Comment Shoddy drivers indeed... (Score 1) 385
I've been a user of Creative Lab's soundcards since the late 90's with an SB16 in my old 386. They've always had quirks with the drivers they provide, but this isn't the first time they did something like this.
My old Windows 98 box had an AWE64 Gold ISA interface card in it that absolutely rocked at the time- Linux compatibility, Win32 compatibility and DOS compatibility were never an issue with it. I ended up replacing that AWE64 Gold card with a PCI Live! card, which enabled DOS-level compatibility with a checkbox in the driver for SB16 compatibility mode. DOS compatibility was something I was really concerned with as I used to rely on Fasttracker II for things, which wasn't Win32 compatible. This is where things get interesting...
I ended up doing an XP Pro upgrade to the 98SE installation I had on that PC. Everything actually went well with it (to my surprise) and XP found it correctly, the correct drivers and everything were there and it was a solid and reliable card. DOSBox wasn't stable at the time for it, so I used to have a 98SE boot CD to get back into pure DOS mode so I could use Fasttracker II, which needed that SB16 compatibility mode, and again, it worked just fine.
Fast forward a year or two. I built a second PC with another SB Live and wanted it to do the same thing, but I started clean with XP Pro and the Creative drivers for it. Needless to say, it didn't work in pure DOS mode at all and didn't even include the executables that provided the SB16 emulation - apparently that something Creative enabled in the Win9x drivers for the Live, not the NT/2000/XP drivers. After a ton of searching on the original 98-to-XP box, I ended up pulling the files I needed over to the XP box and got it doing the same thing. The card was always capable of it, they just decided that XP users will never need or want DOS compatibility.
Given that, is it really surprising that they'd remove functionality from XP to Vista? Nope, because for me they did the same from 98 to NT/2000/XP. Even still, for some reason I bought an Audigy Platinum and also an X-Fi Platinum because they meet my needs - I do enough audio recording to use the patchbay/live drive thing, but not enough to need a studio-class card.
My old Windows 98 box had an AWE64 Gold ISA interface card in it that absolutely rocked at the time- Linux compatibility, Win32 compatibility and DOS compatibility were never an issue with it. I ended up replacing that AWE64 Gold card with a PCI Live! card, which enabled DOS-level compatibility with a checkbox in the driver for SB16 compatibility mode. DOS compatibility was something I was really concerned with as I used to rely on Fasttracker II for things, which wasn't Win32 compatible. This is where things get interesting...
I ended up doing an XP Pro upgrade to the 98SE installation I had on that PC. Everything actually went well with it (to my surprise) and XP found it correctly, the correct drivers and everything were there and it was a solid and reliable card. DOSBox wasn't stable at the time for it, so I used to have a 98SE boot CD to get back into pure DOS mode so I could use Fasttracker II, which needed that SB16 compatibility mode, and again, it worked just fine.
Fast forward a year or two. I built a second PC with another SB Live and wanted it to do the same thing, but I started clean with XP Pro and the Creative drivers for it. Needless to say, it didn't work in pure DOS mode at all and didn't even include the executables that provided the SB16 emulation - apparently that something Creative enabled in the Win9x drivers for the Live, not the NT/2000/XP drivers. After a ton of searching on the original 98-to-XP box, I ended up pulling the files I needed over to the XP box and got it doing the same thing. The card was always capable of it, they just decided that XP users will never need or want DOS compatibility.
Given that, is it really surprising that they'd remove functionality from XP to Vista? Nope, because for me they did the same from 98 to NT/2000/XP. Even still, for some reason I bought an Audigy Platinum and also an X-Fi Platinum because they meet my needs - I do enough audio recording to use the patchbay/live drive thing, but not enough to need a studio-class card.
