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Creative Labs X-Fi, Vista, and Drivers that WORK!
Posted by David on January 2, 2008
Over the holiday, I rebuilt my home computer—it needed it. The upgrade to the 720H2C, various .NET iterations, and such had taken a toll on its performance. I planned to remove all development tools from the machine anyway and virtualize everything so I could run between work and home carrying a projects hard drive image around (that works VERY well).
Part of this, I felt compeled to try my old Creative Labs X-Fi card that came with my “Made for Vista” Dell 710 H2C. The card never worked and I finally pulled it out and opted for the on-board sound. The on-board sound was good, but it always annoyed me that I couldn’t use the Sound Blaster card.
After a bit of searching, I found that Creative Labs released new drivers back in early November. In their release notes, there’s a line:
Resolves an issue for Windows Vista 64-bit systems with 4 GB RAM
Oh really? At first, I figured—ehh, it’s just going to crash. I tried hundreds of driver combinations that claimed they resolved the memory and sound card issues.
But, I’m a sucker for trying out hardware—so I did.
… and it freaking worked. So far, after two weeks of movie watching, gaming, Pandora-playing, and such—I haven’t had a single skip or blip out of the sound card. Fantastic.
So… how to get these?
Direct Download From Creative Labs
The file name is SBXF_PCDVT_LB_2_15_0004.exe (v2.15.0004 driver). The date is 5 November 2007. I can confirm, so far, that this driver works like a champ with Vista Ultimate x64 and 4GB of RAM. Finally!
