This is why I dont buy Creative

[RavenNight]

what features did he manage to enable?

Yeah, what extras does this give X-Fi users, does it finally re-enable the original X-Fi console that you get in XP?

[jimborae]

What I don't get is why everyone is so surprised about Creative's dodgy business practices and woeful support. Does nobody remember the EEPROM bug?? Basically Creative sound cards committing suicide with certain chipsets. Creative did nothing to fix the problem and wouldn't even recognise that it was fault with their card. They deleted threads about the issue on their support forums and threatened to ban users that raised the issue. (namely me and I heard about others who received the same treatment).

So like others I no longer buy Creative products and advise others against doing so. I will use them as long as I get them for free but no Creative product is worth shelling out hard earned cash for.

[Blitzen]

That's not the way I read what they said.

If cards had the functionality under XP and you don't get it under Vista, but he released drivers that enable it, Creative said they have no problem ... provided users understand it may have problems being supported.

Where Creative have said they have a problem is when unofficial drivers use their IP to enable features that weren't enabled on the original card, even under XP.

It's not uncommon for manufacturers to release more than one version of a card at more than one price, with the feature set varying accordingly. That allows those that want advanced features and are able and willing to pay for them to have then, but users wanting a more budget version to buy a feature-reduced version. And, clearly, it's far more economical to have one basic card than to engineer multiple versions. If they did, it would drive the price up. So getting the hump at someone who uses their IP to enable features that weren't enabled on the cards the user actually bought seems fair enough. The user of those lower-end cards didn't pay for those features.


Their unwillingness or inability to produce drivers that fully support existing (and recent) products under Vista is pretty pathetic, though.

But that is where Creative have dropped the ball surely.

I have had graphics cards where i have bought the cheaper version then unlocked extra pipes to make the faster version. Flash the firmware afterwards and away you go.

The nVidia 6800 cards were a very good example of this. On most GT's you could unlock the pipes then flash the card to Ultra settings.

Surely this is the same thing and nVidia didnt cry about it.

[Funkstar]

But thats just ubnlocking more performance, not aditional features.

I don't know the details of what these new drivers did, but it is likely features like DTS decoding and other audio processing features are enabled. These are features that probably haven't had the licensing payed for that particular product.

Say Creative ship 10,000 high end cards and 50,000 budget cards. They willo only pay for 10,000 licenses for the software on the high end cards even though the low end ones are technically capable of doing the same job.

It's quite similar to the video driver issues with the HTC TyTN II.

[Hicks12]

also he was making a profit out of this. Think of it as say a private mmorpg server, legal and illegal in different areas etc but when you start asking for money you will most likely get shut down etc, same what creative have done here.

I never had a problem with creative, great speakers for a good price and also got an old soundblaster 2 ZS xD. I find their products reliable but didnt know how bad driver development really was for them, they need better staff imo.

That guy shouldnt be asking for money for it really...... its like me buying a game and takeing the copyright out and copy it and then sell it, making a profit when it legally isnt mine and ive edited it a bit.

Think he should just stop at making drivers too use in vista .

[2Cold Scorpio]

You know, I don't recall having any problems with my X-Fi XtremeGamer card under Vista, and I installed most of the stuff off the CD; I didn't notice much (if any) difference from how the card worked on XP. In all honesty, though, I haven't really used the various apps in Vista, and mainly just use the Creative control console/Creative volume panel for my day to day stuff, but I never noticed any problems. Music sounds great in Entertainment Mode, and games sound great in Game mode (Crysis and Fear ftw! ).

Creative's support is comprised of morons (I saw this last week when I had a strange problem with my X-Fi card's Entertainment mode in XP). They continually misdiagnosed the problem. I ended up fixing it myself somehow...it was broken in XP and worked in Vista perfectly. I reformatted Vista to fix an issue where SP1 would not install, and the next time I booted back into XP, it worked!?

Still, Creative sounds like they're in the wrong here. nVidia hasn't forced RivaTuner to shut down, or stop production of all the modded drivers made for GeForce cards, as well they shouldn't. These type of things are generally only used by people who know what they're doing anyways. Creative should take a page from nVidia's book (or even ATI's for that matter; they haven't tried to stop it all either).

The real problem is, of course, is my X-Fi card is the best sound card I've ever had; I don't even *know* of any alternatives that are worthy of my near-audiophile ears. Not within the price-range I paid anyways... lol

[Agent]

That's not the way I read what they said.

If cards had the functionality under XP and you don't get it under Vista, but he released drivers that enable it, Creative said they have no problem ... provided users understand it may have problems being supported.

Where Creative have said they have a problem is when unofficial drivers use their IP to enable features that weren't enabled on the original card, even under XP.

It's not uncommon for manufacturers to release more than one version of a card at more than one price, with the feature set varying accordingly. That allows those that want advanced features and are able and willing to pay for them to have then, but users wanting a more budget version to buy a feature-reduced version. And, clearly, it's far more economical to have one basic card than to engineer multiple versions. If they did, it would drive the price up. So getting the hump at someone who uses their IP to enable features that weren't enabled on the cards the user actually bought seems fair enough. The user of those lower-end cards didn't pay for those features.


Their unwillingness or inability to produce drivers that fully support existing (and recent) products under Vista is pretty pathetic, though.

Indeed, that's what they said. However, having read a fair chunk of the thread I can't help feel they are not telling the entire truth.
These drivers were primarily to stop constant crashing, add back the XP features, and actually be usable for the general public.
I have also tried to find out what exactly these features that break IP laws could be. Going from the change log of his hacked drivers:

Exclusive features in this unofficial driver:

- Equalizer
- CMSS and Stereo Surround with Stereo focus control.
- Advanced EQ and Special FX available (see notes below)
- Louder volume
- Dolby/DTS decoder
- DVD Audio (32-bit only)
- 4 Gb RAM approved (tested on Intel C2D E6400, Gigabyte 965P-DS3, 4Gb RAM)

Under XP, My card supports every single one of those (apart from the last one ).
I'm not going to call Creative liars, but there have been several calls in that thread to identify where the 'other company' infringement is. If they wish to keep their credibility any more they should say exactly where he is doing this.

This is also backed up by: Creative Labs Slams Door on User-Modded Vista Drivers

Daniel Kawakami has been modding Windows Vista drivers for Creative Labs products. While Creative Labs insisted that features such as Decoding of Dolby Digital and DTS signals and DVD-Audio which worked fine in WinXP, would not work on Vista.

Daniel_K was recently able to "fix" many drivers, enabling the "incompatible" features as well as fixing some bugs. He made a few mistakes, however, as in asking for donations. Making a profit off his modded drivers was asking for trouble. Now Daniel_K probably shouldn’t have sought donations for his work - that’s the main thing that most likely attracted attention to his efforts. But otherwise, he was only trying to ensure that other users like himself were able to get their sound cards to work properly on the sometimes-unstable Vista OS.

If he is adding features from a 3rd party company that is on a more expensive card (hence some of the money going to licence the tech) then thats fair enough - I have no argument with that and can see where they are coming from. However, I am not able to find any evidence (I'm not saying it isn't) that this is the case.

I suspect the bit I made bold is what they are referring to, being 3rd party. But this was a feature which worked in XP. They claimed it wouldn't in Vista. He proved them wrong and added it back and made a statement about them purposefully crippling their cards.

If of course you know anything I don't, feel free to inform me

[wombar]

I stopped buying any creative products quite a few years ago because of their shoddy drivers and terrible support. I bought a Soundblaster Platinum and had no end of trouble getting the front panel to work properly in XP because of their drivers.

Since then, I've bought a Terratec DMX6Fire that has performed admirably and I doubt I'll ever buy another Creative product ever again after seeing that thread. I agree the guy shouldn't be enabling features that weren't made for the cards, but at the end of the day, he was providing working drivers where Creative weren't.

If they had perfectly performing drivers, I could see their point, but if they can't even do that, don't stir up a hornets nest until you've got a product that actually works. One things for sure, I will not recommend any kind of creative product to people who ask me, especially after seeing that thread.

[TheAnimus]

tbh this should be an opion peice on the hexus front page, its intresting to see why Creative have neglected to provide these features on vista, and someone in their freetime has.

[IAmATeaf]

TBH I gave up on Creative a long time ago, we've even stopped using their cards at work due to crap support and the thread on their forums just confirms they don't give a toss about their customers, they are all too busy looking at themselves and asking each other if they look good.

[pp05]

It's one of the reasons I stopped buying creative many years ago. Their drivers were awful especially if you used AMD/Via chipset combo. Plus there were more stable alternatives then. I won't be buying their soundcards again no matter how good their ratings.

[kalniel]

Aren't things like CMSS and dobly/DTS all protected IPs that are licensed?

I agree creative are pooey, but IP is IP, especially if he was making money from it. If creative want to restrict the use of their own licensed technologies then they are entitled to do so, but I wouldn't expect them to be saying that publicly.

[Saracen]

But that is where Creative have dropped the ball surely.

I have had graphics cards where i have bought the cheaper version then unlocked extra pipes to make the faster version. Flash the firmware afterwards and away you go.

The nVidia 6800 cards were a very good example of this. On most GT's you could unlock the pipes then flash the card to Ultra settings.

Surely this is the same thing and nVidia didnt cry about it.

Starting with the last, if your neighbour got burgled and didn't report it, does that mean you shouldn't be able to?

Even if nVidia didn't object, that's their call. Creative have the right to make their own call.

Taking it a step further (and back up the thread), a lot would depend on how features were unlocked. If you buy a card, and write a driver that enables features, I'd sy that's entirely your right. If, on the other hand, you buy a "budget" card and then modify and adapt someone else's drivers to enable those features, don't be too surprised if they object. In the same way, if I write an article an sell it to a magazine (in the UK, with UK rights only), I'd be very miffed if that magazine then sold that article (with or without modification) in Australia. They bought what they bought, which was UK rights, not the right to sell it elsewhere. And yes, that did happen.

So flashing the firmware to enable extra features seems, to me, to be just fine providing you're not infringing other people's legal rights by doing it.

As for whether Creative dropped the ball, well, it seems to me there's three issues :-

1) Do they have a legal right to take the stance they have?

In all likelihood, the answer is that they do.

2) Do they have a moral right?

I don't know, as the actual detailed seems a bit blurred. But it's very possible.

3) Have they handled it well?

There, you got me. It seems to me that it's been diabolically bollixed.


I don't know the rights and wrongs of what Creative did, and I certainly am not going to defend them. My initial post was really getting at one thing. There seems to be a huge amount of rage, worldwide, but a lot of the bile on Creative'sd forums seems to me to be because people object to Creative saying things that they don't seem to have actually said.

Sorting out bugs, or getting the same feature set under Vista that the buyer of a card had under XP seems to me to be legitimate, and if Creative can't or won't do a decent job of that, then these contentious drivers can. Users have a right to expect a decent level of support - and don't seem to be getting it. That, in my view, is an entirely legit grievance.

But when you buy a card with a given specification and feature set, you can't be too surprised if the manufacturer objects to someone allowing you to turn on features that weren't included on that spec, and especially when they infringe that manufacturer's IP (or third-party IP) to do it.

It may well, for instance, be that Creative have to pay a licence fee to Dolby Labs for every card shipped that has DTS enabled, so they build that licence fee into the retail price. And turn it off on lower-end cards, that they then sell without that feature. But if someone comes along and starts turning it back on, using software licenced from Dolby via Creative, it could well be that that then means Creative are liable to Dolby for licence fees on those cards. This whole mess could well have put Creative in a very awkward legal position with their suppliers. It could put those relationships in jeopardy, and it could mean that in future, they have to physically engineer cards to disable stuff so that this can't be done in future, thereby driving up the cost of those cards to all users.

We don't know what the backdrop to Creative's stance is. I certainly think it's been a PR cockup, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they don't have good reason for their objections.

Of course,their position would be rather stronger if they provided decent, full-feature and bug-free Vista support for their hardware. But again, there's more than one way to look at that. If I bought a card five years ago that made no mention of Vista support, am I entitled to expect Vista support for it now? After all, writing that software and/or drivers costs time and money, and takes resources away from on-going projects and future developments, and it provides no revenue stream to provide features (such as Vista support) that weren't covered in the purchase price. Creative would certainly, in my view, be justified in charging for drivers or software to support any card for which Vista compatibility wasn't included when the customer bought it.

[Agent]

Aren't things like CMSS and dobly/DTS all protected IPs that are licensed?

Yes, but so far no one has been able to find out (if any) what features are enabled under Vista over XP that creative have purposefully removed like Creative are claiming (and whos IP it is). If you know which these apparent features are, let us know

I agree creative are pooey, but IP is IP, especially if he was making money from it.

He was accepting donations (which probably would not have covered the time it took if it was a paid job). However, it was not a pay to download service he was offering, just if you wanted to drop him a few quid, you could.
Keep in mind that some peoples cards are/were unusable without his modded drivers.

If creative want to restrict the use of their own licensed technologies then they are entitled to do so, but I wouldn't expect them to be saying that publicly.

Are they though for previously sold cards, advertising that technology?
If you buy a card advertising X technology and Creative decide to take it away in an update, is this restriction fair / legal? After all, you have paid for these features to work as advertised.
I suppose you could argue that you have not paid to use them under a different OS, however is a cards feature OS dependant? Would really be pushing the boat out if they want to claim that one

[Nelly.]

What alternatives have we got for gaming?

Asus Xonar D2X 7.1 PCI-Express Sound Card, I've read this can use Eax 3, 4, 5 via emulation.

Anyone got any other gaming reccomendations, I dont want to buy the Auzentech Prelude as thats still using X-Fi chipset - I refuse to put anymore money in Creatives pockets.

[this_is_gav]

Is EAX that important to you? I can see where it's a nice feature in theory, but I'm yet to play any game where it adds anything other than changing the mix a bit.