Normally I would not care very much, but Creative have made a special effort in being obtuse so they deserve every bit of disappointment they can get. Don't buy their stuff...ANY of it. Let them feel so they learn what it means to actually live up to the unspoken contract we all have in the computing world. Yes, they are not legally bound to give us more than what is in the box, but THAT IS NOT HOW THE COMPUTER INDUSTRY WORKS. They have made enough money short changing people. Sure, their hardware is the most supported, but this has largely become a non-Creative undertaking now. I am thinking Linux, where there are drivers (no thanks to Creative), and in Windows we get all that mess if we don't buy the latest AUDACITY just to feed their big ol mouth without any real teeth. Personally, I got a mainboard with integrated SoundMAX for this very reason and I have not looked back. It has the features and sounds as good, if not better, as any Creative card I have ever owned (unfortunately quite a few). I still do not understand why SB-16 and AWE32/64 are getting support while the SBLive! series is left sounding like a tin can. I used to buy all their stuff and now I avoid their name like the plague. I don't care if they make a GF/FX with 140% Core/Mem with a 10Db cooling system. I know it won't be supported for very long and that makes it junk.Well, I better shut up as I am now officially ranting.

Add me to the Creative haters! Hercules cards beat anything made by creative at 1/2 the cost! Forcing your customers of older but still currently sold cards (Live!, Audigy1) to use hacked or otherwise edited Audigy2 drivers with nothing official is just a small part of the BS that is Creative product support.

what a load of whining. im running a SB Live! with the last driver set from before christmas. They work perfectly fine, i dont need 10 driver releases a year for my soundcard like they do in the gfx industry

The fact that hacked driver packages makes news on the Web should tell you something. Sure, there are probably people who are addicted to installing new drivers for no reason, but there must be some reason there is such a keen interest for new Creative drivers. They are flawed. SB Live! does not function properly under XP and support is scarce. Install Windows 98SE or Linux and you will hear the difference. This may not be major, but there are basic functionality problems as well. Don't take one person's opinion on this. Think about why a headline like "New Creative drivers" is news. It is not the same reason as Nvidia drivers where there is no real problem, but people have it in their heads that it will be even faster. On this topic, I had absolutely horribke expoeriences with Creative's video adapters. Their drivers were terrible and their hardware does not seem to like generic drivers. I never bought Creative video adpaters again, but used their sound cards because they are available and have software for most operating systems (and, honestly, mostly because I was accustomed to having a SoundBlaster in my system; brand recognition/loyalty). However, Creative has shown no indication of improving support. It gets worse. More good choices of audio hardware are availble and drivers are plentiful. There really is no particular reason to use a SB anymore. This is why I don't purchase their products and why I voice my opinion on this open discussion board.