First post, by DosFreak
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- l33t++
http://arstechnica.com/journals/hardware.ars/ … in-vista-driver
After nearly two years of outright lying about Vista compatibility, Creative has finally released official X-Fi drivers that add […]
After nearly two years of outright lying about Vista compatibility, Creative has finally released official X-Fi drivers that add support for Dolby Digital and DTS decoding in Microsoft's newest operating system. Originally, Creative claimed that fundamental changes to the Windows sound driver model made it impossible for the company to offer certain features that were available under XP, including Dolby Digital and DTS decoding. Creative's user community wasn't happy with that answer, however, and various driver modding projects began, including one by infamous modder Daniel_K.
Daniel_K managed to restore the aforementioned capabilities to both Audigy 2 and X-Fi cards, which is when Creative stepped in early last spring, and ordered him to cease and desist from his activities. This went over extremely poorly with Creative's customers, who were of the opinion that Daniel and those like him were actually fixing broken software Creative refused to patch, in the hopes of forcing users to buy a new sound card. Creative held its stance for several days before backing down, but the damage appears to have been done—Daniel_K's software is still readily available, but the modder himself has vanished from the scene.
Creative's new drivers offer official support for what was once an unofficial hack. Creative's new driver set doesn't exactly come with a signed apology stating that the company is sorry for lying to customers about the possibility of Dolby Digital/DTS support for nearly two years, but hopefully the company is on its way to realizing that its current business model is fundamentally broken. Integrated audio isn't getting any worse, and Creative can't afford to keep handing its few remaining loyalists reason to leave.
Edit: I erroneously implied that this type of driver had only been released for the X-Fi. Creative released a similar driver for the Audigy 2 ZS a couple weeks ago.
