Linux drivers for Creative products

[Addlcove]

has anyone ever heard of an online petition regarding Linux drivers for Creative products?

would be interesting to see how many Linux users actually am missing drivers for their soundcard etc.

 

[TheJkWhoSaysNi]

I have a Soundblaster Live! 5.1 Digital and use the emu10k driver. It takes a bit of messing around in alsamixer to get the sound right but it works very well.

 

[Jonty]

Hi Addlcove

As TheJkWhoSaysNi suggests, there is some form of support for Creative products on Linux. Given that nVidia and others have created Linux drivers it may not be long before Creative move in that direction too, although I wouldn't hold your breath

Kind Regards

 

[Addlcove]

oh I'm defenetly not, would just be nice to have a survey, even an informal one, tos how them saying "look it will pay off to hire someone to do opensource drivers."

 

[Draylor]

Heh

Years ago Nvidia pretended Linux didnt exist. They provided no drivers, and refused any requests for sufficiently detailed information to make full use of their hardware. The result was that although drivers existed they were fairly low quality, couldnt do everything the hardware was capable of, and werent really usable for 'professional' use.

Eventually Nvidia provided decent drivers, but that was the result of companies approaching them rather than individuals. The result is that the current Nvidia drivers available are pretty much equivalent to the Windows version. Its always amusing despite their past attitude to see them used as a positive example of a company providing Linux drivers.

Anyway, Creative have never had sufficient demand from large customers. I cant see decent drivers appearing from them anytime soon either - the applications for 'professional' use just dont exist for Linux which is where any pressure they'd actually react to would have to come from.

 

[Addlcove]

depends really, the new X-FI looks really nice

 

[Jonty]

Indeed it does, Addlcove I was reading the other week that it can actually provide as much as a 15% performance boost in various games due to the sheer power of the design (~51 million transistors). Even more suprisingly the tests ran X-Fi on EAX 4.0 and the rival solution, either an Audigy or integrated chip, I forget which, on the less demanding EAX 2.0. Whilst benchmarks are dubious at the best of times it does seem like the new X-Fi architecture is a major step up from the previous cards.

As for nVidia, Draylor, that sadly sounds like a lot of situations in which companies are reluctant to take positive steps without the right sort of pressure applied. Still, a least they get there in the end

Kind Regards

 

[Addlcove]

read a review where they stated that the jump from the Audigy series to X-Fi is like the jump from PC-speakers to the original soundblaster

 

[Chilly]

read a review where they stated that the jump from the Audigy series to X-Fi is like the jump from PC-speakers to the original soundblaster

what a load of bullshit.
The quality you get from a 5 quid sound card is good enough for most things. There is a limit to what the human ear can detect and current hardware is probably beyond it. In terms of sound quality we are probably near the peak that we can detect. The difference now will come from DSP (digital signal processing) techniques to add depth to sound, like EAX, and much more dynamic audio in games and better positional reproduction from movies. This is all signal processing, the samplers in the cards are as good as they need to be already.

 

[Draylor]

As for nVidia, Draylor, that sadly sounds like a lot of situations in which companies are reluctant to take positive steps without the right sort of pressure applied. Still, a least they get there in the end

Point being the same situation (ie companies doing movie effects etc wanting to buy cards by the thousand if Linux support is available) is never going to arise in the case of Creative.

Still, gotta laugh at reviews of unreleased hardware preaching to the world how good it is. The world would be a better place without the bullshit 'press release journalism'.

Heres hoping this doesnt mean we'll have soundcards with their own heatsinks & fans in a few years time

 

[Jonty]

Now that Creative are moving into integrated sound solutions with any hope this may encourage them to provide Linux drivers at some point. Intel are the largest provider of graphics solutions through their onboard chipsets and now have Linux drivers available

As for soundcards with heatsinks, hehe, it wouldn't surprise me. The technology in the new X-Fi series is a big jump in terms of transistor count and complexity.

Kind Regards

 

[strangely brown]

Hi,

There are open source Linux drivers and software called Gnomad2 (not written by Creative) for Creative audio players, such as the Nomad, Zen et al available from which requires libnjb to make it all work correctly.

I've managed to make it all work on my Mandriva box...

Regards,
SB

 

[Honza]

what a load of bullshit.
The quality you get from a 5 quid sound card is good enough for most things. There is a limit to what the human ear can detect and current hardware is probably beyond it. In terms of sound quality we are probably near the peak that we can detect. The difference now will come from DSP (digital signal processing) techniques to add depth to sound, like EAX, and much more dynamic audio in games and better positional reproduction from movies. This is all signal processing, the samplers in the cards are as good as they need to be already.

there is big difference between current hardware soundcards - with bare ear you can tell difference between Audigy and Audigy 2 cards. I had cheapo version of X-Fi for testing at home too - since then I call my Audigy 2 ZS 'the granny' ... sound quality is barely comparable - it's really different weight cathegory. Ofc if you have plastic shite speakers you won't find the difference.. If you have anything better, you'll be able to tell the difference. As well as sampling - most people can tell difference between 48kHz and 96kHz per channel sampling... above 96kHz only few with higher acustic sensitivity can tell.
You can think your sound card buddy plays best pwning all sounds great etc etc.. ye, until you hear the new one next to it.

In case you don't care for sound quality you can live with mobo integrated "soundcards" (lol)
In case you have 5.1 speakers of some quality, you should head for cheapest X-Fi card.
In case you use digital DTS THX (name it yourself) amplifier like Marantz and use speakers like Mordaunt-Short, you would be insane to take any lower card than X-Fi Fatal1ty.

gotta go rob the bank now to get X-Fi, Marantz and Mordaunt-Shorts, cya ;-)