Update: A moderator on Creative's official forums said that the company will allow Daniel_K to pursue development of custom Vista drivers, provided that none of Creative's intellectual properties are distributed.

"It was decided we would bring back the Audigy Support Pack thread and allow [Daniel_K] to continue in that endeavor," the moderator wrote. "As long as no intellectual property of Creative is distributed, we will have no problem with it."

Original Story: Once again making a controversial public stand, sound card manufacturer Creative Labs has demanded that custom driver developer Daniel_K stop creating software to enable previously unsupported technology with Creative hardware in Windows Vista.

"By enabling our technology and IP to run on sound cards for which it was not originally offered or intended, you are in effect, stealing our goods," corporate communications VP Phil O'Shaughnessy wrote on the company's official forums.

The user-created drivers improve the stability of Creative hardware within Windows Vista and enable several features for its Sound Blaster Audigy cards, such as DVD-Audio and an equalizer, that were supported in Windows XP... Read more

The people at Creative send along word that a beta version of the Creative ALchemy software is now available for Sound Blaster X-Fi owners. Microsoft's new Vista OS removes the hardware audio abstraction layer, resulting in issues with some EAX and DirectSound3D games ("usually resulting in stereo output without any effects"). ALchemy takes DS3D and EAX calls and translates them into OpenAL calls.

There's a Creative Q&A on Digit-Life, talking to Creative Europe brand manager Darragh O'Toole. Topics include the X-Fi lineup, tech demos, EAX enabled games and its future, and the upcoming Vista release.

Amped eSports has posted a preview of the Fatal1ty 1010 mouse, which is a new product from Creative due in January for $49. The article takes a look at the special features of this "Gaming Mouse".

ATI has new Catalyst drivers available, version 5.10. According to the release notes, this release fixes issues with Max Payne 2, Stronghold 2, Prince of Persia, Silent Hunter 3, Dungeon Siege 2 and 3Dmark03.

SoundBlaster manufacturer Creative Technology issued a press release regarding their new Sound Blaster X-Fi sound cards, powered by the Xtreme Fidelity audio processor. The cards feature up to 64MB of onboard RAM and support up to 128 hardware voices. They also feature fairly steep price tags, with the "Sound Blaster X-Fi Fatal1ty FPS" model (obviously targeted towards gamers) retailing for $279.99 and the "Sound Blaster X-Fi Elite Pro" for a staggering $399.99. What with graphics cards already commanding the premium they do and with the upcoming dedicated physics processors and now this, PC gamers could be in for some seriously expensive upgrade options in the near future.

"Sound Blaster X-Fi heralds the beginning of a new epoch in audio, whereX-Fi enabled audio products will eventually and completely replace the old hi-fi equipment in the home. ...With the arsenal of high-end audioproducts, technologies and intellectual properties that Creative owns, you canexpect Creative to release more and more audio product lines that support thisnew Xtreme Fidelity audio standard."

Creative Labs sends along a beta Audigy 2 / Audigy 2 ZS driver, which adds full OpenAL / EAX ADVANCED HD support, improving performance for OpenAL games and enabling EAX 4.0 for DOOM 3: Resurrection of Evil. You'll need Windows XP SP 2 or Windows 2000 SP 4 to use this unsupported driver release.

The guys at Creative let us know that new drivers have been released for Audigy 1, Audigy 2, and Audigy 2 ZS series soundcards. A key feature of this release is EAX 4.0, which "allows multiplereal-world environments to be recreated simultaneously". Jedi Academy is the first game to support EAX 4.0.

Plenty of bitching about the Audigy 2 introduction yesterday. Here is Creative's product page for those who are interested in the latest Sound Blaster card.

There is a SoundBlaster Audigy 2 report on VR-Zone, based on attendance of a launch event at Creative's Singapore HQ. The Audigy 2 comes with THX certification, 6.1 surround sound, and a bunch of other stuff. Cards will ship in October.

Ant sends word that the Creative UK site has new drivers for the SB Live series of card. Apparently these fix compatability problems in Win2K/XP.

Tech Report is reporting about a rumor going around about the SoundBlaster Audigy. Some people are saying the Emu 10K2 used in the Creative soundcard is nothing more than an Emu 10K1 with FireWire support, though apparently the FireWire support is seperate from the Emu chip. The Emu 10K1 is found in the Live! series of soundcards. Supposedly, someone from China or Taiwan has hacked Live drivers to act like an Audigy card. Creative marketed the Audigy as a completely new, improved product, replacing the Live cards.

Now, even if this is all true, I'm not sure this one rises to the level of real news. ...
But it would seem that we've seen yet another demonstration of how the audio market differs from real, semiconductor-driven markets like graphics and processors. If ATI or AMD were to launch a "new" product three years after the last revision, give it a new name, and deliver a warmed-over version of the same chip with one new feature, we'd crucify 'em. And rightly so.
For Creative and the market it leads, this kind of thing is par for the course.

Creative today announced the Sound Blaster Extigy, their first external soundcard. For $149.99 you get a device you hook up to your USB port and will give you 24-bit 96kHz multi-channel audio playback and a 100dB signal-to-noise ratio. The Extigy will ship this month.

Somehow we missed this one yesterday. Creative announced their new Sound Blaster card, the Audigy. I was always happy with the sound of the SB Live! myself, its the (driver) support Creative needs to give a good upgrading.

Long it was rumored Creative wouldn't be making any videocards anymore. Guess that wasn't true as their GeForce3 card has been announced. They are also gonna make GeForce2 MX and Pro cards. Guru3D has an interview with Creative's Eoin Leyden about their lineup.

At NT Compatible they have posted a new WDM driver for the Creative SB Live soundcards (should work on all of them).

nvNews has an explanation from Creative on why they aren't making a GeForce3 card. Margins are too slim for them to bother, so they are de-emphasizing on graphics cards.

Digit-Life has an interview with someone from Creative who talks about the 3dfx assets sale to NVidia, giving the view of an outsider which has used products from both companies.

Creative has released new drivers for the NVidia powered videocards. There are seperate released for Win9x/ME, Win2k and Win NT. There are also drivers for their older soundcards (Sound Blaster PCI128, SB 16 PCI, etc) for all the Windows versions.

t0fu got in contact with Creative to ask them about the GeForce Ultra 2 (see story). Basically, their Annihilator2/3D Blaster Ultra is shipping to several markets and shipping in the US is "imminent". Also, there will not be a 32mb version because NVidia does not have a design for such a version.