# Creative Software Modder Daniel_K Gone for Good



## malware (Jun 8, 2008)

Driver modder Daniel Kawakami or better known as Creative's Daniel_K is backing off his deal with providing modded software for all Creative sound cards for free. After receiving second warning mail from Creative threatening him with legal actions, he is finally "gone for good". He has posted a message over at the Creative forums informing everyone for his decission. Leave your thoughts here, and tell us what do you think.


			
				Daniel Kawakami said:
			
		

> _I've received another cease and desist e-mail.
> 
> I'm done with Creative, enough is enough.
> 
> Don't even bother asking me for the files._



*View at TechPowerUp Main Site*


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## echo75 (Jun 8, 2008)

very sad if you ask me, it is actually a negetive move on the part of creative that will cost them some PR.


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## ShinyG (Jun 8, 2008)

What can I say but: "THANK YOU" CREATIVE!
As a second though, his drivers will probably live on as files on torrent sites and will go down in history as the first set of illegal drivers.


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## ghost101 (Jun 8, 2008)

Creative's intellectual property. Well within their rights to do what they want. Imagine if people had been reverse engineering microsoft's code, I doubt people would have been so sympathetic.


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## tkpenalty (Jun 8, 2008)

SIGH. Profit minded Creative are set to get deflated by ASUS pretty soon if they keep this up. 

What creative is doing is basically the same as making overclocking illegal.


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## Disparia (Jun 8, 2008)

Took him this long? I was done with Creative a long time ago


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## ghost101 (Jun 8, 2008)

tkpenalty said:


> SIGH. Profit minded Creative are set to get deflated by ASUS pretty soon if they keep this up... its basically the same as making overclocking illegal.



No see my above post. The legality of this isnt even close to being ambiguous. It breaks the EULA.

Imagine if Daniel K had been offering his drivers for money? People would obviously be furious and have no sympathy for him. However, ask yourself, why does this suddenly become legal if he gives his drivers away for free?


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## allen337 (Jun 8, 2008)

ghost101 said:


> No see my above post. The legality of this isnt even close to being ambiguous. It breaks the EULA.
> 
> Imagine if Daniel K had been offering his drivers for money? People would obviously be furious and have no sympathy for him. However, ask yourself, why does this suddenly become legal if he gives his drivers away for free?




I think omega drivers are still out there? I get beta bios drivers all the time, wonder who makes them? Creative is off my list of anything. And everyone I know will be linked to that forum when they ask me what mp3,sound card,speakers they should buy. I wont support people who dont support us.  ALLEN


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## mab1376 (Jun 8, 2008)

creative is a bunch of assholes, they're just jealous because some nobody's drivers are better then theirs.


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## robodude666 (Jun 8, 2008)

Guess its time to buy the ASUS Xonar?


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## pagalms (Jun 8, 2008)

Or something from Auzentech


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## KainXS (Jun 8, 2008)

mab1376 said:


> creative is a bunch of assholes, they're just jealous because some nobody's drivers are better then theirs.



I agree, creative has recently been screwing their customers to no end with fake X-Fi cards and such, I will miss Daniel, I'm suprised creative wanted to stop him for correcting their own mistakes and limitations they placed in their cards on purpose.


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## Devilsclarinet (Jun 8, 2008)

pagalms said:


> Or something from Auzentech



or HTOmega


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## Black Hades (Jun 8, 2008)

tkpenalty said:


> SIGH. Profit minded Creative are set to get deflated by ASUS pretty soon if they keep this up.
> 
> *What creative is doing is basically the same as making overclocking illegal*.



Worse actually. If Microsoft would go as low as Creative it would probably sound like this: "Your Win XP licence is obsolete, windows will now work in reduced functionality mode, please purchase a Vista licence. Have a good day."


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## Black Hades (Jun 8, 2008)

pagalms said:


> Or something from Auzentech



Auzentech chip is made by Creative!
Creative built their damn X-fi chip, and licenses certain functionality only for Auzentech, Daniel_k also unlocked that functionality for standard Creative X-FI, that is one of the main reasons why Creative is so aggresive.

They said that current X-FI wont work on Vista properly because of "hardware issues" so they are working on X-FI 2 that is "tailored" for it. Daniel_k prooved that there is nothing incompatible about the hardware, hence Creative is now pissed about being caught lying.

Anyway I'll be damned if I ever buy Creative products again. I hope they go bankrupt before the fiscal year ends...

Edit: I belive that Creative could easily make drivers for Vista, maybe even better than daniel_k's , it's just that they arent realy making a lot of profit if people cling to their old hardware... I am perfectly satisified with my current Audigy 1 blaster, hell Creative have excelent hardware, but their profiteering ways made me not EVER want to buy a Creative product again. Asus Xonar here I come.


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## jonmcc33 (Jun 8, 2008)

tkpenalty said:


> SIGH. Profit minded Creative are set to get deflated by ASUS pretty soon if they keep this up.
> 
> What creative is doing is basically the same as making overclocking illegal.



Much worse actually. They remove a lot of functionality for their sound cards in Vista and try to force people to upgrade their sound card if they want those features back. BAD Creative Labs, very BAD.


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## Silverel (Jun 8, 2008)

Rumor had it for a while that they were actually working with Daniel_k on these drivers. Guess they changed their mind. Time to go blow up Creatives' forums with another 800 page long thread of disgust and anger...


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## imperialreign (Jun 8, 2008)

just my $.02


for starters, we can't compare ATI or nVidia's or any other comapny allowing users to get away with "cracking" their hardware to Creative.  As stated before, the technologies are Creative's property, and it's their call what's allowable, and what's not - doesn't matter if it's 3rd party drivers or not.  It makes no difference if other companies allow users to unlock features - that's their call.  And if enabled features allow access to things that are supposed to be disabled due to any legal agreements between Creative and other companys.

Keep in mind as well that in the audio market, people hold on to audio cards for overly long periods of time - even after product support has reached EOL, there are still many users who won't give them up - in their mind, the card still works, still sounds good, why purchase another?  There are still users out there running Live! initial-release cards (that dates back to 1998).  What other type of 10-year old hardware in any of our systems can we utilize to run current applications and software?  This is where I can kind of see Creative's stand, if they don't start locking and disabling features, users will never move up to newer hardware, and the company could risk losing money as well. 


and about this:



> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Date: Fri, 6 Jun 2008 15:25:44 +0000
> From: forums@customercare.creative.com
> ...



there's still no word yet if this last statement from Creative to Daniel is even official, and he has mentioned so himself in the OP on their forums.  It could be someone just trying to prank him - I would imagine that if the message were legit, it would be more long winded than just one sentence, and wouldn't sound so abrupt.  

Also, if it were from Creative, I'd imagine that there'd be a signature or at least a name at the bottom of the message, and a link back to the companies main site or the email of the signee - not a link back to the Creative Forums.

It's not legal-looking enough to be an official statement from a multi-million dollar company; especially when compared to the first statements they ever made.




Sadly, this will blow out of proportion again with mob-like mentality taking the reigns instead of anyone actually stopping to think about all the circumstances involved. :shadedshu


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## Gam'ster (Jun 8, 2008)

A sound card is a component that average users like myself would hardly think of upgrading as often as a gfx card for arguments sake. Once you have a sound card you like and has all the functionality you  need why would you upgrade it. Creative just want a piece of the upgrade pie and have been going about doing that in a shady way.

Gam


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## allen337 (Jun 8, 2008)

imperialreign said:


> just my $.02
> 
> 
> for starters, we can't compare ATI or nVidia's or any other comapny allowing users to get away with "cracking" their hardware to Creative.  As stated before, the technologies are Creative's property, and it's their call what's allowable, and what's not - doesn't matter if it's 3rd party drivers or not.  It makes no difference if other companies allow users to unlock features - that's their call.  And if enabled features allow access to things that are supposed to be disabled due to any legal agreements between Creative and other companys.
> ...





Biggest crock of BS i ever heard- you must be a creative suckass.

If i spent $1 on a piece of hardware, its mine i bought the damn thing, if I want to keep it 100 years guess what I paid for it. If i find software to mod it guess what, I payed for the damn thing. If creative dont want to support the modded drivers, guess what, I payed for the damn thing I can do whatever I want. But, when it comes to a company that only wants to keep you from moding only for the sake of proffit (or too dumb to do it theirselfs and ashamed) I draw the line. If people(customers) ever thought this would happen to begin with, creative wouldnt be a multi-million dollar company like they are now. Time for creative to screw the customers now, we will see what they get in return. If they made a product well enough to begin with, noone would be making modded drivers, and, noone would care to spend on another sound card. I build an average of 3-4 new computer a month-4-5 repairs a month and always someone wanting suggestions on new hardware. Bet you can guess what my suggestions and builds wont be.  ALLEN


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## ghost101 (Jun 8, 2008)

allen337 said:


> Biggest crock of BS i ever heard- you must be a creative suckass.
> 
> If i spent $1 on a piece of hardware, its mine i bought the damn thing, if I want to keep it 100 years guess what I paid for it. If i find software to mod it guess what, I payed for the damn thing. If creative dont want to support the modded drivers, guess what, I payed for the damn thing I can do whatever I want. But, when it comes to a company that only wants to keep you from moding only for the sake of proffit (or too dumb to do it theirselfs and ashamed) I draw the line. If people(customers) ever thought this would happen to begin with, creative wouldnt be a multi-million dollar company like they are now. Time for creative to screw the customers now, we will see what they get in return. If they made a product well enough to begin with, noone would be making modded drivers, and, noone would care to spend on another sound card. I build an average of 3-4 new computer a month-4-5 repairs a month and always someone wanting suggestions on new hardware. Bet you can guess what my suggestions and builds wont be.  ALLEN



You CAN make your own drivers from scratch if you wish. You CANNOT modify Creative drivers, that is their intellectual property and you do not own it. You are correct in asserting that you can install whatever drivers you want. That is not the issue and that is why they are targetting Daniel and not individual users.


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## Black Hades (Jun 8, 2008)

imperialreign said:


> just my $.02
> 
> [...]
> *This is where I can kind of see Creative's stand*, if they don't start locking and disabling features, users will never move up to newer hardware, and the company could risk losing money as well.



The point of upgrading is getting better performance and/or functionality. Not getting *the same damn thing for new money* on the newer OS.
By your reasoning... should we should also buy our owned games again if we switch to Vista?:shadedshu


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## ghost101 (Jun 8, 2008)

Black Hades said:


> The point of upgrading is getting better performance and/or functionality. Not getting *the same damn thing for new money* on the newer OS.
> By your reasoning... should we should also buy our games again if we switch to Vista?



Its like purchasing a cable connection and then cleverly maniplulating the software to give you more channels. After all, you have paid for the cable box, connection, tv etc. Why should there be simple software stopping me from recieving all the channels? Just because its physically there, downet mean you own it. After all, the windows vista discs you get have all the OSes right? So I should buy basic, hack the software and get vista ultimate?

I dont understand why people have problems with understanding intellectual property rights.


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## Black Hades (Jun 8, 2008)

ghost101 said:


> *Its like purchasing a cable connection and then cleverly maniplulating the software to give you more channels*. After all, you have paid for the cable box, connection, tv etc. Why should there be simple software stopping me from recieving all the channels? Just because its physically there, downet mean you own it. After all, the windows vista discs you get have all the OSes right? So I should buy basic, hack the software and get vista ultimate?
> 
> I dont understand why people have problems with understanding intellectual property rights.



Your analogy is faulty, and you missed the whole point.
First of all I do not want *more channels*. I want the *same channels* that worked on my old tv but dont on my *NEW* TV.
Got it?

Edit: I know that daniel_k's drivers also unlocked some extra features meant for Auzentech, but we are not discussing that alone now. Daniel_k agreed to make drivers without the extra features. If Creative was pissed *only* for those features then certainly I would simpathize with them, but this is not the case.


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## Psychoholic (Jun 8, 2008)

Pulled my audigy 2 zs, and now running onboard intel HD audio, i have to say it sounds great in vista.

If i can help it ill never buy another creative product.


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## OnBoard (Jun 8, 2008)

Still running with his (modified)drivers, only ones that work in Vista. No problems in any games and spdif works. Will be a sad day if these stop working in some games  *knocks on wood*


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## imperialreign (Jun 8, 2008)

allen337 said:


> Biggest crock of BS i ever heard- you must be a creative suckass.
> 
> If i spent $1 on a piece of hardware, its mine i bought the damn thing, if I want to keep it 100 years guess what I paid for it. If i find software to mod it guess what, I payed for the damn thing. If creative dont want to support the modded drivers, guess what, I payed for the damn thing I can do whatever I want. But, when it comes to a company that only wants to keep you from moding only for the sake of proffit (or too dumb to do it theirselfs and ashamed) I draw the line. If people(customers) ever thought this would happen to begin with, creative wouldnt be a multi-million dollar company like they are now. Time for creative to screw the customers now, we will see what they get in return. If they made a product well enough to begin with, noone would be making modded drivers, and, noone would care to spend on another sound card. I build an average of 3-4 new computer a month-4-5 repairs a month and always someone wanting suggestions on new hardware. Bet you can guess what my suggestions and builds wont be.  ALLEN




I love how when people actually make a point of defense upholding a companies actions, and a point that makes sense, everyone throws the fanboi card

So - by your reasoning, Creative should be out their pulling *ALL* or the 3rd party drivers for these cards.  Why, then, are the only putting a stop to one specific set of modified drivers?  BECAUSE FEATURES THAT THESE DRIVERS ENABLE VIOLATE *EULA* AGREEMENTS THAT YOU AGREE TO WHEN YOU INSTALL THE ASSOCIATED HARDWARE - why, then, have they not pulled any of the other 3rd party driver sets?

They aren't keeping anyone from modding the drivers, nor the hardware, at the sake of their profit - they stopping modified software that enables features that were not initially enabled - and therefore, are also not supported.  Secondly, as I mentioned before, if the features are disabled due to some licensing or contractual agreement between Creative and another company, Creative could be held legally liable for a breach of contract.



And for all those that have been trying to claim that Creative are a money-grubbing corporation, keep in mind that they are a publicly traded company (at least their US branch is), and must enact in the best interest of their shareholders - and their shares have been on a steady decline since 2005 - there was a burst when the X-Fis were released, but they have been steadily losing money (why do you think they keep trying to bring new products to market?).  They've had to sell their primary headquarters in Taiwan, and that's been within the last year . . . c'mon, people, think!  You complain when 10 year old hardware no longer functions properly, or things become disabled - but how else is a company who produces fairly-reliable products that will last 10+ years ever going to turn a profit if their ancient hardware still functions "correctly?"




			
				Black Hades said:
			
		

> The point of upgrading is getting better performance and/or functionality. Not getting the same damn thing for new money on the newer OS.
> By your reasoning... should we should also buy our owned games again if we switch to Vista?



So - by that argument . . . explain to me what is the "same damn thing" between the X-Fi series and the Audigy series (excluding the Xtreme Audio).  Explain to me, also, what is the "same damn thing" between the Live! series and the Audigy series as well.  Please, explain this one to me, because I fail to see or understand your point on even the tiniest level.


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## iluvtrees2 (Jun 8, 2008)

ghost101 said:


> I dont understand why people have problems with understanding intellectual property rights.



I don't think you understand that some people don't agree with intellectual property rights.

Creative = greedy capitalist pigs


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## oli_ramsay (Jun 8, 2008)

Unfortunate for this "creative" genious genuis" . lolololol im fukkkked


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## newconroer (Jun 8, 2008)

KainXS said:


> I agree, creative has recently been screwing their customers to no end with fake X-Fi cards and such, I will miss Daniel, I'm suprised creative wanted to stop him for correcting their own mistakes and limitations they placed in their cards on purpose.




Miss him? Lol ..ok...  a few of you need to step outside for some fresh air.


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## KainXS (Jun 8, 2008)

newconroer said:


> Miss him? Lol ..ok...  a few of you need to step outside for some fresh air.



when I started the Audigy to X-fi drivers last year he was the only person who actually saw that and took it upon himself to do the same thing and actually made the drivers so yes, I will miss his him in the scene.

there won't be anymore "GOOD" drivers for creative cards for vista anymore also.


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## PrudentPrincess (Jun 8, 2008)

lol customercare.creative.com is probably a fake email.


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## ghost101 (Jun 8, 2008)

iluvtrees2 said:


> I don't think you understand that some people don't agree with intellectual property rights.
> *
> Creative = greedy capitalist pigs*



Lol. Dont think youll find many fans of communism on TPU.

You really think a firm like Creative would even exist if there werent property rights? What about Intel? Do you think theyd spend billions of dollars on producing generation after genration of CPUs if they couldnt patent their products? Protection of intellectual property drives innovation and thankfully most people realise this. the people that dont agree are simply freeriders.


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## oli_ramsay (Jun 8, 2008)

Me neither!!!! Fuck Creative!!


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## imperialreign (Jun 8, 2008)

ghost101 said:


> Lol. Dont think youll find many fans of communism on TPU.
> 
> You really think a firm like Creative would even exist if there werent property rights? What about Intel? Do you think theyd spend billions of dollars on producing generation after genration of CPUs if they couldnt patent their products? Protection of intellectual property drives innovation and thankfully most people realise this.



agreed - and when consider the company in question has been steadily losing money for the last 8 years, it only fuels their defense of their property.


It's all good, though - considering the amount of people on the internet that keep joining into these mod-mentalities against Creative and not really thinking about the issues at hand; should Creative completely go under, everyone will just find another scapegoat - probably ASUS or Auzentech; and again we'll see some heavy-handed practices from said company in the audio market as well, like Creative has been doing for the last 10 years.

I'll guarantee you that.


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## oli_ramsay (Jun 8, 2008)

My ballbag is is elasticated. Any1 go to strawbryyy fair????????????


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## Sapientwolf (Jun 8, 2008)

Devilsclarinet said:


> or HTOmega



Yeah, just about any card with a C-media Oxygen HD chip will do it.


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## ghost101 (Jun 8, 2008)

oli_ramsay said:


> My ballbag is is elasticated. Any1 go to strawbryyy fair????????????



Lol, need to get to bed. Or at least have some coffee. How much have you had to drink?


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## Black Hades (Jun 8, 2008)

imperialreign said:


> [...]
> So - by that argument . . . explain to me what is the "same damn thing" between the X-Fi series and the Audigy series (excluding the Xtreme Audio).  Explain to me, also, what is the "same damn thing" between the Live! series and the Audigy series as well.  Please, explain this one to me, because I fail to see or understand your point on even the tiniest level.



According to Creative's own FAQ, sound cards from the X-Fi and Audigy families are incapable of decoding Dolby Digital or DTS, due to the fact that "these functions are not supported at driver level in Windows Vista."

In Windows XP Dolby Digital and DTS work, daniel_k's drivers *made them work in Vista* as well. This is only one example.

*@imperialreign*
Is it stealing to get "the same damn thing" working in Vista too?

Edit: _Last summer Creative, charged its customers a $9.99 fee for the privilege of legacy EAX support under Windows Vista. 
As a comparisson...What if Microsoft charged us $9.99 for each service pack for XP for example? Would that be ok?_


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## FreedomEclipse (Jun 8, 2008)

ghost101 said:


> Lol. Dont think youll find many fans of communism on TPU.



dont be so quick to Judge - My full heritage is Chinese but somewhere along my bloodline one of my great great great great granma's/ancestors got a little frisky with a Russian - so im like less then 10% Russian?? - Its all in My DNA anyway - the darker brown eyes & the skinnier, taller, more stockier build - did i mention one of my grandfathers was taller then 6ft2?? - that is way tall for a chinese guy


China - communist
Russia - Communist
Me - Born in Britain, U.K (Rofl)

Communisum ftw!


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## allen337 (Jun 8, 2008)

imperialreign said:


> agreed - and when consider the company in question has been steadily losing money for the last 8 years, it only fuels their defense of their property.
> 
> 
> It's all good, though - considering the amount of people on the internet that keep joining into these mod-mentalities against Creative and not really thinking about the issues at hand; should Creative completely go under, everyone will just find another scapegoat - probably ASUS or Auzentech; and again we'll see some heavy-handed practices from said company in the audio market as well, like Creative has been doing for the last 10 years.
> ...




They obviously havent lost enough money, when this is over youll probably lose your sig. I bet if Intel,Amd,Nvidia,western digital,seagate, and all other computer companies followed creatives lead you would be talking out of the OTHER SIDE OF YOUR FACE. Why not buy all new when you switch to vista, and if you dont like vista, junk what you bought, buy new again and go with xp.


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## imperialreign (Jun 8, 2008)

Black Hades said:


> According to Creative's own FAQ, sound cards from the X-Fi and Audigy families are incapable of decoding Dolby Digital or DTS, due to the fact that "these functions are not supported at driver level in Windows Vista."
> 
> In Windows XP Dolby Digital and DTS work, daniel_k's drivers *made them work* in Vista as well. This is only one example.
> 
> ...


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## Black Hades (Jun 8, 2008)

imperialreign said:


> But, I'll give you the fact that *Creative was slapping stickers on their products that read "works with Vista"*, and allowing online retailers to use "Vista ready" images as well - that can be considered confusing and misrepresentative if the product packaging still shows all the same features and capabilites related to the XP OS.
> [...]
> for it.



And that is considered missleading advertising and may be sanctioned by law in most countries. 

They are lucky if they havent been sued by now, and that is thanks to daniel_k  in part, and the fan base. How come he, an individual, could make the drivers work for Vista while Creative, a experienced company, still "works around the clock" real hard striving to bring back what previously worked in XP.

Vista is not to blame for this, but let's not start a XP vs Vista flame war here pls.

I do not think Creative are incapable, they have excelent hardware, and I bet they could make the old hardware work on the new OS, that's what made me think that it was just a "business decision" as they call it to make their old hardware work properly again.


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## Scrizz (Jun 8, 2008)

Vista runs fine on my P4 2.5GHz 2GB DDR 9800xt.....


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## Black Hades (Jun 8, 2008)

Scrizz said:


> Vista runs fine on my P4 2.5GHz 2GB DDR 9800xt.....



+1 but highly off topic mate!
 Yes vista is much better than the day it was launched. Gave it a go once every 6 months.. Now I finally have it instaled (dual boot) I am pleased with microsoft's progress, and also the fact that drivers have matured and slowly continue to do so. Vista's viable now, never thought I'd say that.


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## imperialreign (Jun 8, 2008)

Black Hades said:


> And that is considered missleading advertising and may be sanctioned by law in most countries.
> 
> They are lucky if they havent been sued by now, and that is thanks to daniel_k  in part, and the fan base. How come he, an individual, could make the drivers work for Vista while Creative, a experienced company, still "works around the clock" real hard striving to bring back what previously worked in XP.
> 
> ...




I agree they could be held accountable for it - their marketing department fooked that one up for sure.

All-in-all, their hardware is still really great; but the rest of the company has gone downhill over the last 10 years, and they're nothing like I remember them being back during the ISA days, or during the move to PCI back in '96.  Their customer service has gone to crap, and I swear their driver team has been on vacation the last 2 years and just keep phoning in the new driver releases.  Plus, their tech support is a massive waste of time - if their tech support was worth a damn, I never would've had to start the X-Fi thread here.  I just found it sad, though, the vast number of users out there with legitimate issues that they couldn't get resolved with Creative's tech support.

I still have hopes they'll straigthen their act out and turn themselves around - they seem to have been trying to do so recently; we'll have to see if that holds up.






			
				allen337 said:
			
		

> imperialreign you fail to realise that all that fanboism your doing isnt going to make creative any ritcher. Matter of fact the stupidness in your posts to defend the assholes tells all of us the kinda stand up guy you are. I would stfu if I were you because if you havent noticed noone gives a fux what you say good about creative they suck. Noone said we like MS either but, when a person spends his time and effort to make a product better and the company chits on him along with all the other (used to be) customers It offends me badly. ALLEN



you just crossed the line, man, congrats on showing just how mature you are


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## Black Hades (Jun 8, 2008)

imperialreign said:


> [...]
> I still have hopes they'll straigthen their act out and turn themselves around - they seem to have been trying to do so recently; we'll have to see if that holds up.



They better... otherwise I see a grim outcome for them, they've lost so many loyal clients already.


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## Urbklr (Jun 8, 2008)

Creative is going to lose ALOT of customer's doing this. I really can't see them sticking to it, and I don't even think that e-mail was real. Have a look here, and on the creative forums....almost every post is "I am done with Creative", "I will never buy Creative again!"..etc. Not good at all for Creative.


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## Wile E (Jun 8, 2008)

imperialreign said:


> Black Hades said:
> 
> 
> > According to Creative's own FAQ, sound cards from the X-Fi and Audigy families are incapable of decoding Dolby Digital or DTS, due to the fact that "these functions are not supported at driver level in Windows Vista."
> ...


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## Polaris573 (Jun 8, 2008)

Everyone please remember to keep all posts civil when you disagree with someone.  Flaming and/or name calling is not tolerated.


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## imperialreign (Jun 8, 2008)

Wile E said:


> imperialreign said:
> 
> 
> > I'm sorry imperial, I have to almost fully disagree with you here. D_K got all of the features mentioned above to work *correctly* in Vista, minus true hardware acceleration. This isn't Vista's fault, it's Creative's.
> ...


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## eidairaman1 (Jun 8, 2008)

worst move CL could ever do, looks like he will be Making Drivers for the Other 3 Companies.


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## eidairaman1 (Jun 8, 2008)

ghost101 said:


> Creative's intellectual property. Well within their rights to do what they want. Imagine if people had been reverse engineering microsoft's code, I doubt people would have been so sympathetic.



Ahem, ReactOS, "CleanRoom Engineering"


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## thequestor (Jun 9, 2008)

*Creative Losing Money*

I hate to say it. GOOD!. I have always bought Creative top of the line cards. all the way back to the original Soundblaster. I have a X-FI Elite pro in this box and I was happy with it in XP, well I was happy after a year or so when they released a driver that actually worked with multi-core processors. Then Vista came and it made my $400 sound card suck again. Creative had PLENTY of time to write and test drivers LONG before Vista was RTM. The Driver Model was firm nearly a year before RTM. 

Creative has always released awesome top of the line hardware, but has NEVER been able to release drivers that didn't suck.

Remember when the Live! came out. All thier PR was about the programmable nature of the EMU10k SPU. Yah right. what new features ever came out for that card or any other card based on the 10k [including the XFI] programmable chip? NONE and worse is that they disabled features to force obsolete the hardware.

I honestly hope they keep losing money until they figure out that it is PEOPLE who buy thier crap and it is these people who they should bend over backwards to support. Or better just go out of business. That way I am forced to buy another companies product.

Good riddance.


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## eidairaman1 (Jun 9, 2008)

Theres the driver for the Live/PCI Line

http://kxproject.lugosoft.com/


thequestor said:


> I hate to say it. GOOD!. I have always bought Creative top of the line cards. all the way back to the original Soundblaster. I have a X-FI Elite pro in this box and I was happy with it in XP, well I was happy after a year or so when they released a driver that actually worked with multi-core processors. Then Vista came and it made my $400 sound card suck again. Creative had PLENTY of time to write and test drivers LONG before Vista was RTM. The Driver Model was firm nearly a year before RTM.
> 
> Creative has always released awesome top of the line hardware, but has NEVER been able to release drivers that didn't suck.
> 
> ...


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## ghost101 (Jun 9, 2008)

eidairaman1 said:


> Ahem, ReactOS, "CleanRoom Engineering"



http://www.reactos.org/en/index.html

They say here that this is a "ground up implementation". Like I said before, if Daniel wants to build drivers from scratch, he should. But these are modified drivers.

Secondly, this will never reach the popularity similar to the modified creative drivers mentioned here.

The crucial thing here, is that Daniel blew his chance by unlocking extra features. Creative clearly wanted to end this there and then, and set a precedent. At that point they became "hacks" and creative excercised their right (which always existed) to end this. A promise not to unlock anything after this means nothing. I may be wrong in the last bit, but he seems to have done exactly this with Vista drivers by enabling things which otherwise didnt exist in the Vista drivers.


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## eidairaman1 (Jun 9, 2008)

ya in June Issue of CPU Mag, they stated CL was telling DK to backoff, but originally, they offered him a XFi 2 Card- he declined because he was getting cards from other makers, so im sure he will probably end up working for the other companies or modify/create drivers that outdo Creatives Cards.


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## imperialreign (Jun 9, 2008)

allen337 said:


> Im telling my mommie on you waaaaaaaaa





yeah - cause it's just that funny 




DaemonWraith said:


> sad part here, i kinda agree with him, you do come off as a creative fanboi, dispite the fact that creative is intentionaly screwing you and anybody who has one of their current cards........




I've never been screwed by Creative - I've never had major issues with my hardware, ever, over the years I've been a customer.  But, one thing I can say for sure with audio cards is that they don't always work correctly right out of the box.  if anyone remembers the ISA days and earlier PCI days, it required a little work to install things.  Audio cards are very picky.

That being said, I find their hardware worth it - but again, I find their tech support to be shoddy and worthless.  That's the whole reason I started the X-Fi thread here, is to try and offer help for those that can't get it through Creative.

I've taken both sides with Creative recently over the last 6 months.  It depends on the issue, and how people are reacting.  I felt that Creative charging Audigy users $10 for the ALchemy software was a load of tripe, and I made that statement known, and was willing to point users in the direction of a "free" legit ALchemy download for Audigy users, as I didn't feel they should have to pay.  I took both sides when the first dan_k driver issue broke - Creative's side defending their EULA, and the users side cause Creative were idiotic enough to publicly admit to defeating hardware features (bad PR move, no company should be this dumb).

But, I see a lot of people that get into the mob-mentality and don't think why an audio company might react this way, or what the big picture is - there's too many people that join along just cause they don't know any better, or can't think for themselves.


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## allen337 (Jun 9, 2008)

DaemonWraith said:


> sad part here, i kinda agree with him, you do come off as a creative fanboi, dispite the fact that creative is intentionaly screwing you and anybody who has one of their current cards........





some people just dont care and are better off left alone or the will cry wolf.


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## erocker (Jun 9, 2008)

Next post of off topic garbage, everyone gets a bunch of infractions...:shadedshu


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## WarEagleAU (Jun 9, 2008)

It was an interesting read to be sure, his response that is. I think it sucks that they are all gangster about it. I fully expect them to protect their property rights, but he just did what they failed to do.


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## imperialreign (Jun 9, 2008)

DaemonWraith said:


> imperialreign: ofcorse creatives loosing money, and ofcorse they are loosing shareholders.
> 
> this has little to do with getting new products out, it has ALOT to do with how they run their company and how they treat their costmers, if you do crap like intentionaly crippling hardware people payed GOOD MONEY FOR and dont fix long standing driver problems, oh yeah and dont properly test your hardware( x-fi and nforce4 anybody?, sblive and via chipsets/irq sharing anybody?) your gonna loose peoples faith.
> 
> ...





<sigh>  


Like I just mentioned, I've never been screwed by Creative, so I have no right to bitch and complain.  I've also run across numerous other users runnign both XP and Vista who've never had a problem, either.  Why should I have to move on from a company I have no beef with?  Sure, I find their customer relations distasteful, but that hasn't changed my opinion about their hardware.  Seriously, give me one solid, good reason to move away from a company I personally have no issues with . . .

Considering the bad publicity Creative have come under over the last 6 months or so, there's enough noise out in the general public that potential customers should be aware of the issues as well.  But, their hardware is still good and reliable, and in that respect, and considering the vast amounts of users who've never had any issues, I'm still willing to recommend their hardware.  If you hear about the bad PR and still decide to purchase their products, that's your deal, but I'll still be more than willing to help out should an issue crop up; and if you're still not happy at that point - return the card.  This doesn't mean I only recommend Creative's products, though, as many other users here can point out, anytime a thread crops up with people looking for soundcard purchasing advice, I generally try to figure out what their intended and typical use would be so I can recommend a card that I feel would best suit their needs.  i don't recommend with any bias, and I don't change how I interact with others with any bias.

If other users have a problem with how a company handles itself, that's their issue - it's up to them to make the decision to stick with the company or not.  I find it absolutely histarical, though, the number of users with Creative hardware that have pitched a fit over things, but the used hardware market isnt' flooded with Creative cards yet - if you have that much of an issue, why hold on to the hardware?  Sell it and put the money towards what you consider to be a better product.

Just because you don't like a company doesn't mean that other users would still be able to make use of said company's equipment, and never experience any problems.



As of that, I'm done with this thread - if I was in the mood to debate my views of a questionable audio company, I'd go hand out with the career-trolls lurking the Creative forums . . . I have no use for that here at TPU.


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## tkpenalty (Jun 9, 2008)

DaemonWraith said:


> imperialreign: ofcorse creatives loosing money, and ofcorse they are loosing shareholders.
> 
> this has little to do with getting new products out, it has ALOT to do with how they run their company and how they treat their costmers, if you do crap like intentionaly crippling hardware people payed GOOD MONEY FOR and dont fix long standing driver problems, oh yeah and dont properly test your hardware( x-fi and nforce4 anybody?, sblive and via chipsets/irq sharing anybody?) your gonna loose peoples faith.
> 
> ...



As erocker said stay on topic.




From a legal standpoint, Daniel, is unfortunately CRIMINAL. He has commited a criminal offence by breaching the EULA. A lot of you guys go "oh but the customers"- I mean what sort of logic is that? The law rules above all. You CAN'T bypass laws, the EULA states that any unliscenced modification of intellectual property will result in criminal charges. *Daniel is legally not allowed to modify the drivers. Yes it might defy logic, but isnt the law usually logic-defying?*

And anyway, if Daniel was allowed to continue with modifications (and if he was liscenced to do it), you do realise that it won't actually harm the profits of creative. Hes unlocking features; more bang for buck per-product-Something that consumers desire. They legally can't allow daniel to make drivers. You *cannot* compare this to ATI/Nvidia, as they *do not* have a EULA binded to them. 

On the flipside... daniel has overreacted to that email. Everything about it screams fake-looks like a prank. 

Greed is suffering. Most of you should learn that. My EMUK10 Live Value still has drivers for it, I was pleasantly surprised how well featured they were. I'm *still going to purchase an XFI* if i decide to upgrade, probably an Auzentech, just note that Creative makes the chip.


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## NamesDontMatter (Jun 9, 2008)

I am done with creative, never buying another creative product EVER again. Enjoy creative, lets watch the market shares drop!


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## tkpenalty (Jun 9, 2008)

DaemonWraith said:


> read what dk said, creative said he couldnt put out driver packs, BUT could offer patches, basickly a workaround for their EULA is to let the user run the patch eather on the already installed driver OR on the driver pack b4 install.



Then it doesn't make sense that an email like that was sent; that email was a prank...



DaemonWraith said:


> i came to that conclution after dealing with their support years ago, then it was re-enforced with clients who bought xtream music cards that had the 100% cpu use AND studdering buggs, and creative had NO FIX, the fix ended up being to replace the card with a product using another companys chips.



CTRL+F erocker and read his post.


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## imperialreign (Jun 9, 2008)

my Lithuanian stuborness is kicking in right about now . . .



DaemonWraith said:


> and i see you havent been screwed, but i would bet a part of why you wont install vista is because you know your card you payed alot of $ for WONT WORK PROPERLY in vista, not because creative couldnt make it work, but because they want to force you to buy a new card when they get one out.



the reason I won't install Vista is that the OS audio architecture is shoddily written, that, and I have no DX10 games worthy enough to call for a Vista install.

I'd rather have direct hardware access in XP, than a workaround which introduces latency in Vista.

As I've mentioned before, the issues with Vista - Creative and MS are both equally to blame for the numerous audio issues that every audio card has been running into again and again.\

During development of the OS, MS was working with nVidia and Creative on the audio architecture, to change it to be more stable, but still allow DirectSound access like we have with XP.  For no reason, nVidia dropped from the project, and not long after MS gave up on it - which left Creative high and dry.  They already had functioning drivers for this, but now that the audio architecture was different than they initially expected, they had to go back to the drawing board - and they also spent a lot of time with the OpenAL API to ready a new API release . . . this is the biggest reason Creative were almost 6 months behind the Vista release date with alpha drivers.  This is also why we've seen so many Vista beta drivers be released, as they're still working on correct functionality.  It's still hit or miss.

I have another rig here tha I maintain frequently running Vista home, and has an Elite Pro installed - and not a single issue with that, either.  But I won't install Vista on my rig yet, as I don't see a need for it.  Once someone releases a full DX10 game that I feel is worth the effort, I will (STALKER: Clear Sky should do the trick).




> even those shops wont sell the newer creative cards to people, because the drivers suck and its pretty clear creative isnt going to fix them.
> 
> dk has said exectly why I cant support creative, even if i personaly havent ever had an x-fi card in my system let alone had vista and an x-fi.



I can see where people are unhappy with it, and I see where Creative have goofed as well - but how many people are looking at it from the manufacturer's stand point as well?  Considering the numbers of users out there with Live! series cards that pitched a fit when Creative finally declared them EOSL.  

Besides, the drivers don't always suck - many of the times it's hardware or software incompatibilities.  This is a big issue everyone has gotten invloved with as more and more commoners who aren't tech aware like we are go out and buy an Xtreme Gamer or Xtreme Audio from Best Buy or Circuit City to install in their Dell or HP system.  Factor in the number of people that can't even turn off their onboard audio, and go crying to Creative when their new hardware doesn't work right . . . 

sure, I realize that on certain systems there are issues with the drivers, but there are also many "user errors" as well



> by acting like creative is "do no wrong" your supporting uninformed people buying cards that they will then have to use hacked drivers to get full function out of.
> 
> and TBH i dont give a rats ass about weather or not he broke the EULA, creative broke the trust by intentionaly crippling their hardware via crapp drivers.



where have I come across as acting as Creative has "done no wrong?"  I flat out stated in a few posts already what I've felt was crossing the line in-so-far as how they've treated some customers . . . I've mentioned numerous times in my X-Fi thread where I feel that Creative has screwed up.  But, I also recognize the fact that there are numerous other users out ther who've never had a problem as well - why should I allow a few PR mistakes, and the whinning of commoners to influence my recommendations to another user that could potentially benefit from one of their cards?  I'm also more than willing to inform new users to this site of the issues Creative have been facing, and at that point, it's up to them what they decide to install.

As to the EULA - so you're claiming that Creative disabaling features for Vista drivers for the Audigy series is wrong - even though the Audigy series were never advertised as Vista ready?  The X-Fi cards, although, were advertised as such, but how do we know that disabled features on these drivers were not just a temporary headache that would be re-instated once things were ironed out (like removal of DX10.1 support in Assassin's Creed with the first patch, and then re-instated with the second)?

People were pissed off that their 6-8 year old hardware no longer functioned correctly.  IMO, I say be glad they continued support for so long.  Like I said before, find me a piece of hardware that old that can handle current OSes, software and games.

I'm not saying Creative have been a handful of angels here, but I'm not going to go around the web spreading tripe to all the uninformed users out there as well.  There are three sides to each story, and everyone has only been interested in one side of their situation.



> as to holding him crimanaly responcible, HA, he didnt charge for his acctions, he didnt make any profit from it, all they can do is at most a VERY light slap on the wrist.
> 
> also those kinds of EULA's are on questionable ground, just like companys claming that they licence software not sell it, in a story i read a while back Autodesk got pwnt in court for sending dmca notices to somebody for selling used copys of their software on ebay.



DMCA rulings have been having a hard time standing up since that act was passed - it's unfair, and doesn't allow the end user enough rights.  Personally, I still hold to the Copyright Act of 1986, which allows for users to make one back-up copy of any digital media for their own use.

Anyhow, d_k didn't exactly charge for the drivers, but he was enabling features that Creative didn't support (like Dolby encoding with the X-Fis) . . . why they didn't support these features is their knowledge, as they haven't said.  There could be some kind of contractual agreement between Creative and Dolby and/or Auzentech.  If Creative acted like d_k's driver's didn't exist, they could've been held accountable for those drivers breaching a contract.  It's all theory, we don't know, as Creative hasn't said.




and as of that - I'm fully done with this.  Time to head out for the night, instead of dealing with users calling me blind as much as they are.


----------



## ShogoXT (Jun 9, 2008)

Hmm I had such faith in Creative over the years to the point where I wouldnt use integrated at all. Using DK drivers now, but was I wrong to have such faith in Creative that they wouldnt let me down?

I guess I saw it coming, stacking up sorta. First was when I was trying to fix a crash issue (BSOD) and their phone support literally yelled at me when I said I had gone through the standard routines as they listed. Also how much of a hassle it was to get some games to stop auto shutting off the sound or how it would pop and crackle alot.

Tkpenalty: I understand what your saying and technically you are correct, but see it this way; The features Creative was mad at Daniel_K for was the ones we had already had for Windows XP. When people asked why they were removed and not put back for Vista, they said it was in the same group as where DirectSound3D went (which was true, but..). Daniel_K plopped it in at full force and proved to the community that Creative was directly lying to them. We arnt very happy about that.


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## Polaris573 (Jun 9, 2008)

I am getting tired of babysitting this thread.  Next time someone screws up I am going to close it.


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## DrPepper (Jun 9, 2008)

eidairaman1 said:


> worst move CL could ever do, looks like he will be Making Drivers for the Other 3 Companies.



Actualy I think the worst they could do was to stop selling their current soundcards and release a blank pcb that had a funny sticker on it and used a PCI-E 16x slot and had some Plutonium 239 sellotaped to it  just trying to lighten up the conversation but as for what I think of creative  I don't care too much.


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## 1c3d0g (Jun 9, 2008)

NamesDontMatter said:


> I am done with creative, never buying another creative product EVER again. Enjoy creative, lets watch the market shares drop!



Agreed. This *is* it!  My X-Fi is going to be sold first thing tomorrow morning. I have no need for a product coming from such a disgraceful and arrogant company. :shadedshu


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## KainXS (Jun 9, 2008)

I'm thinking that creative would be pissed off because a certain set of drivers he made phased out the creative x-fi xtreme audio(fake audigy), they would be pissed at that more than everything else he did.


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## EnergyFX (Jun 9, 2008)

Black Hades said:


> The point of upgrading is getting better performance and/or functionality. Not getting *the same damn thing for new money* on the newer OS.
> By your reasoning... should we should also buy our owned games again if we switch to Vista?:shadedshu



BINGO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


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## hat (Jun 9, 2008)

/me wonders if I should pull my audigy 2 and creative speakers

but then I would have crappy onboard and no speakers...


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## tkpenalty (Jun 9, 2008)

1c3d0g said:


> Agreed. This *is* it!  My X-Fi is going to be sold first thing tomorrow morning. I have no need for a product coming from such a disgraceful and arrogant company. :shadedshu



For how much?  

[sarcasm]SIGH you people make the smartest descisions i've ever seen [/sarcasm]


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## Sapientwolf (Jun 9, 2008)

DaemonWraith said:


> They are not mistakes, Creative INTENTIONALY cripples hardware by dissabling functionality via the drivers, DK was just re-enabling that, creative just got pissed that they got caught at it and backed off, i would bet this ends up with creative trying to get him to come back again simply because of the backlash.



There are plenty of companies who cripple hardware via the drivers.  They have the right to offer you whatever level of service they want, no matter what the hardware is capable of.  It's why Intel charges premium for a processor with an unlocked multiplier, although the hardware is essentially the same.

Economics is based on products and services, this is dependent on the services they want you to have, not what the product is fully capable of.

I side with Creative if he was unlocking features they didn't want you to have.  I side with the modder if Creative was failing to offer functionality up to what the XP drivers offered.


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## allen337 (Jun 9, 2008)

The way I see it creative has crippled the drivers so you ( the customer) will buy a new sound card when they are made. Now that the cats out of the bag, with daniel k moding these drivers and fixing the issues with vista everyone knows how creative has treated their customers over the years. Most companies allow a 3-5 year support on their hardware buy creative wants you to buy new every year to help support them. Thats like my ISP provider crippling my connection to 56k and raising it 56k every year and charging me double, wonder how many customers my isp would have?


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## Sapientwolf (Jun 9, 2008)

DaemonWraith said:


> ah, but the unlocked chips also are the top binned runs, this means they will overclock better with less volts on avrage then a normal chip.
> 
> and creative removed fetures for VISTA OWNERS that cards came with, this is BULLSHIT no matter how you try and justify it, it would be like ATI removing dx9 support for you with the vista drivers because they want you to buy a 2900 or hd3k card, you wouldnt side with ATI on that one, you would bitchup a storm, then buy nvidia.
> 
> ...



I understand your point completely.  I'm not too informed on the details of the driver situation.  I just wanted to make a point about the "I payed for it, it should work to its fullest" argument that is faulty when take service into account (which you seem to understand).

If Creative is limiting features unfairly, then yes, you should be be getting what you payed for.

I've been using an HT-Omega Claro+ for quite a while now, no problems whatsoever, software is lightweight and functionaly, sounds great.  I recommend it to anyone, or an Auzentech X-Meridian, which is based on the same C-media chip and uses the same software.


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## imperialreign (Jun 9, 2008)

now that I've had a chance to get some fresh, warm, humid air 



DaemonWraith said:


> i know that all to well, i got alot of polish blood, as well as irish/scotish, some of the most stuborn people you will ever meet but mostly good folks.



yep, even moreso with baltic peoples . . . . once the pride and stubborness kick in - it's no longer about the argument 



> creative are not fun to work with, their tech support as mentioned above(last page) will YELL at you, their staff involved with projects like working with game developers are just as bad, im SURE part of why ms droped it was due to how creative is to work with, and nvidia very well could have left the project due to being sick of fighting with creative, i have seen that happen with games, some of the people i use to do computer work for where game developers, this may sound shocking but most of them dont really know much about whats inside the puter, they just know their part of the dev prosess, that thats it, well every singel one of them had nothing nice to say about working with creative to support new eax fetures or work out buggs with eax and creatives drivers, comments like "they are a bunch of assholes" where common, now most of those dev's had creative cards because at the time creative was THE card choice for "true gamers".



I completely believe it.  I even wondered if after nVidia left the development, it turned into MS and Creative butting heads over how things were going to go.  No one really knows, as even that info on the MS+Creative+nVidia collaboration is fairly unknown - and I can't even remember where I read that . . . MaximumPC, I think 

Plus, their tech support is stoopid - every once and a while I throw an email their way with some BS dumb issue I've made up just to see what kind of responses I'll get - all I can say is that they are 100% predictable at this point, and even if you come across as being tech knowledgable, they respond to you like your a tech illiterate n00b.  Like I mentioned earlier, their poor support was what drove me to start the X-Fi thread here, so that users out there could have somewhere they could look up typical issues and ask questions and get real answers.  From what I've seen over the last couple of years, you couldn't go asking questions on the Creative forums due to the number of trolls that hang out there, so . . .




> yeah, i acctual have seen stuff like that but most of the x-fi problems i have seen are dirrectly due to the drivers, most dell owners dont go out and buy a soundcard, they use the onboard, and if they buy a soundcard they get the cheapist one they can get(because most dell owners are cheap bastards, hence they own a dell)



a little of both, most of the driver issues I've seen usually resulted from an improper/corrupted install, or something similar.

I can say, though, that their driver download links aren't always labeled correctly.  I don't think their driver team does enough support testing, either.  For example, I've found for the longest time that all of the X-Fi update drivers for the XP Media Center Edition are all incompatible, as much as the drivers list the OS as being supported.  That turns into a headache for the customer, and for those trying to help the users.




> yes it is wrong to remove fetures the card was sold supporting, they didnt do that with older cards when you went from 9x to xp or 2k to xp, video card makers dont remove dx9 support on cards that support it because they want to sell new cards to vista users......same diffrance in my book, this is all on creative.
> 
> and im glad that ubi brought back 10.1 im sure it was due to public presure and not wanting to look like they where pandering to nvidia to give nvidia an unfair advantege by removing it.... got any links to reviews of the 2nd patch, would like to see if there appears to be any under handed tricks being used to keep the perf of ati vs nvidia from changing between the 10.0 and 10.1 paths.



I see your point, as I think it wrong as well - but we'll never know if it was just meant to be a temporary thing, and the ongoing debacle with the dan_k drivers just blew up during the middle of it.

I also see your point with the VGA adapter argument - but at the same time, they'd never have to worry about dropping support like that.  If you want to keep up with the newest games, you've got to upgrade the video card sooner or later, y'know?  It's rough to be able to keep going with current games on a video card thats 3-4 years old, much less 5-6.

I had mentioned in other threads a while ago, the audio card, from any manufacturer, outlasts just about every other piece of hardware in a rig (unless you're an audiophile and constantly wanting the newest thing ).  They're not subjected to the same rigors as other pieces of hardware, and for 90% of users, as long as it still sounds alright, there's nothing wrong with the card.  I mean, hell, just for example, I just finally convinced my father last month to upgrade from his . . . *ENSONIQ PCI*!!  That's right, the first sound card that got away from the ISA standard . . . the first PCI soundcard, and one of the first true multi-channel cards.  That thing is 12+ years old at this point, but still works fine (even in Vista . . . surprisingly).  He just didn't see a point considering the card still worked.

IDK, I guess I just think the notion of people wanting to hold onto an audio card for more than 5-7 years, and expecting it to function properly in the most recent WIN OS to hit shelves is kinda unrealistic.




> thats easy, my maddog cmedia based 8738 soundcard, full vista drivers that WORK PERFECTLY updated from the cmedia forums(the guy who uploads to forums dosnt have acces to update the site....diffrent dept)



I'm just curious as I'm not sure . . . those are the official drivers?  C-Media doesn't always keep up with updating their site, as the most recent driver release for the 8738 based cards is dated 2002.  

TBH, I don't really keep up with C-Media chipsets too much, as they like to do little "tweaks" here and there for different manufacturers . . . makes it hard to keep up when 3 different card manufacturers are using the CMI8788 chipset, but each one has a version that's "tweaked" just for them




> the DMCA dirrectly battles fair use laws, and it tends to loose, its the one big thing i would like to kick bill clinton in the nuts for, dumbass admited in a tv callin show (people call in with questions and he would answer) that he really didnt understand the DMCA he just signed it, the people pushing it made it sound like a good deal....didnt mention that it didnt allow him to copy his own cd's as backups for use in the car



yep - sad, IMO.  DMCA is a load of crock, IMO, and doesn't nullify the original copyright act of 86 . . . which is dumb becasue the two acts contradict each other.

I still go by the old school rule, though, and will backup my software, CDs, DVDs, etc as I see fit - even if I have to break copy protection to do so.  By the old act, I'm within my rights as long as I don't make numerous copies and/or distribute copies. 





> creative clearly did this to try and force ppl to buy their next big card, as the dolby support, its because creative refused to pay for a dolby licence for the cards, thats the only reasion, really dolby cant go after creative and win if its a user made mod/hack that enables said fetures, so its just creative wanting to keep their older products as crippled as possable in order to push their owners into buying the new cards they are working to bring out.
> 
> this is an old and well established practice in the computer industry that software makers and some hardware makers use, its died off a bit since companys that pull that crap tend to die when users disscover that they can choose something like a c-media based soundcard vs creative without loosing anything they will acctualy notice, and get longer support cycles.
> 
> cmedia still sells alot of chips and companys using their chips still sell alot of cards dispite the insainly long support cmedia is giving to chips like the 8738(hell i have seen 8738 based cards on newegg in the past year) mind you the 8738 is the same age as the sblive first run cards!!!!!!



my initial impression of the whole issue when it erupted a couple of months ago, was that it could be an issue with Creative and Auzen - as Auzentech had Dolby encoding enabled, Creative didn't (although their cards were capable).  Dolby encoding was a big selling point with the Prelude . . . but, based on Creative's reaction then, I had gotten the feeling that they were being pressured to act.

But, it's very true, though, that hardware manufacturers will sometimes kill or disable features as time goes on . . . they just don't trip over themselves and publicly admit to it like Creative did.  That little incident right there, IMO, will go down in the list of top-10 biggest tech blunders.  Partly why I think they were pressured to act, if it was of their own accord, you think they would've at least reviewed it a little better . . .



> and after reading this post my openion of YOU has changed, but my openion of how your earlyer posts in this thred came off hasnt
> 
> now go play some games or something



s'all good - I'm just trying to shed some light on the other sides of the argument, that's all.  There are a lot of Creative bashers out there who go on without any real definitive argument, and there are also many who just enjoy the mob-mentality.  But, in trying to show the other side of the argument, I realize I'm going to come across as being a fanboi (and it helps that I can stay reasonably level-headed as well ), especially to those who are fed up with the companies practices, and even moreso when the subject matter is as heated as the issue with the dan_k drivers has been.


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## eidairaman1 (Jun 9, 2008)

Alright Can we get back on Track


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## Mussels (Jun 9, 2008)

and this really makes me feel 'i told you so'

Many times, even on this forum iv'e told people that creative dont support daniel_k and his drivers, and never did - and heres the proof (again)

I'll be getting the HDMI xonar as my next card, and never going back to creative until they start supporting older products.


----------



## eidairaman1 (Jun 9, 2008)

Mussels said:


> and this really makes me feel 'i told you so'
> 
> Many times, even on this forum iv'e told people that creative dont support daniel_k and his drivers, and never did - and heres the proof (again)
> 
> I'll be getting the HDMI xonar as my next card, and never going back to creative until they start supporting older products.



Speaking of Which, Next system Build will probably have a HT Omega Sound Unit in mine heh.


----------



## thebeephaha (Jun 9, 2008)

eidairaman1 said:


> Speaking of Which, Next system Build will probably have a HT Omega Sound Unit in mine heh.



Anything with the Oxygen HD chipset in it will be great.

My Auzentech X-Meridian is absolutely stunning. Gaming performance is not as good as the X-Fi but sound quality I put to the X-Meridian any day. The design of this card is second to none.

I see no reason to go to Creative unless you are dedicated to needing true EAX support and even then the ASUS cards emulate that very well.


----------



## Wile E (Jun 9, 2008)

I don't even care if they support older products on new OSes, so long as they officially EOL'd the product. X-Fi isn't EOL, so it should have all of it's features enabled for Vista as well as XP, especially considering X-Fi products are "Vista Ready".

But as far as this email to D_K, even if it is a fake, I don't blame him for throwing in the towel. No matter how you look at it, Creative is treating their customers unfairly. The EULA be damned. "An unjust law is no law at all." -St Augustine


----------



## TheMailMan78 (Jun 9, 2008)

Wow Creative just lost a customer in me. I see hardware like any other thing I buy. Its mine. I should be able to do what I want with it. Bottom line is he wasn't making profit. He did this because he was just that good/kind. If Honda, Toyota, Ford or Chevy let you mod their software for better performance why cant creative? I cant tell you how many times Iv flashed my Mustang (no jokes) and got better than stock performance. Can you imagine if auto makers took this stance? "We will take legal action against all mechanics or drivers if they fix our cars, acquire better gas mileage or drive over 30 mph as stated in the EULA."

imperialreign,
FYI automakers do have EULA. When you buy a car and you sign all them little papers it states in the fine print you wont do anything unlawful in the vehicle. Now I ask you how many times have YOU went over the speed limit or did a U-turn and got a ticket from your cars manufacturer?


----------



## NympH (Jun 9, 2008)

Someone quick buy out creative and shut them down!


----------



## Deleted member 24505 (Jun 9, 2008)

I've got the stuff(files etc),i'm just gonna enable ddl on my x-fi.Blow me creative.


----------



## Mussels (Jun 9, 2008)

tigger69 said:


> I've got the stuff(files etc),i'm just gonna enable ddl on my x-fi.Blow me creative.



if you get that working let me know. i have a few friends with X-fi cards who tried, and failed to get it to work. (wrong drivers, i beleive)


----------



## jydie (Jun 9, 2008)

First off, I get really mad when a company fails to release driver updates for some of their older products. 

Creative are fools... ATI has not been supporting some of the newer video cards that come out for AGP, but thanks to the Omega drivers these cards work fine with the new drivers.  If ATI/AMD forced Omega to stop releasing these drivers then a LOT of people would be angry and ATI would suffer with less sales.  If anything, ATI should thank him for helping them out.  Creative should be thankinig Daniel K, not threatening him.

I do not own any creative sound cards.  I do not desire much from audio since my PC has a simple 2 speaker setup, so I just use onboard sound.  But, if I ever buy a sound card it will NOT be one from Creative.  For the price you pay, they should support their products for a long time by releasing updated drivers.  I am glad they got caught in a lie... they deserve to have their name tarnished for that!!!  :shadedshu


----------



## eidairaman1 (Jun 9, 2008)

BS dude, you dont look hard enough

http://support.ati.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=894&task=knowledge&questionID=31542

Also most games ive played Omega Drivers tend to screw them up, thats the risk you take onto your own, reason The big companies dont support the Creators is because they dont want to be answering questions when the person that created the drivers is the one that is supposed to know. 



jydie said:


> First off, I get really mad when a company fails to release driver updates for some of their older products.
> 
> Creative are fools... ATI has not been supporting some of the newer video cards that come out for AGP, but thanks to the Omega drivers these cards work fine with the new drivers.  If ATI/AMD forced Omega to stop releasing these drivers then a LOT of people would be angry and ATI would suffer with less sales.  If anything, ATI should thank him for helping them out.  Creative should be thankinig Daniel K, not threatening him.
> 
> I do not own any creative sound cards.  I do not desire much from audio since my PC has a simple 2 speaker setup, so I just use onboard sound.  But, if I ever buy a sound card it will NOT be one from Creative.  For the price you pay, they should support their products for a long time by releasing updated drivers.  I am glad they got caught in a lie... they deserve to have their name tarnished for that!!!  :shadedshu


----------



## eidairaman1 (Jun 9, 2008)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_room_design

read that to get a good definition of how ReactOS was created.



ghost101 said:


> http://www.reactos.org/en/index.html
> 
> They say here that this is a "ground up implementation". Like I said before, if Daniel wants to build drivers from scratch, he should. But these are modified drivers.
> 
> ...


----------



## ghost101 (Jun 9, 2008)

eidairaman1 said:


> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_room_design
> 
> read that to get a good definition of how ReactOS was created.



Interesting read. So if Daniel can prove that he used Clean Room Design, Creative cant do anything. But obviously he didnt and so my point stands. Clean Room Desing seems to be consistent with what React OS called "ground-up implementation" anyway.


----------



## allen337 (Jun 9, 2008)

Dont really matter what way he came about fixing all of creatives problems with xp-vista, what matter is creative is using their drivers to criple your $200 card so it doesnt work in vista so you(the customer) will buy a new card, even though the 2 month old $200 card says VISTA READY on the box. Cats out of the bag, no excuse for it.


----------



## kenkickr (Jun 9, 2008)

imperialreign said:


> just my $.02
> 
> 
> for starters, we can't compare ATI or nVidia's or any other comapny allowing users to get away with "cracking" their hardware to Creative.  As stated before, the technologies are Creative's property, and it's their call what's allowable, and what's not - doesn't matter if it's 3rd party drivers or not.  It makes no difference if other companies allow users to unlock features - that's their call.  And if enabled features allow access to things that are supposed to be disabled due to any legal agreements between Creative and other companys.
> ...



This is the most sophisticated post I have seen in this post.  I used my Audigy 2ZS for about 5 years and only upgraded cause my card and Vista had issues, which are now fixed due to daniel_k.  Wonderful drivers and if you haven't tried them check this site out.  http://nomoregoatsoup.wordpress.com/x-fi-drivers/


----------



## donmarkoni (Jun 9, 2008)

This is unbelieveable! Creative WILL loose so much customers and money because of this.
Anyone remember NVIDIA and unlocking shaders? They are smart company! People unlocked shaders and loved NVIDIA cards for that! NV didn't sued RivaTuner's author. They changed their way of disabling shaders and no one complained, everyone were satisfied with what they had before, even if they couldn't have it with newer GPUs.
I won't discuss who is right and who is not, because there is allmost nothing else to say, but i'll have to say that, as a proffesional overclocker and amatuer modder, i'm 100% by daniel_k's side!
Stupid move, creative, stupid...


----------



## HousERaT (Jun 9, 2008)

My last sound card was a Creative.  It will be my last Creative sound card.  They're officially on my BOYCOTT list.


----------



## imperialreign (Jun 9, 2008)

seeing as how this thread has brought a lot of users out of the woodworks -

I just have one question for everyone that has decided that this incident is the last straw . . . what if, per chance, this little message to dan_k from "Creative" does turn out to be a hoax?

I'm only mentioning based on the fact that over the last couple of months, since the first incident with the dan_k drivers hit the i-net, Creative seems to have been making changes here and there back in the right direction . . . considering the fallout of the last incident, there's a good possiblity they might be trying to clean up their PR - for how long they'll stick with it is questionable - but what if they are trying to turn around and that message was just a hoax?


----------



## allen337 (Jun 9, 2008)

If it was a hoax you bet your ass someone over at the creative forums would say so after all this bad pr. Ive been on 5 different forums and all are done with creative, think they would clear the air if its a hoax.  ALLEN


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## imperialreign (Jun 9, 2008)

I'd hope so . . . but considering how long it took them to respond to the user outcry after the initial incident a couple of months ago . . . :shadedshu

Perhaps this incident will prove if their PR department has actually learned anything


----------



## DaMulta (Jun 9, 2008)

Big Fing LOL, took a little while for them to go look into the email they sent......Their forum board must work on the same time table as their driver team....

daniel_k 


> 04-03-2008 06:39 AM
> 
> I've received another cease and desist e-mail.
> 
> ...





 KokChoy-CL 
Administrator

06-08-2008 06:25 PM 


> I have noted the issue, please allow us time to verify the legitimacy of that email.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


----------



## imperialreign (Jun 9, 2008)

DaMulta said:


> Big Fing LOL, took a little while for them to go look into the email they sent......*Their forum board must work on the same time table as their driver team*....




that comment right there cracked me up man! 

nice!


----------



## thequestor (Jun 10, 2008)

*oh poor old Creative, everybody keep bagging on them *

[Function Rant()]
After years of taking Creative's excuses, and total lack of caring for the consumer of thier products, I could care less if this is a hoax or not. I honestly don't care that this Daniel_K person has a run in with them. I don't use 3rd party modded drivers anyway. 

What has been MY last straw is thier lack of support for a card that is NOT EOL. And the final showing of thier true colors.

try to fire up the X-FI in Linux some time. Try firing up CrossfireX in Vista and listen to the noise that comes out of the card.

Until this card is replaced by the rumored X-Fi 2 it is STILL thier flagship card [X-FI Elite Pro] and yet there has only been 4 updates to the drivers the entire time I have owned it. Yah it has been well over 2 years now but still, do they expect people to buy a new sound card every 6 months like ATI or nVidia does?. Except that when ATI or nVidia release a new card it normally SMOKES the cards before AND they release drivers every month that actually GIVE improvements in Speed and Functionality, but not Creative. In XP it is just NOW stable and usable, and it still FREAKS in Vista from time to time. The Beta drivers for Vista were as bad as any driver I have ever had the misfortune to use. So bad where they, that I refused to use Vista after the Beta was over. Driver release 1 was only mildly better, still was bad enough to keep me in XP. This newer driver released last month "works" and things like CMSS-3D finally work [pretty much] and I am finally able to ditch XP and run Vista full time, but funny thing is, Vista has been out over a year and a half now and they are JUST NOW usable. If ATI or nVidia had tried that, wow the yells would be heard around the world. Stocks would dive and heads would roll. But not creative. To them it is just business as usual.

I still can't get decent 5.1 playing DVD's. I still can't get ANY sound in Linux. And don't start me ranting on how bad the mic jack works. I had to enable the onboard sound just to use my mic in Team Fortress 2. 

They are constantly complaining that people are complaining in thier newsgroups er forums, what ever. And this hasn't changed 1 bit in the last 8 years. They don't learn from thier mistakes, they blame others and wonder why everyone is so irked with them.

The real problem is thier hardware oh so rocks and thier software oh so sucks. But until recently there hasn't been anywhere else to go. Oh sure you could get a Fortissimo 1 2 or 3 or a cmedia based unit which again until recently sucked worse. Maybe Asus will finally teach that old dog a new trick and they start listening to the very people they are trying to get money out of.

[End Function]



imperialreign said:


> seeing as how this thread has brought a lot of users out of the woodworks -
> 
> I just have one question for everyone that has decided that this incident is the last straw . . . what if, per chance, this little message to dan_k from "Creative" does turn out to be a hoax?


----------



## Specsaver (Jun 10, 2008)

eidairaman1 said:


> Alright Can we get back on Track



The e-mail was fake. 

http://forums.creative.com/creative...iew=by_date_ascending&message.id=33034#M33034

This is not a first fake e-mail in that, I dare say, campaign against Creative.
Slowly I am more and more inclined to think the whole thing has been staged by someone who simply want to take Creative spot in the market place. (Any guess?)
All these new posters steaming with rage... incredible 
I mean they lack credibility. Entirely.


----------



## Mussels (Jun 10, 2008)

Specsaver said:


> All these new posters steaming with rage... incredible
> I mean they lack credibility. Entirely.



lots of people are pissed at creative. I bought my audigy 4 before the X-fi line was even released, for $200... and there hasnt been an official driver update since then. go check their website and see how old those drivers say they are - when you install them, they're often months, or even years older when you check the driver properties in device manager.

People get very mad when they are forced to throw money away.


----------



## Solaris17 (Jun 10, 2008)

KainXS said:


> I agree, creative has recently been screwing their customers to no end with fake X-Fi cards and such, I will miss Daniel, I'm suprised creative wanted to stop him for correcting their own mistakes and limitations they placed in their cards on purpose.



you still game kain?


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## Specsaver (Jun 10, 2008)

Mussels said:


> lots of people are pissed at creative. I bought my audigy 4 before the X-fi line was even released, for $200... and there hasnt been an official driver update since then. go check their website and see how old those drivers say they are - when you install them, they're often months, or even years older when you check the driver properties in device manager.



X-Fi was released in 2005. Since than
Audigy 4 got driver updates on:
9 Oct 06 (full release)
16 Mar 07 (full release)
2 Jun 08 (beta)

You can download your drivers from here

http://support.creative.com/Product...CatName=Audigy&prodID=14103&prodName=Audigy+4

I have recently popped my old Audigy 1 card into Vista machine and it works fine even though I did not expect a 7 year old product to receive any support. But it does.

The whole thing was a hoax staged on purpose to further damage Creative. 
Talk about business conduct...


----------



## Mussels (Jun 10, 2008)

Specsaver said:


> X-Fi was released in 2005. Since than
> Audigy 4 got driver updates on:
> 9 Oct 06 (full release)
> 16 Mar 07 (full release)
> ...



so tel me: where is my dolby digital and DTS decoding for movies. Where are my applications - where is my software. All i have for my audigy, without daniels drivers is a basic driver for 5.1 audio. NONE of the 'features' work.


----------



## Specsaver (Jun 10, 2008)

Mussels said:


> so tel me: where is my dolby digital and DTS decoding for movies. Where are my applications - where is my software. All i have for my audigy, without daniels drivers is a basic driver for 5.1 audio. NONE of the 'features' work.



I understand that some features that were there under XP do not work under Vista. Surprised? Disappointed? Do you expect Creative to code new drivers for Vista for products that they were selling 5 years ago? Í am realistic and I don't. 
Still - they did come up with vista drivers for Audigy cards as shown above. 

Btw. I am pretty sure Dolby decoding has been added back in the latest beta driver. Did you install it? 

My point was - this whole issue (fake e-mail to Daniel_K) has been staged in order to damage Creative so that _another brand_ can take advantage. 
Call it viral marketing, I call it being an a55hole. 

We'll be back after a short break, now anyone please feel free to spam these boards with 
_"Creative sucks"_,  _"Asus has a sexy card there"_ _"OMG Xonar rocks!!!"_ _"Creative drivers messed up my washing machine."_ or similar lines according to your scripts or whatever you feel there, deeply in your heart.


----------



## Mussels (Jun 10, 2008)

Specsaver said:


> I understand that some features that were there under XP do not work under Vista. Surprised? Disappointed? Do you expect Creative to code new drivers for Vista for products that they were selling 5 years ago? Í am realistic and I don't.
> Still - they did come up with vista drivers for Audigy cards as shown above.
> 
> Btw. I am pretty sure Dolby decoding has been added back in the latest beta driver. Did you install it?
> ...



No i dont have the latest beta. the latest beta still doesnt come close to what daniel K has restored. They only made them AFTER he proved it was possible! until now, their official response was that it was 'impossible' cant be done' 'buy an x-fi'
 my audigy 4 is not 5 years old, and can still be bought today.

How would YOU be reacting, if ATI and Nvidia said 'oh DX9 cards cant work with DX10, so you cant use DX9 cards in vista. cant be done'

The point is that they deliberately! crippled the drivers so that you would buy a new card. the only reason ANYTHING was changed, is because of the work daniel_k did.


----------



## Specsaver (Jun 10, 2008)

the fact that DX10 is not backwards compatible with DX9 and does not allow hardware acceleration is certainly not Creative's fault. You bought your card when XP was the OS  of choice and the card was meant to work in that OS.

Vista came along, Creative released both Vista drivers and ALchemy that bypasses Vista audio stack so that DX9 games work in Vista. Basically this treats problems introduced directly by Microsoft in order to break backwards compatibility, so that you would have to go and buy new hardware with Vista logo on the box. With ALchemy you actualy do not have to. You can still use Audigy under both XP and Vista. You are not willing to try new driver but you know it is worth nothing? Oh well. I guess I am wasting my time on you here, right?

Nonetheless the very first cause that has started this thread has been announced to be fake. 
Please consider this and think why would anyone send fake e-mails like that?

_"If you dont know what this all is about it must be about money"_ my grand dad used to say and he was dead right.


----------



## DaMulta (Jun 10, 2008)

> buy new hardware with Vista logo



LOL creative put those stickers on the box and didn't even put the broken driver in there hahaha.

Fuckers wanted you to download it, and they don't even let you download the WHOLE THING.


----------



## Wile E (Jun 10, 2008)

Specsaver said:


> the fact that DX10 is not backwards compatible with DX9 and does not allow hardware acceleration is certainly not Creative's fault. You bought your card when XP was the OS  of choice and the card was meant to work in that OS.


 He wasn't blaming Creative, he was giving an analogy. Re-read his post.



Specsaver said:


> Vista came along, Creative released both Vista drivers and ALchemy that bypasses Vista audio stack so that DX9 games work in Vista. Basically this treats problems introduced directly by Microsoft in order to break backwards compatibility, so that you would have to go and buy new hardware with Vista logo on the box. With ALchemy you actualy do not have to. You can still use Audigy under both XP and Vista.


 Alchemy does not bypass the Windows audio stack. It's a software emulator. It captures EAX calls, and translates them to somethimg the audio api of Vista can understand.

And I'm with Mussels. Creative's driver support is terrible. And they do it on purpose. It's called planned obsolescence. When Vista released, the Audigy4 cards (and even some Audigy2) were NOT EOL. They should have fully featured, fully working drivers that give all the same features as they do in XP. 

Granted, the email may be fake, but Creative currently deserves all the flack they get, considering how terrible their support is.


----------



## imperialreign (Jun 10, 2008)

Wile E said:


> Alchemy does not bypass the Windows audio stack. It's a software emulator. It captures EAX calls, and translates them to somethimg the audio api of Vista can understand.



partly right, you need the OpenAL API installed for ALchemy to work, it can't translate to WASAPI or any of the other WIN audio APIs used with Vista.

Which really sucks ass, seeing as how integrated hardware (like onboard audio) is 100% functional in Vista, 5.1/7.1 stereo, no downmixing, proper playback levels - it's all due to how Vista's audio stack is written, and it's not friendly towards any expansion card.



> And I'm with Mussels. Creative's driver support is terrible. And they do it on purpose. It's called planned obsolescence. When Vista released, the Audigy4 cards (and even some Audigy2) were NOT EOL. They should have fully featured, fully working drivers that give all the same features as they do in XP.
> 
> Granted, the email may be fake, but Creative currently deserves all the flack they get, considering how terrible their support is.




I agree here too, that Creative needs flak over the driver support - personally, I think it's BS that we have to wait a year for an official driver release.  At least go to bi-annual or quarterly releases.

But, seeing as how this last message to dan_k was indeed fake, I think everyone using _that_, and the fact that dan dropped further work because of it, as an excuse to get pissed off over the whole situation is ridiculous.

I'm fence-posting this one.  On the one hand, Creative really need to improve their driver support and releases; on the other hand, dan has done a lot of work for improving the drivers, and giving people functionality that was never supposed to be there in the first place(i.e. Crystallizer with Audigy cards).

It's sad that another person and/or company would send fake emails and risk damaging what driver support the user community has in the first place, 3rd party or not; and even more so after only a month or two ago Creative had said they'd be happy for him to continue his work, and gave him full release to continue work with the Audigy series cards (the Audigy drivers were never what caused the issue in the first place).

But, I guess people get on their crusades and can't see the forest for the trees; as the church can teach you, martyrs are more effective at proving a point than saints.


----------



## Darkrealms (Jun 10, 2008)

Its a pity the email was even sent in the first place.  I'll agree the time was superb for competitors.  At the same time Creative was crippling the hands that were saving their business.  Nvidia has been criticized for its lack of cooperation with Omega drivers where ATI and Omega drivers are known hand in hand.  There's a lot more that could be said (I'm trying not to rant).  Sadly I believe Daniel_K probably still would have left it would have just taken more time and more fighting with Creative.

As far as sound cards outlasting other components I have to argue there are others in the market that last as long.  Non gamers/pro's can use a PCI graphics card for as long and I still use PCI 100m Network cards that are as old.  Its really only the high end community that changes so frequently.  

*If a company inhibits what is on the box of the product then THEY are wrong.  That is what was purchased.  If a product is not EOL it should be expected to perform as well as the box claims.  I will let everyone decide for themselves if creative has done any of this.  I have my opinions.*

My last creative card was bought back in 03? I believe.  I was never able to get it fully functional although after some tweaking I did get it working fairly well.


----------



## Deleted member 24505 (Jun 11, 2008)

Just thought i'd say,i've just installed the beta drivers and beta console launcher for x-fi vista and the decoder page is back.

This is the audio console with decoder page-







And this is the entertainment thingie,note the dolby symbols are back-







I'm using a coaxial digital to my sony amp and it works fine.


----------



## Mussels (Jun 11, 2008)

tigger69 said:


> Just thought i'd say,i've just installed the beta drivers and beta console launcher for x-fi vista and the decoder page is back.
> 
> This is the audio console with decoder page-
> 
> ...



you have software. audigys dont GET software in vista.


----------



## MrHydes (Jun 11, 2008)

tigger69 said:


> Just thought i'd say,i've just installed the beta drivers and beta console launcher for x-fi vista and the decoder page is back.
> 
> This is the audio console with decoder page-
> 
> ...



i've disable in services some X-fi start up's and  DTS dissapeared

and i've enabled it and it wont appear any more...


----------



## imperialreign (Jun 11, 2008)

MrHydes said:


> i've disable in services some X-fi start up's and  DTS dissapeared
> 
> and i've enabled it and it wont appear any more...



it's either CTHELPER or CTXFIHLP that's associated with "dissappearing" functions, although I can't remember which service it is specifically (I think CTHELPER).

Usually, doing a clean install of the drivers will clear up issues.


----------



## MrHydes (Jun 11, 2008)

imperialreign said:


> it's either CTHELPER or CTXFIHLP that's associated with "dissappearing" functions, although I can't remember which service it is specifically (I think CTHELPER).
> 
> Usually, doing a clean install of the drivers will clear up issues.



your right it's CTHELPER or CTXFIHLP voilá... 

thanks


----------



## Deleted member 24505 (Jun 11, 2008)

Mussels said:


> you have software. audigys dont GET software in vista.



Its a X-fi bud,not a audigy.


----------



## Mussels (Jun 11, 2008)

tigger69 said:


> Its a X-fi bud,not a audigy.



you missed the point tigger, people were saying those features were back for audigy users. the software isnt.


----------



## Deleted member 24505 (Jun 11, 2008)

Sorry :S

So theres no audio console or the other thing on audigy on vista?

The reason i posted it was because i thought creative had disabled the decoder page for vista,what with all the furore over daniel k re enabling it,i thought x-fi owners mite be interested to know they have re-enabled it in the driver/software.


----------



## Mussels (Jun 11, 2008)

tigger69 said:


> Sorry :S
> 
> So theres no audio console or the other thing on audigy on vista?
> 
> The reason i posted it was because i thought creative had disabled the decoder page for vista,what with all the furore over daniel k re enabling it,i thought x-fi owners mite be interested to know they have re-enabled it in the driver/software.



we get the little vista default volume slider. thats it. The beta may have added  the audio console back in, but only after daniel K beat them to it.


----------



## Deleted member 24505 (Jun 11, 2008)

It seems to me creative have only added ddl/decoder page back in to appease the creative users who have discovered ddl works fine but they just disabled it to force people to buy a new card.

Is it true the new creative titanium pci-e cards fully support the "new" audio system in vista,without the need for alchemy?


----------



## Mussels (Jun 11, 2008)

tigger69 said:


> It seems to me creative have only added ddl/decoder page back in to appease the creative users who have discovered ddl works fine but they just disabled it to force people to buy a new card.
> 
> Is it true the new creative titanium pci-e cards fully support the "new" audio system in vista,without the need for alchemy?



The audio system in vista, will ALWAYS need alchemy for EAX. its software.... so every card supports the new system. alchemy is needed to get creatives OLD system working.


----------



## Deleted member 24505 (Jun 11, 2008)

This is what i was refering to-

UAA (Universal Audio Architecture) design ensures maximum compatibility in Windows Vista

from here-
http://uk.europe.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=209&subcategory=669&product=17791

The x-fi does'nt use this "UAA design" does it? or is that just a gimmick or ruse from creative regarding the titanium with uaa design.


----------



## Mussels (Jun 11, 2008)

tigger69 said:


> This is what i was refering to-
> 
> UAA (Universal Audio Architecture) design ensures maximum compatibility in Windows Vista
> 
> ...



gimmick. its software! the vista sound stack is purely software with no hardware acceleration, so its definately a gimmick.


----------



## imperialreign (Jun 11, 2008)

tigger69 said:


> It seems to me creative have only added ddl/decoder page back in to appease the creative users who have discovered ddl works fine but they just disabled it to force people to buy a new card.
> 
> Is it true the new creative titanium pci-e cards fully support the "new" audio system in vista,without the need for alchemy?



the Titaniums only bring dolby encoding to the table, and better playback quality - that's it.  There's been no change to the hardware at all, really (maybe a better DAC or OPAMPs, but doubtful).


as to the UAA thing - it's marketing gimmick . . . that's all it is is a marketing spin on the use of OpenAL (which the card supports, and is included with the driver set).  OpenAL is technically "universal" as it's not proprietary (meaning any audio card can use it if supported), and all OSes can support OpenAL, so, in theory, no matter what OS you run, you can run that card.

the only way the card could have OS level hardware acceleration, was if it was integrated at the motherboard level, and could be directly accessed by WASAPI - but, seeing as how the card would exists on a PCIE BUS, that can't happen.  Big reason why there have been no headaches with any software on systems running onboard audio.


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