From the Tech-Report.

As I stumbled through the caffeine & sleep deprivation-induced haze at Quakecon, a tortured soul clandestinely whispered to me that Creative is actively working to exploit its patent on the "Carmack's reverse" rending technique used in DOOM 3. Word has it Creative has sent letters to at least 8 other game developers about the issue. More may be on the way, because id Software has already licensed DOOM 3 technology to loads more development teams.

Our informant didn't indicate whether Creative was seeking monetary damage or would use the threat of patent enforcement as leverage to get its EAX Advanced HD tech integrated into more games, as it did with DOOM 3. If we find out more, we'll let you know.

It's hard to have imagined how Creative could have handled something any worse than they did as regards Doom 3 shadows, but looks like I imagined wrong. You'd have to wonder how many developers will (Or should) be reconsidering EAX support in their games over asinine behaviour like this - more learned posters elsewhere have indicated Creative's patent doesn't apply for several reasons.

Creative MUST concentrate on bringing the end-user better drivers instead of protecting "their" shadowing patents... unbelievable...

Thanks for the new Thomas

"Word has it Creative has sent letters to at least 8 other game developers about the issue"

Wonder if they sent a letter to Ion Storm to add EAX to Thief 3 as well? Not that I mind EAX support in games, I just dislike Creative's business practices.

I HATE Creative. They used to be a great company but after the SB Live! they began to buy out all their competition, and when they had the mountain all the themselves they sat back and laughed at all of their loyal customers who wanted support for their cards. New SoundBlaster Live! drivers? Not in a million years, you must buy their latest card to get support. Now they are doing this? Here is one company I would love to see plunge into bankruptcy.

oh yes, creative is the demon just like microsoft. I mean Micr0$oft. Gawd folks, give me a break.

That being said, what is it with big companies using their pants button as a bullet when they get to be such a large size? I mean they're not the first, and the trend is getting rather disturbing at this point- soon, no company will care about customer desires and services, and will just release products and make you think you want them, just like the RIAA.

Certainly patent rights are worth protecting, however, one would think a slightly more diplomatic method would both garner more money and less hard feelings.

I'm an old Aureal Vortex SQ2500 user so I'm a little biased against creative but here why I love creative so much.

No real competion = no new drivers / fixes for *known* issues

Have to have original cd = install a massive number of updates after rebooting each time.

And I wonder why I'm afraid to buy an Creative sound card and expect it to last, there already talking about the EAX 4 and a future PCI Express new card.....

I've got an old SB Live.

90% of the issues that I have are third party problems, not Creative's.

The other problems I had were solved by Creative within 10 weeks of me buying it.

I dunno, maybe I'm doing something wrong, but mine is working fine.

Good for you, but just hope you don't have any problems in the future because Creative will tell you to go jump in a lake.

I was hoping Philips Acoustic Edge series would give Creative a reason to get off their behinds but they just didn't seem to take off.

Actually, creative didn't tell me to jump in a lake when I migrated to XP....

However, their customer support did leave much to be desired, I will confess.

I still have an open issue with creative drivers - I have an old Live! Platinum on an SMP machine - and they told me forever ago that it was a known issue they were working on. I wonder what part time intern is working on that problem for me? By the way - Live! cards have a crackling/popping issue with most SMP setups.

Their software is crap.

I think that sums up most of the problems I have with Creative.

Are you stating that about the drivers, bundled software, or both?

Just curious. I've never been a fan of their bundled software, and even occasionally had a few problems with AudioHQ. The environmental audio software was very average/OK (to control the 3d effects of the sound, make it sound like it was a stuio hall)

The other bundled stuff I never used.