Does anyone use Creative after this?

/\E · 07-23-2008, 10:43 AM

Wikipedia:

Quote:

In late March of 2008, Creative experienced an online public relations backlash in response to a post by the Vice President of Corporate Communications, Phil O'Shaughnessy.[5][6] In a message posted to the Creative public discussion forums, O'Shaughnessy requested that a user named "Daniel_K" cease distributing modified versions of the drivers for Creative hardware. Daniel_K, a well-known member of the Creative community, modified official drivers in order to allow compatibility on Windows Vista. O'Shaughnessy took particular issue with the fact that the modified drivers "run on other products for which they are not intended" as well as the fact that Daniel_K was soliciting donations from users in return for his time spent working on them. In addition to demanding that Daniel_K respect Creative's "legal rights in this matter", they also terminated all forum threads regarding Daniel's modified drivers.

Daniel_K was making drivers that improved their cards on Vista but, it included a few features that were not supposed to go with certain cards.

Creative is either incapable of making the drivers and Daniel_K was taking the place of a whole team of employed developers. Or, they are just a bunch of dishonest ppl who simply want to feed their customers BS until they buy the product and screw them over.

Daniel_K said publicly that the donations that he took went toward purchasing new cards that he could develop for. I don't know if it's true but he did disclose the amount of donations that he took in and I think it was about $146.

This is Daniel_K's letter:

Quote:

ALchemy

It all started when Creative released the first beta of ALchemy for X-Fi cards, saying it used X-Fi's advanced capabilities (EAX5).

After some investigation, I've found an EAX5.0 check and patched it... and it worked!

Sometime later, they released the final version of ALchemy X-Fi and the paid version of ALchemy Audigy.

I was realy mad at them, they didn't release a new Audigy driver and were charging Audigy owners for a software that runs on top of bugged drivers? What is the point of that?

Then I modified the X-Fi "free" version of ALchemy, not the paid version.

I did the same with the later versions, but when they released the 1.00.11, I couldn't patch it anymore.

So I bought it, just for the sake of it.

Well, I did manage to patch the latest version of ALchemy X-Fi to run on any card, without even removing Safecast, but I'm done with that.

The Audigy drivers

They took several days, countless Vista reinstalls.

Creative purposedly modified the Audigy drivers to disable some features when Vista is detected and also purposedly introduced some bugs to prevent some XP utilities from running.

I did a complete analysis of the driver to determine where all the checks and bugs were introduced and started modding.
Features that I've successfully enabled:

- Dolby/DTS decoding (originally discovered by another Creative forum member, but I've explained how to use it)
- CMSS, CMSS2 and Stereo Surround (originally only "CMSS" was available, this setting also affects ALchemy/OpenAL, so it is really useful)
- Advanced EQ and Special FX presets
- DVD Audio
- Hardware MIDI synthetizer (I wrote a small utility that automatically detects and changes the default Vista MIDI Synth during driver install or can change it later using its GUI. Some media players lets you choose the MIDI synthesizer)
- Equalizer (with preset saving, very hard to accomplish, had to deal with bugs in Creative software and use my creativity to find a workaround).
- WaveRT (a Microsoft replacement for ASIO, however I don't know if it really works or not)

The Live!/Live! 5.1 drivers

Creative have always released UDA (Unified Driver Architeture) drivers.

They purposedly ruined the Live! support in Vista: 2.1 speakers setting resulted in distorted sound.

After some investigation, I discovered the culprit module and replaced it with one from the last XP version and the problem was fixed.

In the later releases, Bass Management, Equalizer and EAX effects using software processing and Hardware MIDI support were added.

There was also an ALchemy for Live! cards.

The X-Fi drivers

I've added the following improvements: Hardware MIDI and WaveRT.

I didn't have a X-Fi to test, so modding was then limited to these features.

The Audigy LS/SE/Value/Live! 24-bit drivers

Officially, they lack Bass Management, Equalizer and EAx effects, once available in XP drivers.

I've found that the Audio Center utility (originally from the Vista Audigy Advanced MB drivers) worked just fine with these cards, so I made it available.

Also fixed an annoying bug present in the official drivers that cause the speaker type changing to Full Range speakers on reboot (disabling Bass Management).

The X-Fi Xtreme Audio drivers
Have the same speaker type bug. I fixed it.

Gameport support pack for Vista
Allows a limited number of gameport controllers to work on the x86 version of Windows Vista.

What Creative didn't like

I've learned how Creative enables or disables a feature for a specific model.

Alchemy:
My last ALchemy release (1.00.08) was complately unlocked and could be used with any sound device from any vendor.

Audigy cards:
Successfully enabled the software-based X-Fi Crystalizer for use with Audigy cards.

X-Fi:
Got Dolby Digital Live enabled on any X-Fi card. To clarify, I still didn't manage to enable DDL on Audigy cards.
A friend of mine bought a X-Fi, so I could test it, it really works.
The only current X-Fi based card that supports DDL is the Auzentech Prelude.

The P17 to Xtreme Audio mod
P17 is the codiname for a simple PCI audio controller that powers the Audigy LS/SE/Value, Live! 24-bit and X-Fi Xtreme Audio host-based soundcards.

Completely modded the P17 drivers to transform any Audigy LS/SE/Value and Live! 24-bit into a X-Fi Xtreme Audio (enabling Crystalizer).

Modding is OK

I don't think there was something wrong with mods themselves.

Modding is a common practice among enthusiasts and I don't recall some company threatning a modder, unless you allow an exclusive feature to be used with competitor products (ie: SLI on non-NVIDIA chipsers or ALchemy on competitor products, as I've said before).

Remember the Promise Ultra to Fasttrak mod? It was even published on a well known review site.
There was also the GeForce to Quadro mod, the NVIDIA nForce 4 to SLI mod, also published on review sites.

What I did wrong

I've asked for donations.

Do I really need the money? No, thank God I don't.

I thought it would be ok to ask for donations so I could buy new hardware to support.

I did buy some hardware: an used Live! 5.1 for ~$15 and a new Audigy SE for $60.

Computer hardware is really expensive here in Brazil.

An X-Fi Xtreme Gamer costs about $240 here, with taxes and shipping, The same card can be bought for ~$80 in the US.

I just can't spend my money buying new hardware that I won't even use.

Even the features I've enabled, I don't use.

Later I tried to encourage donations to release the DDL feature for X-Fi and Crystalizer for Audigy.

I said something like "the more people donate, the faster I'll release".

This was even worse, but I was so eager to modding that I didn't think straight. I was hoping to get a X-Fi asap.

While I did ask for donations, once released, the downloads would be public.

I do recognize that I deserve some criticism for that.

To date, I've got $146, with amounts ranging from $1 to $50 (this value is still uncleared).

Reversing ALchemy was also wrong, I know. But I reiterate, what is the point of improving ALchemy and changing for it, when it requires an improved driver? It was my protest against Creative.

What Creative did wrong

- They publicly threatened me, just to show their arrogance.
If they had contacted me by e-mail or private message I would do the same thing (remove everything) and no one would know about their insatisfaction.

- Removed everything I posted in the forums, even if unrelated to the "forbidden" stuff.
If they can't provide better drivers, let people make their own choice.

- They did not recognize my hard work.
I've been supporting about every Creative PCI soundcard, would even support USB devices if I had one of them.

To date, the Audigy Vista Support Pack was downloaded about 20,000 times.

The current situation

DDL encoder and Crystalizer were not publicly released.

I've deleted the P17 to Xtreme Audio mod and ALchemy from FileFront (where I store the files).

I've been told they will allow me to continue with my mods, except the "forbidden" ones.
I'm also allowed to receive donations.

Download of my mods
http://hosted.filefront.com/braziliantech/

My question is-Does this affect your image of Creative, will you still buy their products?

[-0MEGA-] · 07-23-2008, 01:25 PM

It's funny, since Omega drivers have been modifying ATI and nVidia's drivers for quite some time and I haven't heard much, if any news about them with these kinds of issues.

While I still believe that Creative just doesn't feel like spending the time and/or money on creating working Vista drivers for older cards, I still like their new models.

just a noob · 07-23-2008, 02:26 PM

whats really said is someone doing this in their spare time is actully doing better than a paid team of programmers, and then threatening to take him to court for fixing their drivers, i mean they could have just asked him nicely and not have made complete asses out of themselves

cohen · 07-23-2008, 11:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by just a noob

whats really said is someone doing this in their spare time is actully doing better than a paid team of programmers, and then threatening to take him to court for fixing their drivers, i mean they could have just asked him nicely and not have made complete asses out of themselves

That is a time to say, do you want a job

skidude · 07-24-2008, 04:10 AM

I'll still buy from them, they make the best sound cards for gamers that I know of.

cohen · 07-24-2008, 04:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by skidude

I'll still buy from them, they make the best sound cards for gamers that I know of.

+ 1, i'm not a gamer, i'm a music player, and i love my sound card!!!!

Mr. Johanssen · 07-24-2008, 05:11 AM

yeah they have the best soundcards , and at a decent price, but that is a low ball move.
"hey... that guy's making better drivers than us for Vista!"
"oh... well... we planned on just letting all those people suffer to fuel our blackhatemachine. dispose of him"

bomberboysk · 07-24-2008, 08:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by skidude

I'll still buy from them, they make the best sound cards for gamers that I know of.

+2, They are great soundcards for audio too though. But: Instead of making asses of themselves they should have signed him on to help create better drivers. Doesnt affect my image of creative, thats just how business is these days, they want you to buy the new items. Look at how the fcc was "convinced" to change to digital tv from the previous analog standard.

Edit: Not to go off topic, but direcTV lobbied around 1.5million into the fcc for the digital switch.

MyCattMaxx · 07-24-2008, 08:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bomberboysk

Look at how the fcc was "convinced" to change to digital tv from the previous analog standard.

Sorry for quick hijack. The FCC wasn't talked into it, They decided on their own to free up bandwidth as analog takes more space than digital.

Motoxrdude · 07-24-2008, 08:13 AM

Eh, proprietary is proprietary so they have every right, especially since he was being paid for it.

View Poll Results: Will you still buy Creative products after this incident?
Yes	6	35.29%
No	4	23.53%
Who Cares!?	7	41.18%
Voters: 17. You may not vote on this poll

07-23-2008, 01:25 PM	#2 (permalink)
[-0MEGA-] VIP Member Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: Concord, NH Age: 20 Posts: 27,466	It's funny, since Omega drivers have been modifying ATI and nVidia's drivers for quite some time and I haven't heard much, if any news about them with these kinds of issues. While I still believe that Creative just doesn't feel like spending the time and/or money on creating working Vista drivers for older cards, I still like their new models. __________________ Core 2 Quad Q9550 @ 4.1GHz Asus Rampage Formula X48 ATI 4870X2 2GB GDDR5 (800/1900) 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 960 750GB SATAII w/32MB Creative SB X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty SilverStone 750W +12V@60A 3DMark06: 22605

07-23-2008, 02:26 PM	#3 (permalink)
just a noob Diamond Member Join Date: Feb 2008 Location: shivington, stilwater Age: 1 Posts: 1,802	whats really said is someone doing this in their spare time is actully doing better than a paid team of programmers, and then threatening to take him to court for fixing their drivers, i mean they could have just asked him nicely and not have made complete asses out of themselves __________________ celeron 350@500mhz 128mb of sdram 350 watt psu 8mb ati rage pro 20gb 7500 rpm seagate

07-24-2008, 04:10 AM	#5 (permalink)
skidude Diamond Member Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Orono, Maine Age: 19 Posts: 4,996	I'll still buy from them, they make the best sound cards for gamers that I know of. __________________ Desktop / Laptop CPU- TBA / Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 2.8 GHz Video- TBA / 2x 8800M GTX SLI Memory- TBA / 4GB DDR2800 Hard Drives- TBA / 2x 320GB 5400RPM (RAID 0) Mobo- TBA / Sager NP9262 "In These Lowly Halls / No Moon Will Beam, No Sun Will Shine / In These Narrow Rooms / No Tears Are Seen, No Laughter Heard" --- Insomnium ---

07-24-2008, 05:11 AM	#7 (permalink)
Mr. Johanssen Diamond Member Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Aberdeen, SD, US Age: 16 Posts: 1,192	yeah they have the best soundcards , and at a decent price, but that is a low ball move. "hey... that guy's making better drivers than us for Vista!" "oh... well... we planned on just letting all those people suffer to fuel our blackhatemachine. dispose of him" __________________ AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ BE @ 3.2ghz 1.41v+AC Freezer 64 Pro 92mm (20c/40c) MSI K9A2 Platinum 790FX Visiontek HD4850 512mb @750/2240ddr 2x1gb Mushkin 4-3-4-11-15-2T @ ddr800 250,320b SATA,250gb eSata Sunbeam Transformer Full Tower (fairly modded) XP Pro SP3--22" Hanns G Hi221D Widescreen LCD Folding on HD4850 and X2 5000+ @ 3.2ghz (as Ycarcomed) 11217 3Dmark06 Repeal Prop 8

07-24-2008, 08:13 AM	#10 (permalink)
Motoxrdude Diamond Member Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Nor Cal Age: 18 Posts: 6,527	Eh, proprietary is proprietary so they have every right, especially since he was being paid for it. __________________ RIP Mom 9/17/55-02/22/08.

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