Gamers Cease to Use Audio Cards by Creative Technology – Poll

Anusha

Creative Technology, the leading maker of discrete audio cards and a supplier of digital media players, is losing traction in the market of gamers, despite heavily advertised EAX technologies several years ago. Only about 15% of gamers use sound cards by Creative Labs, whereas the rest use mostly integrated audio.

The most popular audio device, according to a survey among users of Steam game distribution system by Valve Software Corp., is Realtek AC97 audio, which comes with loads of mainboards and is used by 26.28% of users, or 222 thousand. The second most popular is SoundMax digital audio, which is utilized by 9.5%, while the share of C-Media Wave device is 7.69.

Even though Creative Labs’ audio cards are used by 14.53% of Steam users, the most popular sound card by Creative Technology is Audigy 2 ZS has share of only 3.26% of 847 thousand of all respondents. Meanwhile, Creative’s latest audio board – SoundBlaster X-Fi – is used by 21.5 thousand of Steam users, or 2.54%.

The relative reluctance of gamers to acquire audio cards by Creative Technology is a result of the lack of tangible benefits that the SoundBlaster cards may provide now due to the fact that game developers do not implement advanced features into games. Another reason is the lack of massive advertising of SoundBlaster cards and promotional events, something that add-in graphics cards developers ATI and Nvidia do.

Source: Xbitlabs

blackroses · 01-19-2007, 07:36 AM

mmm............true machooooooooo............................ me also the same................

zCexVe · 01-19-2007, 10:48 AM

Thats why creative is into onboard audio these days..but they too r xpensive..

Anusha · 01-19-2007, 05:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by zCexVe

Thats why creative is into onboard audio these days..but they too r xpensive..

But we don't see many of them using them even in the enthusiast level motherboards.

zCexVe · 01-20-2007, 09:01 PM

Why not?MSI,Biostar and I think Gigabyte and ASUS uses them in high profiles.Or used...

chaminga_d · 01-20-2007, 09:19 PM

where is the poll...

Anusha · 01-20-2007, 09:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by chaminga_d

where is the poll...

It's not a poll. These were results from a poll conducted by some other party

Anusha · 01-20-2007, 09:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by zCexVe

Why not?MSI,Biostar and I think Gigabyte and ASUS uses them in high profiles.Or used...

Hmmm...Gigabyte seems to have them on their Intel 975 chipset based motherboard

Anusha · 01-20-2007, 10:02 PM

Oh just found out that they are only using Creative Live! 24-bit on those motherboards. (http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/...ctID=2234,1955)
Not even an Audigy.