Sound Blaster

[Catherina-CL]

Hi guys,

I have a response for you on this, I'm closing the second thread so discussion doesn't get fragmented, we'll keep this one as the "main" thread on this topic.

As many Creative soundcard owners are discovering, Blizzard recently made changes to the WoW client that have impacted the audio experience significantly.  Our developer relations group were given minimal advance warning that these changes were about to occur, and our subsequent requests to Blizzard for clarification as to why the changes were made have gone unanswered.

The new audio implementation in WoW uses a 3rd party audio middleware system which offers a generic software mixer with some reverb effects.  Creative has worked with the middleware company in question and already implemented a hardware audio path that enables 3D audio mixing and DSP based effects processing on Audigy and X-Fi cards.  "Bioshock" uses this system to great effect, and it is relatively straight forward for developers to support.  We have offered to help Blizzard enable this hardware audio path but they haven't taken us up on it.

Many Creative soundcard owners are pointing out that their audio experience is nowhere near as compelling as it used to be, which is a great shame.  We will continue to seek a better resolution to the current situation with Blizzard.  In the interim, we would encourage Creative soundcard owners to let Blizzard know that they would very much like to have their audio experience restored to its former glory.

Cat

[Elessil]

It's pretty much what we've been doing these days since the patch came out.
It gets rather frustrating that the only blizzard reply so far as been stuff alnog the lines of "get newer drivers", "decrease audio acceleration", or other inane sugestions to solve glaring flaws while ignoring all the complaints on general audio quality.

We started posting here in hopes that Creative could have a bit more leverage than bitching fans yelling on a forum. Good to know you're actually trying to remedy the situation on your end.

thanks for looking into this, hope the situation gets resolved...

[Amonra]

I tip my hat to Crative for actually listening to its customers...something blizzard has issue with. Thank-you for your response and efforts.

There are other online based games that will be coming out in Spring of 2008, I for one will be moving on. Blizzard does not deserve my money.

Cheers!

[Catherina-CL]

Believe me, as a WoW player myself I understand where you're coming from, I think the best thing for now for you guys is to make sure you let them know you want your hardware acceleration back, I've spotted a few threads on their forums where people are asking for this. If I get any news/updates on this, I will post in this thread to let you all know.



Cat

[Exorbitant]

At least some response... although not very optimistic...

Thx a lot
Brgds

[Shados]

Cat(If you don't mind me referring to you as that),

Thank you very much for the detailed response. It is comforting that Creative is not given up on this, and is trying to provide an option of Hardware Acceleration for its users. I will be taking you up on your advise and will be persistently/politely letting Blizzard know of my discontent, again.

Thanks to everyone else who "doesn't want the sound to die", and posted here. I will be watching the forum here for any progress concerning this issue.

Now off to Blizzard to complain that half my raids spells/actions can be seen, but not heard. I know if my XFI was doing the processing it wouldn't be an issue.

Thanks Again,

Shados

[Massi]

Thank you for the valuable information. I will monitor this thread for development (as I am sure a lot of WoW players will).

I just wonder if anyone from Creative can confirm this:

There is no more need to run Creative Alchemy on Windows Vista with World of Warcraft anymore, right? Since World of Warcraft does not have hardware acceleration anymore, there is no need to "simulate" it under Vista, I presume?

[neolith]

Posting on the official WoW forums has been a farce so far. Threads containing the words 'creative' or 'audigy' get deleted within minutes. On the deDE forums a lot of people posted in the announcement thread for the new soundsystem asking for hardware acceleration - but no answer so far.

[pzykotic]

Am I the only one who thinks it's irresponsible and immature for a representative from a fortune-500 business to come on their company's office discussion forum and lambast another company for a decision it's made THEN encourage people to do what can only be described as flaming?  Personally, I hope this isn't an official corporate policy and I'd hope Creative apologize for this immature and totally ridiculous action on their part.  I'm extremely disappointed to see ALL of these anti-Blizzard threads popping up on the official WOW forums lambasting Blizzard at the beheadst of Creative.

I assume this post will be deleted so I made a copy of postingby Cat and I'm going to go spread it around a little bit to some Blizzard e-mail addresses as well as Technology publications so they can see how mature and corporately responsible Creative is these days.  By the way, you guys feel like fixing the issue with Creative X-Fi cards and more than three gigabytes of memory?  It's getting kinda old and I'd like my Vista installation to stop BSOD'ing because of it.

Message Edited by pzykotic on 09-28-200712:44 PM

[dgingeri]

Stay out of my game!!!!!!!

You've screwed up enough stuff out there, I don't want you screwing this up! I waited for over 3 years for a stable Audigy 2zs driver, and mistakenly bought an Audigy 4 hoping to eliminate the problems I had with the Audigy 2zs, only to find out that they are the same controller chip. You wouldn't fix the bugs in that, I don't want you doing the same half-assed job on my favorite game!

Things are working fine on my HT Omega Striker 7.1 now. I want it to stay that way.

Once you fix the Audigy 2zs and Audigy 4, then you can ask Blizzard to help, but I know you won't do that.

Constant missing sounds, static, pops, messed up sounds, and horrible screeching in some games. That is what we would have to look forward to if you mess around with my favorite game.

I will never trust Creative again. ever.