Is it just me or does Creative suck?

Why does Creative Labs Suck?

  • Junky Bloated Software/Driver package

    Votes: 50 28.2%
  • Hardware fails to work as advertized

    Votes: 7 4.0%
  • Weak implementation/support in games

    Votes: 3 1.7%
  • 1 and 2

    Votes: 24 13.6%
  • 2 and 3

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 1 and 3

    Votes: 9 5.1%
  • All 1 2 and 3

    Votes: 19 10.7%
  • Other

    Votes: 7 4.0%
  • Creative Labs doesn't suck

    Votes: 58 32.8%

  • Total voters
    177
  • Poll closed .
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vmerc

Limp Gawd
Joined
Mar 3, 2003
Messages
262
This thread prompted me to make this poll post.

As far back as i can remember, and trust me that's a long time. Creative has had only one really good sound card. Sound Blaster 16 anyone? Everything since then has sucked, and continued to suck more and more every time they make a new version. Oh of course they add new features. The cards can play X Million simultaneous voices now, and they have 128bit DAC and blah blah blah. How about a driver set that doesn't suck and bloat the life out of my system, and actual hardware features that work as intended. I can't remember the last time I actually got 3D sound out of my creative sound cards if ever.

Here's the list of cards that I have owned from Creative:

Sound Blaster
Sound Blaster 16 (Multiple)
Sound Blaster Live
Sound Blaster Live 5.1
Sound Blaster Audigy Platinum

I gave up after the Audigy still didn't do the basic things that I thought a sound card should do for more than $200 dollars and didn't even do the things that were advertized on the box.
 
Yes creative puts alot of useless shit in the CD, but you can not select it. I learned that a long time ago. I thought the Audigy1 was pretty good. I like the X-fi I have alot. I skipped the Audigy 2s altogether because I saw no real improvement. I have to agree with you somewhat. I also wish that when creative puts out new updates they be more specific about what they improved or fixed.....ie see the latest x-fi driver update. :D
 
Oh.... the hell I went through because I lost my Audigy2zs driver disk. I needed Bass redirection for hooking it up to my amp, too tall a task for their basic driver I guess. For a week I went without Bass and settled on DL'ing it at like 8kb/sec finally, because those 'tards can't spare the bandwidth on the Creative site for there FULL driver... what a bunch of crap. Don't make hundreds of megs worth of apps then!

That was my worse experience with them. I couldn't help but think, $5 or $10 for a reissue of the cd, can't possibly be the doled out solution... are they serious? Apparently, very. Taking advantage of their situation as the solo player. I would have cursed to never buy a Creative product again, but I knew better.
 
Creative doesn't suck at all. Yeah, the CD likes to install a lot of crap, but you can just deselect those things as default apps, and make sure they don't start up automatically, then bingo, you don't have to worry about it.

The cards themselves have always been the best bang for the buck when it comes to gaming, midi, and overall sound quality.

Back in the days of my AWE32 it was the only card at the time I could add RAM to and do soundfonts with. Hell, for a period of time my soundcard had as much RAM as my system did, but it made things I played back through Finale sound much more realistic, and really helped me get an idea of what I was trying to do.

Plus, given the other options at the time Turtle Beach Cards, and towards the end Aureal cards, the soundblasters had much better wavetables, better sound quality, and more connectivity.

Since then I have had a Live and an Audigy, and the Audigy is also great. I love the firewire port, I love the fact that the sound quality is pretty darn high, and if I cared about gaming, I guess I'd like all the stuff it did there.
 
The older software sucks and the lack of driver updates for Audigy 1 cards sucks. Otherwise I have been very happy with my Audigy. For what it cost me I feel I have gotten a lot out of it.
 
NulloModo said:
Creative doesn't suck at all. Yeah, the CD likes to install a lot of crap, but you can just deselect those things as default apps, and make sure they don't start up automatically, then bingo, you don't have to worry about it.

The cards themselves have always been the best bang for the buck when it comes to gaming, midi, and overall sound quality.

Back in the days of my AWE32 it was the only card at the time I could add RAM to and do soundfonts with. Hell, for a period of time my soundcard had as much RAM as my system did, but it made things I played back through Finale sound much more realistic, and really helped me get an idea of what I was trying to do.

Plus, given the other options at the time Turtle Beach Cards, and towards the end Aureal cards, the soundblasters had much better wavetables, better sound quality, and more connectivity.

Since then I have had a Live and an Audigy, and the Audigy is also great. I love the firewire port, I love the fact that the sound quality is pretty darn high, and if I cared about gaming, I guess I'd like all the stuff it did there.

If you cared about gaming your opinion would be quite different.
 
my audigy 2 zs is runnning great and no problems at all... and it's even better today when my new set of z-5500's arrived as a replacement for my z-680's...
 
Their Zen mp3 players have a lot longer battery life than the similar spec Ipod...like 3x's longer.

Sound cards...eh? Some are better than others. I had a TB Santa Cruz for a long time (until yesterday). I bought my brother an Audigy2 ZS. As of now, i think I'll continue to buy Creative.
 
software sucks monkeyballs but the hardware is great when it works (at the falt of the software)
 
wow.... I have never ran into a SINGLE driver problem... the only problem I had with sound was when I installed one of the beta forcewares that made the sound crackle :p
 
i like how they put out the new cards,support them for what seems less then two years and then you stuck with you creative labs soundcard that has problems the new drivers never corrected.

i also like how there Zen player{i had a 5gig Version}broke after a month and a half of use.
there tech.support was no help at all.i got back my money after putting up with walmart's "nice" return area employees.

after that,i feel like using my onboard soundcard and packaging up my creative soundcard Live! card and putting in it the parts box i have.
 
I agree the drivers are horribly bloated (even WHEN you deselect extra crap).
Other than that, there's nothing wrong with my Audigy 2 ZS Plat.
 
Munka said:
If you cared about gaming your opinion would be quite different.

I care about gaming and Creative is better than any others...simply because they DO EAX and they DO NOT give you a frame rate hit like EVERY OTHER CARD out.
 
ive hated creative since the early SB days, and havent purchased another card. i dont plan too either.
 
While their gaming audio cards could be miles better and not so overpriced, they make the EMu line, which is a good line of cards.
 
wow, drivers are easy and simple to install without the bloated crap......

download drivers.. extract to a folder... go into device manager.... click update drivers... select the folder and only the drivers are installed.. no software what-so-ever... anyways..

I just tested my newer z-5500's and the bass are way deeper than the z-680's *drools*
 
Creative IMO does not suck ... if you can get the installtion down right, and if you can get the card on a free IRQ, and if the mobo chipset you are using likes the card. In the hands of a knowledgable person all of those conditions are usually met.
 
Creative Labs sucks because they stifle competition and otherwise do harm to the industry (see the Doom 3 incident).
 
Creative cards in general do not suck. Here is a breakdown:

Audigy line - Teh suck for everything but games. Drivers suck more than a dollar store prositute.

Emu line - Very good so far IMO. Drivers work well, no bloat, and patchmix is awesome.

XFI- Dunno. Will find out as soon as I can afford an Elite Pro..
 
Creative is pretty crappy, but sadly there are few alternatives, what could explain why they are so bad when it comes to drivers and software...

I mean come on what company makes you keep the original cds to install the drivers off the website, that is just silly.
 
texuspete00 said:
Oh.... the hell I went through because I lost my Audigy2zs driver disk. I needed Bass redirection for hooking it up to my amp, too tall a task for their basic driver I guess. For a week I went without Bass and settled on DL'ing it at like 8kb/sec finally, because those 'tards can't spare the bandwidth on the Creative site for there FULL driver... what a bunch of crap. Don't make hundreds of megs worth of apps then!

That was my worse experience with them. I couldn't help but think, $5 or $10 for a reissue of the cd, can't possibly be the doled out solution... are they serious? Apparently, very. Taking advantage of their situation as the solo player. I would have cursed to never buy a Creative product again, but I knew better.

Shit, I just lost my disk and I have to reinstall all my audigy 2 zs stuff. Uh oh, looks like i'm in trouble. Anyone know a place where I can download that if it's legal? I can't find the damn CD anywhere.. I found the applications cd, almost thought it was the driver CD I, was so mad I almost threw it.
 
aZn_plyR said:
wow, drivers are easy and simple to install without the bloated crap......

download drivers.. extract to a folder... go into device manager.... click update drivers... select the folder and only the drivers are installed.. no software what-so-ever... anyways..

I just tested my newer z-5500's and the bass are way deeper than the z-680's *drools*


ah yeah very nice very nice :)
 
bboynitrous said:
Shit, I just lost my disk and I have to reinstall all my audigy 2 zs stuff. Uh oh, looks like i'm in trouble. Anyone know a place where I can download that if it's legal? I can't find the damn CD anywhere.. I found the applications cd, almost thought it was the driver CD I, was so mad I almost threw it.

DONT PANIC ;) .
Full versions of driver for Audigy 2 ZS ARE on the creative site, I know because I was in the same situation as you a few weeks ago. They have full package of drivers available online they are just too stupid to make one download out of that.
But if you read description of the file, it is all there....
First you need to install THIS , then reboot, and then you may install this update, too but it will work w/t it already. I tried to install the update first and thought I needed CD so I called Creative and they told me I didn´t. Hope this helps...
 
I have had the
SB
SB16 w/asp pretty good card
SB AWE32 crap
SB Live so so
stopped there
now using onboard. .
 
no one should have to Set IRQ's and move the card to differant PCI slots or have to worry about if there motherboard will have conflicts with a soundcard.
 
Lt.Doomsday said:
no one should have to Set IRQ's and move the card to differant PCI slots or have to worry about if there motherboard will have conflicts with a soundcard.
..


True, it has been going in with VIA for a long time now - give ot take the specific mobo and iplementation of said. NVIDA NF2 also had issues with SW IDE drivers (depending on specific board and bios and optical drives used), then we have the NF3 with nVIDA 6800GT fiacso. As we see incompatibilities happen. For the most part in a perfect world you should not have to use 'standard hal' or manipulate IRQ's, but depending on the board you use you might have to, but in most cases, especially with a clean installation (and you knowing the IRQ table of your mobo ..eg; the best slot to put the creative card in) the install should be just fine (in most cases).
 
i know that first hand....i had a Abit KT-7 Non Raid Mobo and had the same problems with my Soundblaster Live! Card.

after a few years with the board ,i got a MSI Delta2-LSR i have no problems with at all.the only thing i like to do next is get a WD 160gig HD,but i have more pressing matters at hand.
 
Lt.Doomsday said:
i know that first hand....i had a Abit KT-7 Non Raid Mobo and had the same problems with my Soundblaster Live! Card.

after a few years with the board ,i got a MSI Delta2-LSR i have no problems with at all.the only thing i like to do next is get a WD 160gig HD,but i have more pressing matters at hand.

Every single NF2 motherboard had an incompatibility with installing the gameport with add-in CMI 8738 cards, but not that many 'chose' to install add-in CMI 8738 cards anyway lol. Especially those with MCP-T based boards with real DDE capabilities. But overall the Nforce2 was vastly superior to VIA KT400 or KT600 imo.
 
UltimaParadox said:
Creative is pretty crappy, but sadly there are few alternatives, what could explain why they are so bad when it comes to drivers and software...

I mean come on what company makes you keep the original cds to install the drivers off the website, that is just silly.

if your read my other reply.. you don't need the original cd to install drivers off the website... I tossed mines out the first week i got the card :p
 
Wow! I guess it not just me then. As I see it Creative is going down a path that will ultimately lead to their demise because they are depending on manipulation of the industry and not customer satisfaction to keep their market share up.

And to whoever added "This Poll sucks" to my poll needs to step up to receive their lecture on appropriate behavior and basic respect.
 
the only thing that sucks is that I'm still waiting for the Win x64 drivers for my x-fi card.
 
Creative does suck. However, considering they are THE leading manufacturer of sound cards and have been for oh, say, 10 years, what does that say about the competition? Who exactly are the competition? I can't think of anyone with comparable products, mabey there are a couple of companies with current products comparable to creative products from 3-4 years ago but who gives a crap about their outdated junk? If there's no one to step up and actually COMPETE with them then there's no room to sit and bitch about how bad of a company they are.
 
I have always used onboard sound before the card I currently own (a Soundblaster live! 5.1) which was bought close to 3 years ago, heh. I do not choose to upgrade this card as I am 100% satisfied with the quality of sound the sb live puts out.

My only gripe however is that the drivers can be a bit twitchy at times. An example of this is once every so often, maybe once a week, my computer will startup and only have sound comming from the right speakers/headphones. A quick reboot fixes this though.
 
vmerc said:
Wow! I guess it not just me then. As I see it Creative is going down a path that will ultimately lead to their demise because they are depending on manipulation of the industry and not customer satisfaction to keep their market share up.

And to whoever added "This Poll sucks" to my poll needs to step up to receive their lecture on appropriate behavior and basic respect.

No one needs to step up because of your opinion(s). This poll does suck..Not EVERYONE thinks Creative sucks entirely, they have their flaws (customer service from what I've heard) but hey..I've owned 3 of their cards and even their high end speaker system and I'm impressed.. No problems what-so-ever.

In addition to that, don't look for respect to a thread title that says "Is it just me or does Creative suck?" because not alot of people care about statements like that. Hence the reason someone probably added

THIS POLL SUCKS.
 
Does Creative suck? No more than any other technology corporation. They have a bad habit of pumping out way too many similar products though. (did we really need an Audigy 4?)

I liked the Sound Blaster 16 back in the day. I had my Roland SC-15 wavetable daughtercard hooked up to it. This was back in the DOS days when having the ability to play General MIDI music in a game was a godsend. I loved that combo.

Since it was an ISA sound card I eventually upgraded it to a Diamond MonsterSound MX300 (I think that's right) PCI sound card with a daughtercard connector so I could continue to use my SC-15. I'd have to say that Creative's offerings at the time sucked badly compared to the Aureal cards. I kept this card for a good while.

I replaced it eventually with a SoundBlaster Live 5.1. I never had so many issues with a sound card causing problems with a chipset. Since at that time VIA was the only real option for AMD and Aureal was dead I still kick myself for not getting a Turtle Beach card. This was about the time Creative's drivers started sucking really badly. The surround sound and EAX abilities of this card left a lot to be desired.

I eventually replaced it with an Audigy 2 ZS. To be honest I actually like this sound card. The drivers still suck but I've pretty much mastered their lameness.

Using my same Klipsch ProMedia 5.1s I can hear things with the Audigy 2 ZS that I never heard before with my Live 5.1. I noticed an immediate difference in quality in WoW and FFXI.

Since that computer is used for gaming mostly, I'd say the Audigy 2 ZS works well and is a great gaming card.

Every company has shitty products and good products.
 
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