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UDF2Diablo
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PostPosted: Mon Mar 31, 2008 12:19 pm    Post subject: Creative ban Daniel_K

Creative have just shot themselves in both feet by telling Daniel_K to stop releasing modified creative drivers that enable creative cards to work as intended in windows Vista.

http://forums.creative.com/creativelabs/board/message?board.id=soundblaster&thread.id=116332

By telling Daniel_K to stop distributing his drivers; even if he is 'technically' stealing Creative's Intellectual Property. Creative have just sealed their fate on the custom and sales of literally thousands of now and existing creative customers.

just read through some of the replies on the forum thread i had posted above...

i have already posted a hardware recommendations thread asking what sound card to buy next, as i've had enough of their really cool but shoddy cards... but after reading this message from creative, i have also personally lost any and all faith in them and will not buy another creative card. ever.

p.s. appolagies if this isn't the right forum to be posting this in, but i figured it would be the most relevant.


Last edited by UDF2Diablo on Mon Mar 31, 2008 12:19 pm; edited 1 time in total
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powerarmour
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PostPosted: Mon Mar 31, 2008 12:27 pm    Post subject:

On the other hand it's their IP, they have a right to defend it, it's fair enough...

Of course that's still no excuse for shoddy customer support in general, and they fact they could/should have released Alchemy for free anyway, but that's another story.

Whatever happens, right or wrong it'll probably put many people off ever buying Creative sound cards again.

Edit: (Small soap box rant...) Actually thinking about the Alchemy driver thing again, it crossed my mind that hardly anyone has ever charged money for a driver before.

Creative may blame Vista for killing off accelerated Direct Sound/EAX, but Vista introduced huge driver changes in general, and everyone had to pretty much rewrite their drivers anyway, it's nothing 'special' or different with that business model, as a hardware company you just have to take it on the chin if you want to remain a player in that market. Suck it up, breathe the pressure...

Heck new features get added all the time to graphics drivers, it's all part of your customer support and stability/reliability of your product, audio drivers shouldn't be any different whatsoever.


Last edited by powerarmour on Mon Mar 31, 2008 12:56 pm; edited 4 times in total
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UDF2Diablo
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PostPosted: Mon Mar 31, 2008 1:10 pm    Post subject:

To put this whole fiasco into perspective:

Creative's message to Daniel_K was posted on Friday 28th March 2008. - it is now Monday 31st March 2008... and there are currently 168 pages worth of posts from disgruntled members on the creative forums!

168!! and counting! - my god man!

they've also made the gaming news: wewt!

Toc-Gaming
Slashdot


powerarmour wrote:
On the other hand it's their IP, they have a right to defend it, it's fair enough...

Of course that's still no excuse for shoddy customer support in general, and they fact they could/should have released Alchemy for free anyway, but that's another story.


exactly; i'm fully aware that if you're being swindled out of something that's legally yours, you have all the right in the world to defend it, however.

there are certain limits to what's deemed morally right and wrong, - telling someone who is doing something which actually benefits you as a company and hundreds of thousands of consumers who are having problems with your products, to stop. ... is morally wrong. and a serious slap in the face to real people in the real world, all over the globe!

legally right or not, it's just not something you do! - unless you actually want to get that kind of bad publicity and reputation, which for a company who's trying to sell a product, is a very very bad thing.

the morally right thing to do imo, would be to hire the guy on the spot. - that way creative will have some level of control over the guy, and the community/creative will get drivers that work. - best of both worlds!

powerarmour wrote:
Whatever happens, right or wrong it'll probably put many people off ever buying Creative sound cards again.

Edit: (Small soap box rant...) Actually thinking about the Alchemy driver thing again, it crossed my mind that hardly anyone has ever charged money for a driver before.

Creative may blame Vista for killing off accelerated Direct Sound/EAX, but Vista introduced huge driver changes in general, and everyone had to pretty much rewrite their drivers anyway, it's nothing 'special' or different with that business model, as a hardware company you just have to take it on the chin if you want to remain a player in that market. Suck it up, breathe the pressure...

Heck new features get added all the time to graphics drivers, it's all part of your customer support and stability/reliability of your product, audio drivers shouldn't be any different whatsoever.


charging for drivers among many other things has been pulling creative down ever since vista was in the beta stages... people have had non stop rubbish from creative ever since and i for one am sick of it now.


Last edited by UDF2Diablo on Mon Mar 31, 2008 1:20 pm; edited 2 times in total
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impar
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PostPosted: Mon Mar 31, 2008 8:20 pm    Post subject:

Greetings!
Quote:
Creative is having a big problem.

Their drivers are Vista-challenged. Somebody started futzing around with their drivers and got them to work better than Creative, even apparently with sound cards with no official Vista support.
Creative definitely did not like this:
...
Quote:
Creative irate after modder spruces up Vista X-Fi drivers
...
Creative simply can't afford to alienate its customers by pulling stunts like this. The company isn't doing well financially; Creative lost $118 million in 2006 and was only profitable in 2007 thanks to a $100 million one-time payment from Apple. The company recently announced that it had sold its headquarters to an unknown buyer for $250 million and that Creative will now lease the building for the next five years.
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mydian
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 01, 2008 1:35 am    Post subject:

Good thing i already got his vista drivers awhile back.. the official audigy 2 driver is almost worthless since it has no add ons like an eq and stuff. While i was tinkering with vista I was very happy with his driver/software package.
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Seawolf
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 01, 2008 2:33 am    Post subject:

I saw it coming when he started offering a universal ALchemy. Giving away something a company was charging for. That didn't seem terribly intelligent to me.

He did do some good work, but he also did some very stupid things.
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daglesj
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 01, 2008 10:06 am    Post subject:

People keep going on about paying for Alchemy. I downloaded it from Creative a few months ago and it didnt cost me anything.

Didnt do anything either (no suitable games found) so I deleted it.

Is it for X-Fi users? If not maybe thats why it didnt do anything. Confused
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impar
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 01, 2008 10:28 am    Post subject:

Greetings!
daglesj wrote:
People keep going on about paying for Alchemy. I downloaded it from Creative a few months ago and it didnt cost me anything.
...
Is it for X-Fi users?
No. Audigy used in Vista:


From here.
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UDF2Diablo
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 01, 2008 2:37 pm    Post subject:

it's because the audigy line of cards were never advertised as being "vista ready" so they're using this technicality to 'provide vista ready' for a small fee, effectively upgrading their audigy cards for the new os.

but all it is, is a [blame me for the swear filter] driver patch which should be free and part of our customer service agreement for buying one of their [Brad Pitt] products in the first place! grr.

anyways,

i still need people to give me some opinions on what sound card to buy;

http://www.nforcershq.com/forum/soundcards-which-one-vt71308.html

can you guys please give me an opinion in that thread?
the biggest factor for me, is the ability to clone stereo sound into all output channels, - so i can hear stereo coming out of all 6 satellites, with center and sub still working.

i know the X-Fi does this with CMSS-3D set to clone mode, but can the other two cards do it??
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mydian
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PostPosted: Sat Apr 05, 2008 4:08 pm    Post subject:

Well, apparently they read through some of the 2000 messages and edited the 1st post of the thread now...

http://forums.creative.com/creativelabs/board/message?board.id=soundblaster&thread.id=116332


Quote:
We have read the strong feedback about Creative's forum post regarding driver development by Daniel_k and other outside parties. Creative's message posted on our behalf by our Company spokesperson tried to address our concern about the improper distribution of certain software which is the property of other companies. However, we did not make it as clear as we would have liked that we do support driver development by independent third parties. The huge task of developing driver updates to accommodate the many changes in the Vista operating system and the extensive testing required, including the lengthy Vista certification requirements for audio, makes it very difficult for Creative to develop updates for all past products. Outside developers have been very helpful to Creative and our customers by developing updates for many of our Sound Blaster products, and we do support and appreciate these efforts. This however does not extend to the unauthorized distribution of other companies' property. We hope to work out a mutually agreeable method for working with Daniel_k in supporting his efforts in driver development. Going forward, we are committed to doing a better job of working more closely with third parties to support their development for our products and our customers.
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