Quite possibly my LAST Creative Labs soundc

Question

Ok, I'm new to these boards, but far from new to Creative products. I can recall my first real Creative soundcard, the Soundblaster AWE32. I paid well over $300.00 for it way back in the day and was drawn to Creative ever since. I have been in the?computer tech?field since around 95, so I've seen lots of different products come and go. I currently own an X-Fi Platinum, which in XP is an incredible card, however with the Vista being the new OS on the block, and Creative taking MONTHS to release a driver has me dumbfounded; what are they doing over there? How can the soundcard leader let this happen? I know when Windows XP came out everyone had problems back then, but nothing like this. Creative seems to be dragging behind everyone else to keep up to date and that's just not the Creative I've came to know and love and not even bat an eye at dropping $300+ for a soundcard because I KNEW who made it and I KNEW I wasn't going to be disapointed in having. As I said, the X-Fi is an incredible card, but if Creative can't get past this "tortist and hare"?mentality it's having, then why should I continue to spend my money and brag about the hardware that used to be the best? Creative seems to have forgotten how to listen to it's consumers, because if I'm going to spend money on somthing, it should deli'ver what it promises, and sadly to say, Creative hasn't been very creative lately. I've seen more and more people complain about driver problems with Creative cards in Vista then anything else, and that should be a wake up call to Creative. They may have a big name and be renouned for the best in the past, but even I know the fastest way to have a company go down is bad word of mouth. Creative, if you read this, wake up, if you're on drugs, GET OFF EM. Gi've us the company back that you USED to be, so the next time I'm in the store looking to buy somthing new I won't stand there for 30 minutes "wondering" if I should risk my money on another Creative failure.

Answer 1

Oh I'm not in any way saying none of this is Microsoft's fault, but unfortunately it's either Microsoft's way, or no way, and that's one of the sadest things about the computer world. I plan to keep XP for quite some time to come, because sofar I'm not very impressed with Vista, it definetely did not li've up to the hype. I don't mean to sound too hasty about Creative, it's just frustrating when it seems that one of the biggest companies who put out the absolute best soundcards ever made seem to be falling behind. If I wasn't so big into gaming I probably wouldn't even have written the first post. The thing that puzzled me about Creative was the amount of time it took for them to actually release this driver, and somehow I doubt very seriously that noone is having any problems with it, or at least not yet. Microsoft is definetely the bigger one to blame on this no question, but how is it that companies like Realtek and some other lower end companies are making cards with virtually no problems with Vista at all compared to Creative? That's what fueled me to write the first post. I see my # horse just sitting in the gate while everyone else has taken off. The only thing I repeatedly hear about why Microsoft did this is to combat piracy; well good luck with that MS, but I'll tell you somthing my mother told me many years ago. "Man made it, man can beat it." There will always be a way around it, and there's nothing anyone can do to stop that from happening. Even if the hardware manufacturers get on board and start intergrating technology to stop you from listening to "illegal" mp3s, or burning copyrighted dvds, it's not going to change anything. Someone will come out with somthing to blow it all away. If I knew enough about how Linux worked I'd be willing to give it a try, but it doesn't seem to be as big in the gaming world now as it once was, or at least not from what I've seen. I hope Creative can get back to basics, and start making products again that are how I've always seen Creative to be, the BEST. However, you can only stay on top for so long, and hopefully Creative will see that they need to revamp a few things and get back in the game before that "new" company on the block comes in and takes them out before they even knew what happened. I've read posts here for awhile before I wrote any of my own, and there seem to be just as many unhappy Creative fans as there are happy, I just hope the scale doesn't tip the wrong way for Creative.