]
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bitzu101 wrote on Yesterday, 15:20:

shevalier wrote on Yesterday, 14:57:

It is a tradition that all motherboard manufacturers simply do not know how to implement an audio codec properly. Literally all […]
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It is a tradition that all motherboard manufacturers simply do not know how to implement an audio codec properly.
Literally all of them, always.
They know how to pick an expensive one and garnish it with pretty yellow capacitors. They manage to ruin even the ESS SABRE9018.
But
Right now, there are a bunch of dongles that haven't been ruined, even by severe cost-cutting and the developers' clumsiness.
In the post above, I mentioned one like that for 30 $.

Internal sound cards are practically non-existent now and will be completely gone soon. Creative's move to a PCIe-to-USB bridge hints at this.
So it's not a problem. Anyone who wants better quality will easily find something for themselves.

Sorry , does the $30 usb thing have a dedicated sound chip? Does it have a headphone amp? It seems very improbable that a usb cable like the one you showed in that link has all the features of a internal/dedicated sound card. I also see only one jack connection , where as my system needs 3 jacks to plug in all the speakers. Also , my AE 7 , has dedicated hardware for 5.1 system , not software , etc...

Well, if you don't consider the top-tier DAC CS43131 from Cirrus Logic (whose DACs are used in your own X-Fi, just a bit more budget-friendly and older), then you have vastly inflated expectations. 😀
Besides, it's very hard to mess up when implementing the final device.

Shponglefan wrote on Yesterday, 15:00:

One reason I'm still using internal sound cards is because of ground loop interference. I get noisy interference with motherboard audio, but using Sound Blaster Z sound cards the interference is minimized to the point it's not audible.

https://jdslabs.com/product/synapse/
USB galvanic isolator.
Now they have gone mainstream and are no longer exotic. And they radically solve the ground loop problem for external DACs.

so you have to complicate yourself with isolator , usb cables , etc... rather than having a stationary card , fixed in place with a scrue that does not move , that is shielded and you just plug in a 3.5mm jack ....

100% this is not for me. There is 0 interest on a usb card for me. I see no point in it. but that is JUST me. I think that Creative and other companies (think Asus used to make sound cards) should have invested in their own dedicated chips so the competition would result in better options and prices on the market.

Because they did not do that , now we are using sound chips designed years ago. The aim is to progress , not to stagnate.

Also , why on earth Cirrus Logic stopped making sound cards? They used to make the Crystal chips.

shevalier wrote on Yesterday, 15:50:

Overall, the card is ...... It’s no longer an X-Fi with hardware sound processing. And not yet an AE with a decent headphone amp […]
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Law212 wrote on Yesterday, 15:34:

Creative Sound Blaster Z SE PCIe High-Performance Gaming and Entertainment Soundcard | Sound Core3D 116dB Signal-to-Noise Ratio (70SB150000004)

Overall, the card is ......
It’s no longer an X-Fi with hardware sound processing.
And not yet an AE with a decent headphone amplifier.

You should stay away from the Recon 3D/ZXR lineup.
As far as I know, despite having the same chip as the AE, there are no longer any drivers for them.

It s not the best card , that is correct , but it s defo better than the realtek garbage on the motherboard.

shevalier wrote on Yesterday, 15:45:

https://jdslabs.com/product/synapse/
USB galvanic isolator.
Now they have gone mainstream and are no longer exotic. And they radically solve the ground loop problem for external DACs.

I have a USB isolator on one of my systems that has an external audio interface.

Of course that only helps with external audio interfaces, not internal.

bitzu101 wrote on Yesterday, 15:59:

shevalier wrote on Yesterday, 15:50:

Overall, the card is ...... It’s no longer an X-Fi with hardware sound processing. And not yet an AE with a decent headphone amp […]
Show full quote

Law212 wrote on Yesterday, 15:34:

Creative Sound Blaster Z SE PCIe High-Performance Gaming and Entertainment Soundcard | Sound Core3D 116dB Signal-to-Noise Ratio (70SB150000004)

Overall, the card is ......
It’s no longer an X-Fi with hardware sound processing.
And not yet an AE with a decent headphone amplifier.

You should stay away from the Recon 3D/ZXR lineup.
As far as I know, despite having the same chip as the AE, there are no longer any drivers for them.

It s not the best card , that is correct , but it s defo better than the realtek garbage on the motherboard.

Microsoft is starting to revoke drivers with expired certificates this spring.
My X-Fi Titanium HD is still working for now, but alas, it’s only a matter of time.
And without up-to-date drivers, these sound cards are just a pretty piece of PCB.
In the sense that buying Z(xr)/Recon right now is absolute insanity.

That’s the beauty of a USB DAC — it’s just a generic USB device. You plug it in, and it just works.

bitzu101 wrote on Yesterday, 15:39:

Law212 wrote on Yesterday, 15:34:

So what do you think about this one?
Creative Sound Blaster Z SE PCIe High-Performance Gaming and Entertainment Soundcard | Sound Core3D 116dB Signal-to-Noise Ratio (70SB150000004)

I had that card and done me very well for over 4 years. very good card. I sold it on ebay for 40 pounds or so. You can probably find one at a similar price. It has a dedicated chip , it s a very good card for the money. Much better than that Audigy Fx V2 crap they now sell at the bottom end.

Thanks, ill look on marketplace

shevalier wrote on Yesterday, 17:13:

Microsoft is starting to revoke drivers with expired certificates this spring. My X-Fi Titanium HD is still working for now, but […]
Show full quote

bitzu101 wrote on Yesterday, 15:59:

shevalier wrote on Yesterday, 15:50:

Overall, the card is ...... It’s no longer an X-Fi with hardware sound processing. And not yet an AE with a decent headphone amp […]
Show full quote

Overall, the card is ......
It’s no longer an X-Fi with hardware sound processing.
And not yet an AE with a decent headphone amplifier.

You should stay away from the Recon 3D/ZXR lineup.
As far as I know, despite having the same chip as the AE, there are no longer any drivers for them.

It s not the best card , that is correct , but it s defo better than the realtek garbage on the motherboard.

Microsoft is starting to revoke drivers with expired certificates this spring.
My X-Fi Titanium HD is still working for now, but alas, it’s only a matter of time.
And without up-to-date drivers, these sound cards are just a pretty piece of PCB.
In the sense that buying Z(xr)/Recon right now is absolute insanity.

That’s the beauty of a USB DAC — it’s just a generic USB device. You plug it in, and it just works.

I understand you , 100%. It s just not for me.

Drivers will always be there. If they remove the certificate , then will be moded drivers. There will be work arounds.

bitzu101 wrote on Today, 08:16:

shevalier wrote on Yesterday, 17:13:

Microsoft is starting to revoke drivers with expired certificates this spring. My X-Fi Titanium HD is still working for now, but […]
Show full quote

bitzu101 wrote on Yesterday, 15:59:

It s not the best card , that is correct , but it s defo better than the realtek garbage on the motherboard.

Microsoft is starting to revoke drivers with expired certificates this spring.
My X-Fi Titanium HD is still working for now, but alas, it’s only a matter of time.
And without up-to-date drivers, these sound cards are just a pretty piece of PCB.
In the sense that buying Z(xr)/Recon right now is absolute insanity.

That’s the beauty of a USB DAC — it’s just a generic USB device. You plug it in, and it just works.

I understand you , 100%. It s just not for me.

Drivers will always be there. If they remove the certificate , then will be moded drivers. There will be work arounds.

Nope.
There are only two ways to sign a driver:
The legit way:Prove that it is your intellectual property and brand (sign a contract with Microsoft) and pay $2,000 for each signed driver.
Steal a certificate from somewhere:But it will be revoked immediately as soon as it becomes clear that it's invalid.

It looks like Creative’s software is on the compatibility whitelist, but nobody knows how long that will last.
It’s just easier to grab an AE-5 Plus and stop sitting on a ticking time bomb.

shevalier wrote on Today, 09:09:

Nope. There are only two ways to sign a driver: The legit way:Prove that it is your intellectual property and brand (sign a cont […]
Show full quote

bitzu101 wrote on Today, 08:16:

shevalier wrote on Yesterday, 17:13:

Microsoft is starting to revoke drivers with expired certificates this spring. My X-Fi Titanium HD is still working for now, but […]
Show full quote

Microsoft is starting to revoke drivers with expired certificates this spring.
My X-Fi Titanium HD is still working for now, but alas, it’s only a matter of time.
And without up-to-date drivers, these sound cards are just a pretty piece of PCB.
In the sense that buying Z(xr)/Recon right now is absolute insanity.

That’s the beauty of a USB DAC — it’s just a generic USB device. You plug it in, and it just works.

I understand you , 100%. It s just not for me.

Drivers will always be there. If they remove the certificate , then will be moded drivers. There will be work arounds.

Nope.
There are only two ways to sign a driver:
The legit way:Prove that it is your intellectual property and brand (sign a contract with Microsoft) and pay $2,000 for each signed driver.
Steal a certificate from somewhere:But it will be revoked immediately as soon as it becomes clear that it's invalid.

It looks like Creative’s software is on the compatibility whitelist, but nobody knows how long that will last.
It’s just easier to grab an AE-5 Plus and stop sitting on a ticking time bomb.

So how come I can use my X-FI from 2006 in my windows 10 machine? with the same old drivers? Or my audigy 2 zs with my retro windows xp 32 bit? this one is even connected to the internet.

bitzu101 wrote on Today, 11:03:

shevalier wrote on Today, 09:09:

Nope. There are only two ways to sign a driver: The legit way:Prove that it is your intellectual property and brand (sign a cont […]
Show full quote

bitzu101 wrote on Today, 08:16:

I understand you , 100%. It s just not for me.

Drivers will always be there. If they remove the certificate , then will be moded drivers. There will be work arounds.

Nope.
There are only two ways to sign a driver:
The legit way:Prove that it is your intellectual property and brand (sign a contract with Microsoft) and pay $2,000 for each signed driver.
Steal a certificate from somewhere:But it will be revoked immediately as soon as it becomes clear that it's invalid.

It looks like Creative’s software is on the compatibility whitelist, but nobody knows how long that will last.
It’s just easier to grab an AE-5 Plus and stop sitting on a ticking time bomb.

So how come I can use my X-FI from 2006 in my windows 10 machine? with the same old drivers? Or my audigy 2 zs with my retro windows xp 32 bit? this one is even connected to the internet.

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/wind … ver-pro/4504818
https://x.com/The_Cyber_News/status/2070267289971392845
Microsoft is having another security episode

shevalier wrote on Today, 12:32:

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/wind … ver-pro/4504818 https://x.com/The_Cyber_News/status/2070267289971392845 Microsof […]
Show full quote

bitzu101 wrote on Today, 11:03:

shevalier wrote on Today, 09:09:

Nope. There are only two ways to sign a driver: The legit way:Prove that it is your intellectual property and brand (sign a cont […]
Show full quote

Nope.
There are only two ways to sign a driver:
The legit way:Prove that it is your intellectual property and brand (sign a contract with Microsoft) and pay $2,000 for each signed driver.
Steal a certificate from somewhere:But it will be revoked immediately as soon as it becomes clear that it's invalid.

It looks like Creative’s software is on the compatibility whitelist, but nobody knows how long that will last.
It’s just easier to grab an AE-5 Plus and stop sitting on a ticking time bomb.

So how come I can use my X-FI from 2006 in my windows 10 machine? with the same old drivers? Or my audigy 2 zs with my retro windows xp 32 bit? this one is even connected to the internet.

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/wind … ver-pro/4504818
https://x.com/The_Cyber_News/status/2070267289971392845
Microsoft is having another security episode

https://x.com/The_Cyber_News/status/2070267289971392845

Can you explain in normal human being terms what this means? I don t understand a thing...

shevalier wrote on Today, 09:09:

... Nope. There are only two ways to sign a driver: The legit way:Prove that it is your intellectual property and brand (sign a […]
Show full quote

...
Nope.
There are only two ways to sign a driver:
The legit way:Prove that it is your intellectual property and brand (sign a contract with Microsoft) and pay $2,000 for each signed driver.
Steal a certificate from somewhere:But it will be revoked immediately as soon as it becomes clear that it's invalid.

It looks like Creative’s software is on the compatibility whitelist, but nobody knows how long that will last.
It’s just easier to grab an AE-5 Plus and stop sitting on a ticking time bomb.

This is not entirely true. Self signed drivers can also work. That is you can install any self signed certificate on your own PC into the Trusted Root Certification store and then you can sign any diver files with this certificate. If you also enable test mode on Windows by running
bcdedit /set testsigning on
you can use any driver files on Windows as long as you want.

You can use this tool to make the above described process somewhat more user friendly:
https://www.ngohq.com/2008/04/25/driver-signa … ment-overrider/

bitzu101 wrote on Today, 12:48:

shevalier wrote on Today, 12:32:

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/wind … ver-pro/4504818 https://x.com/The_Cyber_News/status/2070267289971392845 Microsof […]
Show full quote

bitzu101 wrote on Today, 11:03:

So how come I can use my X-FI from 2006 in my windows 10 machine? with the same old drivers? Or my audigy 2 zs with my retro windows xp 32 bit? this one is even connected to the internet.

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/wind … ver-pro/4504818
https://x.com/The_Cyber_News/status/2070267289971392845
Microsoft is having another security episode

https://x.com/The_Cyber_News/status/2070267289971392845

Can you explain in normal human being terms what this means? I don t understand a thing...

A driver file has a 'certain checksum of all its data' calculated and stored in a special area inside the file.This prevents the file from being modified.
The expiration date of this 'checksum' is also specified. It is necessary so that if the 'checksum calculator' is stolen, it cannot be used forever.

The OS itself features a built-in check for both this checksum and the date.It also includes two exception lists: a 'blacklist' (for drivers known to be bad despite meeting all formal validity criteria) and a 'whitelist' (for cases when the time has expired, but the driver is still not blocked).

For major manufacturers, Microsoft makes an exception by adding their expired drivers to this very whitelist.As long as these drivers do not cause any problems for Microsoft.It seems they decided last year that there were already enough problems, and they started a policy of shrinking this whitelist in this spring.
Creative is still on it for now, but no one knows for how long

Falcosoft wrote on Today, 13:53:

you can use any driver files on Windows as long as you want.

That’s also an option. But how long will it last?
As far as I know, X-Fi drivers definitely do not support Core Isolation / Memory Integrity.
For Recon3D / Z(xR), they most likely don't either.
Even the AE series didn't get a driver with this feature right away.
And Microsoft loves to forcibly enable all kinds of security features, making them mandatory. 🙁

shevalier wrote on Today, 17:00:

... […]
Show full quote

...

Falcosoft wrote on Today, 13:53:

you can use any driver files on Windows as long as you want.

That’s also an option. But how long will it last?
As far as I know, X-Fi drivers definitely do not support Core Isolation / Memory Integrity.
For Recon3D / Z(xR), they most likely don't either.
Even the AE series didn't get a driver with this feature right away.
And Microsoft loves to forcibly enable all kinds of security features, making them mandatory. 🙁

Yep, if the problem is not the certificate but the driver itself then not much can be done.
But all I can say is that I can still use my SB Audigy 1 and SB Audigy 2 ZS even on Windows 10/11 despite the fact that the Audigy 1 was released 25 years ago. We can hope that at least for good/popular hardware there will be alternative solutions.

The mainstream SB cards from the PCI/PCIe generation - which pretty much all of us have - work pretty well under Linux, but the advanced/premium PCIe cards do not, likely due to lack of reverse engineering resources by audio system devs, as they have to get their own hardware via donations, scrounging, or outright buying when it's available.

shevalier wrote on Today, 17:00:

A driver file has a 'certain checksum of all its data' calculated and stored in a special area inside the file.This prevents the […]
Show full quote

bitzu101 wrote on Today, 12:48:

shevalier wrote on Today, 12:32:

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/wind … ver-pro/4504818
https://x.com/The_Cyber_News/status/2070267289971392845
Microsoft is having another security episode

https://x.com/The_Cyber_News/status/2070267289971392845

Can you explain in normal human being terms what this means? I don t understand a thing...

A driver file has a 'certain checksum of all its data' calculated and stored in a special area inside the file.This prevents the file from being modified.
The expiration date of this 'checksum' is also specified. It is necessary so that if the 'checksum calculator' is stolen, it cannot be used forever.

The OS itself features a built-in check for both this checksum and the date.It also includes two exception lists: a 'blacklist' (for drivers known to be bad despite meeting all formal validity criteria) and a 'whitelist' (for cases when the time has expired, but the driver is still not blocked).

For major manufacturers, Microsoft makes an exception by adding their expired drivers to this very whitelist.As long as these drivers do not cause any problems for Microsoft.It seems they decided last year that there were already enough problems, and they started a policy of shrinking this whitelist in this spring.
Creative is still on it for now, but no one knows for how long

Falcosoft wrote on Today, 13:53:

you can use any driver files on Windows as long as you want.

That’s also an option. But how long will it last?
As far as I know, X-Fi drivers definitely do not support Core Isolation / Memory Integrity.
For Recon3D / Z(xR), they most likely don't either.
Even the AE series didn't get a driver with this feature right away.
And Microsoft loves to forcibly enable all kinds of security features, making them mandatory. 🙁

a complete cracked and pirated version of windows?

I mean , win 11 is pretty poor as it is , i ve had to install so many scripts and disable so much crap , I could not care for a second if i use a 100% cracked and pirated version that has no crap and "security features" that are only there to benefit microsoft. I did pay for my windows , but I don t want all this crap , certificates , siganatures , ai , cortana , etc. i just don t want it.

If it would still work today , I could easily live with windows XP with no bloatware.

Microsoft has gone dystopian , Creative no longer makes chips.. this is just silly...

Is creative even plannign on making a new chip ever? If not , mind as well collapse. Let someone else that wants to make good products come to the table...

shevalier wrote on Yesterday, 15:50:

You should stay away from the Recon 3D/ZXR lineup.
As far as I know, despite having the same chip as the AE, there are no longer any drivers for them.

I'm still using a ZxR on my main Windows 11 machine. It currently works perfectly with the 6.0.102.75 drivers, but I hold my breath every time Windows reboots after an update 😂.