Creative: ASUS Misleading Customers on EAX Drivers

[Mussels]

personally i think theres been BS from every side of this argument. Its amount is varying, but jesus people - just because you're pro/anti creative doesnt mean you can agree with SOME of the oppositions comments.

Pro creative people who say their drivers are great, are seriously smoking crack.

Creative DO have great sounding hardware, and in years gone by their performance and quality was quite a cut above the other generic crap at the time - but that time has passed and other alternatives WITHOUT the driver issues are on the market.

I own a creative card, the audigy 4. i am pissed over alchemy, i am pissed over needing to mod x-fi drivers to get updated software, and i really, really hate their tech support. I still use the card however, because it sounds better than my onboard audio when paired with headphones - its somewhat hard to take speakers to a LAN.

 

[beyond_amusia]

Creatives own cards struggle with EAX to say the least... Even when it says EAX on the box.

 

[BumbRush]

If you consider youself an IT tech - or whatever - than it's your job to configure someone's system for them to be happy with it. Saying that you won't deal with drivers because it would take you 4 hours to get them working means that you have some very shoddy work ethics and practices, IMO. you'd rather screw your customers by having them buy something else becuase you don't want to actually work? That's crooked, IMO.

And if it took you 4hrs per system (which is how you make it out to sound), I'd have to say that's incompetent in itself. Not EVERY system has issues with audio cards, of any sort.

As to your question about when a Live! would still pop being the only device on the BUS - I'd have to know more about what kind of setup it was. If it's in a more modern setup, it could be a number of things. On older hardware, it could've been a number of things as well - even down to poor IRQ setup. Creative's cards have always been a bit BUS hungry, but they've also performed faster than any competing hardware as well. Whenever they release a new lineup, their cards further push what hardware and software voices are capable of being processed, surpassing that of all competition that is currently out. But back in the days when the live was released, you couldn't have only one device on a PCI BUS - not if you actually wanted to run a monitor.

bta hasn't been the only other one to call your BS. I was mentioning that to point out that we find your arguements flawed, and that you continue to provide flawed arguments. Resorting to insulting other members in such a fashion is quite low as well.

the sblive problems are a KNOWN ISSUE even creative has admited to them, tho they blame chipsets and other devices its the same problem the x-fi had on nforce4 chipsets, creative didnt follow proper pci specs, and since they didnt, you endup with a picky card that only works when it likes the system its in.

and i refuse to spend 4hrs of the costmers payed time fixing something that SHOULD JUST WORK, and in 8/10 cases x-fi cards have issues in systems im asked to fix/reinstall, u know how many xtream music card systmes i had brought in because of teh 100% cpu use bugg? probbly 150-200, all due to the drivers being bugged, sure there4 where hax to get around the problem, but they didnt work the same on every system, and in the end it was cheaper for the costmer to just get a diffrent HIGHER QUILITY card.

see lets add it up, the shop charges the client 45/hour for work, at 4hrs thats 180bucks+tax, then compare that to selling them a 80-120$ card and giving them 1/2 off, thats 40-60bucks out of the costmers pocket, better value and less problems.......so its a win for everybody but creative, then the owner went and put the creative cards on ebay for 20-30bucks each(less then 1/3 their value even used) and made back some of what we lost selling them the card at such a disscount.

also makes fixing the system the next time the user comes in faster since we dont have to worrie that its the creative driver causing their problems.

 

[btarunr]

ALchemy is not a driver. I have so far not met with any issues with the drivers so I'll let it pass though I agree when someone says they have a bad software RnD.

 

[imperialreign]

I've never stated t be Pro-Creative here, I'm just tired of the Creative bashing I see everywhere on the internet. No other company has taken as much flak as they have, even those palgued with the same amount of issues in Vista.

If you don't like the product, exchange it and be done with it.

For the vast majority of Creative users, though, there hasn't been any issues.

 

[Mussels]

all i want is for the pro creative people, to understand some people ARE having serious issues and creatives excuses dont cut it. The example about the Nforce 4 is perfect, as creative cut corners to make the cards work better and it had severe negative effects on some users - nothing was done, as it worked fine on the majority of systems (intel chipsets for example) so creative blamed Nvidia and said it wasnt their problem to fix.

 

[BumbRush]

oh you could get a partialy fixed version mussels, if you wanted to pay creative to rma your x-fi so they could send you an updated one that would only crackle 10% as much as the older version(firmware update that couldnt be done to older cards because the firmware update requiered creative cliping onto the eeprom chip and doing the update)

eather way, you had to spend EXTRA $ on a 90-150$ card that SHOULD JUST WORK!!!!!

 

[imperialreign]

all i want is for the pro creative people, to understand some people ARE having serious issues and creatives excuses dont cut it. The example about the Nforce 4 is perfect, as creative cut corners to make the cards work better and it had severe negative effects on some users - nothing was done, as it worked fine on the majority of systems (intel chipsets for example) so creative blamed Nvidia and said it wasnt their problem to fix.

I completely do understand that some people do have issues with the cards - hence my friggin XSS thread!!!

But I'm tired of hearing this crap that EVERYONE that buys a Creative product will have issues. And then the following Creative bashing.

The issue with the X-Fi and the nForce4 is a bit different, though, as it only happend with nVidia cards. The X-Fi's are massive BUS hogs . . . but then again, what dedicated processing unit isn't? nVidia with those boards, had setup the BUS to allow for great bandwidth with their GPUs - and that's where it all started. It wasn't just Creative's design flaw, but also nVidia's design flaw.

Further from that, those early X-Fi cards didn't have a heatsink on the APU, either, and that lead to a lot of problems as the processor and capacitors would start overheating.

Newer revisions don't really have those issues.

 

[BumbRush]

I completely do understand that some people do have issues with the cards - hence my friggin XSS thread!!!

But I'm tired of hearing this crap that EVERYONE that buys a Creative product will have issues. And then the following Creative bashing.

The issue with the X-Fi and the nForce4 is a bit different, though, as it only happend with nVidia cards. The X-Fi's are massive BUS hogs . . . but then again, what dedicated processing unit isn't? nVidia with those boards, had setup the BUS to allow for great bandwidth with their GPUs - and that's where it all started. It wasn't just Creative's design flaw, but also nVidia's design flaw.

Further from that, those early X-Fi cards didn't have a heatsink on the APU, either, and that lead to a lot of problems as the processor and capacitors would start overheating.

Newer revisions don't really have those issues.

ur partialy correct BUT not fully, i have ran into the same problem with ati and even via(s3) videocards where the x-fi crackled baddly, remind you of an OLD skool tube radio, really horrible, had creative tested properly they could have avoided the probem, had they followed pci2.1 specs they wouldnt have had the problem, but they didnt, just as they did the same kinda crap with the sblive, it couldnt share irq's with ANYTHING and even then u had to fck with the pci latancys to fix it, i have one, and i loved my sblive, but i also knew how to fix it, even tho that fix cost me perf in games and apps that uses hardware on the pci buss, really erks me that creative cant put out a bood hardware/software combo..........

i would happly talk nice about creative if they stoped sucking on such large numbers of computers.

nvidias onboard soundstorm rocked, i never had problems getting it working, to bad they didnt move to offer it as a standalone APU that would have been nice.

creative just needs to eather get their act togather or move away from making their own cards and just licence the right to make cards/drivers to other companys, if they did that i would bet companys like auzen would get out decent drivers given enought time.

 

[Mussels]

Imperial: yeah, your XSS thread is a win.
This is becoming a flame war because people are strangely addicted to taking sides. If they like one side, they argue everything the other side says. its a stupid habit that annoys the hell out of me (dont take this as aimed at you, btw)

For every person that is sick of creative getting bashed, is someone sick of being told to stop bashing creative when they have a serious problem. thus the flames begin.

 

[imperialreign]

ur partialy correct BUT not fully, i have ran into the same problem with ati and even via(s3) videocards where the x-fi crackled baddly, remind you of an OLD skool tube radio, really horrible, had creative tested properly they could have avoided the probem, had they followed pci2.1 specs they wouldnt have had the problem, but they didnt, just as they did the same kinda crap with the sblive, it couldnt share irq's with ANYTHING and even then u had to fck with the pci latancys to fix it, i have one, and i loved my sblive, but i also knew how to fix it, even tho that fix cost me perf in games and apps that uses hardware on the pci buss, really erks me that creative cant put out a bood hardware/software combo..........

i would happly talk nice about creative if they stoped sucking on such large numbers of computers.

nvidias onboard soundstorm rocked, i never had problems getting it working, to bad they didnt move to offer it as a standalone APU that would have been nice.

creative just needs to eather get their act togather or move away from making their own cards and just licence the right to make cards/drivers to other companys, if they did that i would bet companys like auzen would get out decent drivers given enought time.

Issue being with WIN detecting IRQs - typically you never have to set the PCI latency of Creative's cards, not unless you're running an ass-load of devices. WIN doesn't play fairly when setting IRQs, as it assumes audio devices can share with other components - which just doesn't work, no matter what kind of audio card you have installed. If WIN treated an audio device like it does other BUS hungry devices, there wouldn't be a problem. Big reason why I recommend to people when doing a clean install of WIN, that you should install your audio device drivers before any other devices. If WIN tries to buddy up the audio device with another piece of hardware and have them share the IRQ, you start running into issues that require you to adjust the PCI latency.

Soundstorm was probably one of the best early onboard soultions, but I still found the chipsets of terrible audio quality when compared to expansion cards. Even current on-board solutions fail in those respects.


Again, I remind everyone that it's not just Creative who've had a lot of issues with audio components over the years, or issues with Vista - I still don't understand why they're the only ones targeted . . . oh, because they have the majority of the market! Just like why everyone complains that WIN isn't as safe as Mac's OS . . . lol, silly me!

:shadedshu

This is becoming a flame war because people are strangely addicted to taking sides. If they like one side, they argue everything the other side says. its a stupid habit that annoys the hell out of me (dont take this as aimed at you, btw)

no, s'all good - I ain't ever had a problem with ya yet, why start now, eh?! I agree this thread has gone down the toilet as well, though.

 

[BumbRush]

Issue being with WIN detecting IRQs - typically you never have to set the PCI latency of Creative's cards, not unless you're running an ass-load of devices. WIN doesn't play fairly when setting IRQs, as it assumes audio devices can share with other components - which just doesn't work, no matter what kind of audio card you have installed. If WIN treated an audio device like it does other BUS hungry devices, there wouldn't be a problem. Big reason why I recommend to people when doing a clean install of WIN, that you should install your audio device drivers before any other devices. If WIN tries to buddy up the audio device with another piece of hardware and have them share the IRQ, you start running into issues that require you to adjust the PCI latency.

Soundstorm was probably one of the best early onboard soultions, but I still found the chipsets of terrible audio quality when compared to expansion cards. Even current on-board solutions fail in those respects.


Again, I remind everyone that it's not just Creative who've had a lot of issues with audio components over the years, or issues with Vista - I still don't understand why they're the only ones targeted . . . oh, because they have the majority of the market! Just like why everyone complains that WIN isn't as safe as Mac's OS . . . lol, silly me!

:shadedshu




no, s'all good - I ain't ever had a problem with ya yet, why start now, eh?! I agree this thread has gone down the toilet as well, though.

wrong, had creative followed PCI SPECS their cards would beable to irq share(its requiered in the specs PERIOD, to not support it=non-pci complyant hardware) and turtle beach and other audio card makers cards would work fine in the same possition as the creative cards sharing the exect same irq's, why is that i wonder....... oh yeah, because THEY FOLLOWED the ISO SPECS!!!!!

and creative gets this much flack because they do NOTHING ABOUT THEIR DRIVERS SUCKING ASSS, then they tell the one person trying to fix them to SHOVER OFF and STOP because they want to sell more shitty x-fi cards that still dont work in vista over a year after its initial relece........

if creative wanted to fix it they could, they could have started from scratch and build new drivers from the ground up by now 5x over if not more, and had it FULLY fixed, but they dont want to they just want to keep selling the same SHIT drivers to everybody, hence people bitch about them the most.

if i spent 150+ on a sound card i would expect proper driver support for many years to come.....and from any body but creative i would get driver updates that acctualy work/fix stuff.........even via......VIA one of the worst names in the industry for driver updates has managed to get their audio chips working on vista!!!!!!

im not trying to flaim creative or anybody else, its just that this situation acctualy effects me, and has driven me mad!!!!!

for the love of god, creative please just hire some compotent driver programers to build your cards some decent drivers!!!!

 

[imperialreign]

wrong, had creative followed PCI SPECS their cards would beable to irq share(its requiered in the specs PERIOD, to not support it=non-pci complyant hardware) and turtle beach and other audio card makers cards would work fine in the same possition as the creative cards sharing the exect same irq's, why is that i wonder....... oh yeah, because THEY FOLLOWED the ISO SPECS!!!!!

and creative gets this much flack because they do NOTHING ABOUT THEIR DRIVERS SUCKING ASSS, then they tell the one person trying to fix them to SHOVER OFF and STOP because they want to sell more shitty x-fi cards that still dont work in vista over a year after its initial relece........

if creative wanted to fix it they could, they could have started from scratch and build new drivers from the ground up by now 5x over if not more, and had it FULLY fixed, but they dont want to they just want to keep selling the same SHIT drivers to everybody, hence people bitch about them the most.

if i spent 150+ on a sound card i would expect proper driver support for many years to come.....and from any body but creative i would get driver updates that acctualy work/fix stuff.........even via......VIA one of the worst names in the industry for driver updates has managed to get their audio chips working on vista!!!!!!

im not trying to flaim creative or anybody else, its just that this situation acctualy effects me, and has driven me mad!!!!!

for the love of god, creative please just hire some compotent driver programers to build your cards some decent drivers!!!!

So, you're saying that because Creative followed ISO specs is what led to so many issues with their mid-age cards? I've never heard of ISO setting a standard of specs for INTEL's PCI design.
I never said, either, that Creative's cards can't share an IRQ - just that they don't like to. Just like many VGA adapters don't like to share an IRQ, either - even operating on PCI-E.
There's other things at work with IRQ settings related to Creative's, as well as other manufacturers hardware as well - and has a lot to do with how WIN handles hardware resources, regardless of what settings are dictated in BIOS: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314068 <-again, why I recommend installing audio hardware drivers before other components.

Part of the problem being, is that WIN does not view an audio device as being resource heavy like it does other components, and therefore usually gets slapped with another device on that IRQ channel.


again, the X-Fi cards DO work in Vista, but some features don't work correctly - and it revolves around the WASAPI and not Creative's drivers. On top of that, other audio card manufacturers are having similar issues as Creative in the Vista arena. Get your facts straight.

 

[3991vhtes]

Asus > Creative

Although I'm using a creative product

 

[imperialreign]

Asus > Creative

Although I'm using a creative product

ASUS makes some damn fine hardware - I really like some of the features of the Xonar cards. ASUS just screwed up with their EAX claims is all.

Damn, 3991! Didn't even notice you were back!

 

[btarunr]

Asus > Creative

Although I'm using a creative product

ASUS is a much larger company, I've always bought their stuff. However if you're talking sound-cards,

Auzentech > ASUS

^Though I use both Creative and Auzen....and ASUS products.

A lot of bad blood is spilt in this thread thanks to irrational arguments by a hate-kate who beleives in flame-baiting without valid arguments/logic and then waits for someone's support and throws a thanksgiving dinner though I admit I was drawn into it. Creative so far hasn't given me any reason to complain though I'm ready to join Muzz when Creative rolls out a successor to the X-Fi series and decides to play foul with X-Fi and its support in future platforms. Yes ALchemy being non-free for Audigy users is a scam but Creative (and not me) has an explaination for it. All of this wouln't have happened if Microsoft didn't decide to scrap DirectSound from the DirectX 10 specs thereby affecting a system component that Creative's products explicitly depend on, because they are hardware accelerated audio and DirectSound is supposed to make an audio application talk directly to audio hardware. ALchemy emulates DirectSound for Vista, makes an app to beleiving it could communicate with the hardware directly, while in reality it merely carries the audio stack through WASAPI and steps up latency...which is why benches proved Game + Vista + ALchemy + Creative hardware to perform worse than Game + XP + Creative hardware.

 

[BumbRush]

ht omega also makes kickass cards now that auzen is sucking creative cock to get/keep getting the x-fi chips they are using.

 

[btarunr]

Claro Plus is a total rip-off for just the sake of an added DAC/OPAMP made by Analog Devices. The vanilla Claro is really nice. My cousin owns it, I liked it.

 

[BumbRush]

i have setup 8 of them for people so far, mix of all their cards, all have been EASY to get working and "just work" no driver tweaking or anything, oh and the sounds steller specly in 8ch mode

 

[Wile E]

C-media


Creative shut down the guy making their drivers work.

http://forums.creative.com/creative...hread.id=116332&view=by_date_ascending&page=1


That was Creative (same guy) trying to point fingers and make them seem the good guys by dumping on Asus. Good job Creative, fucking over the customer again.

C-Media doesn't offload. All work is still handled by the cpu. C-Media chips are just an I/O switch (aka: a codec), not a full fledged DSP.

But I agree with the sentiments about Alchemy for Audigy. Making people pay for it is total BS.