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Help with SB Live Value and Low Quality Sound

A

Avernus

Landlubber
If anyone out there can recommend a driver that works welll with POTC and a SB Live Value please let me know which one and where to find it. Creative Labs support sucks and I can't even find archived drivers. Apparently they want customers to buy drivers LOL. Say goodbye to Creative Labs... All these soundcard sites and driver websites seem to be equally useless...

I have read through the forums here and searched for hours. It's a known problem with the earlier SB Live cards and POTC but I still find it quite lacking that Bethesda never bothered to patch the game. Clearly the problem lies with the game and not the drivers as even the last drivers put out for Win98 work fine with almost every game that has come out since.

If anyone knows any tweaks I could make with POTC itself to resolve the low quality playback issue I would apreciate it. The game works fine and so does the sound it's just running in some insanely low quality mode. It has nothing to do with hardware accelerated sound it seems purely like a setting problem within the game. No matter what setting I run the SB Live under it has the same results. Low quality sample rates.

I doubt anyone is even reading this but I am out of options at this point.
 
Well, I have had problems with sound myself, somtimes my crapy internal sound card comes back even though I've disabled it. I have a `C-Media` sound card that is absolutely astonishing! <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/icon_eek.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":shock:" border="0" alt="icon_eek.gif" />

I'm not familliar with SB Live Value however, I suggest getting a new sound card with the instalation/driver disk.
 
<img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/hi.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":gday" border="0" alt="hi.gif" /> <b>Avernus, </b>and welcome aboard! Have an ale! <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/beer2.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":beer" border="0" alt="beer2.gif" />

Now why doubt anyone might read this? We're a pretty lively bunch of pirates, especially when we've got a good supply of rum! <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/par-ty.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":cheers" border="0" alt="par-ty.gif" />

Funny you should mention the SB Live Value card; I was trying to resolve this very same issue with a friend's computer, and while I (unfortunately for both you and my friend) got nowhere with it, the problem seemed to stem from WinXP... The newer drivers are not acceptable to WinXP because they are "unsigned". <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tongue.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":blah:" border="0" alt="tongue.gif" /> You *can* get around it by telling your computer that you wish to use the unsigned driver ANYHOW, and hope for the best that it works... But... No guarantees that your unsigned driver will help.

(EDITORIAL - I personally I think the only difference between a "signed" driver and an "unsigned" one is that the unsigned driver creator didn't pay Micro$oft a [bribe or extortion] fee to license their driver) <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/whippa.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":whipa" border="0" alt="whippa.gif" />

Do you have onboard sound on your motherboard? If it is still on (check your BIOS settings), it may be interfering with your sound card.

You also might try downloading a new (and extensive) set of Codecs; that may help.

Another thought is this - your onboard sound MAY give you better performance with PotC than the SBLive... <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/rolleyes.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":rolleyes:" border="0" alt="rolleyes.gif" /> Go figure...

And a last suggestion... No, Bethesda never patched PotC - but the Russians (Akella) did... Have you installed Build 12? It has the Russian patch, adapted for the UK/US and other `non-Russian` versions of the game. Perhaps it will help??? (this is a SWAG, a "Scientific `Wild-Assed` Guess")

Someone else may come along soon with some different solutions - these are my own fumbling attempt to let you know we're not going to ignore this - we honestly wish to help people, and I hope that we can help you resolve your trouble soon. <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/onya.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":onya" border="0" alt="onya.gif" />

Again, welcome aboard! <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/onya.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":onya" border="0" alt="onya.gif" />
 
<!--`QuoteBegin-Catalina`+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Catalina)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteEBegin-->(EDITORIAL - I personally I think the only difference between a "signed" driver and an "unsigned" one is that the unsigned driver creator didn't pay Micro$oft a [bribe or extortion] fee to license their driver)[/quote]

Darn tootin' right, sez I. I don't think anyone bothers with that anymore...leastways, I can't remember the last time I installed a _signed_ driver...

Regarding the SB Live.
Just to make things worse, I'll mention that for a considerable stretch of time I ran POTC on Windows 2000 with a Sound Blaster Live `X-Gamer` (before the 5.1 models), and had no problems.

Ah, you're running 98? Hmm...
And I assume you want advice other than "install an `NT-core` OS--2k or XP"--not that that advice is specific to POTC, nor may it solve your specific problem (but I offer it anyway--the NT core has made me actually respect MS...)

Hmm. Have you tried switching out or into POTC's sound safe mode?
Run config.exe in the POTC folder.
If it says "safe mode", uncheck it; if not, check it.
Then try POTC again.
 
I don't think Avernus is running Win98, Nathan, it's just that most of the available drivers for that card are for Win98. You really have to dig to find something that will be newer or for WinXP - presumably XP has the driver you need, but it's probably nothing more than the regular 98 drivers... If you can find one dated later than the one you have from XP, signed or not, try it... <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/yes.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":yes" border="0" alt="yes.gif" /> <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/par-ty.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":cheers" border="0" alt="par-ty.gif" />

(dunno if it will work, tho) <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/urgh.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":urgh" border="0" alt="urgh.gif" />
 
Oh, if that's the case...

Hey, I remembered something: I have some SBLive links.
Try:
<a href="http://listen.to/sblive" target="_blank">http://listen.to/sblive</a>
<a href="http://ftp.bspu.unibel.by/pub/HardWare/Sound/Creative/SBLIVE/" target="_blank">http://ftp.bspu.unibel.by/pub/HardWare/Sou...reative/SBLIVE/</a>
<a href="http://people.freenet.de/apslive/" target="_blank">http://people.freenet.de/apslive/</a>
 
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