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Creative Software Modder Daniel_K Gone for Good

oh poor old Creative, everybody keep bagging on them :(

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After years of taking Creative's excuses, and total lack of caring for the consumer of thier products, I could care less if this is a hoax or not. I honestly don't care that this Daniel_K person has a run in with them. I don't use 3rd party modded drivers anyway.

What has been MY last straw is thier lack of support for a card that is NOT EOL. And the final showing of thier true colors.

try to fire up the X-FI in Linux some time. Try firing up CrossfireX in Vista and listen to the noise that comes out of the card.

Until this card is replaced by the rumored X-Fi 2 it is STILL thier flagship card [X-FI Elite Pro] and yet there has only been 4 updates to the drivers the entire time I have owned it. Yah it has been well over 2 years now but still, do they expect people to buy a new sound card every 6 months like ATI or nVidia does?. Except that when ATI or nVidia release a new card it normally SMOKES the cards before AND they release drivers every month that actually GIVE improvements in Speed and Functionality, but not Creative. In XP it is just NOW stable and usable, and it still FREAKS in Vista from time to time. The Beta drivers for Vista were as bad as any driver I have ever had the misfortune to use. So bad where they, that I refused to use Vista after the Beta was over. Driver release 1 was only mildly better, still was bad enough to keep me in XP. This newer driver released last month "works" and things like CMSS-3D finally work [pretty much] and I am finally able to ditch XP and run Vista full time, but funny thing is, Vista has been out over a year and a half now and they are JUST NOW usable. If ATI or nVidia had tried that, wow the yells would be heard around the world. Stocks would dive and heads would roll. But not creative. To them it is just business as usual.

I still can't get decent 5.1 playing DVD's. I still can't get ANY sound in Linux. And don't start me ranting on how bad the mic jack works. I had to enable the onboard sound just to use my mic in Team Fortress 2.

They are constantly complaining that people are complaining in thier newsgroups er forums, what ever. And this hasn't changed 1 bit in the last 8 years. They don't learn from thier mistakes, they blame others and wonder why everyone is so irked with them.

The real problem is thier hardware oh so rocks and thier software oh so sucks. But until recently there hasn't been anywhere else to go. Oh sure you could get a Fortissimo 1 2 or 3 or a cmedia based unit which again until recently sucked worse. Maybe Asus will finally teach that old dog a new trick and they start listening to the very people they are trying to get money out of.

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seeing as how this thread has brought a lot of users out of the woodworks -

I just have one question for everyone that has decided that this incident is the last straw . . . what if, per chance, this little message to dan_k from "Creative" does turn out to be a hoax?
 
Alright Can we get back on Track:wtf:

The e-mail was fake.

http://forums.creative.com/creative...iew=by_date_ascending&message.id=33034#M33034

This is not a first fake e-mail in that, I dare say, campaign against Creative.
Slowly I am more and more inclined to think the whole thing has been staged by someone who simply want to take Creative spot in the market place. (Any guess?)
All these new posters steaming with rage... incredible
I mean they lack credibility. Entirely.
 
All these new posters steaming with rage... incredible
I mean they lack credibility. Entirely.

lots of people are pissed at creative. I bought my audigy 4 before the X-fi line was even released, for $200... and there hasnt been an official driver update since then. go check their website and see how old those drivers say they are - when you install them, they're often months, or even years older when you check the driver properties in device manager.

People get very mad when they are forced to throw money away.
 
I agree, creative has recently been screwing their customers to no end with fake X-Fi cards and such, I will miss Daniel, I'm suprised creative wanted to stop him for correcting their own mistakes and limitations they placed in their cards on purpose.

you still game kain? ;)
 
lots of people are pissed at creative. I bought my audigy 4 before the X-fi line was even released, for $200... and there hasnt been an official driver update since then. go check their website and see how old those drivers say they are - when you install them, they're often months, or even years older when you check the driver properties in device manager.

X-Fi was released in 2005. Since than
Audigy 4 got driver updates on:
9 Oct 06 (full release)
16 Mar 07 (full release)
2 Jun 08 (beta)

You can download your drivers from here

http://support.creative.com/Product...CatName=Audigy&prodID=14103&prodName=Audigy+4

I have recently popped my old Audigy 1 card into Vista machine and it works fine even though I did not expect a 7 year old product to receive any support. But it does.

The whole thing was a hoax staged on purpose to further damage Creative.
Talk about business conduct...
 
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X-Fi was released in 2005. Since than
Audigy 4 got driver updates on:
9 Oct 06 (full release)
16 Mar 07 (full release)
2 Jun 08 (beta)

You can download your drivers from here

http://support.creative.com/Product...CatName=Audigy&prodID=14103&prodName=Audigy+4

I have recently popped my old Audigy 1 card into Vista machine and it works fine even though I did not expect a 7 year old product to receive any support. But it does.

The whole thing was a hoax staged on purpose to further damage Creative.
Talk about business conduct...

so tel me: where is my dolby digital and DTS decoding for movies. Where are my applications - where is my software. All i have for my audigy, without daniels drivers is a basic driver for 5.1 audio. NONE of the 'features' work.
 
so tel me: where is my dolby digital and DTS decoding for movies. Where are my applications - where is my software. All i have for my audigy, without daniels drivers is a basic driver for 5.1 audio. NONE of the 'features' work.

I understand that some features that were there under XP do not work under Vista. Surprised? Disappointed? Do you expect Creative to code new drivers for Vista for products that they were selling 5 years ago? Í am realistic and I don't.
Still - they did come up with vista drivers for Audigy cards as shown above.

Btw. I am pretty sure Dolby decoding has been added back in the latest beta driver. Did you install it?

My point was - this whole issue (fake e-mail to Daniel_K) has been staged in order to damage Creative so that another brand can take advantage.
Call it viral marketing, I call it being an a55hole.

We'll be back after a short break, now anyone please feel free to spam these boards with
"Creative sucks", "Asus has a sexy card there" "OMG Xonar rocks!!!" "Creative drivers messed up my washing machine." or similar lines according to your scripts or whatever you feel there, deeply in your heart.

:roll:
 
I understand that some features that were there under XP do not work under Vista. Surprised? Disappointed? Do you expect Creative to code new drivers for Vista for products that they were selling 5 years ago? Í am realistic and I don't.
Still - they did come up with vista drivers for Audigy cards as shown above.

Btw. I am pretty sure Dolby decoding has been added back in the latest beta driver. Did you install it?

My point was - this whole issue (fake e-mail to Daniel_K) has been staged in order to damage Creative so that another brand can take advantage.
Call it viral marketing, I call it being an a55hole.

We'll be back after a short break, now anyone please feel free to spam these boards with
"Creative sucks", "Asus has a sexy card there" "OMG Xonar rocks!!!" "Creative drivers messed up my washing machine." or similar lines according to your scripts or whatever you feel there, deeply in your heart.

:roll:

No i dont have the latest beta. the latest beta still doesnt come close to what daniel K has restored. They only made them AFTER he proved it was possible! until now, their official response was that it was 'impossible' cant be done' 'buy an x-fi'
my audigy 4 is not 5 years old, and can still be bought today.

How would YOU be reacting, if ATI and Nvidia said 'oh DX9 cards cant work with DX10, so you cant use DX9 cards in vista. cant be done'

The point is that they deliberately! crippled the drivers so that you would buy a new card. the only reason ANYTHING was changed, is because of the work daniel_k did.
 
the fact that DX10 is not backwards compatible with DX9 and does not allow hardware acceleration is certainly not Creative's fault. You bought your card when XP was the OS of choice and the card was meant to work in that OS.

Vista came along, Creative released both Vista drivers and ALchemy that bypasses Vista audio stack so that DX9 games work in Vista. Basically this treats problems introduced directly by Microsoft in order to break backwards compatibility, so that you would have to go and buy new hardware with Vista logo on the box. With ALchemy you actualy do not have to. You can still use Audigy under both XP and Vista. You are not willing to try new driver but you know it is worth nothing? Oh well. I guess I am wasting my time on you here, right?

Nonetheless the very first cause that has started this thread has been announced to be fake.
Please consider this and think why would anyone send fake e-mails like that?

"If you dont know what this all is about it must be about money" my grand dad used to say and he was dead right.
 
buy new hardware with Vista logo

LOL creative put those stickers on the box and didn't even put the broken driver in there hahaha.

Fuckers wanted you to download it, and they don't even let you download the WHOLE THING.
 
the fact that DX10 is not backwards compatible with DX9 and does not allow hardware acceleration is certainly not Creative's fault. You bought your card when XP was the OS of choice and the card was meant to work in that OS.
He wasn't blaming Creative, he was giving an analogy. Re-read his post.

Vista came along, Creative released both Vista drivers and ALchemy that bypasses Vista audio stack so that DX9 games work in Vista. Basically this treats problems introduced directly by Microsoft in order to break backwards compatibility, so that you would have to go and buy new hardware with Vista logo on the box. With ALchemy you actualy do not have to. You can still use Audigy under both XP and Vista.
Alchemy does not bypass the Windows audio stack. It's a software emulator. It captures EAX calls, and translates them to somethimg the audio api of Vista can understand.

And I'm with Mussels. Creative's driver support is terrible. And they do it on purpose. It's called planned obsolescence. When Vista released, the Audigy4 cards (and even some Audigy2) were NOT EOL. They should have fully featured, fully working drivers that give all the same features as they do in XP.

Granted, the email may be fake, but Creative currently deserves all the flack they get, considering how terrible their support is.
 
Alchemy does not bypass the Windows audio stack. It's a software emulator. It captures EAX calls, and translates them to somethimg the audio api of Vista can understand.

partly right, you need the OpenAL API installed for ALchemy to work, it can't translate to WASAPI or any of the other WIN audio APIs used with Vista.

Which really sucks ass, seeing as how integrated hardware (like onboard audio) is 100% functional in Vista, 5.1/7.1 stereo, no downmixing, proper playback levels - it's all due to how Vista's audio stack is written, and it's not friendly towards any expansion card.

And I'm with Mussels. Creative's driver support is terrible. And they do it on purpose. It's called planned obsolescence. When Vista released, the Audigy4 cards (and even some Audigy2) were NOT EOL. They should have fully featured, fully working drivers that give all the same features as they do in XP.

Granted, the email may be fake, but Creative currently deserves all the flack they get, considering how terrible their support is.


I agree here too, that Creative needs flak over the driver support - personally, I think it's BS that we have to wait a year for an official driver release. At least go to bi-annual or quarterly releases.

But, seeing as how this last message to dan_k was indeed fake, I think everyone using that, and the fact that dan dropped further work because of it, as an excuse to get pissed off over the whole situation is ridiculous.

I'm fence-posting this one. On the one hand, Creative really need to improve their driver support and releases; on the other hand, dan has done a lot of work for improving the drivers, and giving people functionality that was never supposed to be there in the first place(i.e. Crystallizer with Audigy cards).

It's sad that another person and/or company would send fake emails and risk damaging what driver support the user community has in the first place, 3rd party or not; and even more so after only a month or two ago Creative had said they'd be happy for him to continue his work, and gave him full release to continue work with the Audigy series cards (the Audigy drivers were never what caused the issue in the first place).

But, I guess people get on their crusades and can't see the forest for the trees; as the church can teach you, martyrs are more effective at proving a point than saints.
 
Its a pity the email was even sent in the first place. I'll agree the time was superb for competitors. At the same time Creative was crippling the hands that were saving their business. Nvidia has been criticized for its lack of cooperation with Omega drivers where ATI and Omega drivers are known hand in hand. There's a lot more that could be said (I'm trying not to rant). Sadly I believe Daniel_K probably still would have left it would have just taken more time and more fighting with Creative.

As far as sound cards outlasting other components I have to argue there are others in the market that last as long. Non gamers/pro's can use a PCI graphics card for as long and I still use PCI 100m Network cards that are as old. Its really only the high end community that changes so frequently.

If a company inhibits what is on the box of the product then THEY are wrong. That is what was purchased. If a product is not EOL it should be expected to perform as well as the box claims. I will let everyone decide for themselves if creative has done any of this. I have my opinions.

My last creative card was bought back in 03? I believe. I was never able to get it fully functional although after some tweaking I did get it working fairly well.
 
Just thought i'd say,i've just installed the beta drivers and beta console launcher for x-fi vista and the decoder page is back.

This is the audio console with decoder page-

console.jpg


And this is the entertainment thingie,note the dolby symbols are back-

es.jpg



I'm using a coaxial digital to my sony amp and it works fine.
 
Just thought i'd say,i've just installed the beta drivers and beta console launcher for x-fi vista and the decoder page is back.

This is the audio console with decoder page-

console.jpg


And this is the entertainment thingie,note the dolby symbols are back-

es.jpg



I'm using a coaxial digital to my sony amp and it works fine.

you have software. audigys dont GET software in vista.
 
Just thought i'd say,i've just installed the beta drivers and beta console launcher for x-fi vista and the decoder page is back.

This is the audio console with decoder page-

console.jpg


And this is the entertainment thingie,note the dolby symbols are back-

es.jpg



I'm using a coaxial digital to my sony amp and it works fine.

i've disable in services some X-fi start up's and DTS dissapeared

and i've enabled it and it wont appear any more...
 
i've disable in services some X-fi start up's and DTS dissapeared

and i've enabled it and it wont appear any more...

it's either CTHELPER or CTXFIHLP that's associated with "dissappearing" functions, although I can't remember which service it is specifically (I think CTHELPER).

Usually, doing a clean install of the drivers will clear up issues.
 
it's either CTHELPER or CTXFIHLP that's associated with "dissappearing" functions, although I can't remember which service it is specifically (I think CTHELPER).

Usually, doing a clean install of the drivers will clear up issues.

your right it's CTHELPER or CTXFIHLP voilá...

thanks
 
Its a X-fi bud,not a audigy.

you missed the point tigger, people were saying those features were back for audigy users. the software isnt.
 
Sorry :S

So theres no audio console or the other thing on audigy on vista?

The reason i posted it was because i thought creative had disabled the decoder page for vista,what with all the furore over daniel k re enabling it,i thought x-fi owners mite be interested to know they have re-enabled it in the driver/software.
 
Sorry :S

So theres no audio console or the other thing on audigy on vista?

The reason i posted it was because i thought creative had disabled the decoder page for vista,what with all the furore over daniel k re enabling it,i thought x-fi owners mite be interested to know they have re-enabled it in the driver/software.

we get the little vista default volume slider. thats it. The beta may have added the audio console back in, but only after daniel K beat them to it.
 
It seems to me creative have only added ddl/decoder page back in to appease the creative users who have discovered ddl works fine but they just disabled it to force people to buy a new card.

Is it true the new creative titanium pci-e cards fully support the "new" audio system in vista,without the need for alchemy?
 
It seems to me creative have only added ddl/decoder page back in to appease the creative users who have discovered ddl works fine but they just disabled it to force people to buy a new card.

Is it true the new creative titanium pci-e cards fully support the "new" audio system in vista,without the need for alchemy?

The audio system in vista, will ALWAYS need alchemy for EAX. its software.... so every card supports the new system. alchemy is needed to get creatives OLD system working.
 
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