Linux vs Creative sound cards. what's the verdict now?

codezer0 · 2025-08-05T21:22:35+00:00

Preface: I’m gonna be blunt and just say that my early attempts to even try and alternative operating system have never gone well, especially if I have to troubleshoot anything. And my first exposure was when the common troubleshooting step was, barbarically, recompile the kernel. Like, how was I supposed to do that from a command line? A lot of my animosity against the command line comes from the years of trying and failing Linux because literally the first step in any how to or online page is open up terminal. Ive come to hate those words with a passion. The ONLY *nix based anything that hasn’t made me descend into being utterly miserable, has been MacOS. But since tim cook jumped on arm to spite the hackintosh movement, it’s forcing me to have to give a hard look at Linux… Again. And in the intervening years, even using it in a live environment, usually a lot of things end up working well enough to perform a task. But the common thing I’ve noticed is, I never get sound. Ever. Across any PC I have (or have used) regularly, my use case warrants a sound card. So over as many computers, I’ve a small variety of Audigy and X-Fi sound cards. In part to support surround sound and for handling eax code from legacy games. For whatever reason, everyone understands that DirectX and opengl tune fidelity for graphics, but it’s like theoretical calculus telling them that such APIs did the same thing for audio. And kotor without eax sounds as bad as star wars from the speaker of a 1977 CRT TV. I’ve never once been satisfied with Realtek onboard. Even less now with current motherboards downgrading to stereo output. So the thing that continues to baffle me, is that in live environments, I’ll see the sound card detected. I might even get a DOS looking control panel to suggest I can operate it. But I can’t get any audio from my sound cards, to save my literal life. And when Daniel k’s final drivers even allow the thing to work correctly in windows 11? It’s hard not to wonder what in the hell is the problem here? It might seem minor to the tone deaf, but it is a genuinely important thing if I’m to ever make Linux something worth actually trying to use daily.

antdude

EAX & old PC games? Why not just build a PC with very old hardware parts with Windows?

codezer0

antdude Well, part of it is having it legit on Steam means it rather forces you to either go with Windows or Linux. Even if the wife can get it through GOG, no idea if any of those installers would function 🤷 Was already annoying/frustrating when steam dropped support for XP and 7. And despite every redditor on earth insisting HL2 isn’t encrypted, even with my retail dvd copy I can’t get it to install without demanding I install steam, which of course invalidates the moment it’s updated.

Also, why the hell would I want to have a pc that can’t run KOTOR on demand? At least KOTOR 2 is easier to run now thanks to the big update for it on Steam; why the first doesn’t get the same treatment, I’ll never understand, know, or forgive. It’s criminal the amount of jank that is needed to get it to run correctly; not even joking when I say I basically have to expect to have things working by the 3rd (re)try.

Also sure I’ll have to worry about how well the capture card(s) I have work on the OS down the line. but none of that matters if I can’t even get sound at all on the OS.

codezer0

Whelp, for those that might care, tried bazzite and Linux mint on live eval. Same result.

It detects the card. It claims to support output to it. But I get no audio whatsoever. Not even test tones.

Stuff like this makes it nigh impossible to take anyone that claims to do audio stuff in Linux seriously, when I can’t even get basic audio to function across any of the PCs I give a damn about.

So in as many words, I’m stumped. I don’t know what else to do here. I cannot be bothered to learn any more of it’s methods if it’s this completely busted on one of the basic elements.

Somewhat-Reticent

What’s your test procedure?

codezer0

Somewhat-Reticent For the moment, the only computer I can spare to run those live evals would be on Arceus which has an X-Fi card. Incidentally, it is also the system where I tested installing Windows 11 to see if the Daniel K drivers work (spoiler: they do, perfectly).

Flash a live iso (or burn a disc for that matter), boot from it, see what happens.

So far, the same outcome. Sound card is detected and selected as output. However, I get no sound in any shape or form. The attached monitor lacks any form of speakers, so it would be pointless to switch to GPU. audio. I could literally pull up the control panel and go to where it has me do the testing for sound support, and hammer away on the icons for test tones like I’m trying to survive the mgs 1 torture sequence and it still does nothing. Graphical feedback? Sure. But still no sound.

codezer0

Update on this end. In part, feeling a teensy bit stupid.

So, While doing other troubleshooting on the pc I was using for such testing, I sadly realized that I am going to need a new (wireless) trackball. Even if I get past that m570’s relative inability to maintain connected to the AA battery for power, its left button is hosed. Like, I really have to slam it down in order to register a normal click.

so while I was plugging in a different mouse in order to continue using the machine, i was peering towards the back of the monitor and then glance over to the back of the case and realize something

“wait, why is that jack green?” – me

Somehow, this was never a problem in Windows, but I noticed the audio out for the speakers was not in the standard green (stereo) output jack. After swapping it over, re-flash a USB to boot up bazzite’s live evaluation and…

we have audio. We finally can hear, in Linux.

I genuinely, cannot believe it.

Somewhat-Reticent

codezer0 Been there, done that. Thanks for the update.
Further testing recommended.

ugly95

codezer0 So, While doing other troubleshooting on the pc I was using for such testing, I sadly realized that I am going to need a new (wireless) trackball. Even if I get past that m570’s relative inability to maintain connected to the AA battery for power, its left button is hosed. Like, I really have to slam it down in order to register a normal click.

When I used the m570, my left-click wore out quickly (I forget how long, but probably within a year). Logitech was actually really easy with the RMA. They sent me a new one without even asking to send the old one back.

I’ve gone through so many buttons on trackballs, it seems like soldering is a necessary skill to owning one. I switched to Elecom trackballs and, same thing, the buttons wear out quickly.

codezer0

ugly95 That’s really unfortunate.

Like that keyboard and mouse are really space constrained where they are, so the only other thing that’d make sense is a combination unit that has a trackpad instead. And well, that just doesn’t feel as nice for as many games.

My newest one is with my notebook as a matter of course.

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