I thought Creative made some great soundcards, until I've suffered from an improperly grounded SB Live (then their flagship sound card). Their mounting bracket was not grounded properly, resulting in one dead SB Live card, one dead SCSI controller, and a non-functional PSU.

I found that the Aureal 3D support on the Hercules Fortissimo II gave a much better directional sound in EAX, and had it not been the lack of hardware mixing in Linux for the Hercules sound cards, I wouldn't have gone back to the Audigy 2.

To this day, their support for non-Windows OS is kinda spotty - they release their manuals in .chm, the only computing hardware manufacturer that I know that uses this format instead of PDF. Their flagship X-Fi has only recently got a lousy driver for Linux 64bit. Their MP3 players are nothing to write home about.

I personally can't wait until they're gone.

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I agreed. I really wish that Creative will die, we don't want them.

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Die Creative. Die. And I've got an X-Fi. :D

Wo/ it, my GPU would be cooler tho.

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CHM documentation? That's the first good thing I hear about Creative in a while.

PDF = for printing.
CHM = for active reading or searching.

Try http://xchm.sourceforge.net/ (never used it, but I think it should do).



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yup, i'm glad ms sunk them. they've always been on the wrong side, i used to buy aureal cards which had better technology but sadly they went down. i refused to pay premium for a monopoly on gaming audio, and frankly i didn't really miss out. their technology has been stagnant while they milked gamers with high prices, well the gravy train is at an end. we have cores to spare for audio that can be improved without paying for a new card. win win.

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Another great article here on Anandtech. This is one of the few articles here I fully understand. When I company in this shape starts spending more on R and D, look for a rebound. Otherwise look for bankruptcy or a buyout.

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"Creative's problems are further compounded by Microsoft at #4, who is more than happy to lose money on the media player market for now" Golden! Microsoft seems to love losing money, as long as they have a chance next round.

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I've always kept a spot of sincere hatred for Creative for the way they sued Aureal into declaring bankruptcy, then purchasing the Aureal IP afterwards.

Aureal eventually won the lawsuit, but legal defense costs tied up funding for the AU8830. By the time it was done they simply did not have the funds to bulk produce the virtually completed chip/reference-card design and had to scrap the project.

I don't begrudge Creative for making an inferior product, but for their deplorable tactics I do hope they die and are forced sell their IP for a fraction of their development costs.

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Yes, this was total manipulation of the legal system by Creative for illicit destruction of a competitor. Having always used Sound Blaster cards for add-in situations, I was skeptical when my distributor sales guy told me to try some Aureal Vortex 2 SuperQuads. But, seeing as the Creative equivalent was $100 at the time, and the Superquads were $50 retail, I figured I would give them a shot.

The sound quality was amazing, and while the drivers weren't perfect, this was the beginning of Creatives "horrible overstuffed driver" stage. $50 got the machine amazing 3D sound with A3D which Creative tried to "me too" with EAX. Except that A3D was really great, and EAX sounded like garbage. I was a convert, and was able to cheaply add great sound to the systems I was building.

Unfortunately, instead of rising to the challenge, Creative used it's tried and true "sue them into submission" strategy. Years later, I come across many SB cards with horrible crackling noises, pain in the butt driver installs, and my brain has me convinced that those old SuperQuads still sound better. Aureal was a fantastic company with fantastic technology, and Creative's big bankroll was the only thing that enabled them to drain Aureal's.

So, I totally agree with your last sentence, except I will add that I hope the Aureal people raise money to buy the IP and then make the moves that will revitalize the market.

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Having worked with Creative in a professional capacity at multiple times in my career I have a few observations of my own:

- Over the years Creative has refused to embrace new technolgies and trends. This includes PCI(had to buy Ensoniq to have a PCI product at all), PCI-E(offered poor excuses about latency to avoid having to release a new product), ACPI(poor driver and firmware support) and now UAA(Vista standard).

- Along those lines they have also refused to move into areas that are seemingly obvious for fear of cannibalizing their add-in board market. There is little reason that Realtek is ruling the on-board sound market, that could just have easily been Creative considering their background. Instead they chose to put on blinders and pretend that on-board audio could never compete with an add-in card. They may be correct in the absolute sense, but the average user does not give a damn. Back when it would have mattered, a Creative branded AC'97 solution with some enhanced drivers would have gone a long way, now no one would care.

- Absurd 'fanboy' attitude towards certain companies. The CEO of Creative has a passionate hatred for Microsoft. This is why MS had to develop its own drivers for Windows 2000/XP for the SBLive, and why there are no drivers for their products in Vista. Likewise, they have repeatedly had poor dealings with other manufacturers, and have treated competitors in ways that were they not a Singapore based business they would have been prosecuted in the US or EU for(Aureal is the obvious example, but they did the same to numerous smaller companies in other markets). Business is dispassionate, you do not refuse to be part of a standard(UAA) simply because you dislike the standard bearer when they hold 95% of your target market. You do not foster bad feelings among the larger market, making it unlikely that others will work with you, at some point you may need some allies.

As far as I and many in the industry are concerned, Creative is reaping what they have sown. They were lucky enough to set a standard and they rode that single success for years based on their brand name alone. Even now there are plenty of oppurtunities in their original market for them to revitalize thier success(UAA, for instance, can be paired with a powerful DSP and it will use it for accelleration), but it is doubtful that Creative will capitalize on those oppurtunities, they would rather go out of business than do things in any way other than their own.

So long Creative, I'll always remember you as the guys who gave me great sound in Doom, but I won't shed a tear for your passing. In the long run, Creative will perform its greatest service by serving as an object lesson for other companies on how not to do business.

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