Creative Technology

Creative Technology Limited is a hardware manufacturer and Multimedia Specialist in the entertainment industry, based in Singapore.

Overview

The company Creative Technology Limited was established on 1 July 1981 by Sim Wong Hoo and currently employs about 3100 employees worldwide. The company was known primarily for the development of modern sound cards, the product range was diversified but increasingly lately. So today also speakers, MP3 players, webcams, and other accessories are offered. Revenues for the fiscal year 2007/2008 approximately 736 million U.S. dollars with a loss of 20 million U.S. dollars. The company was listed on the Nasdaq under the symbol CREAF, has since withdrawn themselves from there in 2007 and is now only traded on the Singapore Exchange (SGX -ST).

Products

The company developed early chips and sound cards that can convert a digitally stored sound in an audio signal, for PCs and consoles. Creative Labs has been known primarily as a manufacturer of the sound card Sound Blaster, with the early a quasi-standard - in addition AdLib and Gravis - was created. MS- DOS did not provide uniform programming interface for Sound cards; Programs which should reflect samples therefore had the hardware any special sound card directly control. It was for manufacturers who went from 1990 to the market, common to need to develop sound cards that were compatible with the Sound Blaster hardware. Models without this compatibility were at a disadvantage because a variety of programs from around 1989 supported the Sound Blaster, while no support was available for the new products. An exception were the charts of the Pro Audio Spectrum (short PAS ) of the competitors Media Vision, which also represented a kind of standard. The first sound cards from Creative, as the Sound Blaster and Sound Blaster Pro, had 8 -bit cards only with the Sound Blaster 16 was 16- bit sound of the standard to which had to be measured by competitors. The Sound Blaster models had a standard usable as gameport MIDI port, in some models, there was an additional IDE controller that could be used for CD drives, but also for hard drives.

In recent years, Creative has diversified his business. To be independent from the sound card market, Creative Labs now produces MP3 players, speaker systems, portable media center and webcams. This happened out of the necessity that because throughout existing Onbord sound chips dedicated sound cards today are bought ( for more or less strong performance gains by native DirectSound, OpenAL and better EAX support) only from PC gamers. Offers of graphics cards, LCD monitors, and input devices such as keyboards and mice, were set back by now. The sale of graphics cards began with the purchase of 3Dlabs by Creative in March 2002. 3Dlabs However, again separated from Creative in 2007, as the meeting brought more benefits than for Creative 3Dlabs. Thus ended the offer of graphics cards from Creative.

In connection with the development of MP3 players and Portable Media Center (eg, Zen Vision ) Creative Labs now also offers various software for media management. Developed for the support of podcasts Creative Software ZENcast as well as a portal for further assistance.

The development of the X - Fi series from Creative Labs cranked up the business again strongly: Many manufacturers are counting on more expensive complete systems. This comes with some extras, such as a 24 -bit Crystalizer, which again strongly aufbohrt the sound quality of Heruntergesampelten MP3 files, and the function CMSS- 3D, the 5.1 sound on a simulated stereo headphones.

In addition, many players prefer the X - Fi series also because of a small performance boost and additional effects (such as EAX ) without sacrificing performance. There are several versions of X -Fi, some with their own memory, the so-called X - RAM, which theoretically brings a performance boost, rather low to non-existent fails, however, in practice, since the games manufacturers have to optimize on X - RAM. When using current OpenAL Libarys However, optimizing the use of X - RAM is no longer necessary, as it will automatically be used in the newer versions of OpenAL the additional memory on the sound card. Thus, X - RAM depending on the situation in almost every OpenAL -use game will bring a slight advantage. The first model, which used a PCI Express slot was internally connected through a bus bridge to a PCI slot. Such Buskonvertierung increases device latency and can cause a subjectively perceptible deterioration in sound quality of the sound card in case of actual use. Also, the X -Fi audio model is so far criticized that it was not a sound card with hardware acceleration, but only a variant of the SBLive 24Bit, which simulates about driver features X - Fi features and thus creates a preventable computational load for the main processor.

In 2010, Creative released in collaboration with the now renamed to ZiiLabs company 3Dlabs the Creative ZiiO tablet computers. The Creative Ziio has a resistive touch screen and is available in seven and ten inches in size. The core of the tablet computer is the one gigahertz processor ZMS -08 strong, which was developed by ZiiLabs. As a Google Android operating system is installed. Since there is no SIM card can be inserted into the device, no access to the Android Market is possible. For the installation of programs offers Creative own reference point, called the ZiiO Space, and the possibility of installing a microSD memory card. Access to other sources of supply is also possible, provided that no SIM card inserted, for downloading programs presuppose. Optimize the sound, the ZiiO has the Creative X- Fi technology. This plays to their strengths, however, made ​​only when infected, external speakers.

Driver policy

Especially a lot of criticism from users, such as Internet forums, reaped Creative drivers for their policy. So the paid ALchemy was originally for some older cards ( Audigy ) is required to use Windows Vista EAX in connection with DirectSound3D can, with OpenAL as sound API instead of DirectSound EAX, however with the free drivers without any problems, other older models had not planned a Vista support. A Linux driver for the X - Fi series was announced in June 2006 for the second quarter of 2007, but is far from being published (there is only a beta version of a driver for 64 -bit Linux distributions ). Also drivers current sound cards were long unavailable.

Another, older example of similar approach presented the popular DVD decoder card DXR3 dar. After the introduction of the operating system Windows XP end of 2001 piled up in the support forums of Creative also requests from customers, to provide a driver for the new operating system. About the beta stage then a released software package, however, came out never.

In the meantime, however, has anything changed on this point, so there are updated drivers for X-Fi, as well Audigykarten. Furthermore, ALchemy is now offered free of charge for Audigykarten.

Brands / subsidiaries

• E -MU

The company E -MU Systems is a subsidiary of Creative, which manufactures products for music production. These include high quality sound cards and USB audio interfaces.

• Cambridge SoundWorks

Cambridge SoundWorks sells speaker systems for computer and home theater.

• 3Dlabs

The acquisition by Creative took place in March 2002. Divestment followed in 2007.

• ZiiLABS

After renaming of 3Dlabs in ZiiLABS a second inclusion in Creative Technology took place in January 2009.

• Broadxent

Broadxent is responsible for Router and Modem division.