Compacting the registery for SBLive under WinME works too... I couldn't get the impressive gain like u did, but I could get 1.2MB.

IMPORTANT: first backup your registry and the LiveWare registry entries so
that you can quickly change back if something goes wrong. The Registry
backup section applies to Win9x, I am not sure if this procedure works on
NT, ME or 2000.

1. Backup whole Windows registry (for Win9x single user installations only)

In DOS mode, change to the Windows directory:
Attrib -s -h -r system.dat
Attrib -s -h -r user.dat
copy system.dat system.bak
copy user.dat user.bak
Attrib +s +h +r system.dat
Attrib +s +h +r user.dat

2. Backup LiveWare registry entries

Open regedit, go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Creative Tech\Devcon\ . In
the registry menu, select "export registry".

3. In Surround Mixer, delete all Presets and SuperEnvironments you don't
want to keep.

4. Under \Devcon\ConfigSets, there are 4 keys consisting of lots of numbers
and letters (at least that's the case on my system). I could safely delete
all the subkeys of the first 3 keys. Then I had a look at the 4th key. There
I could safely delete all the subkeys of the various "RAM Preset" keys
EXCEPT the "RAM Preset" keys under "SuperEnv". You must not delete these.
Under "SuperEnv\ROM Preset" I could delete all subkeys.

Do not delete everything at once but step for step so that you have a chance
to learn in case you delete to much. You have to reboot to test if
everything still works. Typical signs of having deleted too much are
distorted sounds. In case you have deleted to much, you can click on the
registry file you saved before and reboot.

5. After having deleted all unnecessary keys, go to DOS mode, type "scanreg
/fix" and then "scanreg /opt". This should compact your registry quite a
bit. Have a look at the size of your system.dat before and after you have
done all this. I was able to gain 1.5 MB.

6. Restore whole Windows registry in case something went wrong

In DOS mode, change to the Windows directory:
Attrib -s -h -r system.dat
Attrib -s -h -r user.dat
copy system.bak system.dat
copy user.bak user.dat
Attrib +s +h +r system.dat
Attrib +s +h +r user.dat)

Many people here have disabled SB live in their device manager to avoid
conflicts with other devices in the Intel and AMD boards. The device is
known to cause conflicts with various onboard devices such as onboard raid
and other add in cards, so we all disable it. Well, let's get that device
out of the tree so we can concentrate on other things.

1) go to the system tab in control panel and there choose hardware profiles.
There, choose copy, and name the profile something like "TEST" or "Profile
2".

2) Disable SB Live Emulation in the device manager. Reboot your machine,
choose your new hardware profile "TEST" or "Profile 2" when prompted. It is
an exact copy of the original so everything will run fine. Disable SB Live
emualation here also. Then uncheck the box that says "Exists in all
hardware profiles".

3) Reboot and choose original configuration for hardware profiles and make
sure the settings of "disabled" etc are the same.

4) Reboot and choose your new hardware profile "TEST" or "profile 2" and
here Delete SB Live emulation. A box will appear asking "remove from which
hardware profile" and you should choose "original configuration".

5) Reboot and choose "original configuration" and verify SB Live is gone.
If so, go to the hardware profile Tab and delete your second hardware
profile.

6) Now Sb live emualtion does not appear anywhere in your tree. It is not
using any resources, has no conflicts, and cannot be seen.

I do owe credit to those who wrote this trick for adding third party
hardware to IBM aptivas and Compaq Presarios.

Earl Keim
Chapman Computers

My just-purchased Live 5.1 Platinum came with an even later driver set, 5.12.01.3204. I tried it in a newly build and installed system, dual PIII's at 850 MHz, Windows 2000 (of course).

It still makes "strangled synth" sounds in games, even simple games like Hover. They're different from the sounds my Live non-5.1 made on an older, slower system, and they seem to be less frequent, but they're still very much there.

Several generations of TB cards (Pinnacle, Daytona, Montego 1, Montego 2, and Santa Cruz under beta WDM drivers) do not have this problem, so it's not a problem with the game.

And they are still putting all their junk in places where they shouldn't (as a key right under CurrentControlSet, parallel with Control and Services -- and this was a clean install, no previous CL drivers in the system, so it wasn't leftover from a previous install). I can't understand how they continue to get their drivers signed while doing this.

Correction to previous:

Where CL is STILL putting all their registry junk, is as a key parallel with CurrentControlSet, ControlSet001, and ControlSet002. Not one level deeper as I reported before.

That's actually worse than I thought.

It may sound like a minor nitpick, but consider: if you install their drivers, reboot, and the system crashes on reboot, you can't use "Last Known Good Configuration" to recover!!!

I REALLY can't understand how they continue to get their drivers signed while doing this.

Audigy 2
Information on Creative's latest sound card!

The Audigy Forum is open!

Extigy Review

Audigy Review

Contribute information & news

Talk in the ALive! Forum

The Sound Blaster Live! has 4 separate S/PDIF digital outputs, with each of them carrying stereo (left & right)!

These outputs are available on a I/O card with the Digital DIN output.

The latest SBLive! 5.1 series uses 3 of these outputs to carry 6 channels of information.