Creative Blackmails id Software over Z-Fail Shadows

[Cryect]

It seemed like something was suspicious about Creative's announcement today on how they will be adding EAX ADVANCED HD (anyone else hate the caps for that technology?) to Doom 3.

"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."

http://bluesnews.com/cgi-bin/board.pl?action=viewthread&threadid=50329

Turns out as somewhat suspected how Carmack has always had a thing against Creative, that Creative was pressuring id Software to add support for EAX or they would be sued over their patent.

This was confirmed in email by Reverend over at Beyond3D in an email to Carmack with these words to say from him.

The patent situation well and truly sucks.

We were prepared to use a two-pass algorithm that gave equivalent results at a speed hit, but we negotiated the deal with Creative so that we were able to use the zfail method without having to actually pay any cash. 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.

John Carmack

Front Page w/ News Item
News Comments

Considering there is prior art that was in fact shown at a Creative Forum by an Nvidia Employee this seems pretty deceitfull to myself (Sim Dietrich presented this presentation in March of 1999). The patent was "filed: October 13, 1999" which is after the March presentation which clearly Creative should have known about. Unfortunately id Software hasn't chosen to attack the presentation but to allow Creative to add their code for EAX in (I'm guessing id Software decided it wasn't worth the time of a case and instead figured that at least they aren't the ones adding in worthless EAX code to their program).

As consumers, I feel we need to let Creative know we won't tolerate bullying around of game companies like this with invalid patents. If Creative can go after id Software they are going to be able to easily go after anyone else. Hopefully if game consumers speak up they might learn to not act so bullish against those providing game products.

Edit: Thread from back when the patent was accepted by the USPTO http://gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?whichpage=1&pagesize=20&topic_id=181647

 

[kcthebrewer]

As consumers, I feel we need to let Creative know we won't tolerate bullying around of game companies like this with invalid patents. If Creative can go after id Software they are going to be able to easily go after anyone else. Hopefully if game consumers speak up they might learn to not act so bullish against those providing game products.

Yeah and what, as the end user are we supposed to do, stop buying Sound Blaster cards? Creative has no real competition. Hopefully a company will come around (like AMD to intel) that can actually bring competition. Not to mention at least quarterly updates to their drivers (or even actually good drivers).

The only real competition I see in the near future is the SoundStorm.

 

[Advil]

*flame retardant suit is now on*

Um, we do allow patents on this type of code. So unless the law changes, Creative was well within their rights were they not? Id Software is now aware of their patent, and Creative didn't demand money. All they asked for was name recognition and they are paying to put the rest of the Advanced HD code in.

That doesn't seem too unethical on Creative's part.

I know it sucks that they pushed the point, but we live in a world where ignoring your Intellectual Property is the same as giving it away.

What am I missing here?

Edit - Wait a minute... I just reread the links above. This is about VIDEO shadow technology? Why in heavens name does Creative hold patents related to 3d shadows?

 

[yevaud]

Wow. I knew that Creative made crappy bloated drivers, but I never thought they were patent weilding weenies. I belive I just decided to take that Audigy 2 platinum off my wish list.

 

[Cryect]

The unethical part is in persuing a patent that you have knowledge of is invalid due to prior art that you should clearly know about and not presenting it as required to the patent agent.

Also there is alternatives to Creative. Nothing is particularly very useful about Creative cards unless you really like reverb. (I myself would recommend something that does DD5.1 encoding which Creative doesn't feel like adding, then again if you don't have any intentions to use a receiver its worthless of course)

Edit:
And a post from the guy who did the presentation I don't have the exact page for that but you can find it up in the gamedev link

Original post by SimmerD
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'!

 

[Ludic]

You're missing the part where Creative gets their sticky monopolistic paws into a jar they shouldn't have any right being in. They shouldn't have any right because Carmack originally wanted it that way.

 

[Cryect]

Edit - Wait a minute... I just reread the links above. This is about VIDEO shadow technology? Why in heavens name does Creative hold patents related to 3d shadows?

Hehe, yes VIDEO shadow technology hence I posted this in the video cards section (seemed most appropiate since I'm not trying to argue about EAX).

If you are interested here is the basic description of the algorithm being used that happens to be patented.

1. Render all the objects using only ambient lighting and any other surface-shading attribute. Rendering should not depend on any particular light source. Make sure depth buffer is written.
2. Starting with a light source, clear the stencil buffer and calculate the silhouette of all the occluders with respect to the light source.
3. Extrude the silhouette away from the light source to a finite or infinite distance to form the shadow volumes and generate the capping if depth-fail technique was used. (Infinite shadow volume extrusion is not really compulsory)
4. Render the shadow volumes using the selected technique. Depth-pass or depth-fail.
5. Using the updated stencil buffer, do a lighting pass to shade (make it a tone darker) the fragments that corresponds to non-zero stencil values.
6. Repeat step 2 to 5 for all the lights in the scene.

http://www.gamedev.net/columns/hardcore/shadowvolume/page2.asp

 

[Cryect]

You're missing the part where Creative gets their sticky monopolistic paws into a jar they shouldn't have any right being in. They shouldn't have any right because Carmack originally wanted it that way.

Well, I would be just as bothered assuming it was say lets pretend A3D is still around an Aureal was doing the same thing to Carmack to get A3D support added in. I don't care that they are or aren't a monopoly, its just the idea of abusing the patent system w/ an invalid patent to pressure companies.

 

[Cryect]

Figured I bump this for those who didn't see this last night.

By now most of you should have seen it on the frontpage here and several other sites as well.

 

[tranCendenZ]

Yeah and what, as the end user are we supposed to do, stop buying Sound Blaster cards? Creative has no real competition. Hopefully a company will come around (like AMD to intel) that can actually bring competition. Not to mention at least quarterly updates to their drivers (or even actually good drivers).

The only real competition I see in the near future is the SoundStorm.

Turtle Beach makes better stuff than creative.

 

[tristam]

Heh, yeah, buy turtle beach, i just got the santa cruz for $36, and its great...i'm no audiophile, but it works fine and even though my speakers suck it still sounds good...rockin' out to White Stripes right now

 

[reflex33]

I haven't bought a Creative product in years... I think the last was the Live Value in 1999. This is just one more reason why I hate that company. They think they own the world, never add any new interesting features (read DD encoding), have horible shit drivers, and now are trying and succeding in blackmailing a game company.

Heres to hoping that nVidia will release a sound card based on the Soundstorm chip!

 

[Steel Chicken]

Carmack should have told creative to go pound sand in their ass. There is prior art, and what are they doing amounts to blackmail. Imagine how many people would be pissed off if ID said "DOOM 3 delayed due to Creative IP bullshit" there would have been a mob burning down every Creative owned building around. Carmack is a legend, and so is DOOM, and Creative is just a PITA to most people who know anything about them. IF Carmack was all "concerned about our users" he shoulda done a poll or something...I hate corporate IP BS and I would rather wait for a product made by a good company with balls then one who gives in "for the sake of the users". Sounds alot like the company who gave into SCO....that ISP whatever its name was

 

[gizo]

you can quote me on this. .i'm never going to buy another creative product. my last purchase was an sound blaster 32.

 

[tranCendenZ]

Creative's drivers are such bloated crap. Buy a turtle beach santa cruz, watch your windows lockups go away

 

[rancor]

oh god turtle beach, thats what Dell sells with thier systems lol, Do they even support 7.1 yet?

 

[Yogi]

There are already very few reasons to buy creative products. There are many good alternatives out there, with much better drivers. Creative drivers are the worst I have ever had to deal with.

 

[Yogi]

oh god turtle beach, thats what Dell sells with thier systems lol, Do they even support 7.1 yet?

Is there any reason to have 7.1 yet?

No.

 

[rancor]

well for music lovers and for system that ya want to use for a home theater hell ya. I use my comp not just for gaming and work ya know.

 

[blindrocket]

Onboard audio has never been better.

Wasn't all of Doom 3's audio going to be software? I'm not sure what I read.

 

[SilkenRogue]

I already just use the onboard soundstorm audio in both my main rig and server. I was tempted to buy an Audigy 2 here recently, but after this I think I will refrain.

I'm not going to say I'll never buy another creative product... but it will probably be another few years before I go near them.

 

[Aztlan]

Creative's drivers are such bloated crap. Buy a turtle beach santa cruz, watch your windows lockups go away

Aha, so i guess thats the reason I have been having windows lock ups/errors once in a while

lock ups that kept me puzzled

the card I have is a audigy 2 Zs

and when those happened, the creative control panel disappears, now that makes sense
duh

I wish Nvidia could release an updated sounstorm as a sound card

 

[TOOL1075]

wow.... um.... not that I think what creative did was right... but...

I've had a Phillips Acoustic Edge, I've used onboard audio, I've used a no-name can't remember what it was ISA soundcard, and now I'm using an Audigy 2 ZS.

The Audigy 2 is the best. It has the most configuration options, has the best game audio acceleration, the best surround algorithms, I could go on and on.

Lockups? Never had any related to my soundcard. Ever. Bloated drivers? um.... I have a gig of ram... so..... why would I care if the utilities for my sound card are using some extra memory? Shit, install JUST the drivers if you care about bloat. People should stop bitching about companies like creative and microsoft. Your shit works fine, let it go.


edit: this is in the videocard forum, so I suppose I'll add something related to that....

yay for doom 3, it'll be fun to play, yada yada, my 9700pro will make it look pretty, yada yada, surround sound in games is cool... blah blah blah

 

[Rizen]

I like my Audigy 2 ZS, but I fucking hate Creative Labs. Their drivers are the most bloated and poorly coded pieces of shit ever. They reset my sound properties any time I touch the THX panel, which cranks the volume on my speakers WAY WAY WAY higher than they are supposed to go - it happened once when I was alreadying blasting music, it could have blown my speakers.

To add insult to injury, they released a patch to fix this, except for now it just resets system volume to 50% instead of 75% Logitech says you need 25% for reliable operation of my 560s.. Fucking Creative. Their control panel is also incredibly bloated and filled with useless options.

I used my Aureal Vortex SQ2500 for 3 years but there are no XP drivers so I had to upgrade

 

[dderidex]

Happy with my SoundStorm, here. EAX is over-rated, anyway. All it adds is reverb effects. And, even so, SS supports EAX1 and EAX2. Who needs Creative?

 

[Dougieha]

wow.... um.... not that I think what creative did was right... but...

I've had a Phillips Acoustic Edge, I've used onboard audio, I've used a no-name can't remember what it was ISA soundcard, and now I'm using an Audigy 2 ZS.

The Audigy 2 is the best. It has the most configuration options, has the best game audio acceleration, the best surround algorithms, I could go on and on.

Lockups? Never had any related to my soundcard. Ever. Bloated drivers? um.... I have a gig of ram... so..... why would I care if the utilities for my sound card are using some extra memory? Shit, install JUST the drivers if you care about bloat. People should stop bitching about companies like creative and microsoft. Your shit works fine, let it go.

I completely agree with you. I've used the Acoustic Edge, Santa Cruz, SB Live 5.1, on-board 5.1, and I'm now using an Audigy 2. I've never had an issue with Creative's drivers...no lockups, no crashes, nothing. I really love the sound quality compared to anything else I've tried (and I'm really picky about my sound). The game audio acceleration is also really great. So, I definitely don't agree with Creative's actions here, but I have no problem with their products. I also really love my Zen player...

Dougieha

 

[theelviscerator]

Wow. I knew that Creative made crappy bloated drivers, but I never thought they were patent weilding weenies. I belive I just decided to take that Audigy 2 platinum off my wish list.

You spend a 100k dollars to get a patent {forget about your idea thats patentable} then bend over when someone uses it to make money for themselves..
I think not.

 

[doh-nut]

i just have one issue with soundstorm. when i have headphones on, if i move the mouse or scroll wheel, it makes weird noises. creative sblive value has always been go to me though

 

[dderidex]

You spend a 100k dollars to get a patent {forget about your idea thats patentable} then bend over when someone uses it to make money for themselves..
I think not.

You aren't reading into this right - check the dates things happened on.

Basically, what happened is that id said "We are using some new 3d shadow features in Doom3....etcetcetc....we are not using Creative's EAX and paying them for the license...etcetcetc"

Creative saw the "not using EAX" thing, and they got pissy about it. So they applied (and got) a patent for the 3d shadowing technology id was going to use.

NOW, id had to either not use it (which they already had been working on), or agree to Creative's terms for use (which amounted to "Oh, yes, you WILL put EAX in your game")

I'd guess this would serve as a lesson to id - before you make any kind of presentations or announcements, make sure EVERYTHING you are showing you already have a patent on.

 

[oldpablo]

I'm taking my audigy out because I'm getting a new case with audio headers in the front (for my headphones). I am actually ditching my audigy in exchange for onboard sound simply because of the convenience of plugging my headphones in front, thats how much I care about my audigy.

 

[rancor]

Patents aren't a 100k maybe making the shadow code cost that much, but patents at most cost 10k even that might be high, most source code patents are done in a closed box (don't remember the exact name), but something like just a shadow algo won't cost that much. Takes about a 5 hours for an attorney to do up a patent. What I don't get is there really is no way you can patent math. All Carmack had to do was rewrite the algo, they might have copyrighting the z fail test, but man its used in alot of other places then that.

 

[Cryect]

You aren't reading into this right - check the dates things happened on.

Basically, what happened is that id said "We are using some new 3d shadow features in Doom3....etcetcetc....we are not using Creative's EAX and paying them for the license...etcetcetc"

Creative saw the "not using EAX" thing, and they got pissy about it. So they applied (and got) a patent for the 3d shadowing technology id was going to use.

NOW, id had to either not use it (which they already had been working on), or agree to Creative's terms for use (which amounted to "Oh, yes, you WILL put EAX in your game")

I'd guess this would serve as a lesson to id - before you make any kind of presentations or announcements, make sure EVERYTHING you are showing you already have a patent on.

Actually Creative filed patent before Carmack announced anything (earliest known thing was an email with Nvidia in 2000 and Creative filed in Oct 1999). But, Creative also wasn't the first one to present it as shown above.

The Audigy 2 is the best. It has the most configuration options, has the best game audio acceleration, the best surround algorithms, I could go on and on.

I disagree with the best surround algorithms. And its kinda annoying that the Audigy 2 barely differs from the original SB Live. Ever since killing A3D they have felt little need to innovate and only do minor upgrades (better DAC's, few more 3d sounds allowed (not that I've seen these games which hit the original limits), few additional reverb options, and more speaker support).

And those of you who say you really care about sound quality, if you want the best quality you souldn't be using a Creative card. Reason why is its much better to have digital connection to a quality receiver (and then if you really have money a nice AMP as well) that outputs to your speakers. If Creative was willing to pay money to DD and then encoded their audio in DD5.1 (or DD6.1 DD7.1 etc) I would be much happier with them. Apparently must not be that expensive to Dolby Digital considering you can get NForce 2 mobos with Soundstorm with this feature for ~$80 or now and a mobo sure has a lot more functionality than a Creative sound card does but for some reason Creative sound cards are expensive for nothing really that great.

 

[Schadenfroh]

Creative likes their lawyers, A3D had a superior technology and creative sued them to death, A3D won almost all of the cases and none of the creative labs lawsuits had any ground (IIRC) but A3D was such a small company and could not afford the legal cost, and thus a great technology was buried. god i love american lawyers

 

[Cryect]

And for those of you who still don't understand the dislike of Creative read this article The Sad State of the PC Audio Industry

Its pretty good. And basically unless Nvidia or Intel come out with a great sound solution unfortunately looks like we are stuck with the crumminess of Creative (I'm really hoping Doom 3 can help out the sound industry myself).

 

[yevaud]

You spend a 100k dollars to get a patent {forget about your idea thats patentable} then bend over when someone uses it to make money for themselves..
I think not.

Sheesh dude, did you even read the first post?

Here's what happened:
An NVIDIA employee, Sam Dietrich, gave a presentation to Creative employees in March of 1999. In that presentation, he put forward the ideas (with examples) of how Z-fail shadow algorithms could be used.
AFTER THAT, in October of 1999, some Creative employees filed for a patent based on this idea.

If anyone has any right to "make money for themselves" for their $100,000 patent, it would be Nvidia. But of course, Nvidia would not browbeat Id with their intellectual property -even if they could- because games sell hardware.

Note to Nvidia: Release the Hounds on Creative for patenting your ideas.
Note to US patent office: Stop letting people patent code. Code should be treated as a trade secret, not an invention. Let them have their secret code.

No wait! No one has a patent on the color green yet! It was my idea, you know. I think I'll patent it and make my neighbor pay me $$ for that green stuff growing in his front yard.
Give me a break

 

[black_b[ ]x]

I glanced at the Creative patent, and it could not have been very difficult to write. It was quite short, and only 5 claims (the claims are what you use to determine infringement, you get 20 "free" claims per app). The earliest date they can claim priority to is May '99, which is still after the March '99 presentation by nvidia.

If one were so inclined, they could request a re-examination of the patent and submit the nvidia presentation as a reference. Oh yeah, don't forget to send in your check for the $2,520 re-exam fee. If I had money to burn, I'd be tempted, although I'm not sure what kind of time-table the patent office puts on re-examinations. As it stands now, most new applications don't get looked at until 12-18 months after submission. If thats the case, its probably why carmack decided to give in. Can you imagine Doom3 delayed for another 2 years? Instead of competing w/ HL2, it'd be competing with DNF (well, maybe).

oh yeah, if they paid 100k for that patent they got burned. I would put the estimate closer to 5-15k, including the provisional application they filed in May '99 (this provisional is how they get the May date)

 

[Sniper_Merc]

i just have one issue with soundstorm. when i have headphones on, if i move the mouse or scroll wheel, it makes weird noises. creative sblive value has always been go to me though

Mute the line in, if your not using it, happend to me on my origional Audigy if the line in was being used or not, it opens the relay (transistor, chip, whatever) and allows ambient noise to play through it.

 

[obs]

*flame retardant suit is now on*

Um, we do allow patents on this type of code. So unless the law changes, Creative was well within their rights were they not? Id Software is now aware of their patent, and Creative didn't demand money. All they asked for was name recognition and they are paying to put the rest of the Advanced HD code in.

That doesn't seem too unethical on Creative's part.

I know it sucks that they pushed the point, but we live in a world where ignoring your Intellectual Property is the same as giving it away.

What am I missing here?

Edit - Wait a minute... I just reread the links above. This is about VIDEO shadow technology? Why in heavens name does Creative hold patents related to 3d shadows?

They didn't patent any code. They patented an algorithm. An algorithm that they stole. They went to id after the game was gold even though it's been in development for years saying either put in our technology or we sue you. What the hell was id to do? Say no and risk a delay? This is bullshit, plain and simple. I will NEVER buy another creative product.

 

[Schadenfroh]

i guess my audigy 2 zs investment was not a bad investment after all

/devils advocate

 

[Godmachine]

It just sucks that Creative has this much control over the sound card bussiness .. i really wish the gov would investigate them . They love to muscle anyone that doesn't use there API in there game and if a BIG game comes along (doom 3 for instance) and the developers refuse to use it ...they feel the need to resort to Forced upon tactics like sueing . I wish someone else would come along and just blow creative out of the water .. it would only take alittle better tech and a constant driver software updating team since creative releases drivers every 5000 years or so.