Creative’s Windows Vista support has been anything but great, but things have really escalated over the last couple of days. First, Creative sends out a message saying ASUS claim of EAX 5.0 support with Xonar DX sound card is false. ASUS is not using an X-Fi chip, but is merely emulating the effects. ASUS on the other hand, counters by saying that the effects are reproduced with near to no distinguishable difference. We expect the debate to go on with comments being thrown back and forth. However, the bigger debacle of the two, is the announcement made over at the Creative forums.
In short, Creative told driver modder daniel_k to cease and desist with his work. Daniel has been supplying Vista users with modified drivers for some time now, and his work has been appreciated among the Creative sound card owners. When they told him to stop, the users went berserk. The page count is now up to 172. Most of them are negative, saying that they will either return their products, or even destroy them, and ultimately recommend others to completely avoid Creative products.
There are several issues at hand, one is the Vista support for the older Audigy cards, something Creative charges for. Daniel has been offering this for free, at the same time asking for donations for the time spent modifying Creative IP. He also unlocked other features with the X-Fi series, which was only available in Windows XP before. Creative have all the right to tell him to stop, but no comments have been made to whether they will do something about the driver support.
Several users have now registered complaints with the state authorities, and are even looking into class action suits against Creative. We can’t imagine Creative was expecting this kind of rampage, and we’re wondering if this will change its approach to the Vista support. We knew that Creative drivers were poor, but this was really unexpected.
We’re awaiting an official statement.
