In Windows 10 build 1803, Microsoft made some kernel changes related to hardware timers that broke a lot of device drivers and caused high latency on many systems (especially on
older motherboards). Ever since then, Sound Blaster Z / Zx / ZxR series are plagued with issues such as audio stuttering, crackling, popping, and sudden channel swapping.
It's been 2 years and Creative Labs hasn't done enough to fix these issues. And therefore, I'd like to introduce a modified driver based on the official software release from September 2019 and Windows Update driver release from January 2020. This release is intended to solve issues and will not bring any new features.
Instructions:Temporarily disable driver signature enforcement (hold down the SHIFT key while you click on the Restart button in the start menu, select Troubleshoot, Advanced options, Startup Settings, press on the Restart button, wait for the Startup Settings screen to appear and then press on 7), extract the SFX anywhere you want, and then run setup.exe as administrator.
Downloads:Mirror #1 |
Mirror #2 |
Mirror #3