Windows 8 Sound issues with Windows 8.1?

[MikeHawthorne]

Hi

A while back I updated to Windows 8.1 and had sound problems with very distorted sounds especially for speech and in games.

I'd like to update again, but today I looked to see if the problems had been fixed by Creative.

I found new drivers for my SB Recon3D PCIe sound card and installed them.

What do you know, all of my sound issues came back just as they were when I installed Windows 8.1.

This is defiantly a Creative driver issue.
A lot of other people reported the same kind of problems after updating to Windows 8.1.

I finally had to uninstall the sound card and restart my computer the get my sound back to the default drivers and back to normal.

Now I tried doing this when I was running Windows 8.1 and it didn't work, it was
installing the new drivers by default I suppose.

Now I'm wondering if I can install Windows 8.1 and then get it to run the old drivers that work.
I don't want to go through the whole upgrade downgrade thing again.

I've posted on the Creative forum as well but gotten no responses do far.

Anyone have any ideas?

Mike

 

[ussnorway]

Without trying to be rude, it sounds like perhaps the driver didn't install correctly… is this just a driver or does it also have some kind of monitoring program as well?

Yes you can roll back to the default windows drivers without needing to un-install the (8.1) lot… I suggest you un-install the 3rd party software (creative in this case) and obviously grab all the windows updates both before and after putting 8.1 on… assuming windows 8.1 detects that it is indeed a sound card (witch it should) then it will load the no frills basic windows driver for it.

Then make a system restore point before you install the new (8.1 creative) drivers and if it still goes pear shaped just roll it back… that's exactly the kind of thing which windows restore points are for.

I had a similar issue with my Asus sonic master when I installed the new 8.1 audio driver because the sound is much better but I don't like the layout of the new mixer… fortunately that didn't require an un-install to work around.

 

[MikeHawthorne]

Hi

I believe that I have the original Creative sound card driver install disk that came with my computer around here someplace.
I know these drivers work, because it's what it's running now.

When I update to 8.1 or 8.2 again I'll remove the drivers and try and install from the disk and see if that works.

When I did the upgrade last time I tried to fix it by installing the latest drivers from Creative, which seemed logical.
Now I know that it is the drivers that are the problem, (since I get exactly the same results in Windows 8) I'll go at it from a different angle.

It appears that Windows 8.1 automatically installs the new Creative drivers that don't work.
A lot of people who updated have had this problem but didn't know what the problem was.

So it looks like it's not a matter of just letting Windows install the basic driver package.

But if I can get it to except the older drivers it should work.

If Windows 9 is going to release in April of next year I may just wait until then to upgrade.

I don't really have any issues running Windows 8 so there's no real impetus to upgrade at this time, except for Microsoft nagging at me.

The really weird thing about this is, that voice files get distorted even if the are incorporated into a .wav file that also has background music on it, but the music remains clear.

I really figured that a sound was a sound once it was saved as a sound file, but obviously it doesn't read the voice sounds the same way it reads the music sounds, even in the same file.

This applies to files that were made with, and play clearly with the old drivers?

The same is true in games, the music is clear and the voices are distorted.

Mike

 

[ussnorway]

Hi
snip...
The really weird thing about this is, that voice files get distorted even if the are incorporated into a .wav file that also has background music on it, but the music remains clear.

I really figured that a sound was a sound once it was saved as a sound file, but obviously it doesn't read the voice sounds the same way it reads the music sounds, even in the same file.

Mike

What you are describing sounds more like a codex issue to me.

 

[MikeHawthorne]

Hi

I'm pretty sure that this is an issue with the Creative Drivers, my computer works fine with the old drivers.
As soon as I install the latest drivers all the issues start again.

Since I'm not the only one having this problem it kind of proves it isn't my computer setup.
It seem like everyone having this is running a SB Recon3D video card.

When I go back to the old drivers and everything goes back to normal.

After installing the new drivers I tried everything to make it work, but nothing did.

Mike

 

[ussnorway]

I believe you MikeHawthorne,

A driver connects hardware (the sound card) to your computer so that they can speak to each other… it is possible that the driver thinks your computer has say 5.1 surround sound speakers when it doesn't and that could cause the music or voice to drop out.

Telling the difference between say an opera singer and the base drum is the job of the codex and it may need updating to comply with the new system or perhaps another program has taken over the job of playing that type of file… Windows media player anyone?

I can see you have a solid grasp of the issue and should you run into problems then I suggest installing a free player called "Zoom Player FREE"… it won't interfere with the sound card and doesn't try to fight media player but does have extensive codex files and can automatically detect out-dated issues and offer suggested download which again don't interfere with any other player.

To be clear, if the problem appears then fire up "Zoom Player FREE", ask it to play one of the files and let it download any codex it wants to use and just see if that fixes it… yes = a codex issue and no means it is un-deniably the driver is at fault.

"Zoom Player FREE" is at this website. http://www.inmatrix.com/files/zoomplayer_download.shtml

 

[MikeHawthorne]

Hi

The problem is that it goofs up my Text to Speech software which I use a lot.
The sound from it sound just like the sounds from my recorded speech material.

If I can't make that work I can't update to Windows 8.1.

The voice sound seem to be affected no matter where they are played, in Media Player, Winamp, or on YouTube and Vimeo.

I may try to update to Windows 8.2 when it goes live and then it they don't work, try backdating to my old drivers.
There's a chance that will work it the drivers will work with Windows 8.2.

Otherwise either I wait for creative to do something about it, (which they don't seem inclined to do) or eventually when Windows 9 comes out buy a new sound card.

I did try setting it to every speaker setup I could try, as well as different outputs but it just wouldn't work.

I still think it's weird that it only affects speech.
Music and sound effects are fine.

I thought a recorded sound was a recorded sound.
Why does it see the speech differently.

Mike

 

[Greby]

Hi

A while back I updated to Windows 8.1 and had sound problems with very distorted sounds especially for speech and in games.

I'd like to update again, but today I looked to see if the problems had been fixed by Creative.

I found new drivers for my SB Recon3D PCIe sound card and installed them.

What do you know, all of my sound issues came back just as they were when I installed Windows 8.1.

This is defiantly a Creative driver issue.
A lot of other people reported the same kind of problems after updating to Windows 8.1.

I finally had to uninstall the sound card and restart my computer the get my sound back to the default drivers and back to normal.

Now I tried doing this when I was running Windows 8.1 and it didn't work, it was
installing the new drivers by default I suppose.

Now I'm wondering if I can install Windows 8.1 and then get it to run the old drivers that work.
I don't want to go through the whole upgrade downgrade thing again.

I've posted on the Creative forum as well but gotten no responses do far.

Anyone have any ideas?

Mike

You should try the following. The Power plan set to high perfomance, as this will reduce DPC latency. DPC latency may be the cause of why it occurs crackling sound.

 

[MikeHawthorne]

Hi

Since I posted this I'm pretty sure that the problem is the drivers installed for my sound card when Windows updates.
I've tried the drivers downloaded from Creative and I get exactly the same problem.

Since the Windows 9 beta is only a week or so away I'm going to wait and work it out in Windows 9.
I may be able to back date my sound drivers to the ones that work.

Anyway I will have time to work on it in the beta while still having my speech software working in Windows 8.

Thanks for the info.

My problem is very strange since only computer generated speech is affected.
If I didn't use it I wouldn't have a problem but I do use it for video that I do.

Mike