Creative Technology, the leading maker of discrete audio cards and a supplier of digital media players, is losing traction in the market of gamers, despite heavily advertised EAX technologies several years ago. Only about 15% of gamers use sound cards by Creative Labs, whereas the rest use mostly integrated audio.
The most popular audio device, according to a survey among users of Steam game distribution system by Valve Software Corp., is Realtek AC97 audio, which comes with loads of mainboards and is used by 26.28% of users, or 222 thousand. The second most popular is SoundMax digital audio, which is utilized by 9.5%, while the share of C-Media Wave device is 7.69.
Even though Creative Labs’ audio cards are used by 14.53% of Steam users, the most popular sound card by Creative Technology is Audigy 2 ZS has share of only 3.26% among 847 thousand of all respondents. Meanwhile, Creative’s latest audio board – SoundBlaster X-Fi – is used by 21.5 thousand of Steam users, or 2.54%.
The relative reluctance of gamers to acquire audio cards by Creative Technology is a result of the lack of tangible benefits that the SoundBlaster cards may provide now due to the fact that game developers do not implement advanced surround audio features into games. Another reason is the lack of massive advertising of SoundBlaster cards and promotional events, something that add-in graphics cards developers ATI and Nvidia do to make graphics accelerators more popular.
Comments currently: 25
Discussion started: 01/18/07 07:05:39 PM
Latest comment: 01/21/07 10:03:48 PM
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1.
Suck
Why don't u compare the market share between IGP and GPU?
But I agree that PC game developers do not implement advanced features into games.That's why we need PS3 that can perfectly integrated with HT systems.
[Posted by: Poor quality article from XBit Labs | Date: 01/18/07 07:05:39 PM]
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Because in the sound market there are essentially only two options, Creative or onboard, as a result of Creative's dirty business tactics.
[Posted by: Nitpick | Date: 01/18/07 07:47:15 PM]
It couldn't have happened to a more deserving company. Comparison to the GPU business is meaningless as add-in GPUs are actually significantly better than the integrated options. With almost zero tangible difference over integrated solutions Creative Labs simply cannot expect to sell cards at the same price points as they have in the days when motherboards didn't tend to come with any integrated audio. I've actually talked a friend who was spending a large amount of money on a computer out of buying a Creative Labs card on these grounds. If Aureal were still around or Creative at least used the technology they purchased with the company to finish A3D 3.0 it might be a different story for add in sound cards but the way the chips have fallen Creative has made their bed and must now lie in it.
[Posted by: Exactly | Date: 01/18/07 08:45:38 PM]
2.
Atleast it seems Turtle Beach is still around
[url]http://www.turtlebeach.com/site/products/soundcards/[ url]
[Posted by: Silver | Date: 01/19/07 07:32:59 AM]
3.
i would add to that the lack of driver support ... or at least support.
[Posted by: chris | Date: 01/19/07 08:40:41 AM]
4.
Also when I played BF2 people used to turn off their sound cards so they could hear things that couldn't hear with the EAXturned on. Using the sound card is more realistic, but hearing enemy artillery fire clear across a map is helpful.
[Posted by: enemil | Date: 01/19/07 09:12:41 AM]
5.
Crap drivers and no advantage over integrated audio. Why buy Creative?
[Posted by: 404 | Date: 01/19/07 10:33:48 AM]
6.
Crap for drivers and rare updates means I just don't care about Creative anymore.
[Posted by: Eagle117 | Date: 01/19/07 03:17:16 PM]
7.
If 26% of the people (222,000) use AC97, then how can the 3% using Audigy 2 ZS be 847,000?
[Posted by: Brian | Date: 01/19/07 07:03:57 PM]
8.
Hmm... Sometimes I do wonder why I go for Creative cards when AC97 seems to do the job ok. Also, often more than not turning on EAX causes in-game lag and freezing in games I find.
I think one of the primary reasons I get game crashes is due to soundcard issues, as when I switch to software mode, the crashes either are less or not at all.
But still, they look attractive to me in my quality rig, so I want a 'quality' soundcard to go with it, even if it doesn't do much good in the long run.
But one good feature of having an X-Fi is that the control panels and in-built applications are very smart and useful - outside of gameplay.
[Posted by: Rei | Date: 01/19/07 07:10:30 PM]
9.
Creative Sucks! Yes, anyone can say that, but I brought proofage!
A. Creative bought Aureal years ago and buried the best sound technology ever developed for PC - A3D positional audio - until finally sort-of using the technology with x-Fi gaming.
B. Creative sound cards are a pain in the ass due to their frequent inability to play nice and share IRQs like all good PCI-standard-compliant peripherals.
[Posted by: Scott | Date: 01/19/07 09:05:51 PM]
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creative cards have been known to hijack IRQs from other PCI cards. the fact that the company ignores consumer complaints is the main reason i dont buy their sound card anymore.
[Posted by: rmjom | Date: 01/20/07 01:10:33 AM]
10.
Personally I am happy to see this news not becuase I hate creative, but becuase I hate the fact of how they handle the custmoer "after" the sale. With the lack of driver support or the finger pointing they do when their product doesn't work correctly.
[Posted by: BigTy | Date: 01/20/07 05:53:09 AM]
11.
Another big reason is that people like myself have been frustrated over the years with the way drivers have been handled. Once new hardware was rolls out, "older" cards were orphaned in terms of features and tools. Creative finally started addressing this issue in the last year or so and went closer to a unified driver model that doesn't require jumping through multiple installs and an original CD to get working. I'm thinking that this change in thinking just came a little too late ....
[Posted by: k10ck3r | Date: 01/20/07 07:37:21 AM]
12.
Would add lack of reliable support for X-Fi (DRIVERS!!!!) and ridiculous price-policy
[Posted by: X-fi user | Date: 01/20/07 07:49:46 AM]
13.
I really don't think it's advertising. More like the other points brought up. The price sucks too for their cards. Too bad they bought Aureal.
[Posted by: linthat22 | Date: 01/20/07 09:29:04 AM]
14.
"Creative sound cards are a pain in the ass due to their frequent inability to play nice and share IRQs like all good PCI-standard-compliant peripherals"
Thats complete bunk. This was only a problem with the first Audigy cards form what 6 years ago?
I have used my Audigy 2 and Audigy 2 ZS in several different systems over the years and they dont "hijack IRQs"
Thats in both Intel and AMD systems. They use just one IRQ thats not used on anything else. In fact my Nvida Card currently shares an IRQ with my Marvell Onboard network card and I get no slow downs' software glitches etc.
If you are using a modern system and using a modern OS and set your PC IRQ's up properly in the BIOS before installing anything then you will never ever get a IRQ problem, period.
[Posted by: Cythrawl | Date: 01/20/07 12:52:07 PM]
15.
Creative support for Vista is rumored to be very bad, also.
[Posted by: etc. | Date: 01/20/07 02:39:00 PM]
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I've been using Creative sound cards since the SoundBlaster 16 and I must say, I've never had any problems with them. I just recently got an Audigy 2 ZS Platinum for a nice price ($80) and I like the card a lot. In the past, I've switched between using the AC97 onboard audio and my older Live! X-Gamer 5.1 to check out the difference in audio and you can very much tell. In games, I didn't notice too big of a difference, but when it comes to music (one of my big hobbies) the AC97 sounds like absolute crap. Any large hit of bass completely drowns out the rest of the music and in many other cases, it just doesn't sound "up to par", as it were. As well, I've never had any problems such as the ones described here. My creative cards have always been nothing but install, update drivers and you're ready to go.
I don't have a problem with the onboard audio, but if you really want to listen to music or get the best audio quality, I think any expansion card will do you well. This said, I'll probably buy a different brand of sound card when it comes time to buy a new one in about fiveish years or so. I've heard M-Audio is very good, so I may check them out.
[Posted by: Smoof | Date: 01/20/07 03:03:04 PM]
16.
Problem is that X-Fi are way too freaking expensive. $ 100 to $ 200 for an audio card, no way.
[Posted by: Everyman | Date: 01/20/07 06:32:04 PM]
17.
Not to mention creative cards suck. Hardcore gamer & programmer for almost 20 years... I used to recommend their hardware to everyone. Now I avoid it like the plague and tell everyone not to waste $. Very disappointed with the last 4 purchases then finally quit for onboard audio - which works better.. as mind boggling as that sounds...
Creative has some redeeming to do before i'll buy again.
[Posted by: nm | Date: 01/21/07 12:01:17 AM]
18.
Another factor peraps? The Cost! Creative Labs cards are insanely expensive now! No wonder n ot many gamers are buying them any more.
[Posted by: Creative Fads | Date: 01/21/07 06:23:43 AM]
19.
Well...it might also be a factor that Creative is a company that places the consumer secondary to it's corporate need to exploit market position and maximize wealth with rehashed products with little innovation and bloated/unwieldly drivers.
[Posted by: Mdentari | Date: 01/21/07 08:20:09 AM]
20.
Another reason is Creative's soundcard drivers have been buggy bloated crap for years.
[Posted by: DG | Date: 01/21/07 12:58:30 PM]
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