Creative Vista Driver Modder Speaks Out 318
hol writes sends a followup on Creative Labs shutting down the modder who made their drivers work with Vista. Wired is running daniel_k's response to the contretemps."
If A = B and B = C, then A = C, except where void or prohibited by law. -- Roy Santoro
Re:Is this real? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Is this real? - Umm yes (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Is this real? (Score:1, Informative)
Kill them. Kill them with fire.
Except that it's their strategy (Score:5, Informative)
Looks to me like they are trying to cash in on the Wintel upgrade cycle for no good technical reason: "Oh, if you want to enable all of Vista's advanced features, you need to buy this card over here."
Bastards, but probably bastards who will make lots of money.
Re:Is this real? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Idiots. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Do NOT buy Creative Sound Cards (Score:4, Informative)
If anyone wants another reason not to buy Creative anymore, two quick ones
Re:Is this real? (Score:3, Informative)
Creative retracts forum post. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Is this real? (Score:3, Informative)
Gave up many years ago (Score:5, Informative)
I bought a Audigy (1) and never got the firewire port working or any drivers to work since XP SP2.
For years I had been annoyed at the rubbish that installs with the drive CD's and how the GUI is totally at odds with Windows.
I switched to Diamond (with DDL optical output) and Via sound cards (24bit / 96kHz) for a fraction of the price. I haven't looked back, updates are available for vista and they work just fine.
Due to my bad experiences with Creative and driver support I actively steer clear of *any* product they make for over 5 years and advise family and friends to do the same.
Re:Is this real? - Umm yes (Score:3, Informative)
Driver issues are one of the primary reasons why people stay away from Linux. Why, precisely, should Vista be any different?
When I purchased my first Vista computer I was amazed at the hardware that I had that didn't work with it. My printer had sub par drivers, and my scanner had no drivers at all. If you follow the email trail from Microsoft's current class action Vista lawsuit several executives at Microsoft had similar problems.
The fact of the matter is that Vista doesn't have nearly the level of hardware support that Windows XP does. This may change in the future, but it is certainly the case right now. Creative's drivers are merely one example of many of companies that have far better Windows XP drivers for its hardware than Windows Vista drivers.
Re:Idiots. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Is this real? (Score:5, Informative)
Creative won a patent on the algorithm known as Carmack's reverse, which the Doom 3 engine uses extensively. To avoid patent license fees, Id shipped the Doom 3 engine with Creative's EAX shit in it.
see: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20040728-4048.html [arstechnica.com]
Re:Creative alternatives (Score:3, Informative)
Currently I run a turtle beach montego DDL 7.1 [ncix.com], and its simply flawless. The only problem I've ever had is getting their cheaper card (riveria) in canada. Its practically the same as the montego, but for half the price (30 bucks) and no 7.1.
Creative have responded... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Is this real? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Is this real? - Umm yes (Score:4, Informative)
Interestingly enough, Microsoft doesn't offer a stable ABI either. It just releases new versions of its operating system kernel so slowly that it *seems* that there is a stable ABI. The fact that Vista has problems with hardware compatibility is proof of that. What's more, Microsoft's "black box" model is clearly at least partly to blame for Windows' stability problems. As part of the discovery in its Windows Vista class action lawsuit Microsoft was forced to reveal that 30% of Windows crashes in 2007 were the fault of nVidia's drivers [engadget.com].
If you include old but perfectly serviceable hardware that is never likely get a usable Windows Vista driver then a modern Linux distribution almost certainly supports more hardware than Windows Vista, and it does so without having to load questionable black-box drivers. In fact, if it weren't for a few companies that create popular hardware and seem to have an aversion to Free Software (nVidia and Broadcom being the most well known) it would be pretty clear that Linus' insistence on source code has paid off well for Linux users. After all, once a piece of equipment has Free Software drivers these drivers tend to work well with Linux even when new versions come out. Most other hardware manufacturers have basically decided to give the Linux developers what they need. These days you don't even have to be particularly careful in your choice of hardware to get hardware with Free Software Linux drivers. Heck, you can even order a laptop from Dell.
Not that any of this has anything to do with my original point. Hardware compatibility is a real problem for Windows Vista. Tons of perfectly good hardware doesn't work (or work very well) with the operating system. That's a real concern for people with investments in existing hardware. This Creative example is only one of many in which hardware that works perfectly well under Windows XP doesn't work or works poorly with Windows Vista. Microsoft pundits often use similar hardware compatibility problems as a reason to stay away from Linux. However, when Windows Vista has some of the exact same problems it apparently gets a pass.
Re:Building a new machine (Score:3, Informative)
And I can confirm that the 'test drive' I made with the xfi card did improve the framerates while playing Battlefield 1942, DC mod by 5-6 frames per second compared to the Audigy card, but I was already getting good enough framrates that it was marginal for me.
I have no doubt that this was more important to other gamers trapped in Windows land, playing more modern, resource-intensive games, but I still use that same Audigy card in my current *Nix PC....and get phenomenal framerates in 'tux-racer'!!!
For the average PC user, you are on the right track. But beware future Windows audio support.
I can replace my Audigy card with almost any legacy soundcard and have it work with Linux...how far back can Windows go?
Not trying to be a troll...ALSA with Kubuntu seems to take a lot more in stride than XP or Vista is capable of.
Bottom line:
keep on doing what you are doing- if MS fails you, the Linux solution is cool, and works fine....don't fear the penguins!
Re:Is this real? - Umm yes (Score:5, Informative)
Clickity [linux-foundation.org]
good article, short read. enjoy
Re:Do NOT buy Creative Sound Cards (Score:3, Informative)
Essentially, an add-on sound card will get you several things: a higher-quality DAC (Digital to Analog Converter) for a low-noise, high-dynamic signal, and if you get an X-Fi or equally capable device, you can get a reasonable amount of actual hardware accelerated voices for better HRTF effects (simulated 3D from stereo speakers), better EAX effects (software effects sound ok, but not quite as good as hardware), and cleaner resampled audio (typically 5-point spline instead of linear).
Worth $100 or more? Well, that's your call.
Re:Obvious. (Score:5, Informative)
Creative broke parts of their Vista drivers even though those parts would have worked fine. The modder re-enabled them and Creative threw a wobbly. This has nothing to do with DRM or media companies, and the only link to Microsoft is the OS the drivers were written for. It has everything to do with Creative forcing an upgrade path on their customers.
Good work on writing a comment with all the buzzwords necessary to look insightful, though.
Re:Is this real? - Umm yes (Score:3, Informative)
For further examples, look at every "Torrent tracker taken down" story posted. Trackers aren't hosting the files, but they're still allowing their users to do it.
Re:Obvious. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Is this real? - Umm yes (Score:3, Informative)
Reading the article, it sounds like all he did was hack the ALchemy driver so you wouldn't have to pay for it:
The driver hacker didn't write a DirectSound emulation program - he just hacked up Creative's drivers so they would:
He didn't hack together an ALchemy replacement; he just hacked it up so that it would run better on Vista, and so you wouldn't have to pay for it. It's more like writing a "no-CD hack" for a game, rather than writing your own game.
Developers weren't "outdone" by a hobbyist - they were the ones that wrote the XP code, and then disabled it in the Vista drivers. This hobbyist is just removing those checks, which it seems could get Creative in trouble.