Creative Technology
| Creative Technology Limited
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| legal form | Limited |
| founding | July 1, 1981 |
| Seat | Singapore |
| management | Sim Wong Hoo |
| sales | US $ 736.8 million (2008) |
| Branch | electronics |
| Website | de.creative.com |
Creative Technology Limited is a hardware manufacturer and multimedia specialist in the entertainment industry based in Singapore .
overview
Creative Technology Limited was founded by Sim Wong Hoo on July 1, 1981 and currently employs approximately 3,100 people worldwide. The company became known primarily for the development of modern sound cards , although the product range has recently been increasingly diversified. Speakers, MP3 players, webcams and other accessories are also offered today. Sales in the 2007/2008 fiscal year about 736 million US dollars with a loss of 20 million US dollars. The company was listed on the Nasdaq under the symbol CREAF , but withdrew from there in 2007 and is now only traded on the Singapore Stock Exchange (SGX-ST).
Products
The company developed chips and sound cards for PCs and consoles that can convert a digitally stored sound into an audio signal at an early stage . Creative Labs was best known as the manufacturer of the Sound Blaster sound card , with which a quasi-standard - alongside AdLib and Gravis - was created at an early stage . MS-DOS did not provide a uniform programming interface for sound cards; Programs that were supposed to play back samples therefore had to control the hardware of each special sound card directly. It became common or even necessary for manufacturers who entered the market from 1990 to develop sound cards that were hardware-compatible with the Soundblaster. Models without this compatibility were at a disadvantage, since a large number of programs supported the Soundblaster from around 1989, while there was no support for the new products. The cards from the Pro Audio Spectrum series (PAS for short) from competitor MediaVision, which also represented a kind of standard, were an exception. The first sound cards from Creative, such as the Soundblaster and Soundblaster Pro, were 8-bit cards, it was only with the Soundblaster 16 that 16-bit sound became the standard against which competitors had to be measured. The Soundblaster models had a standard midi port that could be used as a game port; some models also had an IDE controller that could be used for CD drives, but also for hard drives.
In the past few years, Creative has diversified its business . In order to be more independent from the sound card market, Creative Labs now also produces MP3 players , speaker systems , portable media centers and webcams . This happened out of the necessity that, due to the consistently available onboard sound chips, dedicated sound cards are now only bought by PC gamers (due to more or less strong increases in performance through native DirectSound , OpenAL and better EAX support). Offers of graphics cards , LCD monitors and input devices such as keyboards and mice , have now been reinstated. The sale of graphics cards began with the acquisition of 3DLabs by Creative in March 2002. However, 3DLabs separated from Creative again in 2007, as the meeting brought more benefits for Creative than for 3DLabs. This also ended the range of graphics cards from Creative.
In connection with the development of MP3 players and portable media centers (e.g. Zen Vision), Creative Labs now also offers various software for media management. To support podcasts , Creative developed the ZenCast software and a portal for further support.
The development of the X-Fi series boosted the business of Creative Labs once again: Many manufacturers of expensive complete systems rely on it. This offers a few extras, such as a 24-bit Crystalizer, which greatly increases the sound quality of downsampled MP3 files, and the CMSS-3D function, which simulates 5.1 sound on stereo headphones.
In addition, many players prefer the X-Fi series because of a small performance jump and additional effects (such as EAX) without any loss of performance. There are several versions of X-Fi, some with their own memory, the so-called X-RAM , which theoretically brings an increase in performance, but in practice it turns out to be small or nonexistent, since the game manufacturers do not optimize X-RAM. When using the latest OpenAL libraries, optimization for the use of X-RAM is no longer necessary, since the additional memory of the sound card is used automatically in the newer versions of OpenAL. Thus, depending on the situation, X-RAM can bring slight advantages in almost every game that uses OpenAL. The first model to use a PCI Express slot was connected internally via a bus bridge with a PCI slot. Such a bus conversion increases the device latency and, in a specific application, can cause a subjectively perceptible, deteriorated sound quality of the sound card. The X-Fi-Audio model has also been criticized for not being a sound card with hardware acceleration, but just a variant of the SBLive 24Bit, which simulates X-Fi features via driver functions and thus creates an avoidable computing load for the main processor.
In 2010 Creative released the Creative Ziio tablet computer in cooperation with the company 3DLabs, which has since been renamed ZiiLabs . The Creative Ziio has a resistive touchscreen and is available in seven and ten inch sizes. The heart of the tablet computer is the one gigahertz processor ZMS-08, which was developed by ZiiLabs. Android is installed as the operating system. Since no SIM card can be inserted into the device, access to the Android Market is not possible. For the installation of programs, Creative offers its own reference location, the so-called Ziio-Space, and the option of installation via a microSD memory card. Access to other sources of supply is also possible, provided that they do not require a SIM card to be used for downloading programs. The Ziio has Creative X-Fi technology for sound optimization. However, this only shows its strengths when external speakers are plugged in.
Driver policy
Creative received a lot of criticism from users, for example in Internet forums, for its driver policy. For example, some older cards (Audigy) originally required the chargeable ALchemy in order to be able to use EAX in connection with DirectSound3D under Windows Vista, with OpenAL as the sound API instead of DirectSound, however, EAX is possible with the free drivers without any problems, for others Vista support was no longer planned for older models. A Linux driver for the X-Fi series was announced in June 2006 for the second quarter of 2007, but has not been released for a long time (there is only a beta version of a driver for 64-bit Linux variants). Drivers for current sound cards were also not available for a long time.
Another, older example of a similar procedure was the popular DXR3 DVD decoder card. After the Windows XP operating system was introduced at the end of 2001, requests from customers to provide a driver for the new operating system also increased in the Creative support forums. However, a software package that was subsequently released never got beyond the beta stage.
In the meantime, however, something has changed in this regard, so there are current drivers for X-Fi and Audigy cards. Furthermore, ALchemy is now also offered free of charge for Audigy cards.
Brands / Subsidiaries
- The brand consists of Sound Blaster sound cards, gaming headsets, and portable speakers.
- Emu
- The company E-mu Systems is preparing a subsidiary of Creative, products for music production. This includes high quality sound cards and USB audio interfaces.
- Cambridge Soundworks
- Cambridge Soundworks sells speaker systems for computers and home theaters.
- The acquisition by Creative took place in March 2002. The spin-off followed in 2007.
- ZiiLABS
- After the renaming from 3DLabs to ZiiLABS, a second incorporation into Creative Technology took place in January 2009.
- Broadxent
- Broadxent is responsible for the router and modem division.
Web links
- Creative Germany company website
- Page from E-mu
- Site from Cambridge Soundworks
- Site by ZiiLABS
- Broadxent site
Individual evidence
- ↑ Creative ZiiO in the test: Inexpensive Android tablet with X-Fi technology , Netzwelt.de, December 23, 2010
- ↑ available Paid ALchemy for Audigys , www.computerbase.de, News July 3, 2007
- ↑ Creative X-Fi driver for Linux only next year , www.pro-linux.de, News June 2, 2006