New Soundblaster Drivers or Horizons

[HappyFunBall]

I had my issues before the gathering sound fix... in fact it was back in mid 2005 when I reinstalled Windows and got the new SB drivers from the web... Never was able to play with the card enabled... well. I once was actually able to login for about 2 minutes before it came crashin down...

This is the same problem I have with the X-Fi, thought it usually takes 4-5 mins to appear like the game it loading, then it crashes with some bogus transport error.

Game works find with my on-board (nforce 3) sound. Hz is the only game I've been playing lately, so my X-Fi was a total waste of money, since I can't even use it. I can't believe they haven't fixed this yet. The Audigy 2 and X-Fi are today's most popular and widely used and well-supported (game devs) sound cards. My X-Fi hasn't caused me a single problem with over 15 other games.

[Arcadius]

Umm... any body know if EI plans on looking into this? or should I go looking so some cheap off brand sound card to ease the stress on me processor?

[Vesh]

I doubt it. Last night on IRC, I suggested that they look into the problems with Sound Blaster cards. I basically got ran off... because "I should talk to Creative about this". (Not from EI)

EI hasn't gotten back to my email about this yet.

[Imayo]

Well it IS Creatives problem. I have seen reports of their drivers conflicting with several other MMO games and some of the FPS games. My hubby and I have identical computers EXCEPT that I use the sound card built-in on the motherboard and he uses an Audigy 2 ZS. He has sound issues, lag problems and lower fps than me even though my graphics settings are actually set higher than his.

[Arcadius]

So it should almost be safe to say that if I uninstall my Sb audigy 2 zs and all of it's drivers, and install a new Diamond sound card the game should run fine again?

[walkerglassmire]

Should being the key operateing phrase, but, yes, it should.

[Sarus]

Razer's new soundcard is coming out in September so I will be trying that. I am pretty much done with Creative.

I read an interview on DailyTech that was linked from Razer's website.

[Arcadius]

wOOt! just got the new soundcard in the mail gonna install it and remove the Creative crude off my comp and give it a shot. I'll post back if it helps.

[Flozzie]

Well, I'm not about to buy a new card to play this game, and it looks from the lack of response by the new owners that this issue isn't going to get fixed by them. I've had an open support ticket for months and haven't heard anything else in weeks. Still takes me a half hour and at least one crash before I can get my system to log in.

So unless a miracle happens before my accounts expire at the end of my memberships, I guess it is time to cancel the accounts and look for a new home for the entertainment dollars used here.

[Fratricide]

This game works perfectly well on older audigy 1 SB cards.. but all the new drivers for the Audigy 2 and higher cards seem to cause issues with the program running properly. Either it is the interrupts getting messed up, or a major conflict with the network card and the audigy card drivers. Which again could be something with the interrupts each is trying to use. Either case, it is a conflict caused by the sound card drivers, not necessarily the game, as there are pleanty of other games that have similar issues. BF2 is one I know of for sure, as I have tested that vs my system.

[MadDwarf]

Well it IS Creatives problem. I have seen reports of their drivers conflicting with several other MMO games and some of the FPS games. My hubby and I have identical computers EXCEPT that I use the sound card built-in on the motherboard and he uses an Audigy 2 ZS. He has sound issues, lag problems and lower fps than me even though my graphics settings are actually set higher than his.

no actually there aren't any other reported hardware issues with other MMO's at this time. At least when it comes to sound cards. Creative won't take the time to address one small time MMO's issues with its drivers.

the only real problem hardware wise that affects most mainstream MMO's is the dual core processors that are around today.

[Tsarevna]

no actually there aren't any other reported hardware issues with other MMO's at this time. At least when it comes to sound cards. Creative won't take the time to address one small time MMO's issues with its drivers.

the only real problem hardware wise that affects most mainstream MMO's is the dual core processors that are around today.

Where did you come up with that assumption?
Case and point:

This is from the World of Warcraft Technical Support Forum.
(Edit: here is the link, search for "Audigy" to get to this post: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...301129&sid=1#5 )

Sound Card Related

Some 132’s have been known to be caused by Creative Labs Soundblaster sound
cards. In these cases, using the most current drivers from Creative may not have an
effect however it is best to ensure you are using the latest version in the event they
do help. Many users have corrected their issue by using third party drivers and/or
disabling any onboard sound card through the BIOS. There is also a known issue
when using SoundBlaster Audigy cards in conjunction with Pentium 4 processors
that use HyperThreading technology. To resolve this error it may be necessary to
disable HyperThreading within the motherboard BIOS. This is an issue with the
sound card itself and is not specific to World of Warcraft. If you have any doubt in
your ability to change BIOS settings, please involve a trained professional.

Third Party Drivers. Did you see that? The official response from the tech guys advise you to throw away the garbage drivers from SoundBlaster and use ones made by other people. If that isn't proof that SB drivers suck, I don't know what is.
And, not being compatible with Hyperthreading! That is something on MOST of the Pentium 4's out there, it makes them faster and more efficient, having to turn that off is like hobbling a racehorse.

[Flozzie]

Well, it looks like it won't matter for me. I have now gone two months with a support incident without a single acknowledgement from the new regime, so that means I cancel my accounts. I have worked through a lot in the past with the previous two owners but they were at least responsive to my support incidents. Not a single reply in two months of an open issue going on since February of this year shows me that there is no respect for those having problems in this game.

[Garfonso]

I have an X-FI, too and had/have serious problems with HZ...

What works quite good for me is the following:
I reduce the priority for HZ. So, I start HZ, and while it showing it's splash screen and loading a bit, I run the windows xp taskmanager (crtl + alt + del), go to processes, select the "horizons.exe" process, do a right click, select the last option something like "set priority" and select "lower than normal", that means HZ will get less CPU Power than a "Normal Process" would... sometimes the game get's a bit more laggy through that, and I think your Computer must be fast enough to handle it all, but I never had a issue with logging into HZ since I always run HZ on "lower than normal" CPU priority.

Maybe that will help somebody, for me this is quite a good workaround.

[Flozzie]

Well, the new SoundBlaster drivers are out and it didn't help the issue with Horizons at all. I have therefore just submitted my accounts for cancellation since you still can't cancel on the website.

[Nidhoggr]

Sorry for Rezz'ing an old topic...

but recently I experienced the same problem on my Brother's computer with an Audigy 4 Pro. Fortunately, downloading an older Audigy 2 driver (July 2003) fixed the problem. Only downside is that it effectively downgraded the Audigy 4 hardware to that of the Audigy 1?. No EAX 4.0 (only 3) and CMSS seems to be removed.

Loading times went from 15 mins approx to 1-2 minutes. Also interface lag has been fixed.

Edit: Maybe Everquest 2 doesn't support eax4...

[Spirit]

This is interesting.. I never saw this thread before. My dad's pc, which was mine until very recently, has an Audigy 2 ZS. I've had it for, what, almost 5 years in one pc or another... I got it when Vietcong came out. I can't recall having any problems with Horizons, but then I wonder how up to date my drivers were. I did update fairly often so at some stage I should have encountered this issue. Basic system was amd chip, nvidia graphics and Asus board.

I had a rush of issues logging in, but this turned out to be firewall issues rather than any computer hardware problem. Presently using a Xi-Fi, but it's a laptop expresscard so rather different.

Very weird..

Rakku

[Nidhoggr]

Currently using a Xi-Fi no problems with current beta driver from creative.

[Spirit]

Currently using a Xi-Fi no problems with current beta driver from creative.

It would seem to be a problem that has snuck by both of us.

My current biggest headache is Norton and Vista. Norton's about to die.

Rakku

[Nidhoggr]

Norton's is a terrible piece of software, imo. Most users do not need that much protection and Norton's tends to massively slow down your computer especially if running Windows Vista. I had Trend Micro, but that seems to be going in that direction also. Bloated Internet Security packages are completely worthless. Using AVG Free Edition now, very low memory shadow, usually under 20k.