is creative a monopoly?

[jak]

ok looking to build a new system in the near future. Just a quick ? i never understood. Is creative sound cards your only choice cause of compatibility? will the compatibility issues of another card affect usage?
jak
(im not normally this dumb http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif )

[Goldwingnut]

Creative is a "De Facto" standard. Like Hayes modems. Their products are so popular that other manufacturers copy the interface to make their product more attractive.

[washe]

Well Creative has earned a good name in the sound department, and now as Goldwingnut is a standart, and also good to mention that in all my life i have own 3 creative cards i have an old isa card the creative labs soundblaster 16, and the card stills works and sounds great...

Where are talking more than 6 years...

[DanU]

Creative's soundcards are by no means your only choice when it comes to buying a good soundcard. In fact, you'd really be limiting yourself if you only looked at Creative products. Personally, I feel that Creative is better at marketing their products than they are at actually engineering. Look at the assortment of cards that they've produced lately. They are ALL basically the same card and use the same DSP. OK... so there are a few minor differences in the interfaces and software packages... but it's still the same basic card! No innovation whatsoever.

BTW, I've got a Phillips Rhythmic Edge that's performing very well. If you want 4 channel output, there's also the Acoustic Edge. You don't have to buy a Creative Product.

[araaraara]

Double Post http://www.sysopt.com/forum/redface.gif

[This message has been edited by araaraara (edited 05-01-2001).]

[araaraara]

I agree with DanU. Especially about the "no innovation". Take a look a Creative's Soundblaster Live, Live Value, X-Gamer and MP3. They are all basicly the same card, just a few extras onboard to make them seem better for a task. There are other great products out there. I'm still using my old SoundBlaster 32 AWE. It works great and I have never had any problems with it.

[NDD]

Basically, it's all about sound APIs. Several APIs are available, such as DirectSound, DirectSound3D, EAX 1.0/2.0, A3D 1.0/2.0 and few technologies from Sensaura, which come to emulate almost all the mentioned before together with few new (Virtual Ear and likes).
Creative developed EAX (implemented in Live! family, EMU10K chip, and SBPCI family, 64-512 modifications), and almost every game now supports it. Of course, aggressive marketing strategy does a lot of work, and there can be hardly a chance of newbie not knowing about Creative. The products simply became standard, but managed to stay of good quality.
Now, several other soundcard makers were available once, one of the greatets rivals of Creative was Aureal, with their MX family, and brilliant A3D technology. BUT, same story like in 3Dfx's case happened, management and likes sucked big time, and Creative bought Aureal last year, like nVIDIA with 3Dfx. A3D standard is still supported, coz many of Aureal's cards are still there, and also due to help of other soundcard makers, which implement A3D support in their products (with Sensaura support).
Few worth checking is Phillips Edge wide family, and Tutle Beach Santa Cruz. Both use Sensaura technology, and differs sometimes from Live!, but it's up to you which one sounds better.
Last word : Creative are much more stable, and drivers being updated much more frequently, so do some more research before you decide.

P.S. Anybody here old enought to remember Advanced Gravis with their UltraSound ? I still have and use UltraSound PnP 8 MB ISA with my Abit KT7A !

Best Regards ...

[Long Haired Hippie Phreek]

I much prefer creative, a sound blaster live is a great card, with digital inputs (internal) and outputs (to speekers), not to mention compatability, and I feel this way after mine croaked less than a day ago!

[Dputiger]

I remember the Gravis Ultrasound! FABULOUS card for its day.

[AuraEdge]

Creative just has been around a long time, and the Live has been the king of soundcards since it came out (Its just beginning to get challenged by cards such as the Philips Acoustic Edge and the Hercules Gametheater XP). The Live! set the standard for sound quality. Now its all bout sound APIs and convenience (the Gametheater has a breakout box to plug everything in, as well as USB ports n stuff).

Live is probably one of the cards with the most compatability problems compared to other cards such as the AWE64 and the Aureals. Problems such as legacy support and Via chipset incompatability are coming up. However, Soundcard incompatabilities are far and few between, that even though the Live! probably holds the crown in incompatabilities, its still not a big problem. I have not tried any Soundcards newer than the Live, so I dont know how they rate in compatability compared to it.

The main reason I still use the Lives in every system I build is because of the ~$40-50 price mark, and that its soundquality cannot be matched by any cheaper card. I have had only one compatability problem concerning the SBLive in the 10 or so systems I put together with it, 6-7 having Via chipsets. It was in a Tyan Trinity 400. The Live simply refused to work. I swapped it out for a Quadzilla (Aureal Chipset), and it worked without an issue.

I would not suggest buying any soundcards based on aureal chipsets now since they have gone out of business.

Do realize however that the SBLive is extremely popular, giving you easy tech support if you have any problems with it, and it has been the undisputed (by most of us anyways) king of sound for about 4 years until recently.

The Philips Acoustic edge supports all the APIs that the SBLive does, and maybe a few more, and also supports 5.1 sound, but so does the new SBLive 5.1. The Philips costs a bit more than the SBLive.

The Herc GT XP is a great sound system, but your gunna have to pay for it if you want it (At the least its $130).

After 4 years I dont think Creative can sit atop its high horse much longer. There are new competitors coming into the soundcard market, and the lack of innovation that once didnt matter may have to be changed to stay on top, expecially after the prices come down for the other cards.

[NDD]

Yeah, man, I simply love my UltraSound !!! Once used to beat the **** out of AWE32/64, and sounds great even now (best for sampling for music trackers, XM/IT format, if somebody familiar), althought I had to buy SB128 PCI, GUS just doesn't like DirectSound http://www.sysopt.com/forum/frown.gif

And Creative do have plans to innovate, ever heard about the upcoming Audigy (EMU20K) chip ? All the stuff that Live! 5.1 has plus extra cheese http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif

Best Regards ...