Creative cracks down on Vista driver modder

This Daniel for one is a fraud and has you all so fooled into thinking he made these drivers. Creative has every right to make different editions of cards, like nvidia, but you don't see people pissing on nvidia for doing what creative has. Another thing you guys need to get straight is Daniel NEVER coded a damn thing, HIS DRIVER, there is no HIS DRIVER, these are ALL CREATIVE DRIVERS with the only difference a changed installation program that allows it to be installed with your cards. If he did have the coding skills, he'd fix what he states is wrong with them but he can't and never will, because he doesn't make them, they are from the x-fi packages and what faults come with them if you run them on audigy will always be there, he will never fix those. What really has me on Creative's side is this moron's balls to post all his real info and then reverse engineer one program (yes only one), that being the ALchemy, with a simple compare routine to allow it to run on audigy cards and now ask for DONATIONS!!! If he was so talented he would be supplying you guys with the latest version of ALchemy, which he has absolutely no idea how to unpack, that being safecast+custom licensing system, but was done by another group and provides better support. You run his "packaged drivers" and most of you do get some extra features but be aware of the all the BSOD you will get from him not knowing what he is doing. I indeed tried them and I can say you get them quite often, more than 5 times a day for myself, I'm going back to uninstalling all these other programs I didn't even want with his package (which he forces you to install everything, if you cancel one the drivers won't work in the end, namely the dvd audio player, wtf wants that?) and just going barebone driver and latest ALchemy like I was before and didn't ever have BSOD. Your all being fooled into thinking he's doing something here when anywhere here could do the samething. Again he has not coded anything here, the drivers are NOT his, but extracted from a X-FI package so don't call them HIS drivers.

Comment by THEREALDEAL2 at 10:08pm 27th April 2008

I could use daniels' drivers. When buy item it states EAX, you pay full price direct from creative & CRAP, except another payment, that m ight NOT be anything except on going problem. Creatives soundblaster audiology SE product should be confiscated at border for mislabeling & destroyed. Signed:PHYSICIAN THOMAS STEWART VON DRASHEK M.D.

Comment by thomasxstewart at 4:33am 7th April 2008

Creative has done this pratice for years. If the E.U. had any balls it would say 'all your products will be refused import until you can prove TO US that it does what it says on the box.' Also a large fine say 15% of the yearly company profits. This should also be applied to other companies as well who do simular. The E.U. is also a soft touch for over pricing and rip offs, its time they earned thier money.

Comment by jannerhank at 10:40am 4th April 2008

I am glad that an individual has shown that creative cards can work correctly under Vista. I got sick of my Wendel X-Fi, and have Auzentech version of it, which is much better. My next soundcard will be either Asus or Razer, or Auzentech non- creative. I do think that he was a bit daft posting on the creative forums with this, but then, look at Omegadrivers for ATi, where ATi helps that guy out, and you can donate to him if you think his efforts are worth it. This perhaps illustrates different outlooks from different companies, one progressive and community minded; the other carrying on like the RIAA or MPAA, although, I have not yet read DanielK's response, so do not know yet what interactions there were between him and creative. Aren't most recent games supporting Dolby Digital anyway nowadays, such as Bioshock, so EAX may have had it's day anyway. I agree wholeheartedly with earlier posts, that the EU should investigate this and perhaps levy a huge fine. Perhaps we should all try here: http://www.ukecc.net/ to register a complaint about the lack of functionality of Creative X-Fi boards under Vista?

Comment by carlg75 at 7:54am 4th April 2008

I am glad that an individual has shown that creative cards can work correctly under Vista. I got sick of my Wendel X-Fi, and have Auzentech version of it, which is much better. My next soundcard will be either Asus or Razer, or Auzentech non- creative. I do think that he was a bit daft posting on the creative forums with this, but then, look at Omegadrivers for ATi, where ATi helps that guy out, and you can donate to him if you think his efforts are worth it. This perhaps illustrates different outlooks from different companies, one progressive and community minded; the other carrying on like the RIAA or MPAA, although, I have not yet read DanielK's response, so do not know yet what interactions there were between him and creative. Aren't most recent games supporting Dolby Digital anyway nowadays, such as Bioshock, so EAX may have had it's day anyway. I agree wholeheartedly with earlier posts, that the EU should investigate this and perhaps levy a huge fine. Perhaps we should all try here: http://www.ukecc.net/ to register a complaint about the lack of functionality of Creative X-Fi boards under Vista?

Comment by carlg75 at 7:54am 4th April 2008

I'm seriously looking at the Asus Xonar as my next soundcard. Am thoroughly pissed off with the bloated os and my audigy 4. Nowt but crackles even with danielk's drivers in Vista. In fact Bioshock goes all wierd and I lose sound if I try to use 5.1, not the case in XP. And anyone looking for Daniel's drivers (Optimus Prime) need look no further than most torrent sites as they've often been uploaded on one of them as and when released. I've noticed they're now being names DanielK drivers and come with protests about Creative's actions.

Comment by steeli at 7:48pm 1st April 2008

It is evidant that this company knows and is preventing access to working drivers now for its own product range. Should we not see a court case in the EU or something to mirror Microsofts record fine.... We have proof of working drivers and yet I still have an Xfi fatility card with useless driver support in Vista from Creative.

Comment by WILSON669 at 4:51pm 1st April 2008

i have signed the petition! any one know were we can still get this chaps drivers from? Shame on you Creative!

Comment by Optimusprime1985 at 4:20pm 1st April 2008

It appears from the story that creative know the earlier hardware will work fully in vista but by allowing only basic functionallity and effectively forcing people to upgrade needlessly to "fully functional" hardware is highly dubious if not downright corrupt!!

Comment by warbulator at 12:59pm 1st April 2008

Is Creative pissed because he let thousands of Creative product owners to get a workable driver or that he asked for donations for doing it? When I first installed Vista and tried to sort out the Creative products they all pretty much came back saying incompatible. If it wasn't for the Vista compatibility options, I would have had to buy new hardware. Creative offered no help with this what so ever. Kawakami should host a new site for his downloadable drivers and just remove all donation options, then see how Creative react.

Comment by crazyceo at 9:53am 1st April 2008

Im going to destroy my Crative Fata1ity headset and never buy another creative product again! Nothing to do with this acticle though.... I just think Wendel on one ugly son of a .................. ;)

Comment by pveater at 9:20am 1st April 2008

O'Shaughnessy is ethically deficient. Kawakami is clearly doing something of use and benefit to the community, and being clobbered for it. This is bending the law at it's most typically american and as much fun as planned obsolescence. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_obsolescence

Comment by RickA at 8:38am 1st April 2008

Think of the environment. Don't burn your Creative kit.... give it away! :-)

Comment by cjagusz at 7:44am 1st April 2008

The last creative card I bought was a Soundblaster 128 live and the drivers may as well been non-existant, because they were crap. They had more bugs than an insect zoo. I think Kawakami was well within his rights to make drivers for a product he bought with his hard earned money. Creative should have done it in the first place. And if he wants to share those drivers, then that's his right again, since they were his creation. Who gives a rat's *** if he asked for donations for his work! Once again, within his rights. And EVANJDOONER was right, creative should have hired him, but not to bury his work, but to make drivers that work and make the company look good. As good as onboard sound currently is, they should be concerned with alienating their customers. I know thier sound is better, but is it that much better?

Comment by ballman6711 at 12:51am 1st April 2008

this seems like creative are being a bit precious here. This is like a car owner taking a honda V-TEC engine and putting it in a Focus only to be lawsuited by Honda for putting their engine in a car it wa 'not intended to work in'. I think onlyhappy has a point in that all parties could've benfitted from the setup but I do think Kawakami went about it in the wrong way. If he'd posted a link to a website of his (i'm assuming he has one) where his home-made drivers could be obtained and the WEBSITE asked for donations for running costs then that probably would've looked alot better in Creative's eyes. If someone wants to take an X-Fi Paltinum and somehow make it work on their PS3 and they can actually do it then I think there's no reason why they shouldn't, whether its 'intended' or not. If you have a component that isn't fufilling it's true potentiial - and that potential is being hekd back on purpose - then a consumer who can make it fufil its potential should be able to share that with others - either by instruction or in this case by a home-made bit of software. I think Creative's sudden silence on the matter is due to them realising their mistake and, seeing the backlash it's caused, trying not to annoy their consumer-base and maybe even resolve the matter. Shareholders only invest money in companies that make money, if that company annoys their consumer-base to the point that those consumers stop buying their products, sharehoolders become annoyed and demand heads on dinner-plates

Comment by EdArch at 12:13am 1st April 2008

This guy may be in the wrong, but has shown Creative to be doing no less to its customers. Lets hope some thing good comes of it.

Comment by mad4maxin at 11:41pm 31st March 2008

FACT: Millions of enthusiasts like Daniel love their hardwares/softwares to the point that they spent countless of hours of their own time tweaking and even adding features. FACT: 99% of the modders like Daniel would stop asking for donations if the community ask them to do so. They will, of course, continue modding and "spreading the love" while asking for nothing in return :) FACT: Why did Creative "attack" one it's biggest enthusiasts? Because Creative failed to listen to it's users . . . big time. FACT: When I get home I will gather all my Creative products and have a Creative BBQ Sacrificial Dance in the hope that one day Creative will stop FIRING BLANK.

Comment by zeevro at 9:40pm 31st March 2008

A little bit more thought could have got him a lot further. Hosting modded drivers on the Creative forums was not the brightest thing to do and probably got their backs up. if he'd hosted them somewhere else he may have got away with it. Likewise, he was profiting from it, whether he says the donations are for bandwith or his mum making him tea whilst doing the coding. i don't blame him for asking for donations, but whilst doing it on Creatives forums!!! a slight oversight. On the other side though. creative should have released a proper driver for vista, for free, put the guy outta business and look good for the customers. its accountants doing the thinking there not the consumer relations bod. maybe even employ the guy to do the job as an outside consultant. everyone wins, top scores for creative not stepping on the little guy and supplying the goods, he makes money from it, and consumers get what they want. big corporations suck cos it's all about the shareholders and not the consumers.

Comment by only_happy at 10:07pm 31st March 2008

Yet another company willing to try and pull the wool over consumers eyes because its not economically viable! Meaning why make it work when we can easily screw more money out of people. Several companies are already under investigation for this sort of practise ie "Vista Capable" are they not? Perhaps a hit in Creatives profits may make them think things through next time.

Comment by DomDaDomDom at 9:39pm 31st March 2008

bug8504300: he didn't "steal" Creative's drivers, rather he came up with his own modded one's to enable eax etc on cards that Creative had/have no intention of supporting under Vista. Also he did not charge for them, rather he asked for donations to pay for his time in creating a way to download said modded drivers - no one hosts files for free and I think he was within his rights to do so, you didn't have to donate if you didn't want to anyway so I think Creative might be on sticky ground according to the law on that point. The guy was just trying to help owners of Creative cards in my humble opinion, I own a Creative X-Fi and the support from the makers is cr4p to say the least, try reading their forums to see more of that if you wish. Creative need to get their fingers out and release the proper drivers for Vista instead of trying for force people to buy even more expensive cards (more on that again on their forums) just to enable the things they've already paid for. If Creative can't be bothered to release the correct drivers instead moaning that it's Microsofts fault then that's up to them but it doesn't show them in a good light at all.

Comment by out4zero at 8:44pm 31st March 2008

It's something I've encountered many times and come to expect from Creative. I've brought 5 creative sound cards starting with a sound blaster 16 and ending up with my present X-fi xtreme music, and the hardware is great but the drivers and software support has always been rubbish and responses to e-mails can take months if you actually get a reply. I know many other people who have experienced the same thing, they need to learn to look after their customers before someone else does!

Comment by WoodSpoon at 7:49pm 31st March 2008

The donations he asked for were to cover bandwidth and hosting costs. In the end, Creative should have hired him and buried his work if they wanted to stop him producing drivers. It was a shirt-sighte move which is likely to reduce their long-term customer base.

Comment by evanjdooner at 7:58pm 31st March 2008

My Creative Box says plainly on the box 'WORKS with Vista' This suggests that it does not work fully. Creative are fully within their rights, he steals their software, and 'sells' it. He should just be lucky that he hasn't been hit with a big lawsuit demanding $10 for every download.

Comment by bug8504300 at 7:14pm 31st March 2008

Soon no one will be able to do anything because someone has already done something similar. I know that he was providing stuff that creative sell, which I think may have been a bit of a mistake. However, I thought Alchemy was free to download from the Creative website? The fact that he was modding drivers so that they would work with the latest Operating System that alot of people are using and buying on new computers, I thinks, gives him a good reason to do it. Creative should be implementing this software/drivers, not a third party. If Creative can't be bothered to create drivers for the latest OS, then they deserve to have their IP copied.

Comment by Cerberus_xiii at 6:39pm 31st March 2008

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