Drivers and Stability

Compatibility

As of this writing, Creative has yet to post any Audigy drivers on its website, let alone Windows XP certified ones. The only Audigy drivers you'll be able to use will be on the drivers CD that comes in the package. For those of you who have used the SB Live! with VIA chipsets that sport the 686B southbridge, you'll be glad to know that the Audigy doesn't come with any of problems that plagued the Live! Also, the Audigy seems to play nicely with SMP systems and those that have more than 256MB of RAM. We've tested the Audigy with a dual Athlon MP system containing 2.5GB of RAM with no issues.

Typical mixer settings

Dolby Digital settings

Necessary controls in one spot

Everything that SB Live! users are accustomed to have found their way into the Audigy drivers. The usual tools and device settings can be accessed through AudioHQ. Some of the more advanced features like DREAM and Audio Cleanup can only be used if the Play Center is installed.

Test system setup

(2) AMD Athlon MP 1.2GHz
Tyan Thunder K7, BIOS 2.07a
2.5GB Corsair PC2100 Registered DDR
Leadtek WinFast GeForce3 TDH
ACPI-enabled, Windows 2000 SP2

IDE devices
(3) IBM 45GB 7200RPM 75GXP

SCSI devices
(2) Plextor 12/10/32S (1 internal and 1 external)
Pioneer 10X DVD-ROM
Iomega Jaz 2GB

PCI devices
AMI Express300 Ultra160 SCSI RAID w/ 32MB cache
Adaptec 7899A dual channel Ultra160 SCSI (onboard)
(2) 3Com 3C980C-TXM onboard 10/100 Server
Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy

USB devices
Casio Cassiopeia E-125 Pocket PC
Microsoft IntelliMouse Explorer