News - Intel and Creative sign $50 million GPU agreement

[HEXUS]

Intel signs fat cheque for IPs and assets of ZiiLABS (UK), formerly known as 3DLabs.

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[Steve]

Yeah, it all went a bit down hill for Creative once computers were powerful enough to do any number of audio channels in software.

I didn't actually realise they had a GPU firm under their umbrella, although I'm not surprised.

[shaithis]

I remember when they made "3D Blaster" cards.....hey never really took off.

In some ways, I am amazed creative are still kicking around.

[krazy_olie]

Worked on these a few years back for a uni project, these are clever, powerful chips

[TheAnimus]

Creative where their own enemy. They never supported the software for their hardware well.

With cards like the Voodoo2, which were staggeringly good, made amazing changes to games getting better and better with software updates, a Creative card would be lucky to last a year.

Then when Microsoft updated the sound APIs in Vista, they lost any USP of branding effects (underwater, echoroom etc). So that was pretty much the end.

[kingpotnoodle]

I remember when having a Creative card in my PC would boost my 3DMark score, when a Soundblaster was the only way to get good game sounds etc... those were the days!

Still got an X-Fi, the Windows 8 drivers are only beta - which is pretty poor but it does sound better than motherboard audio when speakers are directly connected in an analogue way. Of course if you are using an Optical or HDMI out to an amplifier then the difference is largely in software sound enhancements to clean up mp3 or streamed audio. They've got a few USB jobbies for laptops etc which are OK but I reckon they should take the audio stuff and go explore more niche markets... an AV receiver with better PC connectivity for the HTPC crowd, maybe with software control etc... audiophile tablets, all that kind of jazz. Discrete soundcards for computers are pretty niche these days.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I wish Nvidia had continued with Soundstorm - that was actually quite decent for integrated sound.

[ddg4005]

I remember when having a Creative card in my PC would boost my 3DMark score, when a Soundblaster was the only way to get good game sounds etc... those were the days!

Still got an X-Fi, the Windows 8 drivers are only beta - which is pretty poor but it does sound better than motherboard audio when speakers are directly connected in an analogue way. Of course if you are using an Optical or HDMI out to an amplifier then the difference is largely in software sound enhancements to clean up mp3 or streamed audio. They've got a few USB jobbies for laptops etc which are OK but I reckon they should take the audio stuff and go explore more niche markets... an AV receiver with better PC connectivity for the HTPC crowd, maybe with software control etc... audiophile tablets, all that kind of jazz. Discrete soundcards for computers are pretty niche these days.

Creative is scheduled to deliver a Windows 8 certified driver this Friday for the X-Fi Titanium in case you're interested.