Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi Titanium DTS and Dolby Encoding issue

[Darksider13]

Gonna try to make this as short and simple as possible:

I've had this build for about 3 years or so now. I've had this specific sound card (the SoundBlaster X-Fi Titanium) for about 6 years now. I've had the surround sound system I'm currently using it with for the past 4 years. This is the first time I've ever had a severe issue with this card.

Basically, after doing running driver verification on windows 10 (because I was getting a BSOD related to a Dualshock 4 system driver), my surround sound system has no gone from working beautifully as always to being a pain in the arse.

I did a driver uninstallation and re-installation, no dice.
I did a driver AND complete software uninstallation (basically make it so there was absolutely NO creative-made software/files on my computer or traces of said software ANYWHERE), still no dice.

The drivers I've been installing for my soundcard are the official Win 10 drivers for the X-Fi Titanium card coming directly from Creative's website.

The actual issue being: Originally I had enabled DTS Connect encoding running on my soundcard. The signal from my soundcard would be converted immediately to a DTS 5.1 signal and sent to my surround sound system. The surround sound system would confirm it is a DTS signal by displaying a small lit-up DTS logo on the front panel of the surround sound unit. If I was encoding using a Dolby Digital Live signal, it would display a Dolby logo on the front of the surround sound unit. My surround sound system is a Sony Bravia DAV-DZ170.

I know this issue is not the fault of the surround sound system because when I selected DTS encoding, the system displays the logo as usual on the front. The only issue now being is that it doesn't put out any audio. Same for Dolby Digital signal.

NOW, the odd part here is that Creative's encoding system requires the forwarding of the SPDIF Out signal to output from the "Speaker" device. When I disable encoding in the "Speaker" device's SoundBlaster settings and test the audio coming directly from the SPDIF Out device, it's clear as day. No issues. Even when I try playing a DTS and Dolby Digital signal in the "Supported Formats" tab. The signal is clear and in full surround sound. The surround sound system even displays the respective logo for whatever format I'm testing when I test in the "Supported Formats" tab under the SPDIF Out device.

So the question here is: What in the world is going wrong here? I've installed all the drivers and creative software from scratch. I even took the sound card out after all the software and drivers had been installed, started the computer without the soundcard, re-installed the drivers and software and I'm still back to where I was at the beginning of all of this.

I know my surround system is getting a signal because right now as I type, I'm looking at it displaying a DTS logo. Everything on my software end is looking the same as usual. The only thing out of the ordinary is the lack of actual audio coming from the system when I'm using the "Speaker" device.

I know that's a ton but I wanted to be as thorough as possible so I don't make anyone ask too many questions.

Thanks to anyone who wants to lend their time to this. Appreciate any help I can get.

 

[audie-tron25]

Would you happen to have Windows 10? Apparently Creative's drivers don't work well with it. Try follow some of the steps here, especially in reference to installing the third party drivers by "daniel_k":
http://forums.creative.com/showthread.php?t=722321&page=2

I currently run a Xonar DG and the driver support for their soundcard's are ridiculous, they are never updated so community drivers tend to work better (at least in my experience).

 

[Darksider13]

Would you happen to have Windows 10? Apparently Creative's drivers don't work well with it. Try follow some of the steps here, especially in reference to installing the third party drivers by "daniel_k":
http://forums.creative.com/showthread.php?t=722321&page=2

I currently run a Xonar DG and the driver support for their soundcard's are ridiculous, they are never updated so community drivers tend to work better (at least in my experience).

Yeah I'm running Win 10 but I have been since the public release. Same configuration and everything with Windows 10. Never had an issue before today. I contemplated using the community drivers but I've never had an issue with the official ones so I'm not sure what the deal is. My biggest concern is how literally just about 5 hours ago everything was fine and then after the driver verification ran, it stopped outputting audio. Everything is the exact same, it just doesn't output any audio now when I have "Speaker" as the outputting device.

 

[audie-tron25]

From what I read in that forum I linked in my previous post, it is likely a driver conflict because Window's replaces it with its own without removing it. Either that or the driver that Windows received through Window's Update just doesn't work. Either way, the people at the Creative forums were in a very similar situation to you. It is surprising that you only had the issue now considering they encountered it back on release but I believe that it is Windows installing it's own driver because you only encountered it when you ran the driver verification (which probably looked for and installed "updates" for it).

 

[Darksider13]

From what I read in that forum I linked in my previous post, it is likely a driver conflict because Window's replaces it with its own without removing it. Either that or the driver that Windows received through Window's Update just doesn't work. Either way, the people at the Creative forums were in a very similar situation to you. It is surprising that you only had the issue now considering they encountered it back on release but I believe that it is Windows installing it's own driver because you only encountered it when you ran the driver verification (which probably looked for and installed "updates" for it).

That makes sense unfortunately enough lol. So the solution for yourself and others on the Creative forums was to use the community-made drivers? I'll give those a shot, should I uninstall all the creative software and drivers like I did before? Complete wipe?

P.S. I was just reading through the thread you linked in your first post and the thread seems to be about the card not outputting any audio at all. I can get a clean and clear audio output from my SPDIF Out without issue. It even plays DTS and Dolby just fine as well. It's when I use the encoding done in the "Speakers" device is when I don't get any audio. Everything else works perfectly.

P.P.S. After giving it some thought, I reinstalled everything from absolute scratch way after the Driver Verification was finished. Like at least an hour after it was done. So technically wouldn't any drivers I installed overwrite whatever windows initially overwrote? Sorry for all the afterthoughts lol.

UPDATE: So I've found out that the sound card is sending a signal to the surround sound system pre-converting any audio that is output to DTS BUT when I try to test it, the surround sound system does not receive any audio. I know this because the system just tried going into auto standby mode which only happens after 30 minutes of not receiving any audio to output. Which means that the surround system is receiving the encoding signal from the card but no audio is being forwarded to the actual system itself.

 

[Darksider13]

Update on the situation: I just did a complete uninstall of all Creative drivers and software from the computer. I even got Driver Sweeper and cleaned out all remaining Creative files/programs. Then I went into CCleaner and cleaned out the registry of any Creative registries.

I then installed Daniel K's driver pack that a lot of people mentioned worked. Lo-and-behold I am, yet again, in the same exact spot as I was before. I have no clue what in the world I am missing. Everything was working absolutely A+ at 4pm today, now I'm pretty much SOL unless anyone has any other solutions they've heard of or creative solutions they can think of.

 

[Darksider13]

FINAL UPDATE: So after realizing I had NOT installed the Win 10 anniversary update, I decided to uninstall my sound card and all Creative software. I then cleared my registry from all references to Creative. Then I physically took the card out of my PC.

I then updated to the Win 10 anniversary update and reinstalled the card as if I just bought it brand new and had never installed it. After installing the Creative-Made win10 drivers and the DTS Connect pack, everything is working like a charm again. Not sure how the update helped but yeah, that seemed to fix it for me!

 

[audie-tron25]

Weird that it just fixed itself with that Windows 10 update. Glad to hear though