Digital/Analog Audio & Sound Drivers for Windows Vista

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While Windows Vista may tout a “all-new and improved” audio stack with superb quality and resonance, it’s of no use if you don’t have the right sound card drivers for Windows Vista. The biggest problem with audio drivers for Windows Vista is with Digital Audio – most people can get their SPDIF or Digital outputs to spew analog sound – which just doesn’t work with hi-fi, digital speakers. NeoSmart Technologies has compiled a list of audio drivers for the most popular sound cards that experience trouble with Windows Vista, in hopes that our readers will find it useful.

  • SoundMAX Integrated Digital Audio – Analog audio with the drivers works fine, but digital audio doesn’t.
  • Creative Sound Blaster Live! Series – No sound by default, Creative drivers won’t install.
  • Creative Audigy 1 – No sound by default, Creative drivers won’t install.
  • Creative Audigy 2 – No sound by default, Creative drivers won’t install.
  • Creative Audigy 4 – Creative drivers install but constantly stutter.
  • Creative X-Fi Series – Creative drivers install but constantly stutter.
  • SigmaTel HD Audio – Default Vista drivers don’t well in digital, bad bass
  • SigmaTel Integrated Audio – No compatible drivers; Digital N/A.
  • Other AC ’97 – No compatible drivers; Digital N/A.

The last two entries do not support Digital Audio, and are simply a manner of finding the right drivers compatible with your chipset; making them at once the easiest to solve due to the lack of complications, and the hardest due to the large variety of AC ’97 implementations.

NeoSmart Technologies is now hosting the more-popular drivers on our own server. If you find this guide helpful, please donate to defray some of our bandwidth costs.. If you need more help, please use the forums.

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SoundMAX Integrated Digital Audio

Microsoft Windows Vista build 5308 uses Windows Update (herein called WU) to get the latest drivers for the SoundMAX chipset. These drivers stutter, hiss, snap, crackle, and pop, nonstop and do not have support for digital audio. This is an improvement over 5270 where you had to find your own drivers, AND it was impossible to get digital audio.

  1. Download these drivers and extract them to a folder somewhere with WinZip.
  2. Open Device Manager (Control Panel | System | Hardware | Device Manager) find the entry for the SoundMAX, and update its driver with the one in the \SMAXWDM\W2K_XP\ directory that you just extracted.
  3. Restart your computer.
  4. Open Control Panel | Audio Settings | SoundMAX | Properties. In the ‘Other’ tab uncheck the first entry and check the second for digital audio. If you have analog speakers, leave both unchecked.
  5. If sound quality is not that great, try changing the Format settings in that last tab on the page. Try going up or down until it works out…. I have this card and was quick to replace it… Time to get a new sound card if you are still having issues :(
  6. Vista will tell you that Windows Update has found newer drivers. Ignore it or you’ll lose the sound!

Creative Sound Blaster Live! Series

This applies to all Live! products, including OEM Dell, Gateway, HP, etc. editions, 24-bit, 5.1, and the rest. Vista 5308 may or may not find drivers on Windows Update, but even if it does, they will not support Digital Audio.

  1. Check Windows Update. Recently, correct drivers have popped up on there that support all Sound Blaster cards with digital audio too! If you don’t find anything:
  2. You have two choices: SoundBlaster Live! signed drivers which work swell but don’t have support for digital speakers; and NGO HQ drivers which have a couple of bugs but support digital audio.
  3. If you downloaded our first package, open up Device Manager and point it to the location you extracted those files to and let it set it up (Hint: Emu10k1). If you grabbed the NGO HQ set, run the installer in Windows XP Compatibility Mode.
  4. Restart your computer.
  5. In the audio properties in the Control Panel, enable digital audio by going to the tab called “Other,” and checking digital output box.
  6. Play with the “Format” tab to get the audio quality to your liking.
  7. You may need to restart to ensure that digital audio works after changing that option.

Creative Audigy I

  1. Check Windows Update. Recently, correct drivers have popped up on there that support all Audigy cards with digital audio too! If you don’t find anything:
  2. You have two choices: SoundBlaster Live! signed drivers which work swell but don’t have support for digital speakers; and NGO HQ drivers which have a couple of bugs but support digital audio.
  3. If you downloaded our first package, open up Device Manager and point it to the location you extracted those files to and let it set it up (Hint: Emu101k). If you grabbed the NGO HQ set, run the installer in Windows XP Compatibility Mode.
  4. Restart your computer.
  5. In the audio properties in the Control Panel, enable digital audio by going to the tab called “Other,” and checking digital output box.
  6. Play with the “Format” tab to get the audio quality to your liking.
  7. You may need to restart to ensure that digital audio works after changing that option.

Creative Audigy 2

  1. Check Windows Update. Recently, correct drivers have popped up on there that support all Audigy cards with digital audio too! If you don’t find anything:
  2. Download the modified kX Project drivers or these stock ones from Dell.
  3. Run the kX installer, let it install and press OK at all prompts. It may take a while to complete.
  4. Restart your computer.
  5. You will get an error message every time at boot, it is safe to ignore. If you want to get rid of it, remove kX Project from your startup list with a startup manager with a program like NeoSmart’s own Startup2Service.
  6. Open audio options in the Control Panel and enable/disable digital audio in the “Other” tab.
  7. Play with the “Format” tab to get the audio quality to your liking.
  8. You may need to restart to ensure that digital audio works after changing that option.

Creative Audigy 4

  1. Check Windows Update. Recently, correct drivers have popped up on there that support all Audigy cards with digital audio too! If you don’t find anything:
  2. Download the latest official Creative Audigy 4 Drivers for Vista here (yes, it does say X-Fi, but those are the ones).
  3. Extract them to a folder using WinZip.
  4. Open Device Manager (Control Panel | System | Hardware | Device Manager) find the entry for the Audigy 4 and update the drivers for it with the ones you just extracted.
  5. Restart your computer.
  6. Open audio options in the Control Panel and enable/disable digital audio in the “Other” tab.
  7. Play with the “Format” tab to get the audio quality to your liking.
  8. You may need to restart to ensure that digital audio works after changing that option.

Creative X-Fi Series

  1. Check Windows Update. Recently, correct drivers have popped up on there that support all Audigy cards with digital audio too! If you don’t find anything:
  2. Download the latest Creative X-Fi Audio Drivers for Vista from the official site here.
  3. Extract them to a folder using WinRAR.
  4. Open Device Manager (Control Panel | System | Hardware | Device Manager) find the entry for the X-Fi and update the drivers for it with the ones you just extracted.
  5. Restart your computer.
  6. Open audio options in the Control Panel and enable/disable digital audio in the Other tab.
  7. Play with the Format tab to get the audio quality to your liking.
  8. You may need to restart to ensure that digital audio works after changing that option.

SigmaTel HD Audio

  1. Download the SigmaTel HD Audio drivers from Dell.
  2. Extract to a folder with WinZip.
  3. Use device manager to install the drivers.
  4. Reboot. If needed check the “Digital Audio” option in the Sounds Control Panel.

SigmaTel Integrated Audio

  1. Download the modded AC ’97 drivers here.
  2. Run the installer in XP compatibility mode and restart.
  3. If the installer fails, extract the drivers to a folder with WinRAR and install via the Device Manager.
  4. Restart your computer.

Realtek High-Definition Audio

  1. Download the Realtek hi-def Vista drivers from here.
  2. Extract them to a folder with WinZip.
  3. Install them by using the setup utility or manually selecting the drivers in the Device Manager.
  4. Restart your PC.

Generic AC ’97 Solution

This will not provide digital audio. As far as we know the only AC ’97 implementation that gives digital audio is the SoundMAX outlined above. As previously mentioned, this in only a matter of finding the right drivers. Here we will provide you with some links to the most likely compatible drivers as well as how to get them to install.

  1. Like always, make sure that if you are running an Intel chipset to first follow the steps above to update the INF files.
  2. Try one of these drivers, ordered by likelihood of success: ngoHQ modded AC ’97, Realtek AC ‘97 Drivers, and the VIA Vinyl drivers.
  3. Attempt to run the installers in XP compatibility mode, if that fails or you do not have time waste;
  4. Extract the drivers then via the Device Manager use the extracted drivers to update the audio device.
  5. Restart your computer whether the selected driver worked or not.
  6. Repeat for each driver until you find one that works.

It is possible to obtain both digital and analog audio simultaneously from a single Realtek audio device by downloading and extracting rtkhdaud.dat to C:\Windows\System32\Drivers\

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Enjoy! Assuming you followed the steps above in the order outlined, and you don’t have a home-brew sound card you should be pumping that music and shaking the house, in Vista-defined audible bliss!

Do not post support requests below, they will go unanswered. Don’t be lazy, post in the forums instead.

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    • 121 thoughts on “Digital/Analog Audio & Sound Drivers for Windows Vista”

    1. thanks you, i needed to this defination of sound card soundmax digital audio

    3. I’m running the 5384 build of Vista BETA2 and I can’t get Audio no matter what I do.

      Have they botched all Audio support in this version?

    4. It works for me with my old SB-Live! card (the original edition), and people have successfully used this guide for all the above-listed cards…

      Not sure what issue you’re having, but go ahead and post it here, and we’ll see what we can do 😉

    5. Hi i’ve got a Soundmax integrated soundcard and a SB live! one. They both work but only allow sound through one port…none of the others work no matter what I put in them. I’ve got some other issues aswel regarding the running of the Beta on my system. My pc is fully compatible apart from drivers of course but it seems to be behaving strangely. I tried to switch to the Windows vista aero appearance setting to get the glass effects and whatnot and it changed the first time I did it.

      After a restart however it went back to the basic theme. I go back to the menu and change it back and it acknowledges this the screen goes dark etc etc so i click ok after applying my changes and when i go back into it it is still on the basic theme! I have had this problem with other areas aswel…my pc no longer recognises some of the changes that I make to it or chooses to ignore them.

      I am also the only user on my system and therefore the administrator, but it wont let me install certain things saying that I need to be an administrator. Also control panel selectively does not open about 1 minute after a restart, the display is cropped and it is only reading my graphics card as a 128 instead of a 256 and the performance visually has decreased alot! I know that was alot but if you could help it would be much appreciated!

    6. Hello Vj, I’m afraid NeoSmart policy is to only offer direct support in the forums, so if you post there we’d be glad to help…

      Sorry, but that’s the only way we can keep the info organized and searchable. Thanks!

    7. Hmm.. i cant install the SB live drivers.. the installation keeps freeze in the last part.. i have tried restarting and then update the drivers manually from the device manager.. but it still freezes then “installing drivers”
      I have a SB live digital 5.1

      Somebody knows something? 🙂

    9. Is one of these configurations, the Gamer or DVD, a subset of the other? I notice the DVD package is bigger, and assume it will contain all the info I need for the Gamer configuration.

    10. Hi Wes.
      The Gamer edition is broken and doesn’t install – it’s missing files. NST will be re-releasing NGO HQ’s version with a new (complete) installer soon…

    15. You’re my hero. I couldn’t believe it when I read that creative is not supporting the Live! cards for Vista… I mean, how hard is it to make drivers for 5.1 sound on that card? I will never buy anything from creative again for this.

    17. How do you figure… I used the info that you had, to get my audio working on RC1, now i’ve got RC2 the problem is back again; and you’ve removed the only useful info i had on the subject…

    18. Hi ME,

      I haven’t removed any links – just updated dead ones to point to working files.
      Only thing removed was the Intel Chipset drivers section, which is no longer applicable and has nothing to do with your sound drivers..

      Please post your issue at http://neosmart.net/forums and we’ll help you right away!

    21. [quote comment=”6482″]where are the intel chipset drivers?[/quote]
      They aren’t needed anymore… See CG’s reply: [quote comment=”6195″]-Intel Chipset section removed; no longer applicable.[/quote]

    22. And what the 5.1 option??? In the Sound Blaster 5.1 Live! drivers is only mono and stereo option…..

    24. thank you!..i love you man..i been searching every where for a driver that would support sb live driver and I was about to give up and use my weak generic sound that come with the motherboard and the sound comes out only on one side until I found this site..a computer without any sound is like being deaf and that is not good..this site have given back my ears..thanks again

    26. Hey… Please tell me. For SB Live 5.1, wich audigy drivers should i download for the 5.1 works??? Thanks… 

    31. hey ALL

      i found that when you install sb live 5.1 xp drivers onto vista to make the sound card function, alot of games have a problem playing sounds. this seems like a driver compatibilty problem with directx 10.

      in the days of xp, you could reduce hardware acceleration of the card to correct this, however you cannot do this in vista!

      Just thought id inform you all!

      creative really are lame for leaving out sb live driver support for vista. i have mailed their support to suggest what a bunch of ***** they are…but have had no response yet. 🙂

    32. Katey, you’ll be glad to know that using the drivers above (the ones from the kX Project or from NGOHQ), you won’t experience these types of problems with your gaming 🙂

    33. Editor’s Note: RadarSync is a fly-by-night gig with untested, non Vista-Compliant drivers — proceed with caution!

      You can also look at radarsync’s vista page for more vista drivers — they’re listed by manufacturer which makes it easy to find what you need.

    34. I appreciate the support on this issue, but I will not be purchasing Windows Vista until the problem is actually resolved. I have a Creative Labs XFi Elite Pro card and it does not work with Vista and it seems neither do any other sound cards. I have one of if not their most expensive card and it is not supported.

      While you have listed Creative Labs site with drivers, the drivers available are mostly beta and the one for my card is not only beta but reduces the functionality of the sound card. Some of the most important features of the card are not available even with the driver.

      Not only that, The software for the card is not supported either.

      So, It would be nice if you would explain when a real fix will be out for the sound card problems. Until a realistic solution that will not impair the use of my computer (as I use my sound card in a professional capaity) is available, I will not purchase Windows Vista.

      I have a feeling that when people realize the extremely flawed sound compatability and capability of Windows Vista there will be a major backlash, unless it is fixed.

       

    36. KX RULEZ GUYS!!!!
      3 Hours googleing and i found the solutions! No more problems with my LIVE! and Im using the analogic port with my 5.1 system sound!
      Hughessssssssss!

    38. Hi,  I am having trouble with the integrated sound card in my Asus P5W DH Deluxe Motherboard  & Windows Vista.  I only get sound from tow two front speakers and center speakers.  Also the software disk that came with the Motherboard will not work. 

      Any help would be appreciated 

       Thank you,

      Aeron

    40. i have installed the driver NQO

      but there is only sound in 2 speakers not in 5 speakers…And i cant select 5.1 surround

      WHY ???

    42. ———————— WORKS 100% —————————————
      Install kx driver and reboot.

      Make sure you install the right version. I had trouble with that att first. The working version is

      http://download.kxproject.lugosoft.com/downloads/kxdrv3538l-full.exe

      Make sure you uninstall old drivers first then reboot and rightclick on kx-icon next to system clock

      then select Effects -> surrounder+ where you can play around with settings to find what works for you.

      I finally have 5.1 sound with subwoofer working great! (I use 5.1 rear=front settings).

      ———————————————– WORKS 100%  ————————————————–

    45. Update: The indie-hosted drivers (like the SoundMAX ones) have been mirrored here at NST.

      It’s going to be quite a bandwidth toll, esp. since they get downloaded over 1000 times a day, but we’ve had complaints from the people hosting the original mirror. If you have a dollar to spare for our hosting costs, please do so, it’ll be much appreciated.

    46. I am still lost cannot install soundblaster live 24bit . I have vista home premium. I get lost

      In the audio properties in the Control Panel, enable digital audio by going to the tab called ?Other,? and checking digital output box.
      Play with the ?Format? tab to get the audio quality to your liking.
      You may need to restart to ensure that digital audio works after changing that option.

      because tere is nothing in my audio properties. someone help.

    48. Hey guys! I have an IBM Netvista 8307-41U, and i recently installed vista, by default it installed the intel DB/DBM audio drivers for chipset 82801, however only the system speaker works (the one in the tower Case)

      Ive been to the Lenove website, but cant seem to get a real idea as to the correct driver to use to have my external speakes work. Is it a SoundMax or Some intel AC97 sound driver. I installed the soundmax drive and there was totally no audio, installed the intel one only internal speaker works.

      Help – I Need decent sound. Dont want to shell out to buy soundcard

    49. Hello, my desktop having internal speaker. Would like to know how to activate it.

      Thanks.

      Taesha

    50. Realtek AC ?97 Drivers WORKS FOR HP DC7100!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

       

      YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

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