I'd like to hear some alternatives. I hate creative's driver support but who do you turn to?
I'd like to hear some alternatives. I hate creative's driver support but who do you turn to?
is it just me or does it seem really weird that they're issuing a statement to him in a forum post? I have no problem with creative defending their properties but what I do have a problem with is 1 guy by himself is able to write a better driver with more functionality than the company who made the product...especially when that company has had a lot more time to develop the driver
I think it's with the Audigy line of sound cards.Quote:
Originally Posted by speedyaxon
I would be pissed too if paid like $100 to $200 for those card and not have it work on Vista.
it's times like this that makes me miss Aureal even more. i remember getting the legendary Vortex 2. it absolutely took the soundblaster equivalent to the cleaners. quake 3 supported A3D and it was breath taking at the time. Aureal produced excellent drivers and weren't bloated like creative were.
however, creative didn't like aureal treading on their toes, so what can you do if your products can't beat them. beat them in the courtroom. Aureal ultimately won, but because the legal battle dragged on for so long, Aureal became bankrupt.
i'll never buy a creative product, like ever...
Crazy... I bought the Auzentech Prelude exclusively for my HTPC so that I could do DTS and DDL.
The X-Fi could do this all along but just didn't have the drivers for it?!?
Auzentech uses the X-Fi processor. They also write their own drivers.Quote:
Originally Posted by Nabby
Their last one gave it either DTS of DDL support... I can't remember which. The other one is in the works. They use to have an ETA for it on their site.
Alchemy for Vista is also a free download from their site.
I had an adlib sound card once.
Quote:
Originally Posted by rimmerchant
Search function dude :p
http://www.sharkyforums.com/showthread.php?t=309098
As ive said before. I side completely with creative. Doesnt matter the good intent of the guy writing vista drivers, creative point out that they are not supported or authorised by creative. Also the guy writing these drivers is using intellectual property of creative and subsidiaries. This is opening creative up to lawsuits from users and other corporate bodies who dont even endorse what this person is doing.
Yes it would appear that creative driver support isnt all that good, but they wont have a business if they dont make this distinction clear ....
Creative's quality control is also pretty bad sometimes. I bought an SB Live Platinum back in the day, and it slowly died over a period of about 2 years. First one of the outputs went out, then another, then parts of the Live Drive died... it was a painfully slow process, eventually resulting a dead card. Unfortunately by the time I realized what was happening, it was far too late to RMA.
Like a moron, I eventually bought an Audigy 2, and it caused all sorts of system hangs. At first I thought it was the RAM or the power supply... but as soon as I took out the Audigy, everything was perfect. Crappy drivers get you every time. I was finally able to use it something like a year after I bought the thing, when decent drivers finally came out. I'm sure it's the same crap all over again for Vista, so I sympathize. Like others have said, Creative's hardware isn't too bad... too bad their drivers blow.
Still it's hard to support someone else writing them based on Creative's property. My solution is to just buy from some other company next time I'm in the market.
Adlib was the 1st soundcard that I ever owned. I was happy with it. But then they started to fall to the wayside and I ended up getting a SB16. Eventually went to the AWE32. Buth then:
It was all about Aureal's A3D 2.0. Back then I was under the impression that the best product always won the day. What a joke that was. How naive.Quote:
Originally Posted by EonX
Aureal was the shiznit. To this very day I think that the Vortex 2 is a superior soundcard. I still have one in my Win98SE system (which I also use for 3dfx games and my VFX3D virtual reality headset).
ID Software eventually dropped A3D 2.0 support from Quake 3. I heard it was because they couldn't get it to properly work with it. I own two copies of Quake 3... one with, and one without A3D support. Last I remembered, the one with A3D 2.0 support had support drop from the game randomly.
I remember reading that A3D 2.0 support was hard to program into games.
But... when it worked it was a thing of beauty.
I have a X-Fi Fatal1ty in my main gaming rig and a X-Fi based Auzentech Prelude on my HTPC. I only bought these because I had read somewhere that Creative had dusted off A3D 2.0 from exile and had at least partially implemented it in this new soundcard.
I had experienced Creative drivers being a PITA to install (one requiring like 3 seperate download for the Live)... but had never seen the system crashes that people talk about. I also did the bare minimum software install for Creative cards... drivers only.
Even though I have one Creative card... and another that uses their X-Fi chip... I have no love for that company.
This thread is also being discussed in the soundcard section.
I also own a AWE64D (their rare PCI version) but only because it's near a collectors item.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Spank_Me_Hard
let's not post here anymore then:
continue here:
http://www.sharkyforums.com/showthread.php?t=309098
WT FUDGE!!!Quote:
Originally Posted by Spank_Me_Hard
when I first got my Xi-Fi extereme gamer I was disappointed that when I connected it to my 5.1 system I only get 2.1 channels..
WTfluck! it seems they just don't want to do the drivers for it..
The solution is to drop Creative all together.Quote:
Originally Posted by Nabby
You can go with onboard or M-AUDIO. Onboard really isn't that bad these days. It's pretty damn decent.
The real problem is that Creative has monopolized the gaming audio market with EAX, which is the standard. If DD or DTS was the standard, it wouldn't be an issue because then any sound card could just output optical to a receiver. There have only ever been a few games that used DD that I know of. America's Army did in the very early days. I don't know if it does anymore. I think one version of UT did too.
Until people stop buying Creative's crap, the industry will continue to use EAX. Rumor has it though that Creative is getting out of the card business all together, and moving to a EAX software solution. Rumor has it, anyway. That would explain why there are no PCI-E sound cards.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ImaNihilist
Thats quite true indeed ....
I dont know many people who actually need pci soundcards apart from a dj i know. Most home users will be fine with onboard as its progressed a long way in recent years from your basic line in, line out, mic ports.