Asus Xonar Soundcard Drivers!

[Naish]

Okay, so Asus stopped releasing drivers for the older Xonar cards, but that doesn't mean they've stopped developing them. Lucky for us they all use the same base driver and each driver has the hardware specifications for all of our cards.

Big thanks to cladisch on the Asus forums.

"The driver itself (cmudaxp.sys) was originally written by C-Media for all CMI8788-based cards; it was later extended by Asus to handle the somewhat different hardware on Xonar cards. All driver files with the same version number are identical.

However, the driver packages also contain an .INF file that tells Windows, among other things, which hardware the driver is to be used for. This .INF file is different for each model.

To make another driver package work with your card, you have to use the D2X .INF file, or you have to add the D2X's PCI ID at the correct place in the other .INF file. The line with the ID looks like this:

%CMI8788.DeviceDesc%=CMPCI, PCI\VEN_13F6&DEV_8788&SUBSYS_82B71043


Note: Using another driver will not work if that driver is so old that it does not yet know about the D2X's hardware."

Here's a thread that describes how to "modify" the drivers to recognize a Xonar DX2
http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx..._id=21&model=Xonar+D2X&page=1&SLanguage=en-us

Here's an upload for the 8.17.62 series driver
Vista/Win7 : http://www.megaupload.com/?d=FEX4BHOO
XP : http://www.megaupload.com/?d=5DX5X6GS

I copy/pasted to make sure we've got a copy here if Asus deletes that thread (if they even check their forums..)

 

[b1lk1]

Luckily ASUS does not monitor their forum. It is a peer to peer forum. I'll have to check this out. My only question is does updating to a newer driver accomplish anything?

 

[Rob Williams]

Clemens Ladisch is the same guy responsible for the Linux Xonar drivers, which I've been using for the past year, so huge thanks to him!

This is a cool work-around, I admit... funny that it's this "easy". I still need to follow-up with ASUS though and see if they can give me an update on the driver situation at all.

 

[Naish]

Clemens Ladisch is the same guy responsible for the Linux Xonar drivers, which I've been using for the past year, so huge thanks to him!

This is a cool work-around, I admit... funny that it's this "easy". I still need to follow-up with ASUS though and see if they can give me an update on the driver situation at all.

Yea, this was mostly a case of me being pissed off about the "EAX" type crashing and lack of a Win7 driver candidate. I'll probably test it out next time I'm bored enough to install it again (runs great on the lappy though). I've yet to try this version with Win7.

ALSO

While you may lose advanced features that only the d2x has, if it's absolutely needed, the Auzentech Meridian drivers actually work with the card because they use the same chipset. Kinda funny, no idea if that works yet on Win7 either. Gotta grab the 64bit iso first :\. I'm also curious to see what features would be enabled via the Meridian drivers as the cards are likely fairly different.

So long as Asus uses the Xonar chipset and keeps the line of sound cards in product we will always be able to get the updated driver with this trick because all of the newer card drivers recognize the old driver hardware. Now on the other hand, if you wanted to use a DX driver with a D2X this would NOT work, because the driver doesn't have any information about the D2X hardware as it was not known at the time the driver was developed.

It almost sounds like Asus' web/deployment/whatever team is supposed to handle this, because this clearly shows that the engineers(for lack of better term?) working on the drivers ARE developing the driver for all the cards, but their web/deployment/whatever team isn't picking up on this.

 

[Rob Williams]

Well, I wouldn't get too upset over the lack of a Windows 7 driver... I mean, the OS isn't even out. Sure, it's in a "great" state, but most company's have more to worry about than to support an OS that's not supposed to be here for another ten or so months (a final release date is still up in the air). W7 in my opinion should support that chipset without an external driver though, but the Xonar cards are a little different, so I'm not sure if it could. Typical CMI8788 and Xonar cards are differentiated in the Linux kernel, so I'm assuming there's more going on there than meets the eye.

It almost sounds like Asus' web/deployment/whatever team is supposed to handle this, because this clearly shows that the engineers(for lack of better term?) working on the drivers ARE developing the driver for all the cards, but their web/deployment/whatever team isn't picking up on this.

For some reason, I have doubts about this, only because I've found them to be extremely fast in the past. There have been times when I'd receive a motherboard a month before release, and it would actually be listed on the support page with drivers available. The issue here though, is that the website over here is handled by the US HQ, while the driver development is handled in Taiwan. There's a lot of miscommunication between the two, but I hope that will get fixed in time. I know there are a few people at ASUS who'd like to see new drivers come out, but it's really up to the upper management to decide where the time and effort is spent. It sucks.

 

[Naish]

Well, I wouldn't get too upset over the lack of a Windows 7 driver... I mean, the OS isn't even out. Sure, it's in a "great" state, but most company's have more to worry about than to support an OS that's not supposed to be here for another ten or so months (a final release date is still up in the air). W7 in my opinion should support that chipset without an external driver though, but the Xonar cards are a little different, so I'm not sure if it could. Typical CMI8788 and Xonar cards are differentiated in the Linux kernel, so I'm assuming there's more going on there than meets the eye.



For some reason, I have doubts about this, only because I've found them to be extremely fast in the past. There have been times when I'd receive a motherboard a month before release, and it would actually be listed on the support page with drivers available. The issue here though, is that the website over here is handled by the US HQ, while the driver development is handled in Taiwan. There's a lot of miscommunication between the two, but I hope that will get fixed in time. I know there are a few people at ASUS who'd like to see new drivers come out, but it's really up to the upper management to decide where the time and effort is spent. It sucks.

Yea, I can't blame them for not having Win7 drivers yet, though it'd be nice. Mostly I hate the lack of EAX support (GS3D crashes most anything nowadays) due to a low amount of updates. Either way, these new drivers seem to be working great so far!

And yes, you worded what I was trying to say a lot better. Miscommunication between two parties. Why else would there be info about the other cards in all drivers? . As it turns out, I'm not very good at writing while listening to a lecture on something completely unrelated .

 

[Rob Williams]

I had no idea that the EAX support was so poor. I guess for the most part though, that's where the card lacks, and that's always been known. You still get fantastic audio otherwise. I've had my Xonar for just over a year now, and I have never thought about switching. It's truly a fantastic offering, even under Linux, where we don't get "special" support, like Dolby Headphone (which is quite nice under Windows with a nice set of cans).

As it turns out, I'm not very good at writing while listening to a lecture on something completely unrelated .

Haha, it's no worries, I can relate to that all too well.

 

[Kougar]

I have been plagued with questions regarding whether or not my ASUS sound drivers could somehow be behind some game instability I've experienced, but I wouldn't know how to track something like that down. The crashes always are attributed to the hl2.exe file regardless... it doesn't help Steam never fixed the crash-at-application-close problem for Vista 64bit users either. L4D doesn't have the problem so Valve knows how to build a proper shutdown sequence, but they never bothered to actuall fix it in TF2 because it was too low a priority.

I have observed disabling the driver presets (such as DS3D, HiFi, or Music/Games) does seem to have an effect, but its nothing I could actually quantify which makes it all the more annoying.

 

[Rob Williams]

Are you saying that TF2 uses the hl2.exe file? Either way, I had a fair amount of crashes of Half-Life 2 while using it for benchmarking (one time in every 30 - 40 times maybe), but to be honest, I've had crashes with almost every game we benchmark with... it's just inevitable. Do you have that issue often, and is it just with HL2, or another related game?

I guess the only way to really get to the root would be to not use the Xonar for gaming for a while, but that obviously is the less-than-ideal solution.

 

[b1lk1]

I have Vista 64 and I play a fair amount of games on Steam and I have yet to have a single crash.

 

[Rob Williams]

I have Vista 64 and I play a fair amount of games on Steam and I have yet to have a single crash.

You are one of the fortunate ones, then. I've had a fair amount of issues with numerous titles. Just the other day, I had Mirror's Edge crash on me, but it remained running in the background. Of course, I noticed that fact after I benchmarked the next game (I love re-benchmarking, whoo!).

 

[Naish]

The solution to not having the Xonar cause crashes is to turn off any DSP modes, especially "GX" (GS3D EAX emulation)

 

[Kougar]

Are you saying that TF2 uses the hl2.exe file? Either way, I had a fair amount of crashes of Half-Life 2 while using it for benchmarking (one time in every 30 - 40 times maybe), but to be honest, I've had crashes with almost every game we benchmark with... it's just inevitable. Do you have that issue often, and is it just with HL2, or another related game?

I guess the only way to really get to the root would be to not use the Xonar for gaming for a while, but that obviously is the less-than-ideal solution.

Yes, TF2 uses the old HL2 engine. The few times I do NOT see a crash message are the few instances where the hl2.exe remains running in the background after the game closes.

I have Vista 64 and I play a fair amount of games on Steam and I have yet to have a single crash.

This problem is specific to TF2. When exiting, closing, or shutting down Team Fortress 2 the game will close, and a Windows dialog box saying hl2.exe has crashed will appear. It has happened under every install of Vista 64 I have used, and also happens under Windows 7 64bit. Do you not specifically get this problem?

The solution to not having the Xonar cause crashes is to turn off any DSP modes, especially "GX" (GS3D EAX emulation)

I will give this a shot, usually I don't think about it.. The Dystopia mod is the least stable game and it is maddening to have a stock system act like it was running an unstable overclock. I am already half way tempted to clean out all ASUS drivers and use onboard sound to see if the problems cease...

 

[b1lk1]

Sorry Kougar, I misunderstood you. I thought this was a Steamwide issue. Unfortunately I don't play/have that game to test it out for you.

 

[Rob Williams]

That's a weird problem Kougar, if it persists like that. I've never experienced any game to give me problems quite like that before. I haven't touched TF2 since it was first released, so I'm not familiar with the issue at all.

 

[Kougar]

Sorry Kougar, I misunderstood you. I thought this was a Steamwide issue. Unfortunately I don't play/have that game to test it out for you.

Ah, no problem. It doesn't affect L4D or HL2, just TF2. I know it's a typcial problem as other users have complained to Valve about it, but as an individual mentioned Valve indicated it was at the bottom of the priority stack. That was around a year ago though, and the problem has existed since TF2 launched.

That's a weird problem Kougar, if it persists like that. I've never experienced any game to give me problems quite like that before. I haven't touched TF2 since it was first released, so I'm not familiar with the issue at all.

All you need is Vista 64bit, or now apparently Windows 7 64bit and (obviously) TF2. Valve is extremely lucky their survey indicates only 9.52% of Valve users have Vista 64bit, otherwise I am sure the sheer number of complaints would have gotten something done about it.

To be honest, this isn't much different than HL2 (And Episode One's) inability to properly use 5.1 surround sound with the Xonar. You can set the ingame sound to 5.1, but if you restart the game it is always "reset" to 2 channel stereo, and apparently never actually changes. I'm slightly fuzzy on the details and don't recall if Episode Two still had the problem or not, but I think Episode Two had it fixed. Or maybe not, because TF2 also has this 2 channel vs 5.1 channel problem, but I think there was a few work arounds for it. Unfortunately I'd need Vista to test them as the ASUS Xonar drivers are missing the channel masking option in Windows 7, apparently I hadn't noticed this before.

Thankfully L4D does not have this problem at all, but they changed how they implemented the sound stack in L4D as well so that'd be why...

 

[Kougar]

TF2 launched 17 months ago.... this morning Valve finally fixed this hl2.exe crashing bug for 64bit users, amongst other things

Update News - Steam
Latest Update: March 6, 2009
[-]March 6, 2009 - Steam client update released

-Fixed HL2.exe hanging on shutdown

 

[Merlin]

TF2 launched 17 months ago.... this morning Valve finally fixed this hl2.exe crashing bug for 64bit users, amongst other things

Plus they have redisgned the survey

And the update was:

• Fixed possible case where Steam would get stuck with "Downloading starting..." when trying to download
• Added NTFS check when trying to install Empire: Total War
• Added new dialog to inform the user they failed to register a CD key because they do not own a game which is required to register the key (Empire: Total War Special Forces)
• Added more download regions for Australia
• Fixed several update news links for games going to the wrong page
• Added more information to the game launch display when first-time install steps are being ran
• Fixed HL2.exe hanging on shutdown
• Increased max width of links on game properties dialog (general tab) to match the now wider properties panel.
• Fixed the 'launching game' dialog always waiting for user input if there was update news available
• Updated localization files for dialog variable changes (fixes %s1 appearing in some languages)
• New notification shown when an application is downloaded or updated
• Added teamfortress.com, tf2.com, etc. to list of approved chat urls
• Fixed case where retail install would be unnecessarily slow
• Fixed third-party installers not running if an installer before it failed
• Several Steamworks updates

 

[Ben]

Wow its about time they fixed the hang on shutdown issue. I had this forever and while its not really a big deal, Vista logs all this stuff and pops up the compatility issue thing which checks online for solutions all the time because it sees the hl2.exe has received an error.

 

[Naish]

I run Vista 32, never once had HL2 hang on shutdown or crash...