id software blackmailed by creative labs, (creative threatens lawsuit)

[Schadenfroh]

Text

The patent situation well and truly sucks.

We were prepared to use a two-pass algorithm that gave equivalent results at a speed hit, but we negotiated the deal with Creative so that we were able to use the zfail method without having to actually pay any cash. It was tempting to take a stand and say that our products were never going to use any advanced Creative/3dlabs products because of their position on patenting gaming software algorithms, but that would only have hurt the users.

John Carmack

eax support forced
Text

discussion on the matter
hardOCP

i guess this is good news for my audigy 2 zs investment:evil:

 

[Pete]

You killed B3D! You bastards!

 

[imported_Salvatore]

I don't understand the article. Id was going to use an inferior algorithm that made performance hits, but Creative "blackmailed" them into using a better algorithm? I would suspect that is better for us. And I didn't see anything about blackmailing in that article.

Just read the second link, which I ignored before, and now I get it. Id was using a shadowing technique patented by Creative, and instead of suing for money, Creative put their EAX code into the engine. Hardly seems bad for us or Id. Their engine now has added support of EAX AND their superior shadowing technique at the same time, with no money lost. Creative did the right thing, in my opinion. They didn't go straight for the money, straight for the jugular, like most companies would have.

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

Yea, but software patenting is evil. Since it was allowed it has slowed software development instead of speeding it up as it was meant to (because of software patent clerks becoming corupt and judges being clueless).

 

[Alkaline5]

Originally posted by: Salvatore
Just read the second link, which I ignored before, and now I get it. Id was using a shadowing technique patented by Creative, and instead of suing for money, Creative put their EAX code into the engine. Hardly seems bad for us or Id. Their engine now has added support of EAX AND their superior shadowing technique at the same time, with no money lost. Creative did the right thing, in my opinion. They didn't go straight for the money, straight for the jugular, like most companies would have.

While things seem to have worked out for the best this time, what irks people about this is that (other than using it for blackmail) Creative has no business patenting rendering techniques in the first place. They didn't even come up with the technique (check HardOCP for documentation on that) they were just the first to submit it for patent.

 

[Pete]

Salvatore, the issue is that Sim Dietrich outed the algorithm months before Creative patented it. Carmack discovered it by himself months later ("Carmacks' Reverse," or z-fail), only to realize that quite a few people had beat him to it. But because of Creative's patent (whose legitimacy seems shaky, since Dietrich's talk seems to constitute prior art, and you can't patent something that's already been made public), iD was forced to

a) totally disassociate D3 from Creative and use a slower algorithm
b) pay Creative to use "Carmack's Reverse" without having to slap Creative's name on PR or even the game, thus either raising the price of the game or eating into their profits
c) allow Creative to send out this PR that attaches their name to one of the hottest games of the year (which, coincidentally, *doesn't* use hardware acceleration [especially Creative's reverb] for sound) in exchange for "free" use of the algorithm.

I'm assuming b) was an option, BTW. Creative might have valued the PR more than the revenue, so they may have only presented iD with c).

And Creative has a history of going straight for the jugular--they bought or bankrupted their two biggest competitors, Ensoniq and Aureal--so people already have a distaste for their sound card supremacy, which was gained with litigation, not superior hardware (at least in the "3D" sound era, post-SB/16/32).

 

[imported_Salvatore]

Oh my...I didn't know it was that bad. And this Sim Dietrich fellow, he works for nVidia, correct? Also, while I read the article I couldn't help but wonder why a sound-based company would know about a shadowing technique. It has nothing to do with sound(Or am I not seeing a connection here). Maybe they stole it from Dietrich. Did he ever patent it?

Finally, what about Turtle Beach? Even they can't give Creative a run for their money?

 

[Concillian]

I swore off Creative products after my SBLive5.1

I tried to lose them before with my Ensoniq card, but Creative just outright bought them.

Long live Soundstorm audio, I will NOT upgrade my motherboard until the nForce4 is out with Soundstorm2. Even without the SoundStorm, I'd rather take the CPU hit of crappy onboard than give more money to Creative.

 

[Schadenfroh]

Originally posted by: Salvatore
I couldn't help but wonder why a sound-based company would know about a shadowing technique.

creative bought out 3dlabs

 

[JackHawksmoor]

Wow! This makes me happy that I didn't buy an Audigy 2 for my new system! I was debating it for a long time...if I had bought one, I'd feel dirty right now.

And Creative's drivers are insane. I think the half the threads running on my system right now are creative drivers.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: JackHawksmoor
Wow! This makes me happy that I didn't buy an Audigy 2 for my new system! I was debating it for a long time...if I had bought one, I'd feel dirty right now.

And Creative's drivers are insane. I think the half the threads running on my system right now are creative drivers.

if you feel that way about Creative you 'should' hate Rambus also . . . so you must destroy your X-box . . . it contains "dirty" RDRAM.

i dunno . . . most companys are "cuttthroat"

that said . . . i didn't feel so bad getting an Audigy2 for $80 . . . my onboard drove me nuts and my Philips sound card is Sooo Unsupported.

and it looks like a good deal to have EAX in the Diii engine . . . doesn't look like any audio waves will be "harmed" . . .

:roll:

 

[Shad0hawK]

Originally posted by: AyashiKaibutsu
Yea, but software patenting is evil. Since it was allowed it has slowed software development instead of speeding it up as it was meant to (because of software patent clerks becoming corupt and judges being clueless).

yeah, programmers should not get the rights to thier intellectual property...they should spend all their time and energy making programs people can just duplicate and not worry about trifling things such as eating and paying the bills.

 

[Accord99]

Originally posted by: Schadenfroh

Originally posted by: Salvatore
I couldn't help but wonder why a sound-based company would know about a shadowing technique.

creative bought out 3dlabs

They also used to dabble in enhancements for popular games for their line of video cards. For example, Creative added shadow effects to Unreal in 1998, which may be related to the patent. If so, then Creative's work predated Sim Dietrich's.

http://unreal.com/comdex98/main.html

 

[JackHawksmoor]

f you feel that way about Creative you 'should' hate Rambus also . . . so you must destroy your X-box . . . it contains "dirty" RDRAM.

I don't own an X-Box (anymore...what do I need it for? I have a PC!), and the X-Box dosen't use any RDRAM. And yes, I do think Rambus is a scummy company.

and it looks like a good deal to have EAX in the Diii engine . . . doesn't look like any audio waves will be "harmed" . . .

From the sound of things, ID thought they could do a better job using their own sound engine. EAX may not be any kind of benefit. We'll have to wait for benchmarks, I suppose.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: JackHawksmoor

f you feel that way about Creative you 'should' hate Rambus also . . . so you must destroy your X-box . . . it contains "dirty" RDRAM.

I don't own an X-Box (anymore...what do I need it for? I have a PC!), and the X-Box dosen't use any RDRAM. And yes, I do think Rambus is a scummy company.

and it looks like a good deal to have EAX in the Diii engine . . . doesn't look like any audio waves will be "harmed" . . .

From the sound of things, ID thought they could do a better job using their own sound engine. EAX may not be any kind of benefit. We'll have to wait for benchmarks, I suppose.

oops, it's the Playstation2 that uses RDRAM . . .

i just think Creative "scored" but not really at id's "expense" . . . as you say, we'll have to wait and see.

 

[stnicralisk]

Originally posted by: Salvatore
I don't understand the article. Id was going to use an inferior algorithm that made performance hits, but Creative "blackmailed" them into using a better algorithm? I would suspect that is better for us. And I didn't see anything about blackmailing in that article.

Just read the second link, which I ignored before, and now I get it. Id was using a shadowing technique patented by Creative, and instead of suing for money, Creative put their EAX code into the engine. Hardly seems bad for us or Id. Their engine now has added support of EAX AND their superior shadowing technique at the same time, with no money lost. Creative did the right thing, in my opinion. They didn't go straight for the money, straight for the jugular, like most companies would have.

Yes, but without contesting the shadow z reverse patent creative will have to allow games to license the technology that they did not even have a hand in creating. This is wrong.

 

[Nebor]

Good, it would be silly for Doom 3 not to feature EAX. Means to an end.

 

[darkswordsman17]

Actually, its the PS3 that will be using memory created by Rambus.

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

Originally posted by: Shad0hawK

Originally posted by: AyashiKaibutsu
Yea, but software patenting is evil. Since it was allowed it has slowed software development instead of speeding it up as it was meant to (because of software patent clerks becoming corupt and judges being clueless).

yeah, programmers should not get the rights to thier intellectual property...they should spend all their time and energy making programs people can just duplicate and not worry about trifling things such as eating and paying the bills.

Copy rights are much more appropriate for software and were working fine before software patents were legal. Software patents were being granted on way to wide of a basis. The second algorythem is in the description of something it should automatically not be available for patents. I'm a programmer btw.

 

[kylebisme]

Originally posted by: Pete
You killed B3D! You bastards!

lol, it was pretty much my fault. i spoted creatives pr blurp on Blue's and started a thread about it on beyond3d. then Rev shot off an email to Carmack, posted the responce, it wound up linked at slashdot, and it all went to hell from there.

sorry about that.

 

[nitromullet]

This thread prompted me to ask a question about sound cards, but I didn't want to be totally OT or hijack this thread...

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.cfm?catid=27&threadid=1362341&enterthread=y

Thanks for any responses.

 

[ViRGE]

Originally posted by: Nebor
Good, it would be silly for Doom 3 not to feature EAX. Means to an end.

D3 has its own 3D sound engine, which is supposed to be better than what EAX can do anyhow.

 

[Acanthus]

Creative sucks.

Id rather use a VIA product than a creative, and i hate via with the fire of a thousand suns.

But the Envy-24 is the only competing chip, unless NVIDIA brings soundstorm to PCI.

 

[Nebor]

Originally posted by: ViRGE

Originally posted by: Nebor
Good, it would be silly for Doom 3 not to feature EAX. Means to an end.

D3 has its own 3D sound engine, which is supposed to be better than what EAX can do anyhow.

I seriously doubt that. But I guess we'll never see, will we?

 

[Tab]

I am the only person who doesnt understand this at all? Huh???