Creative's Famous Obese Bloatware for Soundcards

[Heinrich]

I can't believe I have now a Creative soundcard installed in this PC after I swore off them years ago...what's next, a Dell desktop (shudder.)

Anyway, the Platinum X-Fi with $100 rebate was too good to resist. However, I only installed the drivers. I did not install any of the other famous Creative Obese Bloatware for Soundcards...am I missing anything?

 

[potato28]

They don't fix anything, unless you have static or popping sounds while playing sounds or while just on.

 

[CP5670]

I think all you really need is the AudioHQ utility, although it's good to keep the console launcher around since it has a couple of additional features like the equalizer. You can turn off all the crap that runs in the background by default.

 

[darkswordsman17]

Personally I didn't find the X-Fi software to be that bad. I installed most of it. You really gain a lot more options (EAX, CMSS-headphone, and tons of other stuff). Its very beneficial if you use your computer for multiple purposes (music, movies, games).

 

[BladeVenom]

****! I miss Soundstorm.

 

[QuantumPion]

You can use winrar to extract the driver files out of the executable download from creative website, and manually install them. That's what I do, and it works great. I know bashing creative is fashionable but I find their bare drivers to work far better then any other audio companies.

 

[PorscheMaD911]

No idea what people are talking about with Creative's bloatware drivers. I've used an SB Live for years, and now have an Audigy 2. I downloaded the drivers for both and all I get's a very minimalistic control panel. Never used the original CDs though, so perhaps that's what I'm missing (if you could call it that!).

 

[zodder]

AudioHQ is about the only thing worth keeping out of all that extraneous software.

 

[Heinrich]

I did install AudioHQ and I found that the sound quality on DVDs suddenly got much more "3D."

The Soundblaster Live! board had like 50 meg drivers and obeseware when the Hercules and Audigy products had much smaller footprints. There were these huge graphics bitmaps that made up the interface...I don't remember precisely .. and they also put their little creative trademark bitmap into the control panel, volume panel, etc etc

 

[Heinrich]

PS

Who needs a Creative toolbar? It's actually listed on the package - how ridiculous

 

[shortylickens]

Originally posted by: Heinrich

I did install AudioHQ and I found that the sound quality on DVDs suddenly got much more "3D."

The Soundblaster Live! board had like 50 meg drivers and obeseware when the Hercules and Audigy products had much smaller footprints. There were these huge graphics bitmaps that made up the interface...I don't remember precisely .. and they also put their little creative trademark bitmap into the control panel, volume panel, etc etc

Ummm, no, they arent.
They are "like" 4 megs. Everything else is the BS that they want you to install, BUT YOU DONT HAVE TO!

I have an Audigy and even on that puppy I found all thats needed are the basic drivers. You are allowed to install just those from the CD.
Or download the latest and greatest from the web.

 

[ComputerWizKid]

Originally posted by: BladeVenom
****! I miss Soundstorm.

Same here I loved my Asus A7N8X Deluxe the onboard sound on my A8N-E Sucks

 

[postmortemIA]

Nvidia should release sound card...timing is perfect.. no EAX support in Vista!

 

[Ghouler]

Originally posted by: postmortemIA
Nvidia should release sound card...timing is perfect.. no EAX support in Vista!

There is EAX support on creative cards though, you must have heard about OpenAL and ALchemy that translates DX into OpenAL on the fly. This also means the effects are accelerated in by sound card not by CPU.

As for bloatware I'd say the software package with X-Fi is much better then the one that came with my Audigy. I used custom installation but I installed quite a few of the extra apps such as tag cleaner and wavelab. They are actually very handy if you e.g. want to put your mp3 tags into some sort of order... Overall their package is pretty good and, as it was mentioned, its installation is optional.