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Good news for owners of Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi series as manufacturer’s binary Linux drivers are available for free downloading. The driver is compatible with ALSA. Bad news: it’s available only for x86_64 Linux.
Here is the list of supported cards:
- Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Elite Pro
- Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Platinum
- Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Fatal1ty
- Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer
- Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeMusic
Driver is available here.
And it requires gcc-3, fire making abilities from wood, sticks & string and advanced knowledge of smoke signals.
Bring us the gcc-4 32/64bit binaries we deserve.
Hi Mallchin,
Would you want to direct your comment to Creative Inc.? You can do it here.
P.S. Thanks for commenting!
Hello
I've directed some comments towards Creative.
Nothing personal, thanks for bringing us the news!
I've just written to Creative asking for a release version driver for 64 and 32-bit linux. It’s hard to imagine how it could take a company as large as creative so long to develop drivers for their own hardware. They only just got the Vista 64 bit drivers working somewhat properly.
Hey :-s
I think we'll have to wait another 2 years before seeing any results …. for those linux 32 bit buggy closed source drivers
they should instead release a OPEN SOURCE linux 32 or 64 bit driver and let the community take care of the bugs … at least we would have something to start.
I have an X-fi since two years … still not even thinking of when they will release something for it on Linux 32 bits. I have parts of it working although …. on XP’s buggy drivers and got tired of the BSOD’s so I migrated to Linux
Vive le Linux LIBRE!!!
Beginning of 2008,
2 Months later from my previous comment … Nothing done so far
ask me if I'm surprised.
I've seen the comments about the 64 bit drivers … they are bad … some of them … not even able to compile !!!
Drivers for the 32 bit version will be available when …
Linux Core will be 2048 bits (in Early 2019)
We'll be running on Pentium 12 at this time !!!
And PCI / PCIE connectors won't exist any more
… and these drivers will still be buggy and beta releases
Wanna spend 250 bucks on a crappy card … this one is made for you
Creative shall focus on the Hardware ONLY and leave Software to THIRD parties
If by the End of December 2008 no driver is release …
I will Blast my X-Fi in some way and post it on YOUTUBE.com
for any suggestions about this BLAST … let me know
I think this will get the best Crackling sound ever had from this Hardware
Non-Proud Owner of a X-Fi Fatality
i installed ubuntu 64 bot on my athlon 64 bit based machine, downloaded the 64 bit beta drivers from creative and then driver installer said my OS was not 64 bit
"Linux Core will be 2048 bits (in Early 2019)
We'll be running on Pentium 12 at this time !!!
And PCI / PCIE connectors won't exist any more
… and these drivers will still be buggy and beta releases
Wanna spend 250 bucks on a crappy card … this one is made for you
Creative shall focus on the Hardware ONLY and leave Software to THIRD parties"
Seriously you can't get pissed at Creative on this one. You bought a Gamers card that quite CLEARLY says on the box its for Windows ONLY.
http://us.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=209&subcategory=669&product=15854&nav=3
Just sell the damn card and use the onboard sound or another solution if you insist on being Linux only. Be grateful that Creative release Linux drivers at all as they really didnt have to, the card wasnt even designed with Linux in mind. Either change your distro to one where it DOES work, or sell it. Nuff said.
I just want to ask that is there any 32 bit version ???????? cause my linux is runing on 32 bit.
michael bailey "i installed ubuntu 64 bot on my athlon 64 bit based machine, downloaded the 64 bit beta drivers from creative and then driver installer said my OS was not 64 bit"
Hi Michael,
In the ./installer script, in the beginning, it queries the system with uname -i to determine if your OS is 64 bit or not. Some Distros kernels don't state the architecture that way (debian 4.0 etch 2.6.18 for example says unknown). following along that script, just below there has an if statement that checks if the variable is not x86_64. within that, is "exit 1". Comment that line out, and the script should continue past that.
Drivers for X-Fi are available in OSS. Most distros come with kernels that support OSS, so you just need to go to
http://www.4front-tech.com/download.cgi
and download an RPM that suits you.
I have a Creative X-Fi Extrame Gamer edition, works perfect with OSS (in the soundcard list it’s stated that it’s an early beta driver).
H Mr Doe,
Prey tell, are you running 32 or 64-bit?
What distro (I assume RPM based)?
What is the exact model of your X-Fi card (some X-Fi actually use emu10k chips)?
I`ve spent hours upon hours trying to get either of the two drivers, etc. (alsa 1.0.16 and the oss) installed and working in several flavors of linux on a usb flash drive without sucess.
I finally found an entirely different and easy way to get around my SB XFi card and get sound with linux. I bought one of the cheap($5) usb 3D, plug-in sound cards and connect my speaker system thru this. You don`t get much amplification from this small device but if you have decent amplified speakers the sound is not bad at all. It is supposed to support 5.1 speaker systems but I don`t have those. All I know is that it sounds pretty good with my Klipsch 2.1 set up and all the linux distros I`ve tried have no probs configuring it.
Hope this helps!
Oh, and bye, bye, Creative!
I thought about adding a second sound card. A USB one sounds ideal. A bit messy having one set of speakers and two sound sources but a a splitter ought to solve that
nice write up.i really don't have much 2 say.
I just spent the past two days installing debian. my first experience with linux.
after getting all of the files loaded and in the right places i.e. c .. compilers , kernal roots and whatever other shit was needed to run creatives instilation. it installed just fine, even made sounds come out of my speakers, correct ones at that. after I rebooted…… NOTHING. I've re-installed coulntless times hoping to recreate the majik that let me use my sound card for a fleeting moment. but nope nothing. I think I'm going to dig out my ancient sound blaster and upgrade to a downgrade.
good luck other x-fi owners
I'm still surprised you guys haven't got sound working with a X-Fi, and you dont even NEED creative’s drivers anymore.
Ok for those who haven't and are STILL bitching about it (and FFS why are you bitching here, I stated in my last comment they dont NEED to release anything, but they have and now have a x32 version as well), use this: http://www.opensound.com/
Open Sound system works just fine under Linux with the X-Fi…
Nice, you actually managed to create a driver for linux, the one problem with this is that it doesn't work, !! who would have guessed, I mean you guys are only one of the biggest leaders in desktop sound right now, and you can't even hire a team of devs to make a simple driver? "sigh" maybe someday.
OMG … OMG… OMG
Finally a 32bit X-Fi driver … lol
I have this card since so long and unable to use it in Linux that I didn't expected the to have some kinda drivers released someday … this is why I only replied today
Got the thing installed
… and finally got some sound out of it
Sound Quality … Really better than my onboard SC
Only front speakers working so far,
No features at all but …
that’s a start point anyway
thx to Whom got involved to make this possible
My PCI X-Fi Fatality is not dead YET
I'm sorry for the previous comment …
I said that I had the thing installed … I meant OSS 4
that’s why I have only front speakers workin
Cause I've tried the Creative package and …
.
.
.
make: *** [all] Error 2
make: *** [install] Error 2
Installation Unsuccessful
… lol kinda expected
Good luck Creative X-Fi Owners
Cythrawl, you have a point, the card does state Windows only. Still, its a little late in the game to release Windows-only hardware. This isn't 1995.
I'm considering selling the Dell and buying a Mac. It Just Works(TM).