Hardware Audigy, Audigy2, Audigy2ZS to Audigy 4 Softmod

Well the Audigy 2 ZS softmod has been around... but now its time to move on! The Audigy 4 Pro softmod is finally here, and it's somewhat simpler than the Audigy 2 ZS one. I found about 3 different threads about this on driverhaven, all with different and conflicting information. So I'm going to post what worked for me here, hopefully unifying the softmod.

Uninstall

1. First off, uninstall your old drivers, use drivercleaner and then restart your computer.

Download and Install

2. Next, download 7zip or winrar to open the next link. The next link IS - the PAX 1.02 Audigy 4 drivers. (This is only the base drivers, modded to install on any Audigy card, and the audigy control console). Grab those! PAX1.02

3. Install the pax drivers. They have 3 options for install - Music, Music 2 and Gaming. I chose gaming, which is optimized for EAX and DVDs, which is mostly what I use my computer for. See installation for additional notes on each different driver version.

4. While those are installing, download the Audigy 4 Pro PAX ISO. This is the full A4 iso modded to install on any soundcard. Audigy4.iso

5. After the PAX 1.02 install, you don't need to restart! Go ahead and use 7zip to unzip the ISO, then mount it using Daemon Tools or Nero ImageDrive. Follow the instructions that come up. When you get to installation, click "Custom" and UNCLICK the "Driver" and "Audigy Console" box, because the PAX 1.02 set came with modded versions of these already. Install media-source if you REALLY want to... I personally don't like it.

Cleanup

6. Now, restart the computer. Once you boot into windows, you'll have sound! An Audigy 4 Pro sound to be exact. If creative wants you to register.... obviously, don't.

7. One last thing - grab this Patches and copy the files in here to their respective locations - /Program Files/Creative/SBaudigy/Speaker Settings and then /Surround Mixer. You need to do this to enable support of these applications, if you don't want to use the control console (which works well!). Now I found right clicking on the audio button in the system tray and clicking "speaker settings" still yielded the message "the hardware is not supported".... so I just made a shortcut on my desktop to the two files we just copied. This resulted in successful launches of both programs. EDIT - upon reboot, it seems you can access them from the menu again.

8. You're done! Enjoy your slightly better sound and slightly lower CPU usage! A neat feature (for anybody with remotes) is the new entertainment center. Go into the start menu to configure that (I have an RM-900 remote) and then you can use their neat Windows Media Center-ish program to play movies, music and pictures.

Notes

Note 1 - I suggest leaving all the installation paths on their default settings, failing to do this might yeild unwanted results!

Note 2 - It also seems some people experience very slow shutdowns when the entertainment center is enabled... so if you do, go into the options and disable it.

Enjoy!