Daniel_K speaks out about his modded (better) Creative drivers
By Nilay Patel 
posted April 1st 2008 6:56PM
posted April 1st 2008 6:56PM
We think Creative acted pretty foolishly in forcing Daniel_K to remove his modded drivers that allowed various Creative sound cards to work up to spec under Vista -- customers had already bought the hardware, after all -- but Daniel seems to understand why he's at the center of the firestorm. Speaking to Custom PC, Daniel Kawakami admits that promising faster releases for more donations probably raised some red flags, but he's not happy that Creative took to publicly threatening him on forums, and says that a simple private email would have probably worked a lot better. Just looking at the list of features Daniel managed to enable, however, it certainly looks like Creative should probably be spending time working on driver development instead of threatening its fans. Way to increase your relevance, Creative.[Thanks, Alex]
Perfect example of the Streisand effect. I never knew there were user drivers to replace the shit Creative ones, I'm about to go get these.
Creative's sole purpose in shutting down Daniel_K (and anyone else who would create a working driver), is to sell more cards. Why build a working driver for a new OS, when you can simply not. People will have to buy a new one.
I've been using the onboard ALC8xx audio on my boards for the past couple of years. They sound and work very well. Haven't wasted money on Creative products in awhile and glad I haven't.
I've never heard of this guy, but now that I have, I kind of want to find his drivers and try them out. I've never had a huge problem with my Audigy 2 Platinum and Vista, but now I am curious as to what I am missing...
I think its bad for Creative becuase Vista-users have to re-purchase the hardware. I am sure if it was a priority, the drivers would have been out long time ago.
"I think its bad for Creative becuase Vista-users have to re-purchase the hardware."
... How is that bad for Creative?
Creative are a bunch of something that rhymes with runts....
Wow...it must be a bad week for companies. First the whole T-Mobile thing now this. It's amazing how stupid some of these companies are. Some guy actually buys your sound card and then improves it by doing the work for you and you reward him by threatening him. The number of people actually buying sound cards these days is so small that losing one member is a big deal...pissing off the whole community is just financial suicide. This is why well run companies run everything by Public Relations first.
when did it become gospel in this country that being corporate tyrant fucks is the only thing that's good for business? there are and have been plenty of visionaries in the private sectors that didn't have to piss on everyone's parade in order to turn a profit. ah well...
did i just pluralize "private sectors"? oh no! i've created a MONSTER!
Look. I generally avoid Creative like the plague, however the fact remains that he was soliciting money for work on someone else's Intellectual Property. Creative has a right to demand cease and desist. Had he not been so blatant about receiving donations, Creative might have been better able to justify turning the other cheek, however this wasn't the case.
I'm sure I'll be down-ranked by being a realist.
This is like Omega Drivers for ATI Radeon cards (And nVidia and a few others for a while there). ATI Actually endorsed omega drivers, with their usual "we are not responsible" jargon on a public side. They were sending drivers pre-release to the maker for a while as I understand it (though I could be wrong).
Wasn't Creative selling drivers for $10 so you can get your older card to work with Vista?
I sent Creative an email letting them know they lost my business. I doubt they'll read it unless they get a thousand. Here's to onboard audio smashing them in the low end. And to my new Cowon mp3 player.
Dear Creative,
Your actions have prompted me to never purchase your products again.
Sincerely,
Tyler
It's the business where few companies look for money more than present customer support.
I still remember 2 and half years ago when Creative webcam live! Ultra was first released, and then I bought that by high price for development work. Then I found that was not working in java media freamework (JMF. So, I asked them for development kit or java support pack.
And they denied providing any sort of driver or development kit. It was shocking. On the other hand Logitech provides supports for developers.
I think it's time for creative to change attitude and publicly apologize to Daniel_K or die.
Creative is not worth of my support anymore. Their shady driver development and the lack of driver downloads (order the CD here) has been questionable for years!
A company that threats their customers and now their fans this way has simply gotten to big for it's own good. You guys are foolish if you spent money on them anymore!
Asus Xonar, here I come....suck on that, Creative.
I've always opted for the cards NOT made by Cretin Labs and avoided Sound Bastards like the plague.
Ever since the fall of Gravis, followed shortly thereafter by the fall of Aureal...Hell, I even bought a Philips Sonic Edge...
...All before I finally broke down and bought a Sound Blaster Audigy, which was supported by Creative for almost an entire summer in 2001.
Since ripping that thing out and going with onboard audio, I haven't looked back even once.
Strange, I've use OmegaDrivers (provides better Nvidia/ATI drivers based on the companies on drivers) for years and the guy behind it hasn't had any legal problems that I know of... and it's not like Nvidia and ATI don't get sue-happy sometimes.
Creative has a problem in that their old "bread and butter" business is sound cards. Everyone needed one because 10 years ago (or even 6 years ago), not every manufacturer put a decent soundcard on the motherboard.
Now, almost all motherboards have decent sound on-board, and it's usually 5.1 surround, and/or digital outputs to a stereo system. Creative finds themselves having scrambling for cash and alienating existing customers by making a "bare basics" driver for their previous cards for Vista, and making additional cash by charging for a driver that enables the extra features the card already supported in previous operating systems.
Poor business sense if you ask me...
All I know is this is the reason why I haven't yet brought a new Creative x-fi....
What's the number of people boycotting Creative right now?
What system builders are currently integrating Creative sound cards & other peripherals right now?
Did Horton Hear A Hoo?
Creative Chairman and CEO: Sim Wong Hoo
Oh Sorry, Horton Heard A Who, my english is bad :[
Let's say someone bought a motorcycle, and added modifications to make the bike more personal and interesting looking. Let's say this modder began to offer copies of the parts he used on his bike for sale to other motorcyclists and also sold his modified bikes. Let's say some guy bought a sound card and modified it and tried to sell his mods to others. WHy can a motorcycle be modified but not a sound card?
Because the Motorcyle modifier is making parts from scratch to be added to the bike, or he's buying parts from the manufacturer which become his property at that point then modifying them. In this case this Daniel was reverse engineering their intellectual property, and making money off of their property.
That's the difference between the motorcycle modder and the software modder.
He should release them open-source. Then let Creative send C&Ds to everyone.
My computer's been running faster and 100% more crash free since I removed my X-Fi. My audio productions also sound no different (and render faster) with an on-board sound card than it did before. Hell, it doesn't even seem like they can make speakers correctly. Are there any anti-creative marketing campaigns out there that I can help/join?
I have purchased my last Creative device, I suggest others follow suit. Companies like Nvidia and Creative who choose to release poor drivers -need- custom groups to ensure the quality of their products.
I remember a few years back I had purchased two 7950GTs (nvidia graphics cards) and couldn't get them to run on any Nvidia-produced drivers. They had released a product into the retail marketplace and provided no compatible drivers! I have to use custom drivers for several weeks before Nvidia got its act together.
Creative is guilty of the same thing (i.e. broken incomplete drivers) and now they actually have the nerve to try and silence the guy who is making their products work the way they should. Disgraceful
I don't know why but Creative reminds me of Sony. Both have become trash in terms of support
I can def say I have purchased my first and last Creative product. I read this a couple of days ago and think its disgusting to treat a member of the community thats tried to help their own customers in this way.
I read the original post asking DAniel_K not to post his drivers, and a key sentance for me was something along the lines of if we (creative) don't want to update drivers for their products, thats their decision no one elses.
When I bought my Audigy 4 Pro, it was DOA, and after spending an hour on the phone to Creatives "support" line, was told its our best product (this was before the X-Fi was released) therefore its not broken and left it as that.
I am currently using Daniel_K's drivers and would say thay are better than anything creative has done yet and is likely to do in future. They should be encouraging the community with these projects not threadtening them with legal action!
Let's all just agree to let Creative die a slow, agonizing death while their profits dry up. I for one am done buying creative products, and after dealing with buggy software and drivers for years on my Audigy 2, I have no desire to patronize a company the deliberately cripples drivers to sell a newer product. Someday we will all look back at this debacle and laugh at the foolishness of Creative and use them a textbook example of how to run a company into the ground headfirst.
There goes my respect for Creative.
I don't know what's more annoying, their behavior to us consumers or their ignorance of how their behavior is going to affect their long-term profits. Maybe the company is in grave danger and they're trying to squeeze a few extra dollars out of it. If not... well, then they're idiots.
"Alot of these cards came out before vista so they dont have to support them past XP. "
Baloney. They still sell the X-Fi card today, one year after Vista was released. Numerous features that worked in XP have been deliberately disabled in Vista.
You are either uninformed or a Creative droid. Good luck getting that X-Fi to work properly in Vista.