I installed the Beta 1 32bit drivers fine on build 5384, to my knowledge they
are the same driver for the 64bit and 32bit versions.
It worked fine until I launched Media Center then sound died, i restarted
and was prompted to install the drivers for the Multimedia Device and Unknown
Device.
The steps I used to fix this were as follows.
Downlod the Beta 1 driver from Creative Support website.
Start the install
Alt+Tab out to C:\Windows\Temp (or other Temporary Directory for your
Current User)
Copy the CRF000 folder and its contents to your root C: Drive.
Right Click My Computer
Click Properties
Click Device Manager
Click Ok if prompted to run as Administrator
Double Click the Multimedia Device
Click Reinstall Driver
Click Browse My computer for Drivers
Browse to the C:\CRF000 Drictory and click Ok
Put a check mark in the box for Include Subfolders, and click next
It should recognize your card and youll hear sound before rebooting.
For me I hear crackling when ANY kind of load is put on the machine, Open a
browser refresh a page, open a new window, and even closing windows. Tested
this on several different players and sound processors.
As for ONBOARD sound, system resources are indeed used by using these
devices. It takes a percentage of the CPU and System Memory to support the
onboard devices your computer has, video much more so successfully cutting
your system performance in as much as half in worse cases even more.
Test it out, Go into your Bios disable your onboard sound, and launch your
favorite game with a program to display FPS (frames per second), or even just
experiencing the difference yourself.
Hope this helps you all.
*bows*