HDA X-Mystique 7.1 Gold distributed by BlueGears

[BobALoon1]

I just purchased this card, thinking it is going to send out DDL to my Denon AVR-485 receiver (using the cable that came with the soundcard), apparently its not working at all.

I went into my receiver's settings to find which setting would use the Optical IN, and it was the DVD. So I turned the Input Selector knob to DVD and it doesn't out anything at all.

Does this company even have e-mail/phone support? Their website lists nothing, only a contact us link. Also, I noticed the website is trying to sell web site templates too, makes me a bit iffy about the company.

The product specs say Intel P3 or equivalent, but then says AMD Athlon processor, so I assume that my CPU is fine.

Another thing, I can still hear audio out of my MB when I plug my headphones into the slot on the motherboard, so maybe I need to do something that switches over to use the soun card instead of the MB onboard audio. I'm off to update drivers, maybe that will fix something.

Any help is appreciated, if there is contact information for the company, can you please pass that along?

Not sure what info you need regarding my setup, but here it is:
MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum nForce4 Ultra
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ Toledo 1GHz
Corsair ValueSelect CAS2.5 (2x512) X 2
PSU FSP Group (Fortron Source) AX500-A
BFG GeForce 6600 GT OC - $184.99
WD Raptor WD740GD 74GB in RAID 0+1 X 4
WD Caviar SE WD2500JD 250GB X 2
BenQ DW1640 X 2
XMYSTIQUE7.1 8

[BrianG]

You need to disable the built in audio on your motherboard in the BIOS. Try that and let us know how it goes.

[BobALoon1]

That did it! Those directions were horrible

I called the place where I got my Denon Recieiver from, and the guy was explaining how his $300+ Audigy card can't send DDL. I interrupted him after about 4 minutes of him explaining it isn't possible, and said, "Well my $85 X Mystique card seems to do more than your $300 Audigy, since mine sends DDL."

This card is great; any idea why the company has a very unprofessional website? I have never seen something so bad in my entire career as a web designer. I wouldn't be surpised if a lot of people were simply turned away after going to their site.

[fatal1ty]

http://www.bluegears.com/

latest drivers are here -
http://www.hidiaudio.com/download/index.html

[BobALoon1]

I got the drivers, and I saw that website, hence my comments on the poor design.

[BrianG]

BlueGears is merely the North American distributor for the card. However, the actual manufacturer's website isn't exactly elegant either. You can try it here: http://www.hidiaudio.com/

[DeaDLocK]

Brian,

Just a couple of notes regarding this card:

An issue I have found reported is that when the card is outputting in DD, if there is no signal activity after a certain amount of time the stream "sleeps", only to wake up when a sound is played. This is itself is fine, except that when it wakes up it commonly misses about half a second of sound. This can be very annoying when it comes to quick-draw sounds (like the default windows sounds). Have you experienced this problem? A known workaround is just to enable the Karaoke Mic input, which permamently turns on the DD stream.

That was just FYI. Now, a question:

As I was researching this card a few days ago, I came across a single post in some forum which offered a workaround to the bug where the speaker setup would reset to two speakers upon bootup. It involved removing a particular file from Window's startup sequence - this file is apparently the culprit that causes this annoyance. I cannot for the life of me find this post now - have you come across this before and if so, do you know what the offending file is?

Thanks,
D

[BrianG]

Well, to be honest, my research on the speaker settings and DD hitches have been stopped. I found that DScaler (TV Tuner software) will only ouput to the analog outputs, unlike ATI's MMC, so I have been switching to analog out ProLogic for Windows and TV viewing, firing up surround DDL for games only.

I'll tinker some this weekend and either PM or post results here...

[brothergc]

I just took the plunge and ordered this card from New Egg . I was most impressed with the quality construction of the card all those caps and amps on the card . My main question is which drivers to use ?
I have been lurking and doing some reading on this forum but have not seen much reports on the newest drivers . I would appreciate some advice from users here as I plan on reformatting due to my old XFI card was on the current install
Thanks Gerald ( I hate creative LOL )

[BrianG]

Right now, I am using the beta drivers Win-32 drivers. They seem to be geting along just fine with all of the games I am playing, thoguh I have not been able to work out how to get Quake to recognize that the card has EAX with the OpenAL driver installed. That said, the game still sounds amazing encoded into Dolby Digital. Performance is on par, and I have not had any driver BSODs with the beta driver this time around.

I have not found the tweak Deadlock mentioned above to maintain the 5.1 speaker setting. And after many variations of Google search, I found the 5.1 defaulting to 2.0 is common on many sound cards.

The card is well built, I think I even mentioned this in the review. The software support is a little lacking and to be honest, I was hoping for more. That said, the only real problems I have are the 5.1 to 2.0 which is windows related, Dscaler not working over DDL which is probably a limitation of the freeware app and the Quake4 OpenAL thing, which may be Quake not recognizing a more obscure sound card.

Maybe I will submit a query into Raven...

[brothergc]

Originally Posted by BrianG

Right now, I am using the beta drivers Win-32 drivers. They seem to be geting along just fine with all of the games I am playing, thoguh I have not been able to work out how to get Quake to recognize that the card has EAX with the OpenAL driver installed. That said, the game still sounds amazing encoded into Dolby Digital. Performance is on par, and I have not had any driver BSODs with the beta driver this time around.

I have not found the tweak Deadlock mentioned above to maintain the 5.1 speaker setting. And after many variations of Google search, I found the 5.1 defaulting to 2.0 is common on many sound cards.

The card is well built, I think I even mentioned this in the review. The software support is a little lacking and to be honest, I was hoping for more. That said, the only real problems I have are the 5.1 to 2.0 which is windows related, Dscaler not working over DDL which is probably a limitation of the freeware app and the Quake4 OpenAL thing, which may be Quake not recognizing a more obscure sound card.

Maybe I will submit a query into Raven...

besides Quake 4 what other games are you running w/this card ? Myself I am still playing serious sam (orignal one) Quake 3 and UT2004, and Far Cry
I also saw one poster saying something about blue screens on the beta drivers
My system is a P-4 3.2 C CPU and a MSI 865PE Plat Mobo w/a gig of Crucial Ballistix
For speakers I will be using some old Altek Lansings 251s in 5.1 (anolog )
My main concern is just stable drivers
oh one other question this "Bug" does it affect someone who is using standard speakers ?

[BrianG]

Originally Posted by brothergc

besides Quake 4 what other games are you running w/this card ? Myself I am still playing serious sam (orignal one) Quake 3 and UT2004, and Far Cry
I also saw one poster saying something about blue screens on the beta drivers
My system is a P-4 3.2 C CPU and a MSI 865PE Plat Mobo w/a gig of Crucial Ballistix
For speakers I will be using some old Altek Lansings 251s in 5.1 (anolog )
My main concern is just stable drivers
oh one other question this "Bug" does it affect someone who is using standard speakers ?

Quake3, Doom3, HL2, UT2k3, FEAR demo, Far Cry are all I have installed right now.

I do not believe the bug will effect you.