Is it just me or does Creative suck?

[t00thless]

im fine with their sound cards

i just hate them because of trying to find drivers for this creative modem i had years ago. i still have bitter memories about that

 

[Scroatdog]

I think Creative sucks. Where are the unified drivers? Get with the times.

What we need is a SERIOUS competitor. That will generate new and innovative sound cards on a more regular basis, as we've seen with the video card world, and more competitive pricing.

 

[BBA]

I see the logic..Creative makes the best card for games and thats why they suck.

Got it thanks.

 

[hek1]

1 and 2

BUT the HAVE delivered some pretty damn good computer speakers over the years

 

[vmerc]

I added "creative does not suck" and that should be sufficient. If someone hacks my poll, then they are being disrespectful. Obviously this poll does not suck because it has genereated a good bit of debate and useful sharing of experiences. If nobody voted or replied to my poll I would agree that it sucked, but that's not the case now is it?

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.

 

[Cousin Patty]

I've used 2 Creative sound cards and I've been very happy with both of them. I do wish that they made driver updates easier though. I do also have some driver issues sometimes. Other than that, their cards kickass.

 

[SJetski71]

I added "creative does not suck" and that should be sufficient. If someone hacks my poll, then they are being disrespectful. Obviously this poll does not suck because it has genereated a good bit of debate and useful sharing of experiences. If nobody voted or replied to my poll I would agree that it sucked, but that's not the case now is it?

Well it might have something to do with 7 negative choices, 1 neutral, and only one positive.

Some would call that rigging the poll (and by removing one of the choices also)

I do agree that it makes for interesting debate, noobs can learn a thing or two from all this mudslinging

 

[Elios]

bottem line seems to be

A. Creative Hardware is good

B. Creative drives need to improve

C. We need a competative 2nd player in the sound card market

 

[johto]

My history of using creative cards:

Original Soundblaster (8-bit, mono)
Soundblaster 2.0
Soundblaster 16
[Then used other cards than creative, anyone remember Gravis Ultrasound Max]
Creative 64PCI
[Then used newer integrated soundmax]

Currently using Esi Juli@.
Juli's drivers are only 176kB, yes kilobytes!
Sound quality is just wonderfull.
I can use my integrated routed digitally in Juli@ for games/movies, and then use Juli@ when really listening to music.

I dont miss creatives bloatware at all...actually i had my fare share recently when i got Creative Zen Micro

 

[vmerc]

My history of using creative cards:

Original Soundblaster (8-bit, mono)
Soundblaster 2.0
Soundblaster 16
[Then used other cards than creative, anyone remember Gravis Ultrasound Max]
Creative 64PCI
[Then used newer integrated soundmax]

Currently using Esi Juli@.
Juli's drivers are only 176kB, yes kilobytes!
Sound quality is just wonderfull.
I can use my integrated routed digitally in Juli@ for games/movies, and then use Juli@ when really listening to music.

I dont miss creatives bloatware at all...actually i had my fare share recently when i got Creative Zen Micro

I checked out the Juli@ last night. Does the fact sheet doesn't tell me much about what modes it supports. Are you saying that you use the digital to output surround from games to a receiver?

I don't know. I just think it would be convenient to be able to just hook up the optical, and forget about changing sound modes forever. You know; Like DVD's have been doing for years now. They just send a signal to the receiver "ok we're in 5.1 mode now." Not to mention optical sound quality ain't too shabby.

 

[Donnie27]

I added "creative does not suck" and that should be sufficient. If someone hacks my poll, then they are being disrespectful. Obviously this poll does not suck because it has genereated a good bit of debate and useful sharing of experiences. If nobody voted or replied to my poll I would agree that it sucked, but that's not the case now is it?

I agree with the other guy, the poll does suck!

I agree with you though, that it is disrespectful to hack a Poll. It seems that it is fair game to bash and sling mud at Creative in this forum.

Many folks can't even RTFM. I replied to that guy on the other thread. Gave info on Minimal Install/Max Performance. I even gave a link to GamePC testing this feature. Yet you still see FUD about Bloatware, $200, unstable drivers and etc.. Even that person in that thread turns around and his reply to me is a bash fest LOL!

Last but not least, POS VIA hardware sucked before and after Creative Sound cards were installed. Unlike some experts on other threads, I had enough of them to form my own opinion.

Donnie27

 

[Donnie27]

bottem line seems to be

A. Creative Hardware is good

B. Creative drives need to improve

C. We need a competative 2nd player in the sound card market

Hell YES! A 3rd or 4th wouldn't be bad either. Creative's Competition, be they VIA-Envy, CMedia and or Realtec, sucks much worse than Creative though.

Donnie27

 

[vmerc]

Hell YES! A 3rd or 4th wouldn't be bad either. Creative's Competition, be they VIA-Envy, CMedia and or Realtec, sucks much worse than Creative though.

Donnie27

Problem is every time there's a real competitor to Creative they either sue them out of business, or buy them outright. I would like to see Nvidia take on creative for a good chunk of marketshare. Compared to GPUs, APUs are childs-play. Creative could only have wet dreams about buying Nvidia.

They don't need to make an "Audigy killer" they just need to make an APU that will provide quality sound in the formats that games support. Then pile on a nice software package in the usual Nvidia fasion, and they're golden.

 

[Dan_D]

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.

Yep, I have even talked to them about this. They handed me the excuse that they didn't have enough room on the site for all the full driver packages. Creative's drivers suck. That's the bottom line.

 

[Elios]

real what we need is some one else to make another true DSP sound card nVidia could but i dont see them doing this any time soon most other sound cards that are piced any were near an Audigy or X-Fi are mostly just codecs just like onboard

edit and if you thing creative has shitty DACs go check out just about every other consumer sound card the SB line is way better then 99% of the other cards out there

 

[Steel Chicken]

I agree with the OP, since SB16, they have sucked. I had hardware and driver problems with their products since then. Ive resigned myself to on-board audio and decent headphones.

They need compeition, pure and simple. Competition ensures companies are less likely to distribute crap.

 

[vmerc]

real what we need is some one else to make another true DSP sound card nVidia could but i dont see them doing this any time soon most other sound cards that are piced any were near an Audigy or X-Fi are mostly just codecs just like onboard

edit and if you thing creative has shitty DACs go check out just about every other consumer sound card the SB line is way better then 99% of the other cards out there

I agree that the Creative DACs are pretty darn good. It's like an LT1 engine modded into an old Ford Pinto.

 

[Elios]

I agree that the Creative DACs are pretty darn good. It's like an LT1 engine modded into an old Ford Pinto.

if you havent try the X-Fi yet on good speakers i think you should drivers are better then any i have used for there cards befor (still need work but getting there) VERY low CPU usage in games hardware DTS-ES and DD EX (i use my PC as a DVD player and HTPC)

and i dont know how or why and dont care but the 'crystalizer' works just as thay say

go rent one from best buy for a week and try it befor you bash it
BF2 sounds insanly nice i can tell were ppl are just form sound its great 128 hardware voices realy helps there with all the stuff going on

 

[Soul.Survivor]

I must agree that the drivers for the X-Fi are better than any others they've put out, but they leave room for improvement. I get pops during games that are annoying but not unbearable. And in BF2, what I spend 80-90% of my time playing, I get serious lag every so often whenever I move the mouse more than an inch or so. I mean SERIOUS lag, like 80-90FPS down to 10FPS. This has only happened since I've been using the X-Fi and I noticed it the first day I installed the card. Sometimes I can go an hour or two without seeing it, sometimes it happens 5 minutes into a game.
Also, I have ctfmon.exe, CTHELPER.EXE, CTXFIHLP.EXE, and CTXFISPI.EXE running in the background taking up about 17MB of memory. Why the F do I need 4 processes running at all times? Why does the card need 2 processes with variations of the word HELP and what are they for? I think 1 background process is too many, let alone 4. I despise any background process that just sits there waiting for a driver update or some other bullshit. In fact, I hate most background processes, no matter what they do.

 

[vmerc]

if you havent try the X-Fi yet on good speakers i think you should drivers are better then any i have used for there cards befor (still need work but getting there) VERY low CPU usage in games hardware DTS-ES and DD EX (i use my PC as a DVD player and HTPC)

and i dont know how or why and dont care but the 'crystalizer' works just as thay say

go rent one from best buy for a week and try it befor you bash it
BF2 sounds insanly nice i can tell were ppl are just form sound its great 128 hardware voices realy helps there with all the stuff going on

Problem is every tiem I buy a new creative sound card I am sorely disappointed.

I never knew BB had a hardware rental service.
I am not going to buy hardware on a trial basis knowing that I am going to return it. Even if I liked it I am not in the market for a new sound card right now. My on-board NForce3 sound works just fine. Actually I like it a lot more than my Audigy that's sitting in my desk drawer right now because it was causing games to crash.

 

[johto]

I checked out the Juli@ last night. Does the fact sheet doesn't tell me much about what modes it supports. Are you saying that you use the digital to output surround from games to a receiver?

I don't know. I just think it would be convenient to be able to just hook up the optical, and forget about changing sound modes forever. You know; Like DVD's have been doing for years now. They just send a signal to the receiver "ok we're in 5.1 mode now." Not to mention optical sound quality ain't too shabby.

Eh? there are no "modes" in Juli@. You can route and "monitor" the line input/outputs using its own mixer...juli@ should be capable to route digital ac3 through to the ampifier, juli has its own optical out. I dont use juli digitally, i have oldschool "vintage" stereo amplfier, so i use analog stereo out. Only digital stuff i do is between two cards...search older threads, i posted some pictures how i use it on my setup.

 

[Elios]

I must agree that the drivers for the X-Fi are better than any others they've put out, but they leave room for improvement. I get pops during games that are annoying but not unbearable. And in BF2, what I spend 80-90% of my time playing, I get serious lag every so often whenever I move the mouse more than an inch or so. I mean SERIOUS lag, like 80-90FPS down to 10FPS. This has only happened since I've been using the X-Fi and I noticed it the first day I installed the card. Sometimes I can go an hour or two without seeing it, sometimes it happens 5 minutes into a game.
Also, I have ctfmon.exe, CTHELPER.EXE, CTXFIHLP.EXE, and CTXFISPI.EXE running in the background taking up about 17MB of memory. Why the F do I need 4 processes running at all times? Why does the card need 2 processes with variations of the word HELP and what are they for? I think 1 background process is too many, let alone 4. I despise any background process that just sits there waiting for a driver update or some other bullshit. In fact, I hate most background processes, no matter what they do.

you can kill all that but the DLLML.exe and CTXFISPI.exe

use start > run > msconfig to get all the crap turned off at startup

that stutter isnt the sound card lower you textures to med itll go away

 

[Elios]

Problem is every tiem I buy a new creative sound card I am sorely disappointed.

I never knew BB had a hardware rental service.
I am not going to buy hardware on a trial basis knowing that I am going to return it. Even if I liked it I am not in the market for a new sound card right now. My on-board NForce3 sound works just fine. Actually I like it a lot more than my Audigy that's sitting in my desk drawer right now because it was causing games to crash.

just try it it sounds great every review has had only good things to say about the card (other then price) but you realy need to try it frist it sounds MUCH better then the Audigy1

 

[bratboy]

No fair changing a poll after you start one. Wasnt there a "This poll sucks" option before hehe. CL makes decent cards IMHO, they especially have done much better software wise with the X-Fi at least, but also had no real probs with any of the many CL cards I've owned - SB16, awe64, SBLive (origonal), Audigy2 and now theX-FI FPS card.

 

[Donnie27]

Problem is every tiem I buy a new creative sound card I am sorely disappointed.

I never knew BB had a hardware rental service.
I am not going to buy hardware on a trial basis knowing that I am going to return it. Even if I liked it I am not in the market for a new sound card right now. My on-board NForce3 sound works just fine. Actually I like it a lot more than my Audigy that's sitting in my desk drawer right now because it was causing games to crash.

It's not just the Audigy alone, it is a combination of the Audigy plus NF-3 that's the problem. I have still have Audigy 1 in my wife's computer and it causes ZERO crashes to at least 10 games on her computer, CoD, MoH, Halo, Matrix, UT 1-2K3 and etc... Its installed on an i850 though. Your view on the drivers will be moot for many others who don't use a NF3 though. Now that's really not fair at all.

Audigy 2 saw the drivers improve, they improved again when Audigy 2 ZS shipped and I ran my X-Fi for two days without the much needed update evenyone says folks must have to run the card. Again, though, that's on an i875/Abit IC7-G. Others here own that board and can prove me wrong.

Donnie27

 

[Elios]

It's not just the Audigy alone, it is a combination of the Audigy plus NF-3 that's the problem. I have still have Audigy 1 in my wife's computer and it causes ZERO crashes to at least 10 games on her computer, CoD, MoH, Halo, Matrix, UT 1-2K3 and etc... Its installed on an i850 though. Your view on the drivers will be moot for many others who don't use a NF3 though. Now that's really not fair at all.

Audigy 2 saw the drivers improve, they improved again when Audigy 2 ZS shipped and I ran my X-Fi for two days without the much needed update evenyone says folks must have to run the card. Again, though, that's on an i875/Abit IC7-G. Others here own that board and can prove me wrong.

Donnie27

sure about that i had a Audigy 1 in my NF3 150 mobo no probs at all

 

[Mister X]

http://www.hardforum.com/forumdisplay.php?f=33

Post #21

Yes and I just had a post deleted by Mister-X for pointing that out yesterday.

So you think you can repost that here?

 

[vmerc]

nVidia, Intel, Philips and many others had a chance to buy Sensura and or Aureal, just as VIA bought up Envy. Nvidia can only have wet dreams of having the same kind of Market Share Creative does.

The Market is not rigged and takes care of itself. If it didn't;
VIA would still have more of AMD's support than nVidia does now.
Intel would still have a stranglehold on the Gaming market.
ATI would have the top selling card.
If others made better Gaming cards, Creative would be sucking hindtit.
AMD wouldn't be selling more than half of the PC processors in the U.S..

...

Donnie27

The market does not take care of itself all of the time. I don't need to point out examples. The US government and any other industrialized country around the world has laws in place to protect the market when certain members of the market get too much power. Of course Creative has not been hit with anti-trust cases yet, but it also takes a lot of obvious and belligerent acts of anti-competitive behavior to get the government interested. There's a grey area in between getting slapped for having a monopoly and real competition. Creative has been riding high in that grey area for a long time. Do you really think that Creative is so great that someone else couldn't produce a sound card for gamers that is superior and charge less for it?

Sure sure, the DAC is great, and the sound quality is great on the X-Fi or Audigy, but that's not all there is. It's like saying that the only thing that a video card is good for is the FPS. Forget about image quality or dual view or TV out (or TV in for that matter) or desktop profiles. We could have the equivalent kinds of features on our sound cards, but we don't. Instead we have a bunch of features that are pseudo-pro recording features that gamers don't care about or even know exist on the card. Creative throws those on because they can do it for cheap, and it makes the card look like some badass hardcore hardware. In all actuality serious music recorders laugh at the Creative line of cards. Yet gamers are still paying the high price for these cards that are as bloated as their driver set, and are none the wiser to all of the things that they COULD have if somoene with fresh ideas came along and designed a sound card. I understand that it's difficult to think about things that are not there as opposed to the things that are there. That's the way that Creative likes it. As long as they can keep adding 32 more voices to every generation of card they're happy because it's nothing for them to just copy and paste the code, and let the chip design system route the silicon. The truth is there are a lot of innovations out there that get crushed because they are either viewed as a threat by Creative and are then dealt with, or they are not supported by a total hardware package that is viable or properly marketed. Either way you never see those ideas show up in Creative cards because that would change the whole picture, and open doors for new vectors of competition.

 

[Donnie27]

So you think you can repost that here?

Why not? I didn't bring it up. The whole thread is based opinion and has no topic to speak of other than another Creative bash fest.

Donnie27

 

[vmerc]

It's not just the Audigy alone, it is a combination of the Audigy plus NF-3 that's the problem. I have still have Audigy 1 in my wife's computer and it causes ZERO crashes to at least 10 games on her computer, CoD, MoH, Halo, Matrix, UT 1-2K3 and etc... Its installed on an i850 though. Your view on the drivers will be moot for many others who don't use a NF3 though. Now that's really not fair at all.

Audigy 2 saw the drivers improve, they improved again when Audigy 2 ZS shipped and I ran my X-Fi for two days without the much needed update evenyone says folks must have to run the card. Again, though, that's on an i875/Abit IC7-G. Others here own that board and can prove me wrong.

Donnie27

If you look at my OP you'll see my history in owning CL cards. It's not just the Audigy it's all of them minus the original SB and SB16.

I had my Audigy in more than one MOBO before I had the NF3, and it did the same thing every time. It just took me until I had an alternative (On board) to be able to test the system without the Audigy and figure out that it was the Audigy that was causing that same behavior in every system I owned. As soon as I took it out, viola no more crashes. You can tell me that every MOBO I owned was junk, and it's their fault, but that's not a very realistic argument.

 

[Elios]

well find me another card that can do

A. EAX3 4 and 5
B. DD-EX and DTS-ES in hardware
C. has as low CPU usage
D. is a true DSP
E. has 128 voices

i dont care about the rest thats what i use in the card X-Fi has that till i see some thing with all of that ill keep my X-Fi

the only problems i have had with SB stuff are the shitty ass drivers the X-Fi drivers are much much better but thay could be a bit smaller and not need extra stuff running to open the control panel for the vol.

 

[vmerc]

Why not? I didn't bring it up. The whole thread is based opinion and has no topic to speak of other than another Creative bash fest.

Donnie27

Aye, it is a Creative Labs bash fest. You think CL doesn't suck, and according to my poll, you are in the minority. I thought forums and the Internet at large were available for everyone to express their opinion freely. If I am wrong I guess I'll have to write Al Gore to apologize for misusing the Internet.

 

[Dan_D]

I must agree that the drivers for the X-Fi are better than any others they've put out, but they leave room for improvement. I get pops during games that are annoying but not unbearable. And in BF2, what I spend 80-90% of my time playing, I get serious lag every so often whenever I move the mouse more than an inch or so. I mean SERIOUS lag, like 80-90FPS down to 10FPS. This has only happened since I've been using the X-Fi and I noticed it the first day I installed the card. Sometimes I can go an hour or two without seeing it, sometimes it happens 5 minutes into a game.
Also, I have ctfmon.exe, CTHELPER.EXE, CTXFIHLP.EXE, and CTXFISPI.EXE running in the background taking up about 17MB of memory. Why the F do I need 4 processes running at all times? Why does the card need 2 processes with variations of the word HELP and what are they for? I think 1 background process is too many, let alone 4. I despise any background process that just sits there waiting for a driver update or some other bullshit. In fact, I hate most background processes, no matter what they do.

Initial drivers are always decent. Let's see how it's supported in a year. Not to mention, there are no Windows Professional x64 Edition drivers. Plus if you don't keep the driver CD's, you'll be screwed as Creative only puts driver updates on the web. Most of the time they aren't cumulative either. So yu have to install them in order.

Creative's drivers suck ass. Plain and simple.

 

[Donnie27]

If you look at my OP you'll see my history in owning CL cards. It's not just the Audigy it's all of them minus the original SB and SB16.

I had my Audigy in more than one MOBO before I had the NF3, and it did the same thing every time. It just took me until I had an alternative (On board) to be able to test the system without the Audigy and figure out that it was the Audigy that was causing that same behavior in every system I owned. As soon as I took it out, viola no more crashes. You can tell me that every MOBO I owned was junk, and it's their fault, but that's not a very realistic argument.

First of all, I didn't say every or all mobos not compatible is junk or etc.. History first. I too owned SB16 hell even owned a SB Pro, still have an AWE64 in an old 200MHz Computer. I loved my MX-300 and only dumpped my SQ-2500 (uninstalled but kept) because it caused Northbridge problems with my KX-133 Epox 7KX-A. It and my SBLive 5.1 then wouldn't work right with my Abit KT-133A Rev 1 either, caused HDD corruption. GB's PCI Latency Patch did NOTHING. I still have the Hercules that I used to replace both. Not because I though it sounded better, but because it didn't cause the system problems.

I upgraded this with a TB Santa Cruz and was happy with it until the I tried an Audigy 2. I personally still like TB-SC much better than the Audigy 1. After I got an Audigy 2, I never looked back and sold my TBSC. ASIO 2.0 and drivers were the reasons I went to Audigy 2 ZS over 2. I sold the Audigy 2 and still have a Audigy 2 ZS for my next build. I wouldn't dump my Audigy 1 on anyone unless they knew about it sucking

I then used these same cards in the i850s I owned. None of them caused any problems. Audigy 1 was and still is a PCI BUS resource HOGG and had weak drivers. A2 ZS is even more and X-Fi is a Razorback or very Large Wild Hogg. I only switched from my SQ-2500 when newer drivers ran out (before independants took over). Tis was a sad day . Creative has made the worse and best cards I've owned.

There have been VIA and nVidia boards that had problems with SBLive, Aureal SQ-2500 and Audigys of all kinds. This is nothing new. It's almost impossible to have 100% compatibility with all of the different hardware out there. Many nF4/SLI boards need BIOS updates to run X-Fi.

At least do what the other guy said and try BB or CompUSA, if it can't please you or doesn't work on your system, return it. Especially if it doesn't work, that's what the return thingy is about.

Donnie27

 

[Donnie27]

Aye, it is a Creative Labs bash fest. You think CL doesn't suck, and according to my poll, you are in the minority. I thought forums and the Internet at large were available for everyone to express their opinion freely. If I am wrong I guess I'll have to write Al Gore to apologize for misusing the Internet.

HAHAHA! Good one. Yes I think this is another Creative Bash Fest. I think they and every damned one else should be Bashed when they earn it. I'll add a quote from my last post.
Creative has made the worse and best cards I've owned. If we're talking the first SBLive or the Audigy 1, I'd agree with you 100%. Its the reason you said Creative sucks and that is why some don't agree with you.

I don't hold old grudges against Hardware companies. If I did, I'd not have a Computer=P I've bought good, bad and middle-of-the-road products from them all. I'll gladly stay in that minority TYVM. Now take a poll of folks who's tested the X-Fi or even the Audigy 2 ZS? Do that not some old assed sound cards from 3 or 4 years ago and you might get different results. Of course Creative sucks, IMHO, they suck less than the others though

Donnie27

 

[eaver]

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


Sound Blaster 16
Sound Blaster AWE32
Sound Blaster Live Value
Sound Blaster Live 5.1
Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Platinum
Sound Blaster Audigy 2ZS
and i never had a problem with any of them at all , and about the software they bundle u can just select not to install the things u don’t need and that's it.
in term of sound quality i tried a lot of different solutions ; the Mystique , Turtle Beach Santa Cruz , Hercules Fortissimo 7.1 and multiple onboard audio devices from Intel and Realtek they all sounded less better compared to the creative sound cards.
Am not saying that these cards are the best ever made quality wise but for the price you pay yes they are.

 

[SJetski71]

Aye, it is a Creative Labs bash fest. You think CL doesn't suck, and according to my poll, you are in the minority.

He wasn't in the minority till after you removed the last selection, the selection that pointed out that this (rigged) poll sucks.

 

[Mister X]

He wasn't in the minority till after you removed the last selection, the selection that pointed out that this (rigged) poll sucks.

I did that.

 

[legcramp]

wow people who says weak implement in games are morons... lets see something better!

 

[SJetski71]

Plus if you don't keep the driver CD's, you'll be screwed as Creative only puts driver updates on the web. Most of the time they aren't cumulative either. So yu have to install them in order.

Creative's drivers suck ass. Plain and simple.

The base drivers have been available at creative's site for a few months now.