Yeah I read about this.

Would anyone really have expected anything less from creative?

I use onboard these days, at least Realtek update drivers on a regular basis, and provide full functionality, for not much difference in sound quality (on the decent models)

I do however miss EAX, but I'd rather not have a creative card, than suffer from their poorly coded driver packages, and reduced functionality.

Yeah this is exactly what I would have expected from Creative. To be fair, the guy doing the modding was taking donations, which is probably pretty silly on his part (though I'm sure he's got hundreds of hours into this project).

The latest rumor I'm hearing is that Auzentech was p**sed off that they paid a pile of money to Creative in order to be the only ones offering DDL-enabled Creative chips, and this guy was stepping on their toes by enabling DDL in other cards. Makes sense, I guess, but obviously there is no official confirmation on this anywhere.

I'm certainly done buying anything with Creative's name on it, though really this incident is just another straw on the camel's back.

Well a company that treats its customers in such a way will end up going the way of the dodo pretty fast.

Creative's p**sing my off on a grand scale. Even the auto download page is not
compatable with Vista. 15 Month later, and still no full support. And who ever the
user was from Creative was that posted that thread, just threw their own egg in their
own face haha!

Meanwhile, on another note...
Another thing that p**ses me is Adobe & Java for their Flash programs support
for Internet Explorer 64Bit. 64 bits's been out for years, and they are still working on
it?? How many f**kin years do you need? 64Bit browser runs beaut!!!

I haven't bought Creative for years now because of what I believe to be their inferior software.

However, under US IP law Creative literally had no choice in taking a formal action.

If Creative failed to take action to protect its Copyrights and Patents, then under US law it would lose them...they would become public domain.

However, they could have done things differently.

Personally, if I were running Creative, instead of stomping on the guy I would have probably considered working out a way to license the guy to do what he was doing, bring the already modified and distributed code under a non-exclusive license using his terms and conditions (assuming he had some) as the vehicle to do so, and then re-visited the entire situation once all the IP got under proper legal control. It would depend on how receptive to the idea the guy was about it as well, of course.

If something couldn't be worked out, only then Creative would by necessity have to come down so hard on the guy.

For all I know, that's what happened...but I doubt it.

If I was creative, instead of all the tom-foolery - I would have simply hired him.

He can do [part-time] what all of their engineers have failed to do for the guts of 3 years; create fully functioning drivers for Vista

DublinGunner said:

If they did that, they'd only end up outsourcing his job within a few months anyway.

what a bastard. i bet you they're prepping a "new" product with a new name that uses the same stuff as x-fi, except it'll twice as exspensive but enable all the proper vista support for all of x-fis technologies so they can try to keep there pockets thicker by way of less R&D all the more while p**sing off their customers

john albrich said:

Even that would have been less of a problem than what's going on now. The thread on the creative forums is at 182 pages as I write this, with a huge majority expressing their unhappiness with Creative. There are also a large number of posters commenting that they only created an account to let Creative know they won't be purchasing any more Creative products.

Isn't their software free anyway? Yes, license, EULA blah blah blah, but it's hard for me to see how they'd be losing money if their (apparently poor) software did become public domain. Seems like they *might* have lost money if they let Daniel_K continue his work; now they will *definitely* lose money.

Another commenter in the thread noted how LinkSys used to have a crap rep, and they ended up embracing some type of opensource-like model, which ended up helping them.



I seriously doubt it too, otherwise he wouldn't be/have been requesting donations. The "suppress by buy-out" strategy has worked for other companies; DVD Shrink comes to mind IIRC. Although in this case, Daniel K was fixing what should have already worked, instead of creating a grey-area product.

I'm not as down on Creative as some of those posters are (some idiot posted pics of a hammered/broken soundcard) but I sure don't have a good opinion of them as a company. What a nightmare for them, and they brought it on themselves.

I hate Creative, but... I'm inclined to point something out:

Sometimes I can't help but buy them. I have a laptop, and to the best of my knowledge, they're the only ones that support external 5.1 surround sound (via USB). It seems to me like they are a completely ignorant, mind-numbingly stupid company, but until there is an alternative (a GOOD one, at that) to every product they sell, Creative will live.

I still like Creative and their products, but they need to be more professional on this matter. I seriously hope they should bring something good for the people, but not to continue with this s**tty attitude. That's f**king lame.

Reason said:

Their software is free now. That could change at any time for any reason (including sale of the company).

The other business factor to consider is that the value of the contents of their IP porfolio can be a very important aspect of any future sale or merger of the company.

Right now, their IP portfolio has potential value (even if the programs are provided free of charge at this time). If the contents were to become public domain, it would have zero value and reduce the marketability of their company. It could mean millions of dollars difference to the owners/stockholders. So, they definitely have reasons to protect their copyrights, patents, trademarks, etc. And, to do that, they ultimately have to do what the copyright law requires in this case.

They're too complacent like other companies. Vista's been out for over a year.
It's time those companies got their finger out and stop being arsey with the OS.
It's here, so get on with it. What's the big deal?

How does the card do not work In vista? Does it not produce sound? Cause my dad just bought a Creative X-fi Fatality Series and It doesn't let him enable EAX in F.E.A.R which seem strange to me, maybe it's the onboard audio that it still on I don't know really. Is this the fault you guys are talking about?

Good thing I'm still on Windows XP.

The last Creative card I bought was a Audigy 2 ZS back in 2004 in order to quench my Klipsch ProMedia Ultra 5.1's thirst for more decibels. 95% of the time, I'm using the on board Realtek audio with a cheap $20 pair of Sony headphones and I am happy. The only times I use Klipsch/Creative is when Realtek doesn't work (Juiced 2: Hot Import Nights and 25 to Life) or when the need arises.

The morale of the story is that I don't intend to buy another audio card for a long time. On board works fine in most circumstances.

DublinGunner said:

With you on this; it never even occurred to me to install a sound card in my recent build. In fact, I'd go one further and say I've noticed NO difference in sound quality.

DublinGunner said:

With the exception of (the first) Dungeon Siege, I never found a game that added much with EAX, and even then, only when I got some Creative speakers; perhaps just my dodgy old ears Can you suggest any games I might try that would yield a result from having EAX activated? Might give it a go

Back on the subject of this thread, I feel if Creative were the company they once were, they've have hired this bloke, or at least bought out his driver code, and then released an 'official' version tout suite and everyone would have been happy; consumers get their drivers, Creative don't have to put any serious effort into devolopment, Daniel_K gets a pile of cash instead of touting for donations - who loses?

BF2 or even better BF2142 really do take advantage of EAX effects. Things like footsteps and explosions etc really do sound much better

Rhort said:

Who loses? The ego of the Creative executive who supposedly is responsible for the drivers and/or customer sat.

You'd be amazed how petty, childish, and political corporate execs can be when it comes to stuff like this. He/she has to justify an annual budget, and if some "arrogant little punk" upstages his department (especially for little or no cost), then:
1) he looks bad
2) the board may decide to look into how he runs his department(s)
3) his budget, personnel, and power-base are threatened

I'm with John on this one, that's exactly what happened I think. Esp. since the guy that did the drivers is reported to have said to only have a 'basic knowledge of assembly coding', which makes it all the more embarassing.

Have said that, Creative's drivers have always s*cked for the most part. I don't have enough fingers or toes to count the times that some hardware I/O or IRQ conflict was caused by their software that just didn't like being set to another address or IRQ, causing for global system instability, lockups etc, etc. Their hardware is usually fine, but their software is a joke.

Best regards,

What series of video cards do not work ion Vista? Is it the Audigy? I have an X-fi and I would like to know if there are still problems before I decide to upgrade to Vista. I know there's the program called Alchemy to enable Direct3dSound from older video games. What else should I watch out for?