Sound Blaster

[wasteOFtime]

I'm curious as to how many of you have stopped to do your research before jumping the gun on this issue.

You complain about poor driver support for Vista, and complain about Creative being late to the game with official drivers, and being money grubbing bastards, but, have you stopped to consider the development of audio in Vista?  To the best of my knowledge, Microsoft had originally partnered with Creative and nVidia in developing a replacement for DirectSound to allow for hardware acceleration within the Vista OS.  nVidia pulled out of the game, and Microsoft then dumped the idea, leaving Creative high and dry - in turn, they focused their efforts on helping further develop the OpenAL API, which, believe it or not, is free (never thought you'd see free and Creative in the same sentence, huh?).  If the development of Vista's audio had gone as planned, I doubt Creative would've been as behind as they were in getting drivers posted for download.

Also of note, Creative isn't the only manufacturer with dodgy Vista drivers, but they sure seem to take the most flak for it.  I find that sadly amusing.  Also of note, competing audio hardware is having it's share of issues within Vista as well; it's not limited only to Creative's audio cards.  Something to keep in mind instead of blaming Creative for functionality concerns with Vista.

As to the whole "fixed" drivers issue - Creative are within their rights, IMO.  One can read the EULA and clearly see that.  I do feel, though, that Creative have handled this whole situation wrong.  It should've been dealt with in private behind closed doors instead of making it public on a forum.

[Zeratul256]

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wasteOFtime wrote:

I'm curious as to how many of you have stopped to do your research before jumping the gun on this issue.

You complain about poor driver support for Vista, and complain about Creative being late to the game with official drivers, and being money grubbing bastards, but, have you stopped to consider the development of audio in Vista?  To the best of my knowledge, Microsoft had originally partnered with Creative and nVidia in developing a replacement for DirectSound to allow for hardware acceleration within the Vista OS.  nVidia pulled out of the game, and Microsoft then dumped the idea, leaving Creative high and dry - in turn, they focused their efforts on helping further develop the OpenAL API, which, believe it or not, is free (never thought you'd see free and Creative in the same sentence, huh?).  If the development of Vista's audio had gone as planned, I doubt Creative would've been as behind as they were in getting drivers posted for download.

Also of note, Creative isn't the only manufacturer with dodgy Vista drivers, but they sure seem to take the most flak for it.  I find that sadly amusing.  Also of note, competing audio hardware is having it's share of issues within Vista as well; it's not limited only to Creative's audio cards.  Something to keep in mind instead of blaming Creative for functionality concerns with Vista.

As to the whole "fixed" drivers issue - Creative are within their rights, IMO.  One can read the EULA and clearly see that.  I do feel, though, that Creative have handled this whole situation wrong.  It should've been dealt with in private behind closed doors instead of making it public on a forum.

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I have an Idea:

Vista Sucks.

[NuclearCrapSG1]

Then they shouldn't have labeled "Vista Ready" on the boxes. True, Creative isn't the only company with Vista problems, but AFAIK even the crappy onboard Realtek has much better support with Vista. If a single user is able to mod the drivers to make them work, then why can't a company as big as Creative do the same or better with a team of coders?

Also, they've claimed that older cards do not support Vista and they were proven wrong. As far as I'm concerned, when I paid for my X-Fi, it said "Vista Ready" on the box and Creative has failed to deliver that promise after Vista has been out for over a year. On top of that, I could've paid less for an Audigy 2 ZS which they lied about not being compatible with Vista.

It doesn't take the knowledge of Vista audio to understand this issue. They say it's "Vista Ready" yet we, as customers, keep seeing problems after problems. They made us pay for the premium and yet they could not deliver that premium. That's essentially stealing from customers. OpenAL is free, the X-Fi isn't. 

[NuclearCrapSG1]

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Zeratul256 wrote:

I have an Idea:

Vista Sucks. 

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It's not Vista's fault that Creative failed to deliver their promises. Let's face it, even a crappy corporation like Microsoft can fix their problems, while Creative can't even get auto-update working. Last time I was prompted to update my X-Fi drivers, it was Windows Update that notified me.

You'll only make Creative look worse if you keep spamming the same messages in all the threads. 

[wasteOFtime]

I don't see the price on Creative's cards as being "premium" - not when compared to competing hardware prices.

There's a lot of different products out there that say "Vista Ready" which still aren't.  Somehow, I think that all goes back to M$.  Vista SP1 was initially delayed due to certain hardware and software still being incompatible with Vista.  Vista itself was technicaly in beta form when it was initially released.

Perhaps instead of everyone becoming frustrated and giving up on Creative, we should say screw M$ and give up on Vista?!  Until M$ redesigns the audio architecture, I'm keeping hold of old faithful XP here.  Sorry, but I don't see a point in upgrading to a "NEW" OS that completely removes functionality from my hardware.

[nonchalant]

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NuclearCrapSG1 wrote:

Then they shouldn't have labeled "Vista Ready" on the boxes.

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Yea, but in fairness - how many games label the sytem requirements as 'PIII, 256mb RAM, etc' when theres no way it will run with less than 512mb RAM?

[NuclearCrapSG1]

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wasteOFtime wrote:

I don't see the price on Creative's cards as being "premium" - not when compared to competing hardware prices.

There's a lot of different products out there that say "Vista Ready" which still aren't.  Somehow, I think that all goes back to M$.  Vista SP1 was initially delayed due to certain hardware and software still being incompatible with Vista.  Vista itself was technicaly in beta form when it was initially released.

Perhaps instead of everyone becoming frustrated and giving up on Creative, we should say screw M$ and give up on Vista?!  Until M$ redesigns the audio architecture, I'm keeping hold of old faithful XP here.  Sorry, but I don't see a point in upgrading to a "NEW" OS that completely removes functionality from my hardware.

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At least most other competitors managed to get their products working properly under Vista. Put sound cards aside, when nVidia was labeling "Vista Ready" on boxes without proper drivers, they were sued by people who paid for the latest and greatest. Creative has been given enough time, and customers have already oversee it with Daniel_K's drivers, but when they ban those drivers, it means that we're back to no proper support again.

Honestly Vista is a much more secure OS than XP, and also much more responsive than XP. To most users, this is a far superior OS than XP even if it means more demanding hardwares. Thing is, I can understand why old hardwares cannot support a new OS, but in this case, it's been proven that the 2 ZS is indeed compatible with Vista even though Creative denies this fact to make us buy more expensive cards that work half the time. Personally I'm not seeing these problems myself in Vista x64, but now that I realize Creative's unethical and immoral business practices, my next card will not be a Creative unless they resolve this issue.

If the customers keep quiet about these issues, they would only take advantage of it to make matters worse for us as new products come along. Best for us to all speak up now. 

[NuclearCrapSG1]

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nonchalant wrote:

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NuclearCrapSG1 wrote:

Then they shouldn't have labeled "Vista Ready" on the boxes.

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Yea, but in fairness - how many games label the sytem requirements as 'PIII, 256mb RAM, etc' when theres no way it will run with less than 512mb RAM?

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It's way too possible if you run little to no background tasks and on lowest settings, even though this sort of situations has nothing to do with Creative's Vista problems. When you put a big logo on the box saying "Vista Ready" but failed to do so after a whole year, then there's a problem.

[jpwriting]

VISTA is also not a whole lot more than an attempt by MS to secure distribution channels of 'Premium Content' through OS level Digital Rights Managment (should really be called Digital Rights Restrictions).  If they can get everyone on board it is practically a money printing press, and an absolute terror for consumers.  Already there are a massive host of issues with HD content and hardware that are not being resolved... the expense being shoved or peddled off onto consumers.

http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.html

[BigKriss]

I bought a Creative product with "x" amount of features on XP.

I have since moved to Vista and features that were available to me are now suddenly removed by Creative and my good sound card is now a mediocre one .

To "fix" this I now have to buy a "Vista " capable sound card from Creative again. Same card,different software??

This all so they can sell me another card when I have a perfectly capable sound card already.

If Creative had given me the same functionality I originally had ,my next sound card would most likely have been another Creative product..They would have got my money in the end..

What realy is disturbing is the reply by the Creative software dev. guy...

We are only buying a low end product so stop b*tching when Creative only give you low end support for it.

No thanks.

I have now moved on to an Asus Rampage with Asus on board sound...excellent move i.m.o.

Im sure the day Creative also join the on board sound trend their support may improve.