Creative Labs to sue a driver modder (Daniel_K)

[LoneWolf]

Based on what I've read from Ars Technica's blurb on this, if this situation doesn't change, I'll never buy a Creative card again.

So far, I've owned the following:

SoundBlaster 1.5 (back in 1992)
SoundBlaster Pro
SoundBlaster 16
SoundBlaster AWE32
SoundBlaster Live!
SoundBlaster Audigy
SoundBlaster Audigy2
SoundBlaster Audigy 2ZS
SoundBlaster X-Fi XtremeGamer

This isn't counting the cards people bought due to my recommendations.

I've not always been happy with some of Creative's decisions, and they've made some dumb marketing moves and stretched their advertising farther than it ought to have gone. Still, I felt they made decent cards, and EAX was important to me among other things. At this point, though, they've got the gun pointed straight at their feet, and the safety is off.

I don't believe this is about protecting intellectual property --fact is, driver-hacking would sell more of their cards, not less in this case, due to the additional features, and Creative wouldn't even have to provide support for them, and could disclaim responsibility. I think it's more about exerting control. And what with EAX no longer being in an option in Vista, and Vista breaking making many features of the X-Fi (assuming it isn't just an excuse on Creative's part), Creative isn't in a good financial position to use the heavy hand. Their profits are down, and a move like this is going to do them more harm than good.

[safan80]

here's a stock price update

[Nelly]

What alternatives have we got for gaming?

Asus Xonar D2X 7.1 PCI-Express Sound Card, I've read this can use Eax 3, 4, 5 via emulation.

Anyone got any other gaming reccomendations, I dont want to buy the Auzentech Prelude as thats still using X-Fi chipset - I refuse to put anymore money in Creatives pockets.

[Donnie27]

I wasn't offended or anything, no worries man. I don't mind being corrected on things, especially if I don't take the time to properly research something.

So Aureal's losses amounted to more than legal fees, how much of that was because of Creative pressuring developers to go with EAX only?

Back on the Daniel_K topic, there seems to be a lot of confusion. Yes what he did was not entirely legal, and I have never said that Creative doesn't have the right to stop him, especially after he made DD Live work on X-FI w/o a license.

But his work has also exposed Creative's illegal fraud of loyal customers, who bought "Vista Ready" Audigy cards, only to find out the driver was intentionally blocking key features, and Creative was telling these people "those features don't work in Vista, nothing we can do, buy X-FI". This is the problem.

No Problem Bro! I'd much rather talk than yell or try to belittle anyone. Sure Creative didn't help Aureal any and I hoped Aureal would survive. I was wrong the other day about Intel IGP in all of their Chipsets and thanked the guy for the correction.

I agree Creative made some claims they couldn't back, but name me a clean company who hasn't? If I purchased computer parts based on how honest any company is, I'd not have a computer=P

I'd bet they thought they'd have all of their issues worked out quickly. I missed that about the Audigy Cards. Creative even admitted they're appreciative of Daniel K's assisting its customers, work in fixing the Drivers and etc... They are the ones who should have sent him a check for that. But clearly that is NOT what the dispute is about unless I totally missed it.

My point is there should be a petition to "Pay Daniel K for helping Creative Customers" then they could call it a goodwill gesture, Donation or whatever else. It seems that would be more productive. I signed the petition on the 24bit lie that was truly fraud, I'm just not so sure about the current stuff since I don't have Vista installed. I have very little experience with it. EVERYTHING worked as advertised in XP.

Last but not least, Vista is the main vehicle for DRM. To be certified, all hardware makers have to comply and work with that DRM. OEM's still buy the majority of products sold and many will NOT use uncertified products=P
Do you think it would be cool if a 3rd party reintroduced an HAL to Vista? How about totally crippling HDCP so an HD signal can be sent to any target device? Sorry for length of the post!

[Donnie27]

What alternatives have we got for gaming?

Asus Xonar D2X 7.1 PCI-Express Sound Card, I've read this can use Eax 3, 4, 5 via emulation.

Anyone got any other gaming reccomendations, I dont want to buy the Auzentech Prelude as thats still using X-Fi chipset - I refuse to put anymore money in Creatives pockets.

Asus said it would have support via software in a later Emu software pack or something. It doesn't have support right now. All indications are that it is a great sounding card. I'd love to have one for my HTPC I'm 4/5 finished with. But Sorry, I'm sticking with my Prelude and Platinum Pro For gaming, I'm not having problems with either card.

[Donnie27]

hmm, you have a point ....

Thanks!

[JohnZS]

An official statement has now been made by Creative, which backs up excatly what I said earlier in this thread (and on their forum), that the whole "thing" was caused by Daniel_K's Dolby Digital Live "hack" which belongs to Azuerntech (or however you spell them).

Here is a quote

We have read the strong feedback about Creative's forum post regarding driver development by Daniel_k and other outside parties. Creative's message posted on our behalf by our Company spokesperson tried to address our concern about the improper distribution of certain software which is the property of other companies. However, we did not make it as clear as we would have liked that we do support driver development by independent third parties. The huge task of developing driver updates to accommodate the many changes in the Vista operating system and the extensive testing required, including the lengthy Vista certification requirements for audio, makes it very difficult for Creative to develop updates for all past products. Outside developers have been very helpful to Creative and our customers by developing updates for many of our Sound Blaster products, and we do support and appreciate these efforts. This however does not extend to the unauthorized distribution of other companies' property. We hope to work out a mutually agreeable method for working with Daniel_k in supporting his efforts in driver development. Going forward, we are committed to doing a better job of working more closely with third parties to support their development for our products and our customers.

Dale-CL issues statement

John

[RPGWiZaRD]

Ahh so that explains it, ok I was a bit confused.

[Syn.]

An official statement has now been made by Creative, which backs up excatly what I said earlier in this thread (and on their forum), that the whole "thing" was caused by Daniel_K's Dolby Digital Live "hack" which belongs to Azuerntech (or however you spell them).

Here is a quote



Dale-CL issues statement

John

I figured that soon as i read about Azuztech however i have to admit i did enjoy the public bashing Creative has gotten over this, even though it is because of a wrong reason. What can i say, i just enjoy revenge lol.

[Nelly]

I have been buying Creative Soundcards for around 10 years, if you cannot support your current soundcards for support with operating systems but one person can modify your drivers so their are no problems in Vista, I suggest that you recruit new software engineers capable of doing so because obviously the ones you have do not deserve to gave a job or maybe they are intentionally told not to make them fully compatable, either way you have brought down your own downfall.

Having read the Microsoft pages which show certified drivers in XP & Vista for a X-FI II, it just goes to show that Creative's only concern is giving campatability to future products & not what people use at present.

I for one will NOT be buying anymore products from Creative - EAX or no EAX I have past caring to be honest, I hope you go bankrupt / insolvent - would be better if your technology as well as that you have scavenged from putting other companys out of business be developed by other companys willing to give full support for soundcards.

Well looks like Creative not bothered with X-FI or prior models anymore because they are going to Release a SB X-Fi 2.

http://winqual.microsoft.com/HCL/Pro...-Fi%202&oid=24

http://winqual.microsoft.com/HCL/Pro...d%205.1&oid=24

As taken from a post in the Creative forums it looks like they will be Windows XP & Vista certified.

I for one will NOT be buying an X-FI 2, I suggest that everyone else does not as well, the silly thing is if they had given support for current soundcards I would of been interested in X-FI 2.

[Donnie27]

So why the hell didnt they just talk with Daniel on a personal level and let him know the issue, then solve that issue.

What did they do? Over reacted and shot themselves in the foot. Looks as though they are back-pedaling and trying to recover. Not that it will do much good now, too much bad PR.

QFT!

For their own drivers and apps, offering incentives wouldn't hurt either, look at all of the support savings(money)?

[Donnie27]

An official statement has now been made by Creative, which backs up excatly what I said earlier in this thread (and on their forum), that the whole "thing" was caused by Daniel_K's Dolby Digital Live "hack" which belongs to Azuerntech (or however you spell them).

Here is a quote



Dale-CL issues statement

John

What I'd been trying to say! But DerekFSE is right, they should have made direct contact with him right from the start.

[zanzabar]

What alternatives have we got for gaming?

Asus Xonar D2X 7.1 PCI-Express Sound Card, I've read this can use Eax 3, 4, 5 via emulation.

Anyone got any other gaming reccomendations, I dont want to buy the Auzentech Prelude as thats still using X-Fi chipset - I refuse to put anymore money in Creatives pockets.

u can get an maudio revolution 5.1 or 7.1 with the via envy chipset, u dont need eax, open al is becoming prevalent and asio with open al is better than eax even with my sba2plat pro its better than eax especially with vista its better than xp with the custom dk drivers

[Syn.]

What alternatives have we got for gaming?

Asus Xonar D2X 7.1 PCI-Express Sound Card, I've read this can use Eax 3, 4, 5 via emulation.

Anyone got any other gaming reccomendations, I dont want to buy the Auzentech Prelude as thats still using X-Fi chipset - I refuse to put anymore money in Creatives pockets.

I am getting D2X as its PCIe card and it seems to have good driver support. ASUS has managed to create ALchamey of their own that seems to work much better as it isnt game specific. The only down side of D2X is that it does only support EAX1&2 due to EAX3/4/5 being Creative cards only.

[shiznit93]

And according to the Asus forum their DS3D wrapper doesnt work right in the Source engine yet, so I'm forced to wait. I'm not the biggest Creative fan, but Alchemy and CMSS work really well for me. Now if only I can get Daniel_K's modded driver running for DD Live...

Syn, might wanna take a look at the Zonar DX $90 card, it seems to be on par with the D2X except the fancy shield.

[zanzabar]

Syn, might wanna take a look at the Zonar DX $90 card, it seems to be on par with the D2X except the fancy shield.

tehy dont look the same
http://usa.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=25

but they may have the same spu, IMO ur better of with the via envy chipset i havnt gamed on one but they sound great and their virtual surround is better than creatives for dvds, and via updates drivers regularly (ive used both consumer grade m-audio)

[Syn.]

And according to the Asus forum their DS3D wrapper doesnt work right in the Source engine yet, so I'm forced to wait. I'm not the biggest Creative fan, but Alchemy and CMSS work really well for me. Now if only I can get Daniel_K's modded driver running for DD Live...

Syn, might wanna take a look at the Zonar DX $90 card, it seems to be on par with the D2X except the fancy shield.

I cant get Source based games to use higher then 2.1 setting with my AC1, its due to Vista and Valve not really being that good with sound technology. At least ASUS is trying to create their own way to make everything work.

DX is the budget card so everything about it is cut down. I already spent around £150 on my last two sound cards (X-Fi Fatality/Razer AC1) i dont really mind doing it again.

Now i just found something interesting. It seems like that Xonar cards do support up to EAX5 but as its through the DS3D GX2.0 it is missing the EAX AdvancedHD option. But seriously thats nothing due to such low use of that tech.



Source: ASUS

[Donnie27]

I cant get Source based games to use higher then 2.1 setting with my AC1, its due to Vista and Valve not really being that good with sound technology. At least ASUS is trying to create their own way to make everything work.

DX is the budget card so everything about it is cut down. I already spent around £150 on my last two sound cards (X-Fi Fatality/Razer AC1) i dont really mind doing it again.

Now i just found something interesting. It seems like that Xonar cards do support up to EAX5 but as its through the DS3D GX2.0 it is missing the EAX AdvancedHD option. But seriously thats nothing due to such low use of that tech.



Source: ASUS

The GX-2.0 software will have to be license by Creative. There is a question about just how much EAX 5.0 can be done this way but they can't do any of it without Creative's approval=P I'm hoping they can pull it off because more than just picking Creative for Games is a VERY GOOD THING

I also read that Xonar DX2 has better hardware than both the old D2 and the new PCI-E cards. Yet, at 116db puts in at least the Creative X-Fi Elite Pro class. Finally something for those unused PCI-E slots The price point is also a move in the right direction. Oh, this is the leading card for my HTPC I'm building. I don't care about its game performance.

[NH|Delph1]

Newegg has spoken?

Fake.

In the whole driver modder debacle, posts made by someone who claimed to be from Newegg, said that Newegg had received return orders for as many as 5000 cards. The poster used an e-mail address which looked authentic and put a lot of work into making it look real, but it is not. It's nothing but pure slander. Newegg has not cut Creative from its partner list, it has not made any comment on the quality of Creative products, nor will it. After talking to Newegg, we got an official response;

"It has come to our attention that a recent post on the site claimed Newegg had severed its relationship with Creative. This is a false statement and was not issued by an entity authorized to speak on behalf of newegg.com. Newegg does not and will not comment on product quality or provide product reviews. For this we count on you, our customers, and our online forums like EggXpert."

While we do agree that Creative executed this very poorly, someone is putting a lot of effort into making it a lot worse. Newegg is still working with Creative and have no plans on cutting ties.

http://www.nordichardware.com/news,7594.html

//Andreas

[Nelly]

Daniel_K, the Creative Labs fan who fixed the company's broken Vista sound card drivers only to be threatened by the corporate brass, just e-mailed with his side of the story.

"My name is Daniel Kawakami and I'm Brazilian," he writes. "I'm NOT a cracker, a hacker, just an enthusiast modder with basic assembly knowledge and very persistent."

Kawakami's expertise allowed him to enable advanced features in sound cards that Creative advertised as Vista-compatible, but which did not perform as well under that operating system as they do under Windows XP. After tolerating the distribution of his unofficial drivers for a time, Creative's vice president of corporate communications, Phil O'Shaughnessy, ultimately asked him to stop, and accused him of "stealing their goods." O'Shaughnessy also wrote that whether or not it cripples its Vista drivers is a "business decision that only we have the right to make."

The rest of Kawakami's e-mail follows, verbatim, after the jump.ALchemy

It all started when Creative released the first beta of ALchemy for X-Fi cards, saying it used X-Fi's advanced capabilities (EAX5).

After some investigation, I've found an EAX5.0 check and patched it... and it worked!

Sometime later, they released the final version of ALchemy X-Fi and the paid version of ALchemy Audigy.

I was realy mad at them, they didn't release a new Audigy driver and were charging Audigy owners for a software that runs on top of bugged drivers? What is the point of that?

Then I modified the X-Fi "free" version of ALchemy, not the paid version.

I did the same with the later versions, but when they released the 1.00.11, I couldn't patch it anymore.

So I bought it, just for the sake of it.

Well, I did manage to patch the latest version of ALchemy X-Fi to run on any card, without even removing Safecast, but I'm done with that.


The Audigy drivers

They took several days, countless Vista reinstalls.

Creative purposedly modified the Audigy drivers to disable some features when Vista is detected and also purposedly introduced some bugs to prevent some XP utilities from running.

I did a complete analysis of the driver to determine where all the checks and bugs were introduced and started modding.
Features that I've successfully enabled:

- Dolby/DTS decoding (originally discovered by another Creative forum member, but I've explained how to use it)
- CMSS, CMSS2 and Stereo Surround (originally only "CMSS" was available, this setting also affects ALchemy/OpenAL, so it is really useful)
- Advanced EQ and Special FX presets
- DVD Audio
- Hardware MIDI synthetizer (I wrote a small utility that automatically detects and changes the default Vista MIDI Synth during driver install or can change it later using its GUI. Some media players lets you choose the MIDI synthesizer)
- Equalizer (with preset saving, very hard to accomplish, had to deal with bugs in Creative software and use my creativity to find a workaround).
- WaveRT (a Microsoft replacement for ASIO, however I don't know if it really works or not)


The Live!/Live! 5.1 drivers

Creative have always released UDA (Unified Driver Architeture) drivers.

They purposedly ruined the Live! support in Vista: 2.1 speakers setting resulted in distorted sound.

After some investigation, I discovered the culprit module and replaced it with one from the last XP version and the problem was fixed.

In the later releases, Bass Management, Equalizer and EAX effects using software processing and Hardware MIDI support were added.

There was also an ALchemy for Live! cards.


The X-Fi drivers

I've added the following improvements: Hardware MIDI and WaveRT.

I didn't have a X-Fi to test, so modding was then limited to these features.


The Audigy LS/SE/Value/Live! 24-bit drivers

Officially, they lack Bass Management, Equalizer and EAx effects, once available in XP drivers.

I've found that the Audio Center utility (originally from the Vista Audigy Advanced MB drivers) worked just fine with these cards, so I made it available.

Also fixed an annoying bug present in the official drivers that cause the speaker type changing to Full Range speakers on reboot (disabling Bass Management).


The X-Fi Xtreme Audio drivers
Have the same speaker type bug. I fixed it.


Gameport support pack for Vista
Allows a limited number of gameport controllers to work on the x86 version of Windows Vista.


What Creative didn't like

I've learned how Creative enables or disables a feature for a specific model.

Alchemy:
My last ALchemy release (1.00.08) was complately unlocked and could be used with any sound device from any vendor.

Audigy cards:
Successfully enabled the software-based X-Fi Crystalizer for use with Audigy cards.

X-Fi:
Got Dolby Digital Live enabled on any X-Fi card. To clarify, I still didn't manage to enable DDL on Audigy cards.
A friend of mine bought a X-Fi, so I could test it, it really works.
The only current X-Fi based card that supports DDL is the Auzentech Prelude.

The P17 to Xtreme Audio mod
P17 is the codiname for a simple PCI audio controller that powers the Audigy LS/SE/Value, Live! 24-bit and X-Fi Xtreme Audio host-based soundcards.

Completely modded the P17 drivers to transform any Audigy LS/SE/Value and Live! 24-bit into a X-Fi Xtreme Audio (enabling Crystalizer).


Modding is OK

I don't think there was something wrong with mods themselves.

Modding is a common practice among enthusiasts and I don't recall some company threatning a modder, unless you allow an exclusive feature to be used with competitor products (ie: SLI on non-NVIDIA chipsers or ALchemy on competitor products, as I've said before).

Remember the Promise Ultra to Fasttrak mod? It was even published on a well known review site.
There was also the GeForce to Quadro mod, the NVIDIA nForce 4 to SLI mod, also published on review sites.


What I did wrong

I've asked for donations.

Do I really need the money? No, thank God I don't.

I thought it would be ok to ask for donations so I could buy new hardware to support.

I did buy some hardware: an used Live! 5.1 for ~$15 and a new Audigy SE for $60.

Computer hardware is really expensive here in Brazil.

An X-Fi Xtreme Gamer costs about $240 here, with taxes and shipping, The same card can be bought for ~$80 in the US.

I just can't spend my money buying new hardware that I won't even use.

Even the features I've enabled, I don't use.

Later I tried to encourage donations to release the DDL feature for X-Fi and Crystalizer for Audigy.

I said something like "the more people donate, the faster I'll release".

This was even worse, but I was so eager to modding that I didn't think straight. I was hoping to get a X-Fi asap.

While I did ask for donations, once released, the downloads would be public.

I do recognize that I deserve some criticism for that.

To date, I've got $146, with amounts ranging from $1 to $50 (this value is still uncleared).

Reversing ALchemy was also wrong, I know. But I reiterate, what is the point of improving ALchemy and changing for it, when it requires an improved driver? It was my protest against Creative.


What Creative did wrong

- They publicly threatened me, just to show their arrogance.
If they had contacted me by e-mail or private message I would do the same thing (remove everything) and no one would know about their insatisfaction.

- Removed everything I posted in the forums, even if unrelated to the "forbidden" stuff.
If they can't provide better drivers, let people make their own choice.

- They did not recognize my hard work.
I've been supporting about every Creative PCI soundcard, would even support USB devices if I had one of them.

To date, the Audigy Vista Support Pack was downloaded about 20,000 times.


The current situation

DDL encoder and Crystalizer were not publicly released.

I've deleted the P17 to Xtreme Audio mod and ALchemy from FileFront (where I store the files).

I've been told they will allow me to continue with my mods, except the "forbidden" ones.
I'm also allowed to receive donations.

Download of my mods
http://hosted.filefront.com/braziliantech/

Source

[Donnie27]

Fake.



http://www.nordichardware.com/news,7594.html

//Andreas

How deep is the Creative Labs Hate, let me not count the ways, it would take too long

The current situation

DDL encoder and Crystalizer were not publicly released.

I've deleted the P17 to Xtreme Audio mod and ALchemy from FileFront (where I store the files).

I've been told they will allow me to continue with my mods, except the "forbidden" ones.
I'm also allowed to receive donations.

Download of my mods
http://hosted.filefront.com/braziliantech/

Just like the cheap @$$es, here's what stuck out to me.

While I did ask for donations, once released, the downloads would be public.

I do recognize that I deserve some criticism for that.

To date, I've got $146, with amounts ranging from $1 to $50 (this value is still uncleared).

To date, the Audigy Vista Support Pack was downloaded about 20,000 times.

I've not downloaded any of this but damned if those most folks are cheap @$$es I only blame Creative for not contacting DK in private and NOT donating to him themselves, yes they're a bunch of Cheap bast@rd$ as well So if there are 20K Audigy downloads, I'm sure there are at least 25 to 30K X-Fi downloads. Any of these folks swearing to like DK are FOS! Except the folks who donated the $146!

[NH|Delph1]

How deep is the Creative Labs Hate, let me not count the ways, it would take too long

Probably, which makes these fake Newegg posts just plain unnecessary.

Creative's own actions is enough to make them look bad, but when people do these kind of things, it has more of a counter-effect.

//Andreas

[Donnie27]

Probably, which makes these fake Newegg posts just plain unnecessary.

Creative's own actions is enough to make them look bad, but when people do these kind of things, it has more of a counter-effect.

//Andreas

QFT! As a Goodwill gesture, Creative should offer him something.

I'd love to see a Hardware site test out these unlocked features. I've seen unlocks that appear to work, but either partially worked or didn't at all. Example. Can you really make a 32 hardware Voice card magically increase to 128?

[Nano2k]

QFT! As a Goodwill gesture, Creative should offer him something.

I'd love to see a Hardware site test out these unlocked features. I've seen unlocks that appear to work, but either partially worked or didn't at all. Example. Can you really make a 32 hardware Voice card magically increase to 128?

I think the deal is that creative cards are like X86 processors they all interpret software the same way (basically...). So even if the silicon evolves, pretty much any of them can run any functiion.
The hacked drivers were there before Daniel K and they enabled Audigy functions on SB Live cards etc. He's been good at making Creative cards work properly and at 100% in Vista.

I'm 100% convinced that what he says is true, it's been known for a long time that Creative purposely locked certain functions from certain cards through the drivers so that customers would buy more expensive ones...

[i found nemo]

so my driver is p17 .... so i could have had x-fi sound quality? ..... shyit.