Hey I just installed a Creative Sound Blaster Z on my system, specs below just in case they matter:
MB: Gigabyte GA-MA770T-UD3
CPU: AMD Phenom II x4 925 @ 2.8 GHz
RAM: 12 GB DDR3
OS: Win7 64-bit Ultimate SP1
GPU: Geforce 260 GTX 896 MB
The problem with the card was that the sound was heavily distorted, with channels swapping all over the place (both with the stereo output and headphone output), crackling and just well, broken. I tried switching the card to a different PCI-e slot but it made no difference. The drivers are the latest, I have disabled onboard audio. I was already cursing Creative, but when I tried to change the "default audio format" in Windows settings to 44100, 16-bit Stereo, the problem *seems* to have gone away. I haven't tried it yet extensively but at least it seems to work for now. So my question is, what does this setting actually do? I have music in high quality FLAC files (99600, 24-bit) so does keeping this setting @ 44100 16-bit mean that it downsamples the sound quality to 44100/16 ? I think it's pretty annoying that the card says it supports up to 192khz but doesn't work at all & I'm afraid the broken audio will come back any minute now. I just feel like I've been ripped off
Bought this card since I'm a musician and the onboard audio just doesn't cut it for mastering.
Any ideas? Except "should've gone with ASUS" :lol:
MB: Gigabyte GA-MA770T-UD3
CPU: AMD Phenom II x4 925 @ 2.8 GHz
RAM: 12 GB DDR3
OS: Win7 64-bit Ultimate SP1
GPU: Geforce 260 GTX 896 MB
The problem with the card was that the sound was heavily distorted, with channels swapping all over the place (both with the stereo output and headphone output), crackling and just well, broken. I tried switching the card to a different PCI-e slot but it made no difference. The drivers are the latest, I have disabled onboard audio. I was already cursing Creative, but when I tried to change the "default audio format" in Windows settings to 44100, 16-bit Stereo, the problem *seems* to have gone away. I haven't tried it yet extensively but at least it seems to work for now. So my question is, what does this setting actually do? I have music in high quality FLAC files (99600, 24-bit) so does keeping this setting @ 44100 16-bit mean that it downsamples the sound quality to 44100/16 ? I think it's pretty annoying that the card says it supports up to 192khz but doesn't work at all & I'm afraid the broken audio will come back any minute now. I just feel like I've been ripped off

Any ideas? Except "should've gone with ASUS" :lol: