Sunday, June 8th 2008

Creative Software Modder Daniel_K Gone for Good

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 KawakamiI'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.
Source: Creative Forums
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126 Comments on Creative Software Modder Daniel_K Gone for Good

#26
imperialreign
allen337Biggest 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 HadesThe 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.
Posted on Reply
#27
iluvtrees2
ghost101I 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
Posted on Reply
#28
oli_ramsay
Unfortunate for this "creative" genious genuis" . lolololol im fukkkked
Posted on Reply
#29
newconroer
KainXSI 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.
Posted on Reply
#30
KainXS
newconroerMiss 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.
Posted on Reply
#32
ghost101
iluvtrees2I 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.
Posted on Reply
#34
imperialreign
ghost101Lol. 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.
Posted on Reply
#35
oli_ramsay
My ballbag is is elasticated. Any1 go to strawbryyy fair????????????
Posted on Reply
#36
Sapientwolf
Devilsclarinetor HTOmega
Yeah, just about any card with a C-media Oxygen HD chip will do it.
Posted on Reply
#37
ghost101
oli_ramsayMy 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?
Posted on Reply
#38
Black Hades
imperialreign[...]
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?
Posted on Reply
#39
FreedomEclipse
~Technological Technocrat~
ghost101Lol. 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!
Posted on Reply
#40
allen337
imperialreignagreed - 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.
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.
Posted on Reply
#41
imperialreign
Black HadesAccording 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.

QUOTE]

don't you mean Dolby encoding?

I've never had an issue with decoding not working in XP, and the issues of decoding not working in Vista seems to be user-related (meaning not everyone across the board). Besides, the decoding thing with Vista - the ability was there early on, then it wasn't, and then decoding capability is back again as of the newest driver release - why support was temporarily removed in the Vista drivers is beyond me, there might've been compatibility issues; or, something surrounding the just announced X-Fi Titaniums (whice are the first X-Fi cards to have supported Dolby encoding capabilities).

Dolby encoding features have never been supported by the cards, and were never an advertised point - although the cards have been capable of Dolby encoding for the longest time (as the daniel_k drivers have proven possible). I'm not sure, but I think the issue with the encoding liscenses must have involved some kind of contract between Creative, Dolby and Auzentech (as the Auzen X-Fi Prelude has had Dolby encoding capability since day one as well). If this is the case, we'll probably never know.
@imperialreign
Is it stealing to get "the same damn thing" working in Vista too?[/
so - you mean to tell me that features that worked flawlessly in XP should work flawlessly in Vista? Thos are two completely different OSes. If that's your argument, then Creative should be at fault for EAX not working correctly in Vista, CMSS-3D not working correctly in Vista, lack of direct hardware acceleration in Vista, stereo down-mixing in Vista, 5.1 to 2-channel reduction in Vista . . . and countless other issues, right?

Wrong, blame that on the OS and the OSes maker - Microsoft. Creative can't be held accountable if all the features that worked in XP don't work in Vista if the OS doesn't directly support it or won't permit it. Creative has been making a non-stop attempt at getting all these features working correctly in Vista, and a lot of the time it's a hit or miss situation . . . which is why we've been seeing a lot of Vista beta drivers over the last year.


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.

In this case, the Vista ready images should never have been there, or the product packaging should have been updated. I'll definitely give you the fact that Creative screwed up over their product packaging.
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?
I drew the line over that as well - personally I thought that was rather low in itself, and uncalled for . . . that's why for the longest time I had been willing to direct users to the "free" ALchemy for Audigy software downloads instead of seeing people have to pay $10 for it.
allen337They 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.
and who'll take my sig? what a pointless comment, and pointless post . . . really.

So, should Creative lose all their money and go under - you mean to say that you won't bitch a single line when you start paying inflated prices for other audio cards, and you're not going to bitch when they start trying to corner the market, and you won't bitch when they bring they start trying to find ways to "force" users to newer hardware? Get real.

You mean you can tell me for certain that no other company in the tech industry follows similar business practices as Creative? That's a riot.

Most users had to upgrade most of their hardware to run Vista as well - but Creative is the only company that has taken flak for it. It's too demanding of an OS on older hardware, and there are still countless hardware drivers for new products that don't work right with Vista, as well as 3rd party software as well. But everyone only remembers one specific company.

Go take you arguments up with M$ if that's the case. But, oh yeah, it'll fall on deaf ears. Vista is so demanding of an OS that they're continuing to extend XP support until after the release of WIN 7 . . . what a great improvement Vista has been, huh?


:shadedshu
Posted on Reply
#42
Black Hades
imperialreignBut, 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.
Posted on Reply
#43
Scrizz
Vista runs fine on my P4 2.5GHz 2GB DDR 9800xt.....
Posted on Reply
#44
Black Hades
ScrizzVista runs fine on my P4 2.5GHz 2GB DDR 9800xt.....
:toast:+1 but highly off topic mate!:laugh:
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.
Posted on Reply
#45
imperialreign
Black HadesAnd 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.
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.
allen337imperialreign 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 :toast:
Posted on Reply
#46
Black Hades
imperialreign[...]
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.
Posted on Reply
#47
Urbklr
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.
Posted on Reply
#48
Wile E
Power User
imperialreign
Black HadesAccording 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.

QUOTE]

don't you mean Dolby encoding?

I've never had an issue with decoding not working in XP, and the issues of decoding not working in Vista seems to be user-related (meaning not everyone across the board). Besides, the decoding thing with Vista - the ability was there early on, then it wasn't, and then decoding capability is back again as of the newest driver release - why support was temporarily removed in the Vista drivers is beyond me, there might've been compatibility issues; or, something surrounding the just announced X-Fi Titaniums (whice are the first X-Fi cards to have supported Dolby encoding capabilities).

Dolby encoding features have never been supported by the cards, and were never an advertised point - although the cards have been capable of Dolby encoding for the longest time (as the daniel_k drivers have proven possible). I'm not sure, but I think the issue with the encoding liscenses must have involved some kind of contract between Creative, Dolby and Auzentech (as the Auzen X-Fi Prelude has had Dolby encoding capability since day one as well). If this is the case, we'll probably never know.



so - you mean to tell me that features that worked flawlessly in XP should work flawlessly in Vista? Thos are two completely different OSes. If that's your argument, then Creative should be at fault for EAX not working correctly in Vista, CMSS-3D not working correctly in Vista, lack of direct hardware acceleration in Vista, stereo down-mixing in Vista, 5.1 to 2-channel reduction in Vista . . . and countless other issues, right?

Wrong, blame that on the OS and the OSes maker - Microsoft. Creative can't be held accountable if all the features that worked in XP don't work in Vista if the OS doesn't directly support it or won't permit it. Creative has been making a non-stop attempt at getting all these features working correctly in Vista, and a lot of the time it's a hit or miss situation . . . which is why we've been seeing a lot of Vista beta drivers over the last year.


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.

In this case, the Vista ready images should never have been there, or the product packaging should have been updated. I'll definitely give you the fact that Creative screwed up over their product packaging.




I drew the line over that as well - personally I thought that was rather low in itself, and uncalled for . . . that's why for the longest time I had been willing to direct users to the "free" ALchemy for Audigy software downloads instead of seeing people have to pay $10 for it.





and who'll take my sig? what a pointless comment, and pointless post . . . really.

So, should Creative lose all their money and go under - you mean to say that you won't bitch a single line when you start paying inflated prices for other audio cards, and you're not going to bitch when they start trying to corner the market, and you won't bitch when they bring they start trying to find ways to "force" users to newer hardware? Get real.

You mean you can tell me for certain that no other company in the tech industry follows similar business practices as Creative? That's a riot.

Most users had to upgrade most of their hardware to run Vista as well - but Creative is the only company that has taken flak for it. It's too demanding of an OS on older hardware, and there are still countless hardware drivers for new products that don't work right with Vista, as well as 3rd party software as well. But everyone only remembers one specific company.

Go take you arguments up with M$ if that's the case. But, oh yeah, it'll fall on deaf ears. Vista is so demanding of an OS that they're continuing to extend XP support until after the release of WIN 7 . . . what a great improvement Vista has been, huh?


:shadedshu
I'm sorry imperial, I have to almost fully disagree with you here. D_K got all of the features mentioned above to work in Vista, minus true hardware acceleration. This isn't Vista's fault, it's Creative's. If he can get it to work, so can they. They just don't want to. And considering the X-Fi line is not EOL, there is absolutely no excuse for it.

As for IP rights, yes, D_K should not enable features that aren't advertised for the products. Like the previously mentioned Dolby encoding. But they should leave him the hell alone on any of the other aspects, or else just do it themselves.
Posted on Reply
#49
Polaris573
Senior Moderator
Everyone please remember to keep all posts civil when you disagree with someone. Flaming and/or name calling is not tolerated.
Posted on Reply
#50
imperialreign
Wile E
imperialreignI'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.
fixed :toast:

most of the features worked from the start (except Dolby encoding), but not for all users. Not really sure why, as it was driver related, but:
If he can get it to work, so can they. They just don't want to. And considering the X-Fi line is not EOL, there is absolutely no excuse for it.

As for IP rights, yes, D_K should not enable features that aren't advertised for the products. Like the previously mentioned Dolby encoding. But they should leave him the hell alone on any of the other aspects, or else just do it themselves.
100% agree. The Bush administration seems to be able to accomplish more than Creative's driver team . . . which is sad. The whole lot of them needs to be bumped and replaced.

Although, I still think this most current issue here is a fake message being taken out of context by everyone - I don't think Creative should do anything to jepordize the work the he's done with their drivers so far. Hell, Creative had even released a statement a while back where they had alluded to being happy with what he has done for the community . . .

IDK, this issue now just seems a little odd, IMO.
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