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Creative Pressures id Software With Patents
Cryect writes "Earlier today it was announced by Creative that they would be adding in EAX 3D sound support to Doom 3, and that they had come to an 'agreement relating to Creative's patented shadowing technique [also known as Carmack's Reverse in some coding circles] and id's cutting-edge 3D graphics DOOM 3 engine.' This seemed somewhat suspicious, almost as if id was being pressured, and a quick email to John Carmack from Reverend @ Beyond3d got this reply: 'The patent situation well and truly sucks... 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...' There's also some possible prior art [PPT link] to Creative Labs' patent, from a 1999 talk by Nvidia's Sim Dietrich."
Seems like creative makes a practice outta this. http://us.creative.com/corporate/investor/releases .asp?pid=6197
Creative Technology Ltd. (NASDAQ: CREAF), and wholly-owned subsidiary EMU, today announced a mixed jury verdict in the case against Aureal Semiconductor.
This is a perfect example of why I really hate software patents. Company X will talk about something, hype it up, not mention a bloody patent, then when someone uses it, the company waits around until the opportune moment, then BAM!!!! pulls some patent infringment BS out of their bum.
It is not right. I understand the importance of patents outside of the software industry, I really do. I think that if someone comes up with a clever idea and makes a prototype and intends to sell said object, then they should have a grace period of how long they can be the only ones. I'm up for debate on how long this period should be, but still. In software this just does not happen. You have these companies that are entirely setup with a bunch of patents and they just sue other companies to make money. Talk about shaddy business.
Patent a way to click a button, or how a shadow is rendered, or something just as rediculous is wrong and should not be possible. It hurts the industry more then it helps anyone. It will be aweful to see the rest of the world pass us by because we are unable to innovate because of all the legal mess we have. We have no one to blame but ourselves though.
I hope all of this mess does not affect Doom 3 release date, and it is almost a shame ID did not stick it to Creative. It is nice to see a company care about the user for once to though.
Brendan
And the reason no games are released on time is that I hold the worldwide patent to releasing games on time.
"The DOOM 3 engine ushers in a new rendering paradigm that allows id and our licensees to bring cinema quality visuals to game players in real time," said Todd Hollenshead, CEO of id Software. "We look forward to further enhancing players' audio experience by working with Creative to leverage their EAX ADVANCED HD audio technology in the DOOM 3 engine."
"Working together with id Software, an industry icon, provides Creative with an exciting opportunity to enhance one of the hottest game engines around," said Hock Leow, CTO of Creative Technology. "We look forward to the challenge of implementing EAX ADVANCED HD Multi-Environment technology within the Doom 3 engine, and subsequently working with id to make these enhancements available to their licensees. We are also pleased with the agreement relating to Creative's patented shadowing technique and id's cutting-edge 3D graphics DOOM 3 engine."
Hmm, this press release seems rather pleasant in tone. I don't get the impression that they were coerced into anything. When I check id's website though I don't find the press release on the front page, nor do I see Creative listed in their "Friends of id" section. Perhaps they are just a bit behind on updating their website while working to release Doom 3 on time?
and i quote from PC Gamer:
(pg.79) Sept. 2004
"(8) Is it true that Doom 3's audio engine is entirely CPU-dependent, thus negating the benefits of high-end sound cards? If so, what are the benefits? What are the drawbacks?
[bla, bla, bla]
PC Gamer's take: Much to Creative Labs' chagrin, Doom 3 should sound exactly the same (and perform equally well) on your motherboard's built-in audio processor as it will on a high-end Audigy 2 ZS sound card."
so much for that!
Sadly, if Mr. Carmack won't take a stand against evil software patents, I doubt anybody will, or will at least do so successfully.
Think about it. John Carmack has influence and money. People will continue to buy the games id makes, whether or not they use this patented technology. Sure, they might be slightly slower, but considering all the other optimizations id is famous for, it's unlikely anybody would notice.
If a free software project wanted to challenge a patent like this, it wouldn't stand a chance. With no money, it couldn't defend itself. From the other side, the companies that have more power than id simply don't care to take a stand on issues like this.
I can't help but feel that Mr. Carmack wimped out of this fight. Saying that it hurts gameply is just an easy out. Would people really have noticed?
Maybe it's not too late. Maybe if enough people speak up about this, either id will decide to reverse their decision, or Creative will back down and make their patent available royalty-free.
Dont worry that US will be left behind - soon the rest of the world will also have the same stupid patent and DMCA-style laws that will stifle innovation and maybe seriously harm free software.
This because of different trade agreements where the US is a part (NAFTA, WTO, etc). (using trade as leverage). And also thanks to big companies doing massive lobbying for these kind of laws. We really dont have a good democracy anywhere in the world, since it is money = power.
I recommend everyone to see this movie:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0379225/
Hmm, this press release seems rather pleasant in tone.
Is a press release ever NOT pleasant in tone? Of course it's pleasant; if id is being legally pursued by Creative they wouldn't print a press release saying, "Creative can blow." That kind of talk is saved for plan files, not press releases.
Prior art from a talk on the technique
Reply Quoting This MessageEdit Message SimmerD Member since: 1/5/2003
Posted - 9/21/2003 6:50:03 PM
Don't worry about it fellas. I described this technique publicly a few months before they filed the patent - hence Prior Art. Ironically, it was at a Creative Labs developer's forum.
During my stencil buffer talk, I described doing shadow volumes the 'reverse' way. At the time, I didn't realize the major reason why the z fail method is better than the z pass method, although I did realize they were logically equivalent, which is why it's now known as 'Carmack's Reverse' and not 'Dietrich's Reverse'!
- sigs are for wimps.
Companies that hang on to valuable IP just to make money off of infringing companies don't just exist in the software world. They exist in all industries and what they do is completely legal. I once had it explained to me in a way that made it seem ethically sound! Now, I don't see the distinction. Why is this practice abhorrent in software but fine elsewhere?
"I've got to stop masturbating! It makes me too lazy! Stop it, Albert. Stop it." -- Albert Einstein
I seriously think that software patents need some sort of statute of limitation placed upon them. It looks like in some parts of the world, this exists! In China, the statute of limitation for patent infringement is:
2 years from the date on which the patentee or any interested party obtains or should have obtained knowledge of the infringing act
If this were in force in the USA, then the Unisys GIF debacle (and countless others) could have been avoided.
Unisys KNEW that GIFs were ALL OVER the web, for years, and they didn't attempt to enforce their patent. They'd have to have been in a hole, to not notice. Therefore, a statute of limitations would have prevented them from allowing the world to become addicted to GIFs before springing their trap.
Visit the Game Programming Wiki!
id Software has faithfully released the full source code to each of their titles once the game is a couple generations old.
I wonder if this will affect the release of the Doom 3 source a few years from now? Can patented code be released under the GPL?
Dan East
Better known as 318230.
-truth
I had a steady B+ in my AI class until I failed the Turing test...
"would only have hurt the users..."
...
/. croud, but I hear you John. My next rig will have no Creative products in it.
Creatives drivers for SB (Live or whatever) always caused only headache on multiprocessor machines. I realized how limited (and poorly writen) their drivers are after switched to kX drivers. Now marketing dep @ creative reached total lows
I dunno about rest of the
Does slashdot have a patent on "a method of buring the retinas of web site viewers with godawful color schemes"?
This color scheme is worse than the IT section's!
'It was tempting to take a stand...but that would only have hurt the users...'
Mom says my
The EAX environmental audio is lame compared to the Aureal environmental audio. So naturally the worst standard won in the marketplace and the best standard was purchased and buried.
Creative Labs sucks. Their sound cards have stability problems and EAX buring Aureal really pisses me off.
Todays question is -- How Important is Creative?
/. is intense it is also generally short lived. But ditching creative products is not a difficult proposition. And ever since I heard about how they bragged that they could keep costs down by holding back innovation (this was back in the aureal days) I've always kinda thought they were a bunch of dickheads.
My own take: Not very. They're about the only game in town when it comes to fancy-pants gaming sound cards. The thing is that a fancy pants gaming soundcard is not very important to me. Don't get me wrong I'm a pretty big gamer, but who really wants a computer desk coverd with a dozen speakers and the attendant wires? I haven't had a creative soundcard since the early soundblaster days. Creative products apart from soundcards? They just re-badge other people's stuff. I'd consider the RIO mp-3 players, but rio isn't creative anymore, right? I haven't had anything from creative in years, and I haven't missed it. Even as a computer gamer. The $20-$30 econo soundboard has been fine for me for as long as I can remember. I think my 486 might have had a creative board. Maybe.
What do you guys think? When you're putting together a setup what do you think about when it comes to soundboards? Do you have to have the best one? How much do you usually spend? Do you really love the 3d sound? Have you GOTTA have the latest pimptastic creative soundboard for like $250? Some people need super awsome soundboards because they make computer music, but then the creative boards aren't the ones you want anyway, right?
While the fury of
The irony in a company named Creative holding a software patent from which they have never created anything is just amazing.
e ldona.htm
Anyhow, there is precedent for this type of stupidity. Believe it or not the American car manufacturers at one time paid a patent holding company for every car they sold. Ford challenged the patent and the court ordered the holding company to build the car for which they held the patent on. Needless to say the car was a dismal failure and the patent was overturned in 1911.
http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aacarss
burnin
In "Masters of Doom" Carmack stated, either naively or bravely, that he refuses to file patents for his work as such information should not be locked away but should be free.
Now that he's been burned, I wonder if he'll start filing them as preemptive measures. I hate software patents, but I would if I were him.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
========
CINC, 4th Penguin Legion
Carmack usually allows access to the source code of his games after their markets have dried up. I wonder how this patent will effect that? Time will tell.
Man, it'd suck spending years writing a game engine from scratch, then having some numb-nut lawyer tell me that someone else owns a part of it.
And I am a numb-nut lawyer!
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
Could this be an attempt to stay competitive now that Intel's High Definition Audio is coming?
With this advanced audio appearing on most of Intel's new boards, it would seem to me that Creative's market is disappearing.
Not really. Computer magazines use 'off self' dating. That is, when the date listed on the magazine comes around, it should be removed from the newsagents shelf.
Most magazines use 'on date' dating, where they get put on the shelf when the date listed on them comes up.
Why the difference? Tradition mostly. The argument is that computer magazines need to seem as new as possible (cos the tech changes), moreso than most other magazines. Thus once one magazine went with 'off date' naming, the rest followed, rather than seem a month or so out of date.
Typically the magazine is on the shelves for a month, so a subscriber would be getting the magazine intended for same during August about now. That magazine will have September as the date written on it.
So, it's bizzare, counter intuative, but perfectly possible to quote a 'September' issue now.
Creative *doesn't* have greater market share. How many people use the built-in AC 97 motherboard sound? How many computers have Creative built-in? Hell, I haven't used anything Creative Labs has put out in years, my motherboard sound is good enough. Moreover, that nVidia-based motherboard I've got in my current system supports 5.1 surround. Why would I even bother with CL?
Now, if Gravis updated the Ultrasound card, I might give that a look...
In addition, let's say you have an onboard sound chip that is creative, that you have turned on in the bios to use something akin to TeamSpeak, but use a Santa Cruz for the game.
You'd have to check which card you're using, not just blindly screwing people who have a Creative chip hooked up to their PCI bus....
All in all, more problems than it solves.
Karnal
...and it is almost a shame ID did not stick it to Creative...
Have to agree, I would love to see iD remove support for Creative soundcards, or at least offer enhanced sound support for any other brand. Maybe then the asshats over at CL will see what happens when you bite the hand that feeds.
I wonder which boardroom genius decided to threaten the company behind the most eagerly awaited game of all time, when game players are one of the biggest buyers of your products. Fuck Creative; I was looking to buy a new Audigy card this month, absolutely no chance now, I'm looking elsewhere...
Code, Hardware, stuff like that.
I hate Creative as a company. A few years back it decided not to host any drivers or software on its US servers. It stated, believe it or not, that in fairness to those without broadband access, it was better to charge EVERYONE to buy and mail CDs with the latest drivers.
That ploy didn't work as everyone simply used servers in Europe or Asia to download the drivers and software.
But still to this day you need the original driver off the CD that came with your hardware. If you try to use the latest downloaded drivers, they'll tell you that there is no Creative hardware installed.
What purpose does this serve? I've bought the hardware, they have my money, why be stingy with the drivers? Every other hardware manufacture lets me simply use the latest drivers WITHOUT installing the old drivers first.
Why do I still use Creative's audio cards? Normalization. It's a feature buried in Creative's EAX, but it makes all MP3s (actually all sound files) the same volume. Thus, every computer in my house has a Creative card in it so I can access my MP3 collection from any where in the house.
Does any other sound card maker have a feature similar to Creative's normalization? Or did Creative patent that too?
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
I'm no longer buying creative products, neither will i recommend it to any of my computer illiterate friends who bother me with "what hw should i buy for this and that" type questions.
and belive me, I have many of them*
(*just because I'm reading slashdot does not mean I have no friends - thought the statistical corelation of slashdot reading and friend starvation are fascinating)
Modern motherboards contain on-board sound -- many of which are 5.1 or greater with digital S/P DIF connectors. With all the hoopla over Doom 3 hardware requirements I couldn't find any major ([H]ardOCP, Tom's Hardware, etc.) sites listing audio benchmarks or quality comparisons pitting on-board sound and cards like the Creative Z2 series.
I'm not an audiophile, but for games like Doom 3 etc. if a motherboard already supports digital 5.1 (or greater) is it really necessary to go out and purchase a Creative card? Will said on-board audio provide sufficient quality for 5.1+ gaming? I'm building a gaming system to replace my aging first-generation Athlon and am not sure whether or not I should throw a sound card in the mix, too.
Thanks,
--
Matt
This reminds me of a story that floated around Creative while I was working there ('93-'96), and it was about how this little independant game developer had approached Creative for some development support with their sound cards. This was '91-'92 time frame. Anyways, the guy called up asking for some help, and pretty much got the shaft. He wasn't a licensed developer, and didn't want to pay the huge amount Creative was asking for at the time.
Some harsh words were exchanged, and the guy basically told Creative to go F themselves. Not long after the guy releases Doom and the rest is history.
Creative changed their policy shortly thereafter and created a developer support department to help out the small developers. A little too late, IMO.
But the real clincher was when Creative launched their new product at the time, the AWE32, with loadable Soundfont technology. iD was getting close to releasing Quake, and Creative really wanted to get iD to support their new technology.
But Carmack, remember how he was so fondly treated, and basically told Creative to suck it, again, and Quake was released without AWE32 support.
The AWE32 never really took off, and neither did their Soundfont technology.
So I am a bit suprised that Carmack agreed to use their technology, but it does show everyone where his alliances lie. To the fan and consumer.
Kudos to Carmack.
Anyways, goes on to prove, that the toes you step on today, may belong to the ass you have to kiss tomorrow.
Kind Herb
"Whether you suffer from glaucoma, or you just rented The Matrix,
medical marijuana can make things fabulous, medically!"
-- Homer J. Simpson
And if Microsoft got caught adding code to hinder compatibility with third party programs (I don't really know if they actually did this), everyone on /. would get up in arms. No double standard here. I think Mr. Carmack is a little more mature than that.
All Carmack had to do was to add "Sorry, Doom 3 is cancelled because Creative Labs won't let us use their patented algorithims" to his .plan file.
:D
Of course, this would have constituted conspiracy to commit murder in some jurisdiction or other, because if he had done so he'd know damn well that every CL executive would have been found dead in their beds the next morning.
Messily dead too.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
I installed my last creative card into a machine close to two years ago, and remembering the absolute HELL of installing their driver set, I vowed never to even insert another CD with the "creative" logo on it in a computer.
After installing a reasonably good Asus motherboard in my latest gaming rig, I figured I'd live with the on-board audio (which I assumed to be a piece of crap) because the extra $150 or so for an ub3r SB card would have stretched my toy budget.
Ya know what? The onboard 5.1 sound (by some quasi-generic manufacturer) works quite well, rendering the positional audio of games without killing the CPU, and it handles both stereo and surround sound nicely. I've got both digital and analog in/outs, headphone jack (without the trademark Creative crappy-ground-whining-noise)..
So I can live with a perfectly useable solution and spend the $150 on new clothes for the kids - or something *really* important - like a new Dremel.
Or, I can shell out $150 for a sound card that doesn't really give me anything new, plays havoc with my hardware, and installs 80 varieries of spamware on my PC before crashing it.. Gee, let me think.... I'll skip the SCO.. I mean, Creative, hardware.
Lara_Vacante@creativelabs.com (public relations)
I'm just writing to inform you that you will not receive anymore of my business regarding your position on gaming software algorithms patents. I have canceled my order for the Maximum-power 6.1 sound system and will take my business elsewhere. I have supported Creative since I first got my computer, but I do not approve of this disregard for gamers and I'm quite saddened by your position.
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
Anything I post is strictly my own thoughts and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the opinions of IBM.
Screw them. We will still buy your game.
Creative is crap. Crappy products, crappy drivers, crappy support. In fact, I've heard that some of their drivers aren't even downloadable anymore.
Please please please go back on your decision and go with your CPU based audio instead of their crap.
I pledge to buy two copies if you'll do this, otherwise I'm only buying one!
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
why do software companies use eax in the first place
there is a standard that works very well when implemented has superb postioning and has been around for years
its called dolby digital
what is causing the problems with dolby digital not being an accepted standard ?
in my opinon a dolby digital setup will always best creatives reverb crap and ill never understand why companies feel they have to include eax support in there games. when there is a better standard available
Music the Paint dancefloor the canvas your body the brush
Yes, it's difficult for me to justify patenting the intangible. I find it equally laborious equating copyright infringement with theft.
And for the sake of adding fuel to the fire, I present you this:
I'll think I'll allow some of you Linux guys handle that one for me as I'm, admittedly, more of a Windows dweeb.
Countdown to Derek Smart, Ph.D. responding to this post with expletives in 5...4...3...
[Insert pseudo-intellectual anti-Amerikan/pro-socialist sig here]
Intel has led the desktop market in shipments of graphics chipsets for over a year now.
m ain+stable/2100-1006_3-5205102.html
http://news.com.com/Intel%2C+AMD+market+shares+re
I'm suggesting that there should be a statute of limitation on the act of suing for patent infringement, once the infringing act has taken place.
I think the most despicable abuse of patents is when the patent holder KNOWS of an ongoing infringement, but holds off on filing suit for years and years while people become dependent on the technology.
If the patent holder only had 2 years to act once they were aware of an infringement (as is the case in China) this problem would be solved.
Visit the Game Programming Wiki!
Agreed... honestly I've already pre-ordered Doom 3 anyway, but I would be really happy with id if they had taken a stand here. I disagree that it would hurt only the users; it would hurt id a bit, it would hurt creative more (lots of people would switch over to using their mobo audio or buy a new sound card).
In any case I will certainly never buy any Creative products again. I realize every tech company has patents and most of them have bad patents; it's the bad patent bullies I won't forgive.
Of course, this is not the same as saying they are the widest used graphics card or that they will sell a large amount of standalone cards but still.
Most people don't buy external sound cards any more but once upon a time everyone did. So those cheapo AC97 based things are ALL over the place - OK Intel don't make them all but they did come up with the AC97 codec.
Here's a Register story which mentions that Intel have 31.7% of the graphics card market.
I've talked to people of various importance who feel that in a certain number of years the graphics card market will go a similar way to the sound card market. The impression I was given was that only people wanting high end quality/speed will go for an extra card but most others will be satisfied by onboard.
Phil O'Shaughnessy
Director of Corporate Communications
poshaughnessy@creativelabs.com
Lara B. Vacante
Public Relations Manager
Lara_Vacante@creativelabs.com
Jennifer Ellard
Senior Public Relations Specialist
Jennifer_Ellard@creativelabs.com
Katie Meyer
Public Relations Coordinator
Katie_Meyer@creativelabs.com
Unfortunately, other areas of audio have suffered. There is no "OpenGL" of 3D audio because Creative owns all of the patents from its acquisition of companies like Aureal and Sensaura. They will always have the one-up on 3D audio performance over their customers, and any improvements will be at their own pace.
This has become standard practice for technology companies over the past few years, since sometime in the nineties. Basically, large technology companies maintain a staff of researchers whose job it is to churn out patents related to their product -- not necessarily new or interesting technology, but to shotgun enough that at least some get through. They then cross-license with all other manufacturers in the arena that they are in. At that point, the patents stop having value for driving production of useful new technology, since any patent is simply immediately available to all competitors. Instead, they are solely used to prevent any new competitors from entering the arena -- they act as oligarchy maintainers. This means that the only competition each company has is the other existing companies in the arena -- as those are bought out or go out of business, the market is left more and more to the remaining players. It is an extremely damaging attack on free markets, and is a business practice that is now in widespread use. The hard drive companies (Seagate, IBM and friends) do it. The GPU companies (ATI, NVidia and friends) do it. The CPU manufacturers (AMD, Intel and friends) do it. As a result of this approach, most substantial improvements that could be used against a competitor are not patented, since this allows them to actually be useful competitive tools -- undermining the very reason for having patents in the first place.
Patents, in such situations, no longer serve their purpose at all -- the funding of the creation of useful new things. The only solution is really to eliminate software patents. I have yet to see particularly impressive research coming from such a situation -- I cannot see any reason to maintain the existence of software patents. I'd like to hear from *one* Slashdotter that does good research who is supported by patent royalties (or works in a lab and feels that their patents, rather than the existence of their work and the barriers established by time-to-reimplement, is where their primary value to their lab comes from).
May we never see th
I've been a purchaser of Creative Labs sound cards since the SoundBlaster16, with the exception of a foray into Diamond's Monster Sound 3D II MX300 due to A3D 2.0 and it's support in Half-Life.
I admire the folks at id Software, for all the usual reasons. I have no problem with any company contacting id Software and requesting that their proprietary technology is supported to improve a game. What I thoroughly dislike is the concept of software patents. What I dislike even more is the use of software patents as leverage. What frankly pisses me off is someone using software patents to threaten a company like id Software, who selflessly contribute a ridiculous amount to the development of computing, both directly in releasing unpatented software and indirectly by driving the take-up of new hardware and software technologies in their games. Doubly so when it's a distinctly uninnovative company like Creative Labs.
The only way a regular gamer like myself can punish a company is by refusing to buy it's products.
Are there any credible gamer-centric alternatives to Creative Labs' products?
I will be doing some research now, and if there are, CL will have just lost a customer. I have no problem with throwing a few hundred dollars in a different direction every year or three. Hell, I'd even be willing to donate money to id to have them say "see you in court" to the spineless worms.
** I will note I've not tried his game. From the descriptions it sounds like an updated and far more complex "Vega-Bound," in which case I might actually like it. But, that wouldn't change the fact that it's thoroughly derided...
[Insert pseudo-intellectual anti-Amerikan/pro-socialist sig here]
every manufacturer under the sun is the devil incarnate for not including drivers and support for linux (nevermind whether an economic proposition exists for supporting their products in linux),
but when it comes to patents, our beloved carmack should take a stand based on principle and
NOT SUPPORT HARDWARE?!?
heh. so no support for linux is heinous, but no support for everything is alright?
...Dolby Digital is an encoding/compression method for multi-channel audio, it has nothing to do with generating the original source audio. Nor does it have anything to do with calculating audio effects such as position, reflection, or occlusion which is what Creative's EAX (and previously, Aureal's A3D) is all about.
As for its being an accepted standard (for gaming), there is no sense using up processing time compressing and encoding multi-channel audio into a Dolby Digital stream when you can simply output the digital audio as a raw PCM stream which most digital audio decoders are capable of handling directly. It would only be of use for pre-rendered cut scenes/FMV where all the audio would be the same each time.
Keith D.