More Creative nonsense

Doesn't anyone else remember them charging $10 extra for the 2.0 driver release for the Sound Blaster Live! ?

That was my last SB card.
 
The SB Live was a decent card, but I think that was there last generation of decent hardware/software. The X-Fi series were expensive upgrades that offered little improvement in audio quality or functionality.
 
And even in SB Live days, the drivers were a horrorshow. Ever tried figuring out which particular one you need when you have a random, unknown SB Live in yor hand? Looked at how many different, incompatible ones they have on their website?

Best Soundblaster was the SB 16. After that, they sucked harder, and harder, and harder.

Go away, Creative. You are not wanted.
 
Creative's problem is they apparently ran out of companies to buy. They got their first PCI card designs from Ensoniq since Sound Blaster couldn't figure out how to make a PCI sound card. They milked that for all it's worth and now they're stuck.
 
I liked their Cambridge Soundworks 2.1 speakers. the small ones. They sounded well enough for the price.

But yeah, the last Creative sound card I had was based on an ensoniq design.

I still use a Sta Cruz. But I heard Realtek on-board is good enough nowadays.

Should I ditch the Sta Cruz to free up a PCI slot? My mobo only has 2 PCI, and one has a firewire card on it.
 
I have to admit, that I detest Creative's handling of their drivers. I was hired to reinstall an OS and the customer didn't have the original Creative disks. So I went onto their website to get drivers. Then only ones they listed were drivers that destroyed the install. I contacted creative, and they told me that they only "updated" the original drivers supplied and they required an original disk. I said fine, could you send me an original drivers disk, and the answer was no. I said, could you direct me to an web site containing complete drivers and they said no. I asked, then how am I to get the drivers and they said buy a new card. My reaction was not kind.

I then searched P2P sites for a copy of the original drivers disk; Found them and went on my merry way. I have not bought or recommended a Creative sound card of any form since then.
 
I did receive a class action settlement from Creative several years ago relating to false advertising: Supposedly, they were advertising a frequency rate in all cases, where it was only being delivered under specific circumstances. Since it was credit for more Creative merchandise, I did not use it up ...
 
Oh I remember the days of the crappy Creative SB Live! drivers on 98SE/2K, as well as the incompatibles with certain chip sets (the Via 686B south bridge comes to mind).

It was about that time I switched to Redhat 6 (or was it 7)?, and the Linux kernel at the time had better Live! drivers than Creative themselves could put out...

But alas that SB Live! was the last Creative card I've owned, (previous was a SB16 ISA PnP, and before that a SoundBlaster 2.0). Since the Live! I've just used the onboard crap since (ADI SoundMax and Realtek mainly).

Due to crappy drivers and lack of decent customer support (which Tannin mentions), I'll never touch a Creative product again.

PS. I had the *original* SB Live! not one of the many "Lets call it the same name, but it's really a different card".
 
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