Creative: Doing Little to Please Consumers

[Rob Williams]

Despite Creative being a leader in PC audio, their stature as such is being comprised with newcomers releasing superb offerings. To make matters worse, they've just added to the pile by banning modded X-Fi/Audigy drivers, a move that received an outstanding response from the community.

You can read the full article here and discuss it here.

[moon111]

I had to laugh when I read the article at The Inquirer about some poor SOB who saved all his porn to a c:\temp directory...which the Creative drivers used during install then continued to wipe out.
Source: http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/03/28/creative-drivers-ate-porn

[b1lk1]

I have not been a fan of Creative for a long time. I even gave the Auzentech X-FI Prelude a chance. The same CRAPPY Creative drivers were forced upon Auzentech and the me the card fell short of what it could have been. They have to realize they no longer have a monopoly on high end sound cards and there are companies doing a much better job now.

Creative restored daniel_k original thread, and link to drivers after admin "got permission from management".

[b1lk1]

Can you say damage control?

[Merlin]

Originally Posted by moon111

I had to laugh when I read the article at The Inquirer about some poor SOB who saved all his porn to a c:\temp directory...which the Creative drivers used during install then continued to wipe out.
Source: http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/03/28/creative-drivers-ate-porn

Porn makes the world go round.
Just imagine a world without it.

Merlin

[Rob Williams]

Originally Posted by b1lk1

Can you say damage control?

I can. Damage control.

Considering how time-consuming editing all of daniel_k's threads would be, I am doubting that it was a matter of a misunderstanding. Dale-CL is the moderator who was left to handle all the dirty work, but it was the VP Corporate Communications, Phil O'Shaughnessy, who was the one who announced to the world that daniel_k would have to cease development.

He's the VP of Corporate Communications... a chance of a misunderstanding is awful low.

Phil O'Shaughnessy
Vice President, Corporate Communications
poshaughnessy@creativelabs.com

[Kougar]

Wow, I see the Dailytech article was just scratching the surface of this. Interesting article Rob!

Am I wrong, or wasn't the main point of EAX was to have hardware support for sound related work? Am I wrong here? I've never really kept up with any of this, after Vista the point seemed moot.

Of course I thought it was interesting that ASUS's implementation using DS3D GX 2.0 on the Xonar means they can actually offer EAX 3.0-5.0 on Windows Vista. Which has me wondering, how well supported is this by other applications and games?

[Rob Williams]

Well, EAX uses a hardware-based DSP, but I think in the end, the term was more of a marketing term than anything.

Essentially, game titles that offer EAX support support far richer surround-sound than a normal sound card, or so Creative claims. I cannot state any facts, since I have never played a game in EAX, but for some reason, I am more curious than ever to check it out for myself.

As for the DS3D GX 2.0, that would only be affected toward games that include EAX support, at least from my understanding, so it wouldn't affect any other audio on the PC (such as music). What's good about the DS3D GX 2.0, however, is that it doesn't require an additional software package (like ALchemy) in order to work... it's included in the drivers. And in turn once again, Creative's buggy drivers would also not be required.

I am really looking forward to Rory's findings, though. If there is anyone who will be able to spot a difference between EAX and DS3D GX 2.0, it's him. We are just waiting on the X-Fi card to arrive...

http://creative.justgotowned.com/

[werty316]

daniel_k is a good example of what Creative needs to do, make some good Vista drivers which is one reason why I use onboard sound which I prefer more anyhow.

That was a great read Rob.

...are constant questions as to why Creative doesn't just hire daniel_k to do the work they refuse to, instead of banning his development.

Because his technical competencies are about five levels below that which Creative already has in abundance. Daniel K. clearly stated more than once that he has NOT modified or altered one byte of driver binary code because that would require competencies that go well beyond his own level of skill or knowledge. All he has done is to experiment with different driver file versions pulled from various official Creative driver packages (XP and Vista), modified the install INFs and experimented with some registry keys, like the guy who does the Omega Driver packages.

Unlike amateurs, professionals have obligations to ensure that implementation of all features and function complies with all Microsoft specifications and guidelines for the OS and also to ensure that every element of the product doesn't interfere with any other vendor's hardware, applications, or drivers. Daniel K. can release untested and unvetted drivers that *might* have received testing on his own computer. One computer doesn't translate into a WHQL level quality assurance program.

Daniel K. can piss-off as many users as he wants if his drivers adversely impact system stability, other applications, and devices. The worst case consequence he could suffer is that some users might take him off their buddy list or call him a bad name. Creative plays in the big leagues and wears big boy pants, where pissing partners and licensees off can cost them millions of dollars and a lot of industry good faith that companies need.

Unlike amateurs, professionals have obligations to others from whom they licensed certain technologies that are utilized in their products. These agreements are legally enforceable contracts that forbid Creative from implementing covered technologies in particular ways that might be easier from a development standpoint but would expose the protected source code or otherwise violate implementations covered by the agreement.

These agreements NEVER say "Here you go, do with it whatever you will." Rather, these agreements ALWAYS spell-out particular implementations that are covered and explicitly disallow other implementations without authorization (i.e. renegotiating or amending the contract).

Unlike amateurs, professionals must either purchase, license, or originally innovate technologies at incredible expense, it cannot steal or misappropriate technologies that are owned by others, or otherwise do whatever it wants with them without authorization or permission. Playing by the rules always saddles ethical players with certain disadvantages compared to those who don't.

[b1lk1]

And thank you for that quote Mr. unregistered Creative labs employee.......

Creative must have all the facts on its side, then, because all I did was state unequivocal truths. Fact: Daniel K. has went on record in stating he wouldn't know how to write or modify binary driver code to save his own life.

In addition, would his driver sets pass WHQL certification? Not likely.

My point is that there are many technical, legal, and yes even political issues here that are being completely ignored, I suspect because 99% don't have the slightest understanding or even awareness of them.

There is more to writing drivers than 'hey, it works'. There are OS specs and guidelines to follow, there are industry standards, protocols, and guidelines to follow, there are good neighbor customs to follow, legally binding agreements to comply with, so and on so forth.

Amateurs needn't concern themselves with such pesky things.