More upgrade woes

  • Thread starter Thread starter RWhite
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RWhite

Well-known member
Let me start off by saying I have not yet really put any time into figuring this one out, so I'm sorry - but I thought someone may have gone through this already, an I wanted to get some feedback.

I've been using Cakewalk Pro 9 for some time, on two different computers running Windows 98se. One is my primary recording system, the other my standard "everything else" box. The first box is limted to Windows 98 since it's hardware (Gadget Labs Wave 824) is not supported by newer OSs. The later is equipped with a Creative Audigy card (soon to be replaced by an Audiophile 2496). Some time ago I upgraded that system to Windows XP, and started with a fresh install (no more Cakewalk).

A few days ago I received Sonar 2.0. I am not ready to bail on Cakewalk 9 yet but obviously want to start working with Sonar and get comfortable with it. Tonight I first installed Cakewalk 9 (and the patches up to 9.03) and then installed Sonar 2.0, in seperate directories. I first opened in Cakewalk an old 4 channel audio Cakewalk .bun that I'm using for a test file. Although recorded on my better hardware in 24 bit, this 4 channel file played back fine on the Audigy, no problems at all.

I then loaded the same file into Sonar, and before the file had even finished loading I received a dropout warning - "the audio engine has failed". Any attempt to play the file receives an instant dropout message.

I find it curious that Cakewalk 9, which isn't even supposed to run under XP, would be fine while Sonar tanks immediately.

Any ideas? Obviously I need to study up on Sonar settings, but with Creative cards being as popular as they are, I thought someone may recognise this symptom...
 
Have you upgraded the Audigy Xp drivers from the creative website. The original drivers that came on the audigy cd were pure garbage.
 
have you tried sliding around your latency buffer in options/audio? it may just be too low.
 
johnhoe said:
Have you upgraded the Audigy Xp drivers from the creative website. The original drivers that came on the audigy cd were pure garbage.
Click to expand...
Drivers would be my guess as well. I don't believe PA9 can take advantage of WDM drivers, so PA9 is likely using your drivers in MME mode. Sonar OTOH would be trying to use the WDM drivers. That might explain the apparent contradiction.

You can probably test this pretty easily by checking the box in Sonar's Options - Audio page to tell it to only use MME drivers even when WDM are present. Check the box and see if the file plays OK.

If it works, you could simply leave it in MME mode, but of course you won't get the lower latencies available with WDM.
 
Thanks for the replies. I will check out the driver options when I get home tonight.

Johnhoe - actually I have deliberately AVOIDED downloading the updated Audigy drivers from Microsoft because several members here posted warnings that the new drivers were shit, and to stick with the old ones! I take it that you have had a different experiance...
 
I was referring to the creative update rather than the Microsoft drivers. I could never get the original CD drivers to properly work. Notice you always have to have this disc available if you want to upgrade the Audigy drivers. As I said "Pure garbage" unless anyone knows better of course!
 
John check out www.musicxp.net they have some really good tweaks for XP as a OS for audio production. I have less problems and don`t have the bogdowns I had when I first upgraded to XP. I am running PA9 and Sonar XL on the same machine, purely out of stubborness cause Sonar is better but I still like some of the PA9 layouts. By the way I`m using an old Live! value card.

Like Dachay2tnr said, check the MME interface under OPTIONS/AUDIO/ADVANCED and use them to get Sonar up and running. Late you can switch back to WDM and it will profile the card, load the WDM drivers and you`ll enjoy less latency. Well, thats what I did and I`m fine with both versions now.
 
John check out www.musicxp.net they have some really good tweaks for XP as a OS for audio production. I have less problems and don`t have the bogdowns I had when I first upgraded to XP. I am running PA9 and Sonar XL on the same machine, purely out of stubborness cause Sonar is better but I still like some of the PA9 layouts. By the way I`m using an old Live! value card. I got my creative drivers from the Compaq website

Like Dachay2tnr said, check the MME interface under OPTIONS/AUDIO/ADVANCED and use them to get Sonar up and running. Late you can switch back to WDM and it will profile the card, load the WDM drivers and you`ll enjoy less latency. Well, thats what I did and I`m fine with both versions now.
 
Dach and Toki, you were right. I switched off the WDM drivers and now it's working fine. Thanks!

Next step is to download the updated Creative drivers, and see what happens...
 
Compaq has a support page for Soundblaster products, already packed in a nice installation file.
 
Sorry, this is sort of a double post from the Computer forum, but since it is also the continuation of this thread, here it is...


Last night I installed the new (8/26/02) Creative Audigy XP drivers, which supposedly fix 2000/XP WDM issues. It was an interesting experience to say the least.

First mistake was doing this last night at midnight. Second mistake was not creating a restore point first. Instead I just ran the executable download file. The install runs, says it has removed the old drivers, and needs to restart - "installation will continue on restart". OK fine, I restart. The machine restarts, flashes the XP logo for a second, and then goes to an instant Blue Screen Of Death (XP style). Worse, the blue screen only flashes for a moment and then the machine reboots. And starts the whole process over again. And again.

I am somewhat annoyed by this string of events, so I boot into Safe Mode. This time the system comes up, the Creative installer finishes, and tells me "install successful, you must reboot, blah blah blah". So I reboot, and the same damn screen of death and reboot cycle starts again.

Well, what XP taketh away it giveth back. I bring up the boot menu and chose "boot to last known good configuration". I'll be damned if it doesn't work exactly as advertised - my system boots up ok. First time I actually had to try this feature in "the heat of battle" so I'm glad to report it actually works.

So now my ego is at stake, I'm not going to let this stupid sound card get me goat. I delete the sound card and all drivers and software. Then I reboot. When booted XP find the card and tries to load drivers for it, but I cancel that. Then I run the new Creative driver install again, reboot, and cross my fingers.

This time the drivers work, I get my little Creative greeting sound. Yee Ha! So I open up Sonar and load a file. I hit the "play" button and nothing happens - not only no sound, but the file refuses to play. Frantic mouse clicking everywhere - NOTHING. So I open up Audio Options, and where my Sound Card should be listed, there is nothing. It doesn't see a sound card at all.

So I do what I had done before, disable WDM drivers, and restart Sonar. Bingo! I have a sound card again. Just as with the old drivers, it plays fine using non-wdm. Unlike the old drivers, where using WDM saw a sound card but caused instant dropouts & lockups, now it simply refuses to see a WDM sound card.

< sigh >

OK, any of this sound familiar to anyone?
 
Only with a thousand other upgrading scenarios, but not with Creative specifically. I feel your pain, but you did get the "boot to last known good configuration" to work. That has never worked for me, but haven't tried it since XP. Your a stronger man than I, I would have given up long before I think. Good Luck with the WDM issue :D
 
Rwhite - you might try deleting your aud.ini file (or better, change the extension to aud.bak to give yourself a fallback :) ).

First, uncheck the Use MME checkbox and close Sonar. Then rename Aud.ini. After you do this, when you restart Sonar it will reprofile your sound card and create a new aud.ini file. This might be enough to get it working. If not, you can restore your old aud.ini and you're no worse for the wear.

Note: If it does work, you will have to reset all your default directories, # of aux busses, etc., as these are stored in the aud.ini file as well.

It does seem quite strange that Sonar will "see" your drivers in MME mode, but not in WDM, since I believe it's the same driver for both modes, just different instruction sets within the driver.
 
Thanks Dach! (or maybe I should say Doc...) I will give that a try.

The new driver is very weird given that with the old drivers it saw the card, but just didn't work. Hopefully I can get it working under WDM, but if not an upgrade to an Audiophile 2496 is coming soon anyways, which I'm sure will spawn a whole new set of problems. :D
 
RWhite, you have my sympathy. As you know from the other thread I have got this new Audigy WDM driver to work at 30mS latency which is exactly the same as with the MME driver. Basically Creative cannot be trusted to write drivers for their hyped up boards and their response to users problems with the Audigy is well documented and pathetic in the extreme.

I repeat this great link to read about these problems

http://oui.com.br/nando/essays/t03audigy01.htm
 
John, I had checked out that web site earlier. very informative. However, I am curious - exactly which drivers are you using? There were apparenlty two different sets issued by Compaq, several sets from Creative, and others. The problem I am having right now seems to be with the same Creative drivers (8/26/02) that the author of the web page is now using.

Dach, I tried your suggestion with the .INI file, and things just got even weirder. It did run a profile of the sound card again. However when finished it had found the Audigy as a recording timing device, but not as a Playback timing device. Instead it found my ATI All-In-Wonder video card (which also has some audio recording capability) as the only Playback timing device. The upshot is that under WDM Sonar will play a file, but will either dropout instantly (if ATI is the playback device) or no sound is generated (if choseing "Playback device = none"). I could probably record something, though not play it back (didn't try it).

I switched back to MME, and Sonar profiled the card again. This time it found the Audigy as both a playback and recording device.

So I guess I'm sticking with MME for now. Which brings forward another Sonar question - in my "main" sound recording computer, I have a Gadget Labs Wave 824 8in/8out card. Because Gadget Labs are out of business, no new drivers are set to be released. The last two drivers they came out with were for Win 98 and Win NT4. I wonder - if I force Sonar to use MME drivers, do you think this thing might actually work under XP using an NT4 driver?
 
Yes I am using that latest Creative driver (8/26/2002) for WinXP. I have never been able to install the Microsoft drivers. As far as I can see Microsoft offers no native support with XP for the Audigy. So I don't know how this "reported" driver is used or installed.
As far as your gadget Labs card is concerned. I myself, have never been able to use any other OS driver with XP for other soundcards .)
 
More %$#%$#%%$ WDM stupidity....

Well, this has become downright annoying.

After dealing with the issues earlier in this thread, I finally decided to move my Audigy card to a Win98 box, and switch back to a SB Live card, at least until I buy my Audiophile 2496. Last weekend I bought a new Gigabyte mobo and Athlon 1900 chip, and performed a system upgrade of the computer in question. After makeing sure the upgrade went well, I swapped out the Audigy for the Live.

I get the same damn problem. When using WDM drivers, Sonar sees the card as a recording device, but not as a playback device. It will not play audio. If I force it to MME, then everything is detected and works fine.

Now I have to wonder whether there is a problem in my XP install. If I wind up buying a 2496 card and then find it doesn't work under WDM I'm going to be mighty pissed.

I think I am going to continue this thread under the Computer & Soundcard forum, and see if anyone there has had a similar experiance... Thanks for all the input.
 
I gave up trying to get Sonar to work on my XP Home computer. Cakewalk 9.03 Pro Audio works just fine in XP and I've gone back to it. Perhaps when there is a combination of updated drivers and a bugfix for Sonar I'll try again.
 
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