Creative SB Recon3D Pro - How to get it to work with WinXP?

[Leprekaun]

Hi all. I just installed WinXP as a dual boot to Windows 7 but only to find that there are no drivers available for Win XP to use with my sound card . I was half thinking of downloading the drivers of a different Creative sound card that is for Windows XP but because it's different hardware, I'm hesitant to do that out of fear of damaging the sound card somehow. So is there an alternative method to get my sound card working in Windows XP? Thanks.

[Hammer_Time]

Unfortunately there is no Windows XP driver for any of the new line of SB Recon sound cards, you are out of luck.

The reason is that the way audio is processed in Vista/W7/W8 is completely different from the way it is handled in Windows XP ( this was done to improve the quality of onboard audio...let the cpu do more audio-processing tasks than was previously possible with single core machines using older Win XP. So the way the audio chip talks to the rest of the system is handled differently than a "pure hw audio solution" that XP was designed around.

XP is no longer supported by Microsoft officially as of this month, and they will no longer be giving updates for it anymore.

The OS is over 10 years old now ( 2002 ), do you really expect Creative to support XP with their latest product? They support Vista/W7/W8 drivers of course for this new Recon ( much of the audio processing is done by algorithms on the cpu, and some on the "audio core processor" on the card itself, simplying the sound card hw requirements on a massive scale... very cheap to manufacture... but of course it has no XP driver as that would involve a LOT of work for an unsupported 10 year old OS... not gonna happen... and if somebody does write their own hacked XP driver for it then Creative will turn around and sue that person, just like they did before over modded drivers...( referring to the Audigy driver fiasco years ago ). BTW you won't damage your card by installing the "wrong" sound driver for it, it simply won't work is the end result...

In a perfect world it would be nice if all the manufacturers wrote drivers for every OS on the planet, new and old, but it aint gonna happen for financial and marketing reasons.

You cannot really fault Creative here, XP is officially discontinued you know... all their earlier products ( X-Fi and previous ) DO support Win XP with their drivers, this is 2013 and Creative is only supporting Vista and newer Windows OS with their new products going forward in time...which makes sense, even if you don't agree with them...

The other thing you could do is simply disable the sound driver completely in XP in Device Manager ( disable the "wrong" audio driver for your card, even if you install no driver for it manually, XP will automatically try to load a generic audio driver for it which of course won't work as you know , so just disable that device completely in Device Manager. ), then plug in a set of cheap USB headphones ( $10 to$20 for decent Logitech set, I have a pair that sound pretty good actually considering I paid $10 for them... ).. .they use their own USB sound chip ( well the driver actually uses cpu to process audio but I mean it does not use any onboard or discrete sound card in your computer to work, they work independently and on their own through USB cable and ignore any onboard or discrete audio card in a system ). That would work for sure.. not ideal, but at least you would have sound that way in XP...

Here is the pair I have ( I normally use Sennheiser HD-555 but my Logitechs are used for backup and for clients systems etc. when I want a cheap set for testing etc. ) I see they are down to just $8 now ( refurbished but like new ) , and out of stock of course, but just to give you an idea what to look for:

http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_ ... _id=026087

[Sauron_Daz]

Any reason for the XP install?

[TAViX]

Yeah. Let's face it. XP is kinda dead, kaput. With an SSD you boot faster Win7 than XP, and besides 4GB RAM is pretty standard nowadays.

[Sauron_Daz]

Adding a Sandisk Readycache reduced up bootup time ( and programs that are used most) by more then half.
From pushing the power button to go online with a browser is now around 30 seconds.

[Leprekaun]

I know XP is outdated now. I hardly use it but I like to use it for older apps and games that work better under XP (tried compatibility set to XP in games, didn't make any difference). I don't have an SSD so booting into Win7 still takes it's relatively sweet time compared to XP . It's not the end of the world to play those same games on Win7 but just thought it would be nice to have XP to have everything that was designed to run on XP, run on XP to avoid any sort of oddities that can happen in Win7. But I guess, like you said, the Recon3D chip was developed for use with Win7 and there is no way it could work with XP due to the OS's method of dealing with audio processing.

Something I did wonder about though, would enabling my mainboard's audio and installing it's drivers under WinXP be safe enough since I won't be using the sound card anyway in WinXP? It's a little on the annoying side to have to switch my audio cables around to the onboard audio ports but if there is no reason for any conflict to occur, I would definitely consider getting audio in XP through this method.

[Hammer_Time]

Yep, that would work... but I assume you have the onboard audio disabled in your mobo bios so it does not conflict with your sound card in Win7 right??

So you would have to enable the onboard audio in your bios every time you wanted to boot into Win XP, then switch the speaker cables from the Recon card to the onboard audio connectors...argh, too much of a pita methinks...

Yes it would work but it would be annoying as all heck to do every single time you wanted sound in XP...

You would be better off selling your Recon card used and buying a used X-Fi titanium or similar card that does have XP drivers...

[Sauron_Daz]

What programs would that be? So far I didn't encounter anything that won't run on W7 but does on XP..

[Hammer_Time]

Some older games won't run on W7 even in "XP compatibility mode" that he has tried already... most will, but not all...

[Leprekaun]

Yep, that would work... but I assume you have the onboard audio disabled in your mobo bios so it does not conflict with your sound card in Win7 right??

So you would have to enable the onboard audio in your bios every time you wanted to boot into Win XP, then switch the speaker cables from the Recon card to the onboard audio connectors...argh, too much of a pita methinks...

Yes it would work but it would be annoying as all heck to do every single time you wanted sound in XP...

You would be better off selling your Recon card used and buying a used X-Fi titanium or similar card that does have XP drivers...

Yeah, I've disabled the onboard audio for now. Would it cause any issue to leave the onboard audio enabled in the BIOS when using Win7 without installing the audio drivers for the onboard audio in Win7? That was my thinking, just being a matter of switching around the cables when I need audio in XP and switch them back when I use Win7 without changing any BIOS settings.

[Sauron_Daz]

Its possible then when W7 detects the now enabled hardware, it'll load the drivers for it automatically.