# 3D or Hardware Sound in games dead??



## TAViX (Feb 18, 2011)

This is the best place to talk about this.

I personally will never forget MS from completely ditching the 3D hardware accelerated sound from Vista. As an old PC game player, I have nostalgia for games like Unreal or Thief series, or even the first FEAR, where the 3D sound was a very important part of the game, more than today physics crap. 90% of the games today don't even have any sound options except the volumes, and this is really really sad. The programmers are not even bothering anymore with the sound in games, so even if the OpenAL standard provides some sound acceleration, the implementations are minimal at best, and even now I cannot think of any recent game that uses OpenAL instead of shitty flat DirectX Sound.
So why bother buying expensive cards supporting EAX, OpenAL, 3D SoundBack, Xear3D EX, etc, if the quality in games is on the same level with integrated sound. But that's not the problem. The problem is WHY! WHY din the stupid retards from ms ditch all the support for 3D Sound and Hardware Accelerated sound in games?!? *WHY?????*

p.s.

For the youngsters that don't have a clue of what I'm talking about, I recommend them this interesting article. You should read it all tho, so you would understand exactly what I was talking about. 

http://ixbtlabs.com/articles2/sound-technology/


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## 7.62 (Feb 18, 2011)

Maybe its due to the processing power of todays CPU's? maybe they are easier to write for. I dont know.

But I agree, I remember Half Life after I bought a EAX compatible sound card, and it was a different game.


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## hellrazor (Feb 18, 2011)

Yeah, EAX kicks ass. And yeah, software sound sucks ass.

People just don't know how much of a difference it makes, and life would be pretty awesome if games started having ambiophonics support, but they don't so we're stuck with tin-can sound nowadays.


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## yogurt_21 (Feb 18, 2011)

depends on the developer. Crysis for example had horrible sound, imo mass effect has good sound. Just depends if it's soemthign they choose to focus on or not.


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## HossHuge (Feb 18, 2011)

I agree.  Sound is a very overlooked aspect of gaming.  F.E.A.R. with EAX enabled = chilling.


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## Swamp Monster (Feb 18, 2011)

3D Hardware sound and software sound is like day and night. What a shame they don't use hardware by default anymore. FEAR and Battlefield 2 would never be the same without it. I remember there was option to choose maximum sounds for game - like 32 or 64, 128.
And what about OpenAL? I've seen OpenAL dll's in games, but those games still don't sound as good as 3D hardware accelerated sound. But there is potential to make good sound with OpenAL, no? I'm a little bit confused with all that sound API changes.


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## hat (Feb 18, 2011)

I've been considering maybe upgrading my sound card (Audigy SE) but this has me thread thinking maybe it's not even worth it?


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## JrRacinFan (Feb 18, 2011)

hat said:


> I've been considering maybe upgrading my sound card (Audigy SE) but this has me thread thinking maybe it's not even worth it?



I agree. Same reason I've been using onboard sound since Socket A.


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## RoutedScripter (Feb 19, 2011)

EAX is dead because now that i see what was happening i supported the Microsoft's move of ditching EAX , and i didn't want to get the overpraised soundblasters

I have a farily decent and probably the best pick, Asus Xonar D1 (PCI) and i have been very pleased with it   , i have reviewed more and D2 is a lot more expensive and it's just out of my needs so , wouldn't made the game sound better anyways.


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## Brandenburg (Feb 19, 2011)

I support this thread...  I spent actually more on my sound setup than I did on my Video.. LOL.. I love good sounding games.. Be nice if there were more games out their that had nice sounds..  lots of flashy graphics.. Better sound with those graphics would enhance the overall experience..  a maby even make a person go from..  Nice graphics TO holy fuck.. THIS IS kool

and FEAR's sounds kicked ASS


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## hellrazor (Feb 19, 2011)

hat said:


> I've been considering maybe upgrading my sound card (Audigy SE) but this has me thread thinking maybe it's not even worth it?



Same situation over here.


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## Mussels (Feb 19, 2011)

This post is MOSTLY about EAX, but its related. for many years the only way to get hardware accelerated sound was with EAX, and this goes into the flaws of EAX and why it fell down - and why we shouldnt miss it.

1. EAX was proprietary. you cant get EAX above 2.0 without being creative.

2. many games that used EAX, disabled software driven features in the sound if you had no EAX. that means no 5.1 sound (remember all that crap about vista breaking surround sound in games? thats why. no EAX, 2.0 sound for you)

3. anything done in hardware with audio, can be done in software. you can find cracked/pirated versions of creatives alchemy on the web, which enable at least upto EAX 4.0 on any card via software.



while some of you are halfway there with the comments about quality, that comes down to the DPS's in the soundcard. the only 'changes' EAX would make in these cases are no different to equalizers and reverb effects... and if you need an EQ to make your sound card sound good, then its quality isn't that great. tweak the EQ yourself.


And as for 3D sound... well i dont know about you guys, but when i play games (modern and old) with headphones and no EAX, the 3D sound is still present. its easy to tell if a gunshot came from in front or behind you, and not just to the sides.


I dont really understand the hangup on EAX - i've got an audigy 4 here, and i compared it to my auzen and my realteks.

the sound quality varied between them (based on the DSP's), but EAX didnt make any difference other than enabling features in games that disabled them. THOSE games sound worse without it, because the audio was crippled without it. games designed without EAX, dont have those problems.




the real reason for many games having flat audio is the same reason they have crap textures, FPS caps, tiny levels and crap AI - they're console ports. the death of EAX and creatives hardware accelerated sound have nothing to do with the lack of quality in many modern titles.


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## ctrain (Feb 19, 2011)

sound mixing is so cheap now that dedicated hardware is pointless, it can all be implemented in software.


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## 15th Warlock (Feb 19, 2011)

Yes, I agree with Mussels, I still get 3D sound in my games from both my speakers or headphones, dunno what the difference might be when using an integrated sound processor though, ever since my first Sound Blaster 16 for my old 486DX I've always used a discrete sound card, so perhaps I havent suffered from lack of 3D sound, I may be wrong though. 

I remember when Vista came out and MS ditched hardware sound accel. Creative released their alchemy drivers to still have hardware access to direct sound in old game titles...


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## TAViX (Feb 20, 2011)

You guys need to play Thief or FEAR, to fully understand what 3D sound is all about. I'm not talking about hearing sound from behind or left/right side, I'm talking about REAL 3D sound. Sound that changes it's pitch when you are in sewers, rooms, hallways, etc, sound that reflect on metallic floors, walls, sounds that even with a 4.1 solution you can hear them coming from above, bellow, or through the corner, this is what I'm talking about. I posted a link there, feel free to fully read it.
And it's not only about EAX doing this. The first one was Aureal 3D that even today is considered THE BEST technology ever developed for real 3D sound, and it's matched only by EAX 5.0. We also had Sensaura 3D, and the latest which is used today(is it anymore??), *OpenAL*



> It is now hosted (and largely developed) by Creative Technology with on-going support from Apple, Blue Ripple Sound, and free software/open source enthusiasts.
> While the OpenAL charter says that there will be an "Architecture Review Board" (ARB) modeled on the OpenGL ARB, no such organization has ever been formed and the OpenAL specification is generally handled and discussed via email on its public mailing list.
> Since 1.1, the implementation by Creative has turned proprietary, with the last releases in free licenses still accessible through the project's subversion. However, OpenAL Soft is a widespread Open Source alternative.


The thing is, OpenAL hasn't been updated since 2009, making me thing the 3D sound on PC is DEAD. Kaput!

P.S.

Still now I haven't got a clue why Direct Sound 3D was ditched from MS. They could have turn it into an EAX/OpenAL killer, just like Direct3D 11 had become.


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## RejZoR (Feb 20, 2011)

Anyone that has played Doom 3 Ressurection of evil on X-Fi soundcard with HW enabled EAX 5.0 sound is just breathtaking. Those hallways in dig site, probably the most atmospheric sound sensation i've ever experienced and i'm a total nut on the sound in games.

Audio processing is certainly not all that "free" even on todays 6 core CPU's. When you enable 128 sounds and each of them gets processed by reverberation, occlusion or other form of processing, the framerate skydives down to the ground. The difference is noticeable even on X-Fi powered soundcard with Core i7 920 @ 3,3GHz so i'm pretty sure it will be huge on just CPU alone.
And with software solutions i always get the feeling that some form of optimization kicks in cutting "unneeded" sounds and their processing to conseerve the CPU. Or they simply don't care about sound, that's why it sounds like crap...


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## TAViX (Feb 20, 2011)

I keep wondering how would Dead Space 2 would have sound with 3D accelerated sound??


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## netieb (Feb 20, 2011)

You would have shit your pans.


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## Mussels (Feb 20, 2011)

TAViX said:


> You guys need to play Thief or FEAR, to fully understand what 3D sound is all about. I'm not talking about hearing sound from behind or left/right side, I'm talking about REAL 3D sound.



except that you arent... what you described is environmental audio and reverb, and has nothing to do with surround sound or 3D sound. occlusion, reverb and audio positioning are all very seperate things that software engines CAN do just fine.

Notice how thief and FEAR werent on console? remember my comment above about how games are nerfed due to consolitis? give it another thought.



TAViX said:


> Sound that changes it's pitch when you are in sewers, rooms, hallways, etc, sound that reflect on metallic floors, walls, sounds that even with a 4.1 solution you can hear them coming from above, bellow, or through the corner, this is what I'm talking about. I posted a link there, feel free to fully read it.



again, thats a mix of many features. most of those features already exist in one form or another, in software. dont lump hardware audio and 3D sound in with them as one, because they arent.[/QUOTE]





TAViX said:


> And it's not only about EAX doing this. The first one was Aureal 3D that even today is considered THE BEST technology ever developed for real 3D sound, and it's matched only by EAX 5.0. We also had Sensaura 3D, and the latest which is used today(is it anymore??), *OpenAL*
> 
> 
> The thing is, OpenAL hasn't been updated since 2009, making me thing the 3D sound on PC is DEAD. Kaput!
> ...



i can cover all that as one: because it already was dead. creative had killed the market completely with a stagnant monopoly. While i dont know what official reason they gave, the truth is that it opened the sound card market right back up again. we'd have no xonar, no auzentech, competing giving us better actual audio quality - it'd be about paying $100+ for onboard level audio, just because it supports the latest EAX standards (and i repeat: with creative, no EAX meant no hardware audio, no surround sound, no 3D effects, no reverb, nada but plain 2.0)




Yes, be sad that audio aint what it once was - but lay the blame where its due, and please stop lumping so many seperate features under the one name. hardware acclerated sound isnt the reason its gone away, its because game devs just dont want to bother these days.


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## Swamp Monster (Feb 20, 2011)

Mussels said:


> i can cover all that as one: because it already was dead. creative had killed the market completely with a stagnant monopoly. While i dont know what official reason they gave, the truth is that it opened the sound card market right back up again. we'd have no xonar, no auzentech, competing giving us better actual audio quality - it'd be about paying $100+ for onboard level audio, just because it supports the latest EAX standards (and i repeat: with creative, no EAX meant no hardware audio, no surround sound, no 3D effects, no reverb, nada but plain 2.0)
> 
> 
> Yes, be sad that audio aint what it once was - but lay the blame where its due, and please stop lumping so many seperate features under the one name. hardware acclerated sound isnt the reason its gone away, its because game devs just dont want to bother these days.



I agree on lumping seperate things in one bag, so I've red about this a little bit, because I wanted to know why one old game sounds so good (only using alchemy), while EAX isn't mentioned. 

3D sound many are talking about (that is ditched) is not only EAX but DirectSound3D too. So there is 3D effects, reverb etc. with Creative while not using EAX.
So Creative isn't the only bad one here. DS3D sounds almost as good as EAX, and is not proprietary standard that only Creative owns.
Yes, F.E.A.R. sounds great and it uses EAX, but as well I can say - Listen how A.I.M.2 sounds and you'll hear that it's nearly as good(using DS3D) I think. And yes, software 3D sound can be good too, like in dirt 2 if I am not mistaken, but as others have mentioned - it does so by using CPU power

**edit** It seems so that Dirt 2 can use both - hardware sound via OpenAL or optional Rapture 3D software sound.


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## TAViX (Feb 20, 2011)

Dirt2 and F12010 are using OpenAL for hardware sound. Even if it sounds really good, is nowhere near the EAX or DS3D implementations. And Mussels, you need to have a sound card that have at leas EAX 3.0 HARDWARE implementation, in order to use, again, the hardware sound acceleration that those game support. No integrated sound solution will offer you the option to select hardware sound in games


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## pantherx12 (Feb 20, 2011)

FEAR is on xbox 360 I think mussels.


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## KainXS (Feb 21, 2011)

I don't think its that it died because its microsoft completely but around 2007 -2008 codecs started taking over and creative started to support codecs by allowing eax 5 and x-fi to be emulated by cpu which further gave bad PR, and they started supporting their sound cards less and less and game devs bailed on eax.

Microsoft started it buy creative definitely finished it.

but if you have a soundcard with good oamps and dacs they will sound better than integrated usually its not like all sound cards and integrated have the same quality now, and 3D sound is a shame because many developers still don't support it completely like it was years ago but is it worth it to a game developer to implement it when alot of games now are ports and many people aren't going to have a sound system to make it worth it.

I would like to see a comeback in the gaming sound market but I don't want creative to do it because creative tries to monopolize it too much.


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## CrAsHnBuRnXp (Feb 21, 2011)

pantherx12 said:


> FEAR is on xbox 360 I think mussels.



It is. But it was released over a year later on Xbox and Playstation.


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## Mussels (Feb 21, 2011)

TAViX said:


> Dirt2 and F12010 are using OpenAL for hardware sound. Even if it sounds really good, is nowhere near the EAX or DS3D implementations. And Mussels, you need to have a sound card that have at leas EAX 3.0 HARDWARE implementation, in order to use, again, the hardware sound acceleration that those game support. No integrated sound solution will offer you the option to select hardware sound in games



you can easily get EAX 4.0 on any PC via software using alchemy. due to our stance on piracy i cant link you or tell you where to find it, but there are modified versions out there that work on all soundcards, purely from software.

last i checked it only let you run EAX 4.0, i havent bothered with it in a long time to see if 5.0 got added.


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## TAViX (Feb 21, 2011)

I wasn't talking about this. I was talking about why game developers are no longer investing in 3D that much, not even in simple libraries like OpenAL that have only quarter of implementations from EAX 4.0. They put just 4.1 or 5.1 sounds in games and that's surround sound in their conception. 
...
I really miss those games like DeusEx where you could have her the chopper flying over you, or the perfect bouncing, realistic life like sounds from Unreal or FEAR.....
Nowadays everything sounds so flat and boring...what a waste.

And Mussles there is a difference between emulated software sound and real sound processed hardware, both in quality and CPU utilization.
Check the net for some comparisons if you don't believe me...


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## Bjorn_Of_Iceland (Feb 21, 2011)

I love EAX.. loved how it was implemented in GuildWars and HL1. From what I remember, Vista removed it because it was too low level, and was deemed prone to memory level exploits. MS decided that everything must pass through directx, alienating creative and perhaps waiting for them to 'open up' and integrate it with dx, or die like glide

In anycase, 3d sound and effects can be done through software, have you heard BadCompany2's wartapes settings? Its sounds great, and like mussels said, its up to the developers to implement this level of sound quality in their games or not.


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## erixx (Feb 21, 2011)

yeah Bjorn, but I agree with Tavix that Positional sound is less impressive than with those games like he mentions! BC2 wartapes sounds great in another sense.

Maybe the 5.1 speakers sets are not selling much and publishers know it?


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## TAViX (Feb 22, 2011)

Regarding that 3D sound doesn't affect gaming performance, read this:

http://www.hardcoreware.net/reviews/review-331-5.htm

Here is some very interesting comparison from integrated sound and HW 3D sound:







also CPU usage is double with integrated stuff:


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## Robert-The-Rambler (Feb 22, 2011)

*That review is 5 years old!!!!!!!*



TAViX said:


> Regarding that 3D sound doesn't affect gaming performance, read this:
> 
> http://www.hardcoreware.net/reviews/review-331-5.htm
> 
> ...



Todays CPUs are readily capable of handling audio acceleration and frankly if you have a Creative card no hoops are needed to get EAX 3.0, 4.0, and 5.0. They are supported in hardware in Vista and Windows 7 anyway.  Only 1.0 and 2.0 need to be activated by Alchemy if you have a Creative Card or GX if you have a Xonar Card etc..... This is not that big a deal at all.


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## ctrain (Feb 22, 2011)

I like how you skipped the other pictures where there is no meaningful difference. The hardware they were on is over half a decade old at this point.


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## erixx (Feb 22, 2011)

ctrain, ok, so 5 years old. But I have not seen any acustic improvement in the last 5 years, sorry!

(well, really, not much graphics wise either... dx11 what?. No really, nothing worth 100's of euros invested in gfx. Apart from brute speed and more resolution)


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## KainXS (Feb 22, 2011)

erixx said:


> ctrain, ok, so 5 years old. But I have not seen any acustic improvement in the last 5 years, sorry!
> 
> (well, really, not much graphics wise either... dx11 what?. No really, nothing worth 100's of euros invested in gfx. Apart from brute speed and more resolution)



it really depends on what board you buy I bought a X58 board with a 892 and it sounded really good, bought another one with the same chip to replace the X58 and it sounded noticably worst, when done right though those codecs don't sound bad actually, until you compare them to something like a xonar or ht omega

still that review is 5 years old and they don't even say what cpu is used i think, its not a good review


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## [H]@RD5TUFF (Feb 23, 2011)

I personally don't mind that much, as I play with the sound off or with music on, as most games now days have a horrible soundtracks and voice acting, so IMO it doesn't bother me at all really.


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## TAViX (Feb 23, 2011)

Robert-The-Rambler said:


> Todays CPUs are readily capable of handling audio acceleration and frankly if you have a Creative card no hoops are needed to get EAX 3.0, 4.0, and 5.0. They are supported in hardware in Vista and Windows 7 anyway.  Only 1.0 and 2.0 need to be activated by Alchemy if you have a Creative Card or GX if you have a Xonar Card etc..... This is not that big a deal at all.



You serious?!?!?! 

supported in hardware??? LOL:shadedshu



ctrain said:


> The hardware they were on is over half a decade old at this point.



Doesn't matter that. Could be 1 million old. 
The point is that the 3D sound implementation in games is dead. Even OpenAL games are scarce, the last game I know is Mass Effect 2, but it's implementation is 100% software with VERY limited effects. Except for 5.1 positioning, the effects are worst than EAX 2.0 (released in *1999* shadedshu). That's the point.
The producers are getting so lazy and indifferent for the PC gamers, I foresee the same fate for the stupid Physics when nvidia will stop sponsor the game companies...


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## ctrain (Feb 23, 2011)

uh have you heard bad company 2 in action

ps 3d sound hasn't gone anywhere and just about every game ever supports it.

there is nothing special at all about the feature list that software engines don't do
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_audio_extensions#EAX_5.0


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## hellrazor (Feb 23, 2011)

I'd like you to try 128 channels with a different set of 4 effects on each of them through software, please.


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## [H]@RD5TUFF (Feb 23, 2011)

ctrain said:


> uh have you heard bad company 2 in action
> 
> ps 3d sound hasn't gone anywhere and just about every game ever supports it.
> 
> ...



Were talking about PC, not some junk that Sony put out for fan boys to tout as a feature.


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## ctrain (Feb 23, 2011)

hellrazor said:


> I'd like you to try 128 channels with a different set of 4 effects on each of them through software, please.



snore 128, a software engine may as well have no limit besides cpu time and might offer greater flexibility on top.


here's what the CPM dev has to say on overhauling the sound in the Q3 engine:
http://www.promode.org/forum/viewto...g&sid=186d7a9ace70cb8ddc0bc256ceb0796d#p42722



[H]@RD5TUFF said:


> Were talking about PC, not some junk that Sony put out for fan boys to tout as a feature.



where did i ever mention sony or did you just read the letters ps and immediately have a stroke mashing the quote button so you could nutkick emoticon me?


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## KainXS (Feb 23, 2011)

i think he got confused with 

*ps 3*d

no biggy


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## erixx (Feb 23, 2011)

Hey guys, this thread is good at the bottom, but lets define some concepts:

1) Directional audio: when a enemy shoots at me from 60 degrees behind me I want to hear him from 60 degrees (using of course at least 4 speakers, 5, 5.1, 6 or whatever)

2) Environmental (EAX and similars): algorythms to take distance, materials, etc into account

3) others... like sound quality, effects, reverbs...

Personally, I have a 5.1 setup since over 10 years and I MISS games that implement DIRECTIONAL (1) done right. It seams that headphones, earplugs (?) and TV set stereo speakers have damaged this area.

What I am wondering (after reading the marvelous blogs of the BF:BC2 dev's about audio) am I mad, wrong, is my setup "damaged"? But fact is I don't hear or 'feel' the bullets coming left or left-front, or left,  behind, etc... Or the helos crossing over my head...

Is there anybody out there that is really enjoying lets say 5.1 positional audio effects?


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## hellrazor (Feb 23, 2011)

erixx said:


> 1) Directional audio: when a enemy shoots at me from 60 degrees behind me I want to hear him from 60 degrees (using of course at least 4 speakers, 5, 5.1, 6 or whatever)



This is where ambiophonics comes in.


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## hellrazor (Feb 24, 2011)

How is it overkill? Seriously, all you have to do is move your speakers closer and figure out a way to do some fancy stuff to the sound using matrices, and you're all good.

You should try it, it makes things sound FANTASTIC. The only reason I don't run it all the time is because my speakers have to be in the way of my monitor.


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## FreedomEclipse (Feb 24, 2011)

erixx said:


> What I am wondering (after reading the marvelous blogs of the BF:BC2 dev's about audio) am I mad, wrong, is my setup "damaged"? But fact is I don't hear or 'feel' the bullets coming left or left-front, or left,  behind, etc... Or the helos crossing over my head...
> 
> Is there anybody out there that is really enjoying lets say 5.1 positional audio effects?



you need to edit your BC2 config file to fix that. BC2 is terrible at detecting if you have surroundsound setup hooked up. so you need to edit your user ini file and set the speaker option to 6 (if running 5.1) and that seems to work pretty well. Ive done that same and its made quite a difference to where gunfire and rockets etc etc are coming from


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## FreedomEclipse (Feb 24, 2011)

TAViX said:


> BC2 is a mediocre games anyways I think.......



well its a lot better then CoD:MW2 & BLops i tell you that. now them 2 are truely mediocre games


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## Spaceman Spiff (Feb 25, 2011)

Got an Omega Claro with Audiotechnica headphones. 

I'd sooner part with a crossfire/sli setup than give up my sound card.

But I do use it for music and movies as well as games. I do agree that its up to developer's to implement high sound quality in games, but customers nowadays aren't too vocal on improved sound, they want "OMGz those grafixx are teh sexx!!"

Alas, if not enough people care, neither will developers.


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## claylomax (Feb 25, 2011)

A thread about hardware sound ... Where is Imperialreign?


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## FreedomEclipse (Feb 25, 2011)

claylomax said:


> A thread about hardware sound ... Where is Imperialreign?



I think he went to have a long cry in a dark corner when everyone jumped on the Asus boat for Audio instead of creative's XFi which means he has less minions to do his bidding for him (lol)


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## Dent1 (Feb 25, 2011)

erixx said:


> What I am wondering (after reading the marvelous blogs of the BF:BC2 dev's about audio) am I mad, wrong, is my setup "damaged"? But fact is I don't hear or 'feel' the bullets coming left or left-front, or left,  behind, etc... Or the helos crossing over my head...
> 
> *Is there anybody out there that is really enjoying lets say 5.1 positional audio effects?*



Yes. 

Today's games are now recorded with 5 audio streams. It's up to the user to have the appropriate Dolby Digital Live or DTS Connect supported sound card along with a supported amplifer/receiver.

If you guys dont have a DDL or DTSC sound card or a amplifer/receiver then don't complain about surround sound. Although I will admit that the general sound effects in games has gone down hill over the years.


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## Mussels (Feb 25, 2011)

i sure enjoy 5.1 sound over DD/DTS, its awesome.


and while sound has gone down in the big name titles, overall its better. almost every game out there gives you 2.0, 4.0 and 5.1 sound on even the cheapest onboard audio. thats a big plus over the old days where you needed specific hardware.


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## erixx (Feb 25, 2011)

Yes Mussels, everybody can.

Checked my BC2 ini, and it is already set to "6". As said, I hear front, rear, left, right, but not as fine tuned as wanted.


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## Bjorn_Of_Iceland (Feb 25, 2011)

TAViX said:


> BC2 is a mediocre games anyways I think.......


Your obviously not playing mp


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## Dent1 (Feb 25, 2011)

erixx said:


> Yes Mussels, everybody can.
> 
> Checked my BC2 ini, and it is already set to "6". As said, I hear front, rear, left, right, but not as fine tuned as wanted.



Which AV receiver have you got?

Are you using your soundcard's Dolby Digital Live feature with a optical cable?


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## Robert-The-Rambler (Feb 25, 2011)

*I firmly believe this*



Mussels said:


> i sure enjoy 5.1 sound over DD/DTS, its awesome.
> 
> 
> and while sound has gone down in the big name titles, overall its better. almost every game out there gives you 2.0, 4.0 and 5.1 sound on even the cheapest onboard audio. thats a big plus over the old days where you needed specific hardware.



You will get better audio quality over 5.1/7.1 analog for games with good sources and HDMI is the only truly acceptable upgrade for high resolution audio such as DVD-Audio and SACD in a digital transmission. Both Dolby Digital Live and DTS Connect are compressed and that is fine for most people but I myself want the best I can get. I use them all anyway and I'm just getting into "real" headphones from Sennheiser so in summary of this whole discussion I say I don't care if it is hardware or software, 2 channel or 8 channel audio,  as long as it sounds awesome.

Mussels, in direct response to what you posted. Man things were really awful years ago in the DOS days. We have NEVER had it so good. C'mon we are getting studio quality fidelity for such low prices these days. I always laugh when people say things like how much better Baldurs Gate was than Dragon Age Origins. I was there and I still have those old games and that stuff is truly comical.


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## Dent1 (Feb 25, 2011)

Robert-The-Rambler said:


> You will get better audio quality over 5.1/7.1 analog for games with good sources and HDMI is the only truly acceptable upgrade for high resolution audio such as DVD-Audio and SACD in a digital transmission. Both Dolby Digital Live and DTS Connect are compressed and that is fine for most people but I myself want the best I can get. I use them all anyway and I'm just getting into "real" headphones from Sennheiser so in summary of this whole discussion I say I don't care if it is hardware or



Although what you've said is accurate.

You should keep in mind that better audio quality and surround sound are different matters.

For the most part, this threads is aimed at 3D sound, surround sound and DSP effects, greater audio quality and sharpness is something else.




TAViX said:


> You don't need *DDL*, *DTSC* or any other implementation in order to have 5.1 or even 7.1 sound in games shadedshu
> You just need a sound card capable of offering 3 of 4 stereo ports, that combined can provide 5.1 or 7.1 sound. No need for a hw decoder.




You do if you want Dolby 5.1 or DTS 5.1 sound.


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## hellrazor (Feb 25, 2011)

Went over to a friends' house, apparently 2 Worlds II has EAX. But aside from that the game is *very* confused about whether it's good or whether it's total crap.


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## Mussels (Feb 26, 2011)

TAViX said:


> No need. Software emulation can be done even on integrated crap from laptops that don't have any hardware codecs installed.
> 
> Ever heard of AC3 Filter, that AC3 codec for movies?



as soon as you run it through analogue, you lose quality to the DAC's on the soundcard.

if you go digital, every card sounds the same, whether it be a high end X-fi or cheap ass realtek.


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## erixx (Feb 26, 2011)

I am getting confused (IF i take you guys seriously of course, LOL)

My setup is X-FI Ti + analogue outbut to a Logitech 5.1 system (can remember model, it's not writen on the set, so who cares, it's fourhonderd something)

in the PAST (hALFLIFE, Unreal, QUAKE, DOOM, Delta force, ghost recon,.. ) I have clearly nooticed the positional audio and been able to 'feel' or detect were enemies were or sounds came from.

Too many todays game do not give me this feeling... it feels flat...  thats why I asked, maybe something's happening?

As I understnad it, the 'propietary part' the EAX, is not questioned here, it is just CODE YOUR GAMES RIGHT AND GIVE POSITIONAL AUDIO


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## Mussels (Feb 26, 2011)

you sure its just not that you've set your speakers up wrong?


if you have the CMSS 3D stuff enabled or have your speakers set to anything but 5.1, you're not getting surround sounds positional audio.

 (hint: if you play an MP3 and its coming out of every speaker, you've fucked up your surround sound)


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## erixx (Feb 26, 2011)

good point Mussels! But... CMSS is supposed to be for stereo sources  and to upgrade them to all your speakers. I have had it enabled since ever for music!

A game, configured to play in say 5.1 should not have anything todo with CMSS..

Anyway i will test your sugestion turning it off!


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## Mussels (Feb 26, 2011)

erixx said:


> good point Mussels! But... CMSS is supposed to be for stereo sources  and to upgrade them to all your speakers. I have had it enabled since ever for music!
> 
> A game, configured to play in say 5.1 should not have anything todo with CMSS..
> 
> Anyway i will test your sugestion turning it off!



it can. because it spreads your audio out over all the speakers, thus screwing with your positional audio.

You'd think it would disable on games or with a 5.1 source - but audio is audio, its not like it knows when to turn it off.


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## ctrain (Feb 26, 2011)

pretty sure one of the CMSS modes expects stereo, not 5.1. it up-mixes to surround with hrtf ear hax.


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## AUTOgod (Feb 26, 2011)

erixx said:


> good point Mussels! But... CMSS is supposed to be for stereo sources  and to upgrade them to all your speakers. I have had it enabled since ever for music!
> 
> A game, configured to play in say 5.1 should not have anything todo with CMSS..
> 
> Anyway i will test your sugestion turning it off!



some speaker sets also have it in a hardware option, so check for that as well.


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## Robert-The-Rambler (Feb 26, 2011)

*Mussels is right*



Mussels said:


> it can. because it spreads your audio out over all the speakers, thus screwing with your positional audio.
> 
> You'd think it would disable on games or with a 5.1 source - but audio is audio, its not like it knows when to turn it off.



You have to disable CMSS when you know a game supports multi channel suround sound or you will get messed up sounds with confused positional audio such as vocals out of the back speakers when the characters who are speaking are right in front of you. CMSS is meant to either provide virtual surround with headphones in two channel mode or upmix 2 channels to as many as 8 channels of audio. Unfortunately it doesn't shut off automatically when not needed from game to game.


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## TAViX (Feb 26, 2011)

Interesting. I use CMSS and have better 3D positioning in FEAR than without it. Also use in entertainment mode...




This is an interesting development technology that can be used even with stereo laptop speakers. Very nice:

http://www.princeton.edu/3D3A/


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## Dent1 (Feb 26, 2011)

TAViX said:


> No need. Software emulation can be done even on integrated crap from laptops that don't have any hardware codecs installed.
> 
> Ever heard of AC3 Filter, that AC3 codec for movies?



AC3 filter only works in movies. AC3 filter is not compatible with games


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## Wile E (Feb 26, 2011)

hat said:


> I've been considering maybe upgrading my sound card (Audigy SE) but this has me thread thinking maybe it's not even worth it?



Not worth it for gaming, but worth it in terms of sound quality, so long as you have decent headphones or speakers.





JrRacinFan said:


> I agree. Same reason I've been using onboard sound since Socket A.


Even his Audigy SE sounds better than onboard, except for maybe the new ones using real XFi DSPs and dedicated sound sections on the mobo (basically a real sound card directly integrated). If you have been using on-board since then, you have been missing out.



Mussels said:


> as soon as you run it through analogue, you lose quality to the DAC's on the soundcard.
> 
> if you go digital, every card sounds the same, whether it be a high end X-fi or cheap ass realtek.


Wrong. Not all DACs are created equal. It depends purely on the equipment. Good sound cards (Auzentechs, HT Omega, and the likes) have better DACs and opamps/preamp stages than cheap receivers or anything made by Logitech. Analog out from a one of those almost certainly sounds better than digital output into something like Z5500's, due to the fact the Z5500's processing is inferior.


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## Mussels (Feb 26, 2011)

Wile E said:


> Wrong. Not all DACs are created equal. It depends purely on the equipment. Good sound cards (Auzentechs, HT Omega, and the likes) have better DACs and opamps/preamp stages than cheap receivers or anything made by Logitech. Analog out from a one of those almost certainly sounds better than digital output into something like Z5500's, due to the fact the Z5500's processing is inferior.



wasnt my point.


what i *meant* was that the soundcard becomes irrelevant, and the speakers/decoder are what matters.

Yes, you can digital with high end analogue - but thats not what i was talking about. go digital, and you just upgrade the speakers for better sound. no need for a good soundcard at all.


and by the way, i run an auzentech and z55's - and it sounds better on the digital. the analogue on the auzen however shits all over the analoge of my realtek, especially for headphone use.


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## Mussels (Feb 26, 2011)

TAViX said:


> banghead:



while AC3 filter exists for movies, no such thing exists for realtime use with any soundcard. the closest you get is dolby live or DTS encoding on specific onboard soundcards (mostly on gigabyte boards, for some reason)


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## Mussels (Feb 26, 2011)

TAViX said:


> I specified for movies.
> 
> In games, producers have different method, like software implementation, Milles 3D, etc, etc...



you did specify movies, and i caught that.

but its irrelevant since we're focusing on games in this thread - no equivalent exists.


Please try and re-make the point you were making, as it seems we're not getting it.


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## FreedomEclipse (Feb 26, 2011)

TAViX said:


> What point? I specified in previews post.
> 
> Ok, so what do you understand when a game producer specifies it support THX or DDL in its game?



THX is a standard - not a format - THX is about sound QUALITY (IMO) . DDL only came about with Creative but its still DD


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## Mussels (Feb 27, 2011)

THX is a minimum sound quality, that george lucas set up for the original star wars. better than nothing for sure, but it aint exactly a modern standard.


DDL just means the game has its own encoded dolby streams, simple that.


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## Mussels (Feb 27, 2011)

TAViX said:


> Exactly what I have said.
> 
> But even so, the game that use those are scarce to say the least.....



yeah... because so few PC's run digital audio to a home theater speaker system. they're not used by most gamers.


get a sound card with live or DTS encoding and THX speakers (which is a speaker certification, not a game or sound one) and away you go.


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## Dent1 (Feb 27, 2011)

TAViX said:


> What point? I specified in previews post.
> 
> Ok, so what do you understand when a game producer specifies it support THX or DDL in its game?







TAViX said:


> Exactly what I have said.
> 
> But even so, the game that use those are scarce to say the least.....



a.) What has this got to do you with your AC3 filter argument earlier?

b.) "when a game producer specifies it support THX or DDL in its game" it doesn’t mean DDL straight out of the box. It just means that the game has more than 5 audio streams, the user still needs a soundcard that supports Dolby Digital Live or DTSC to utilise it in addition to a Home Theatre System with a hardware decoder. (Example Assassins Creed 1/2 on PC)

Edit:



TAViX said:


> But still will be a big difference from a REAL 3D sound positioning like EAX or A3D......



Are you implying that Dolby Laboratories, Inc which has been in the sound industry since 1965 are unable to implement real 3D sound positioning?


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## Dent1 (Feb 27, 2011)

TAViX said:


> Read again. I specified that as long as your sound card has has 3 or 4 stereo ports it can emulates Dolby software with just a codec in movies.
> 
> Games support similar technologies.....
> 
> ...



Nope, you never mentioned the string "emulate Dolby software" anywhere in this thread up until now 

Either way, as I said earlier codecs such as AC3 filter are not compatible with games. I never disputed you about movies, but I’m saying that bringing up movies is irrelevant when the thread is about gaming hence the title _"3D or Hardware Sound in* games *dead??"_



TAViX said:


> Again, you don't necessary need a HARDWARE decoder......



You do for games. If you know of a software decoder that is commercially available at price consumers can afford that works on games let me know its name so I can use it 




TAViX said:


> That's *exactly* what I'm implying.



Ok that is your opinion.



TAViX said:


> Dolby Digital is just a fancy surround effect over 5 speakers. THX is similar. They are use mostly for movies, not games. They don't have all those nice




Wrong. 

a.) Dolby Digital isnt just over 5 speakers. Dolby Digital 2.0 is still going strong.

It’s hard to take you seriously when you don’t know the difference between THX and Dolby Digital. 

b.) THX isn’t similar to Dolby Digital, they are completely unrelated things. THX is a standard or a stamp of approval.





TAViX said:


> features that makes you point the exactly location or source of a sound. So far EAX 5.0 and A3D, maybe Sensaura 3D were the best hardware implementations ever on a sound card. There are other technologies, even better, but they are not (yet?) implemented hardware on cards...*Read some articles about this.*..



Only if you read up on:

1.) The meaning of THX. 
2.) Difference between THX and Dolby Digital
3.) The limitation of software decoding
4.) The advantages of hardware decoders (AV receivers)
5.) Why Dolby Digital isn’t just a mere "effect"
6.) The implementation of Dolby Digital 2.0
7.) Dolby Digital Live (DDL) and how it’s different from Dolby Digital.
8.) The benefits of Dolby Digital Live
9.) Difference between EAX and Dolby Digital and how their completely unrelated


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## Mussels (Feb 28, 2011)

dolby digitial is a compression and encoding method to get 6 channels of audio over a digital data stream designed for 2 channels, it has nothing to do with upmixing stereo over 5 channels.

you're confusing dolby digital and DD DTS, with their SEPERATE upmixing features, called dolby pro logic.


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## Dent1 (Feb 28, 2011)

Mussels said:


> dolby digitial is a compression and encoding method to get 6 channels of audio over a digital data stream designed for 2 channels, it has nothing to do with upmixing stereo over 5 channels.
> 
> you're confusing dolby digital and DD DTS, with their SEPERATE upmixing features, called dolby pro logic.



+1

Agreed. By definition Dolby Digital is passed through a digital cable. Which basically nullifies 90% of TAViX posts.

PS. Prologic always sounds weak to me, even DTS: NEO sounds weak.


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## Mussels (Feb 28, 2011)

TAViX said:


> You cannot compare the same sensation of sound positioning and effects of DD or DD2 or DDEX with EAX 5.0 or simmilar. *Period*.



you're the only one trying to.



your argument is analogous to me saying:


apples cannot be compared to cars, cars are awesome.
no shit. they're completely different things, and we all know that.


You keep bringing in all these unrelated technologies (like dolby digital) as if they have anything to do with surround sound... they dont. never have, never did.

 if a game supports dolby digital (which has nothing to do with the upmixing features you keep talking about) it just means you can play it straight to an amplifier/decoder with no need for encoding software on your soundcard - its guaranteed 5.1 positional audio, just like how consoles do it.


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## Mussels (Feb 28, 2011)

TAViX said:


> So why you can use use both at the same time then, hmm?? (DD + EAX for example) Ever thought of that??:shadedshu



... still, you havent actually made a point. they have nothing to do with each other.


Dolby digital is a compression method to get above stereo sound on optical.
EAX is a sound engine for games.



seriously, what point at you trying to make? you dont seem to have a clue what half of this tech even does.

i can run analogue, digital SPDIF, or HDMI for my audio, in stereo, 4.0, 5.1, 6.1, 7.1 with or without dolby encoding... and still run EAX. what the hell is your point?

edit: oh sorry, i forgot USB there as well. i have a mono USB voip headset i can also use with EAX, upto 2.0 if i wanted to (thanks to alchemy)


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## Dent1 (Feb 28, 2011)

TAViX said:


> You cannot compare the same sensation of sound positioning and effects of DD or DD2 or DDEX with EAX 5.0 or simmilar. *Period*.



Like others have explained earlier you are lumping unrelated technologies together. I'm not 100% sure that you know the difference between DD and EAX and how they are very different. 

Answer this question:

Have you ever played a game that has 5 audio streams like Battlefield Bad Company or Assassins Creed etc _with_ a soundcard that can encode DTS or Dolby Digital using DDL or DTSC whilst using a digital cable to your hardware receiver/decoder? Yes or no.

If the answer is no, then maybe you should try it before you bash Dolby's legacy.
If the answer is yes, then I respect your opinion (even if you are confused about the technologies)


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## caleb (Feb 28, 2011)

TAViX said:


> So why you can use use both at the same time then, hmm?? (DD + EAX for example) Ever thought of that??:shadedshu



Its exactly as Dent and mussels try to explain to you.

I used to play Raven Shield with EAX via Dolby Digital. I even used a hardware encoder on my nforce2 (think it was 1st in industry hardware encoder back then) for a while connected to my hifi. Even if it goes out analogue with 6 channels its still Dolby digital its just decoded on the computer not in the HIFI.
I believe BC2 uses its own sound rendering engine and just outputs it in DolbyDigital...

EDIT:*PERIOD* ^^


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## TAViX (Feb 28, 2011)

Instead of keep flaming and insult me, why don't you actually post some good links regarding this matter like I did? 



Forget about it, I'm done here.


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## Maelstrom (Feb 28, 2011)

The others appear to be right, from the little research I've done, EAX and dolby digital are two separate things.
Here are quotes from wikipedia!

EAX:


> The aim of EAX has nothing to do with 3D audio positioning. This is usually done by a sound library like Microsoft's DirectSound3D or OpenAL. Rather, EAX can be seen as a library of hardware-accelerated sound effects


.
Dolby digital:


> Dolby Digital is the name for audio compression technologies developed by Dolby Laboratories.



Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolby_Digital
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_audio_extensions


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## Dent1 (Feb 28, 2011)

Maelstrom said:


> The others appear to be right, from the little research I've done, EAX and dolby digital are two separate things.
> Here are quotes from wikipedia!
> 
> EAX:
> ...



+1

The funny thing is TAViX keeps harping on about EAX's 3D positioning but according to that Wiki it actually says that EAX has nothing to do with "3D positioning".


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## Robert-The-Rambler (Feb 28, 2011)

*Let Me Be Sarah Shahi Here*

Dolby Digital is the digital compressed method of hearing your digital audio most often in 5.1 originally over coax or optical/toslink cables. It can either be pre encoded such as in movies or it can be encoded on the fly for real-time surround sound in video games with supported hardware. It does not create the surround sound it is just a means for 3D audio technologies such as EAX or other audio engines to use positional sound. In a gaming sense Dolby Digital is just a means to have a convenient 1 cable option to have 5.1 channel surround sound. Your audio device such as your sound card encodes the incoming audio streams into a format that your Dolby Digital decoder can recognize and decode such as with a home audio receiver. All the 3D aspects are controlled by the audio engine used in the game.


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## erixx (Feb 28, 2011)

Correct Robert.

Also, the thread title is ambiguos... 

EAX stands for Environmental Audio... not positional, neither Dolby does.

It's coded in the game and if it is not well done you are f*cked, regardless of your killer equipment. 

Sad.


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## Dent1 (Feb 28, 2011)

TAViX said:


> I LOLed!!!



What so funny? EAX isn't positional sound as such.

On a serious note, lets all put the arrogance behind us. The thread does raise a good point. The sound quality in general in games is being neglected.

About a decade back, when I used to own the Creative Sound Blaster cards and their 4.1 speaker systems I used to be a Creative fan boy. I must admit that the "effects" (not positional sound) was better back then in general when using a Creative based card. The only issue was that if you wanted to upgrade to a better soundcard that's non-creative for movies or music playback you'll always feel gimped because you were knocked back to EAX 2.0 in the latest games. Creative had a nasty monopoly on the market which meant that you was literally forced to use their products. Creative was lucky not to get sued for constant lying to customers about features which were advertised on the box but the card couldn’t deliver. Creative was known for having the Dolby Digital and DTS logo on the box on soundcard's that didn’t even have S/PDIF and they'll make claims that DD and DTS could be achieved without encoding first or a dedicated decoder.

In the Vista Era when EAX was dropped, it was the best thing for the sound card market. Now we have a choice of many brands at competitive prices which are frankly better than Creative's offering. The days of paying £200+ for a mediocre SoundBlaster have gone. Thank goodness!


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## Wile E (Feb 28, 2011)

TAViX said:


> I LOLed!!!



I don't know why you loled. You are wrong. Maelstrom already posted links for you. I suggest you read them. Here's the EAX link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_audio_extensions

And here's another link direct from creaive. Notice how creative thenmselves make no mention of positioning. http://www.creative.com/soundblaster/technology/eax/welcome.aspx

EAX has nothing to do with positioning. It is nothing but sound effects like reverb and chorus. In games like FEAR, it can add a huge amount of atmosphere, but that's about it. FEAR's audio is fully positional, even with EAX disabled.


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## Deleted member 67555 (Feb 28, 2011)

I hate the way FEAR sounds...Yes Ive even tried a sound card...
I first got it on Xbox 360 and was like WTF is wrong with this GAME!!?
So recently I purchased the FEAR Collection for PC and I"m still like WTF is wrong with the sound?
It's horrible...The whole game sounds like it's on a CB..


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## Wile E (Feb 28, 2011)

jmcslob said:


> I hate the way FEAR sounds...Yes Ive even tried a sound card...
> I first got it on Xbox 360 and was like WTF is wrong with this GAME!!?
> So recently I purchased the FEAR Collection for PC and I"m still like WTF is wrong with the sound?
> It's horrible...The whole game sounds like it's on a CB..



No it doesn't. Either your ears are broken, or your setup sucks. Fear has some of the best game audio out there.


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## Deleted member 67555 (Mar 1, 2011)

The effects are good yes....The actual voices and whatnot are horribly bad


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## Mussels (Mar 1, 2011)

TAViX said:


> I LOLed!!!



i'm only seeing two possibilities here.


1. You have some kind of mental block, disability (language barrier?) or other problem that makes you seriously believe you're making a clear cut case.

2. You're just trolling. you've made no sense and no arguments/points/cases for pages now - in fact, all you've done is state that you can use EAX and dolby at the same time. we all knew that already. theres no point to it.




personally i'm leaning towards you actually not knowing a single thing about any of this sound related technology - you dont know what dolby digital, pro logic, THX, EAX, positional audio or virtual surround technology actually do. You've made guesses and assumptions, and they're almost all wrong and you're too stubborn or proud to admit it.

without knowing what this technology is and does, its pretty much impossible for you to make a case about positional audio or sound quality in games.. your test setup would be utterly random, and no one can trust your advice since even you dont know what you've actually got or how its set up.


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## TheMailMan78 (Mar 1, 2011)

I recently went from an on-board to a dedicated sound card (Creative Ti) and it was day and night in all my games. Things that were not positional before now are. I know jack shit about sound setups but I do know what I hear. Dedicated sound card is needed for the hardcore gamer.


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## Mussels (Mar 1, 2011)

TheMailMan78 said:


> I recently went from an on-board to a dedicated sound card (Creative Ti) and it was day and night in all my games. Things that were not positional before now are. I know jack shit about sound setups but I do know what I hear. Dedicated sound card is needed for the hardcore gamer.



what were your setups on both 'systems' beforehand? software and hardware.


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## m4gicfour (Mar 1, 2011)

I'm guessing the difference in MM's case is  mainly things like EAX 5.0 games (crippled without a EAX 5.0 capable creative soundcard) and creative's other proprietary FX (crystalizer, CMSS, etc etc ad infinitum).

I own an original PCI XFi Fatality champion (or whatever the heck that POS was called - PCI bus issues and driver hell out the wazoo. Good riddance). The hardware acceleration was awesome. Games like BF2 sounded great, with the EAX effects overlaid on top of the positional audio, and coming at a low performance hit due to the sound card offloading the effects processing from the cpu.

Now I've gone digital (Radeon, therefore Realtek 7.1 -> Onkyo TX-SR876 -> Polk Audio speakers in 7.1) I've noticed just how "plain" things sound. Once you get used to it, you realise the difference is the same as turning the "Rock EQ" or "Enhanced Bass" off on your mini-stereo. All the XFi was doing was overlaying some (very nice, I might add) environmental modeling to the sound in games. Gunfire sounded truer because it sounded like it was happening in a desert, or a brick house, or a cement building, rather than just "gunfire sample 6a". And in games that required EAX, it was allowing positional audio (not because EAX has anything to do with it, but creative intentionally nerfed EAX without creative hardware. So if you no havey Creative soundcard, but game developer still wanty to use EAX, BAM! 2.0 audio, regardless of what hardware you have) The other thing would be, for analog use, the Xfi would have better DACs than integrated, and Auzen Xfi is better yet.

With the digital, sound QUALITY is about equal or a little better than when I was using Xfi into the Onkyo's analog Multichannel inputs, with the features turned off. (depending on source quality). The Onkyo essentially nerfs the DAC advantage the Xfi had, since with digital, it's the Onkyo converting to analog to drive the speakers, not the sound card. Turn Xfi crystalliser on, everything sounds "better". Perhaps a more accurate word is "richer". It's just an EQ, and some effects. It sounds great, but it's not magic.

Now if only I could trick BF2 into thinking my Radeon was an XFI, and some creative MB software (IE, XFI effects run on the CPU), so it would ALLOW me to select hardware Xfi quality audio, I'm convinced that the digital HDMI from the radeon would sound just as good.


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## Mussels (Mar 1, 2011)

m4gicfour said:


> I'm guessing the difference in MM's case is  mainly things like EAX 5.0 games (*crippled without a soundcard*) and creative's other proprietary FX (crystalizer, CMSS, etc etc ad infinitum).



i only wanted to correct you on this one point  - you should have said crippled without a latest gen creative soundcard. the best high end soundcards on the market today, are not creative. Its strange to assume that creative and soundcard are synonymous.

i have many soundcards here, some creative, and because they dont support EAX 5.0 i suffer that crippling you mentioned.


the rest of your post i completely agree with. just because people are used to the EQ'd EAX sounds, doesnt mean they're what its meant to sound like.


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## m4gicfour (Mar 1, 2011)

DAMNIT! I thought I changed that when I added the last bit in the edit. Must have missed it. That was my intent, but I missed writing CREATIVE in there. I didn't actually mean creative = soundcard or anything silly like that. I just forgot the word lol

EDIT

Side note - BFBC2's War tapes setting sounds terrible on my system unless I have the receiver set at "Direct" or "Pure Audio" settings (no effects from the Onkyo are applied). This is quality audio done in software, and there's a big performance hit. If I set the receiver to not apply any EQ whatsoever, War tapes sounds great. Makes sense, doesn't it? Two sets of effects on top of one another sounds terrible. Wonder what Creative's effects would sound like with war tapes. I hate to admit it, but they were definitely good at what they did (produce quality audio DSPs and audio processing algorithms), even if they did write horrible drivers and near singlehandedly drive the audio market into the ground.


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## Mussels (Mar 1, 2011)

TAViX said:


> *@Mussels*
> 
> Listen budy,
> 
> ...




being a moderator has nothing to do with what i'm saying. others have agreed with me - you're not making any sense. every time you're asked to clarify, you refuse.

as for calling you names, i assume you're referring to me calling you a troll. please see hte post i quoted and am replying to - first you insult my position as a moderator, then you say i'm abusing that power, and then the smart ass comment about this post self destructing.

Why not report the posts if you think i've insulted you? why single me out, of the others who have been ignored by you just as much?

on that note, why are you still refusing to answer the many questions asked of you? you have a set pattern:

*State something as fact, when it is not
*refuse to reply to people who correct you or ask for clarification, except for odd smart ass comments (usually thinly veiled insults, such as replies consisting of ""
*go back to step 1


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## TAViX (Mar 1, 2011)

Dent1 said:


> +1
> 
> The funny thing is TAViX keeps harping on about EAX's 3D positioning but according to that Wiki it actually says that EAX has nothing to do with "3D positioning".



Yeah, EAX has nothing to do with 3D sound..... :shadedshu

Btw, taking serious some of the "wiki" articles, it's just like trusting my 86 years old grandma...They are only half right and also full of ambiguity.

Here is a better description from Creative themselves:

http://www.creative.com/soundblaster/technology/welcome_flash.asp?j1=eax



> ...interactive 3D audio to PC gaming.



Another article from respectful TechReport:

http://techreport.com/articles.x/11171



> EAX, otherwise known as Environmental Audio eXtensions, is a *positional 3D audio standard* with roots in Creative's SoundBlaster Live. The standard tags in-game sounds with information about their position in the world, allowing for more realistic interactions with the player. Through EAX, positional audio is mapped to the appropriate speakers in a multi-channel setup, giving the player a sense of direction associated with each sound. EAX can also modify in-game sounds to take into account obstructions like walls and pillars, and the occlusion effect of different materials, such as wood and glass, between the player and a given sound.


The tests they made are also interesting.


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## Maelstrom (Mar 1, 2011)

TAViX said:


> Yeah, EAX has nothing to do with 3D sound..... :shadedshu
> 
> Btw, taking serious some of the "wiki" articles, it's just like trusting my 86 years old grandma...They are only half right and also full of ambiguity.
> 
> ...



Interesting. I'm a bit confused though. If EAX is truly about 3d audio, why is openal needed, which, according to creative's website, says that it is a 3d audio application.
Look. Description of EAX 


> EAX® is a collection of powerful, innovative audio technologies designed by Creative's world-class audio scientists to bring true interactive 3D audio to PC gaming. The sophisticated environment effects of EAX provide a greater sense of realism to the gaming experience, and enhance the overall enjoyment of the player


OpenAL:


> OpenAL is a cross-platform, *open standard 3D Audio Application Programming Interface* (API) that is supported on PC, Mac, Linux and game consoles. EAX effects are fully supported in OpenAL and hardware accelerated on Sound Blaster Audigy and X-Fi sound cards, so you can enjoy amazing sound and even better performance


.
If I'm understanding the descriptions _creative supplied_, EAX uses OpenAL to create 3d audio. If that is true, then EAX is about the sound effects, while OpenAL makes them 3d. I could be wrong though, I just wish creative went into more detail on how it actually works.


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## TAViX (Mar 1, 2011)

OpenAL is ment to replace DirectSound3D as the API to output (NOT to create) the 3D sound effects. 
In other words, EAX provides the 3D sound effects like positioning, reverb, occlusion, obstruction, + all the other, and DS3D (dead now) or OpenAL, or Alchemy just outputs them.


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## Maelstrom (Mar 1, 2011)

Ah makes sense, thanks


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## yogurt_21 (Mar 1, 2011)

TAViX said:


> Yeah, EAX has nothing to do with 3D sound..... :shadedshu
> 
> Btw, taking serious some of the "wiki" articles, it's just like trusting my 86 years old grandma...They are only half right and also full of ambiguity.
> 
> ...



not really been part of the argument but i will say how funny it is when people claim inaccuracy in wikipedia, this paticular article cited 11 sources, and then post up an article from a tech site which is far less accurate and cites a single source. In this case their single source is a dead link.

I haven't done a ton of research into these technologies but I will say that between creative sound cards and the latest onboard sound I hear very little difference. Certainly not enough to warrant the expense. A true audiophile will go with a better solution.


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## erocker (Mar 1, 2011)

Sound isn't really three dimentional so technically you are all wrong.


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## Deleted member 67555 (Mar 1, 2011)

erocker said:


> Sound isn't really three dimentional so technically you are all wrong.



That's right it's a linear wave that gets reflected, absorbed and reverberated by the materials in it's path


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## TAViX (Mar 1, 2011)

erocker said:


> Sound isn't really three dimentional so technically you are all wrong.



Hehe. Your right. The same can be said about 3D graphics. It will only be 3D when you'll have some kind of 3D holographic monitor or something.....


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## m4gicfour (Mar 1, 2011)

TAViX said:


> Hehe. Your right. The same can be said about 3D graphics. It will only be 3D when you'll have some kind of 3D holographic monitor or something.....



Not true. 3D graphics are true 3D, right up until they're output to your 2D monitor. Different optimizations such as Occlusion mapping (detecting which parts of the object the viewer can see, and not rendering anything he can't) can affect this however.

@erocker Of course sound is 3D. it is a wave which moves through particles (air, wood, drywall, etc). Those particles move in three dimensions (for those who can't conceptualize it, think ripples in a pond) although 3D in the sense of positional audio? No, that's simply playing audio from a speaker near to the relative position of the source in the game world. Now we're REALLY getting anal about it.

Why don't we all discuss the important aspects instead of semantics?


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## Dent1 (Mar 1, 2011)

TAViX,

All those quotes from Creative's website is Creative being misleading again, the same stuff which has landed them in hot water in the past. This is not the first time they've mislead their customers (for example as explained earlier about them lying about supporting Dolby Encoding on their old Sound Blasters)

EAX is not positional 3D audio, when creative talk about EAX its talking about EAX in combination with Direct Sound 3D. It's not talking about just EAX. The positional sound will be present with or without Creative or EAX, Creative are just trying to take credit for positional sound because EAX is implemented on top of Direct Sound 3D.

EAX is the effects, echos, spatial distance etc. To reiterate the positional sound is already present in the games with Direct Sound 3D, all EAX does is enhance the effects.

Edit:

In addition Creatives CMSS technology which is basically a upmixer from 2.0 to 5.1 has been rebranded under the EAX name. So technically when Creative say EAX they are also talking about *EAX effects + CMSS*. Again missleading. Somebody should ready take them to court.


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## TAViX (Mar 1, 2011)

Yes, Creative is lying, you are right. This is the answer.

In your conception, even cheap integrated sound cards could output to DS3D minus EAX effects, isn't it???

Tell me then, in Windows 98 and XP, why only a couple of sound cards could output on (to) DirectSound3D, like Aureal or the ones from Creative. Other cards, even if they were high quality professional or integrated on mobos, couldn't offer sound over DS3D/EAX/A3D, not to mention hardware acceleration and/or 3D sound positioning in games, hmmm?

You keep insisting that EAX or A3D are just simple wrappers for DS3D when actually EAX, A3D, OpenAL, are different APIs, just like similar to video, Glide, D3D or OpenGL are.


Again, show me some detailed links on how this stuff works, tired of empty words.


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## Dent1 (Mar 1, 2011)

TAViX, as Yogurt_21 said the Wiki article had over 11 sources. You decided not to challenge the 11 sources yet you find the time to post to start talking about 3D holographics.

In regards to your "Tech Report" link.

http://techreport.com/articles.x/11171


Quote:


> EAX, otherwise known as Environmental Audio eXtensions, is a positional 3D audio standard with roots in Creative's SoundBlaster Live. *The standard tags in-game sounds with information about their position in the world*, allowing for more realistic interactions with the player. Through EAX, positional audio is mapped to the appropriate speakers in a multi-channel setup, giving the player a sense of direction associated with each sound. EAX can also modify in-game sounds to take into account obstructions like walls and pillars, and the occlusion effect of different materials, such as wood and glass, between the player and a given sound.




That quote doesn't even support what you are saying. It says it's a "Positional Audio Standard" - It doesn't say that EAX creates positional audio as standard. It's obvious EAX is  a "positional Audio standard" because its a trademarked technology that has become established and is layers on top of Direct Sound 3D which is a standard in its own right, duh.

"The standard *tags in-game sounds with information* about their position in the world" - This implies that the in-game sound information is already present, hence direct sound 3D.

"*Through *EAX, positional audio is mapped to the appropriate speakers in a multi-channel setup, giving the player a sense of direction" - Again it implies that the positional audio cues are already present. Doesn't mention or imply on the fly creation of audio cues.


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## Dent1 (Mar 1, 2011)

TAViX said:


> Yes, Creative is lying, you are right. This is the answer.
> 
> Tell me then, in Windows 98 and XP, why only a couple of sound cards could output on (to) DirectSound3D, like Aureal or the ones from Creative. Other cards, even if they were high quality professional or integrated on mobos, couldn't offer sound over DS3D, not to mention hardware acceleration and/or 3D sound positioning in games, hmmm?



So are you implying that non-creative cards couldn’t output basic sound in windows 98 or windows XP. So according to you all those laptops and PCs that were shipped with integrated non-creative cards were unable to output sound. 


TAViX said:


> Again, show me some detailed links on how this stuff works, tired of empty words.


That Wiki link had 11 sources from independent sources. Get reading 




TAViX said:


> Yes, Creative is lying, you are right. This is the answer.



You are not a good reader. I said that Creative was lying about their Dolby Digital Encoding capabilities in the Past. As far as your EAX argument I said that are misleading their customers (not lying).

Edit:



TAViX said:


> Yes, Creative is lying, you are right. This is the answer.
> 
> In your conception, even cheap integrated sound cards could output to DS3D minus EAX effects, isn't it???



Nope. I never said that. Most cheap Soundcards could implement up to EAX 2.0 just fine. All I'm saying is that EAX is an effect not a 3D positional sound. 

I don't mean to be rude, but is English your second language?


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## TAViX (Mar 1, 2011)

Dent1 said:


> EAX is not positional 3D audio, when creative talk about EAX its talking about EAX in combination with Direct Sound 3D. It's not talking about just EAX. The positional sound will be present with or without Creative or EAX, Creative are just trying to take credit for positional sound because EAX is implemented on top of Direct Sound 3D.
> 
> EAX is the effects, echos, spatial distance etc. To reiterate the positional sound is already present in the games with Direct Sound 3D, all EAX does is enhance the effects.
> 
> ...



You're right. That's why I can have 3D sound in Vista or W7 even without DS3D... :shadedshu




Dent1 said:


> That quote doesn't even support what you are saying. It says it's a "Positional Audio Standard" - It doesn't say that EAX creates positional audio as standard. It's obvious EAX is  a "positional Audio standard" because its a trademarked technology that has become established and is layers on top of Direct Sound 3D which is a standard in its own right, duh.
> 
> "The standard *tags in-game sounds with information* about their position in the world" - This implies that the in-game sound information is already present, hence direct sound 3D.
> 
> "*Through *EAX, positional audio is mapped to the appropriate speakers in a multi-channel setup, giving the player a sense of direction" - Again it implies that the positional audio cues are already present. Doesn't mention or imply on the fly creation of audio cues.



The game producer writes all the game sound info, positional algorithms, the needed effects and stuff, not DS3D, LOL!




Dent1 said:


> So are you implying that non-creative cards couldn’t output basic sound in windows 98 or windows XP. So according to you all those laptops and PCs that were shipped with integrated non-creative cards were unable to output sound.



Disaster.

You don't even know what was the difference between DS and DS3D!! LOL

This discussion is over. I'm done posting here about those matters.
Enjoy.


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## Dent1 (Mar 1, 2011)

TAViX said:


> The game producer writes all the game sound info, positional algorithms, the needed effects and stuff, not DS3D, LOL!
> 
> 
> 
> ...



The discussion was over when you couldn’t differentiate between THX, EAX and Dolby Digital many pages back


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## TAViX (Mar 1, 2011)

right...


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## Dent1 (Mar 1, 2011)

TAViX said:


> The game producer writes all the game sound info, positional algorithms, the needed effects and stuff, not DS3D, LOL!



So you basically have admitted yourself that the positional algorithms are there because of the game developers and NOT EAX. 

you basically contradicted your own argument.

(PS. I was talking about Direct Sound API which the developers use to construct the sound )


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## TheMailMan78 (Mar 1, 2011)

erocker said:


> Sound isn't really three dimentional so technically you are all wrong.



It depends on how high you are. I have personally seen sound.


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## hellrazor (Mar 1, 2011)

I believe this is the longest continual trolling I have ever witnessed in these forums.


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## TAViX (Mar 1, 2011)

Dent1 said:


> So you basically have admitted yourself that the positional algorithms are there because of the game developers and NOT EAX.
> 
> you basically contradicted your own argument.
> 
> (PS. I was talking about Direct Sound API which the developers use to construct the sound )



Bro, I think we are speaking 2 different languages here, and none is English. Go bother some else please.


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## TheMailMan78 (Mar 1, 2011)

Imma be, Imma be upgraded hetero!


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## yogurt_21 (Mar 1, 2011)

hellrazor said:


> I believe this is the longest continual trolling I have ever witnesses in these forums.


I call bs on this. I've seen the mailman do far longer trolling.


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## TheMailMan78 (Mar 1, 2011)

yogurt_21 said:


> I call bs on this. I've seen the mailman do far longer trolling.



Oh yeah. Ive gone way longer then this. 

If there was a military branch that specialized in trolling. I would be like a Tier 1 troll.


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## hellrazor (Mar 1, 2011)

I don't follow the Postal guy too much, so I haven't witnessed his spectacular trolling in action.

Unless he was doing something in the Crysis 2 leak thread, but I might not have been aware of it (it got too long too fast, so it was tl;dr).


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## Wile E (Mar 2, 2011)

TAViX said:


> Bro, I think we are speaking 2 different languages here, and none is English. Go bother some else please.



Again, you are implying that you have won this argument, but you are very much wrong. EAX is not positional audio, it's different types of sound effects added to the sound depending on where a character is positioned in the environment in the game. It interprets positional audio to make it more realistic, it does not create positional data.

AKA: If you are next to a wall, EAX will add reverb and other effects in order to attempt to make the sound more true to life in it's behavior. The fact that you hear the enemy creeping up bhind you while you are standing there has nothing to do with EAX. The positional aspect of the sound is coded into the game using any number of engines, not EAX.


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## Praetorian (Mar 8, 2011)

I have read this topic with interest, but I have to say there is a lot of confusion an misinformation here. Well, I'm not an expert myself, but as far as I know, or I knew, Aureal had it's *own API* for 3D sound that replaced DirectSound3D as the default API in supported games.
here:
http://members.optusnet.com.au/kirben/a3demulation.html
http://members.optusnet.com.au/kirben/a3dvsds3d.html

Now regarding EAX, well Creative bought A3D, and developed their own API to compete with DS3D and A3D. Again to compete and not to be a wrapper for DirectSound3D. So EAX used to be a competing API and also a set of effects named after the same API. Therefor the confusion. Now, because of Vista, Creative dumped EAX as a direct API, and focused on OpenAL an open API for 3D sound. Old EAX games now are run through emulation and you need to switch to a game mode on the sound card in order to have that. The thing is nowadays Creative have only some nice but mostly useless effects for sounds in Windows, that are confusingly named EAX effects but have nothing in common with the EAX API that used to be for Win 98 or XP.

p.s. I remember reading about this matter in a magazine more than 10 years ago, so I might omit a few things....


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## Mussels (Mar 8, 2011)

EAX was a patch on top of directsound3D, while aureal had its own engine.

as happens sometimes, the superior version (aureal) died.


the rest of it sounds like you're vague on it anyway - EAX stands for environmental audio Xtensions. it was only ever designed to add reverb like effects on top of an existing audio engine. with vista that engine was removed, so the lost their meal ticket and moved to openAL as the base, with EAX on top of that.


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## Praetorian (Mar 8, 2011)

OK, no need for personal attacks. Like I've said, I used to read about this in magazines, and they were all saying that A3D, EAX and OpenGL *were competing* APIs for DS3D... 
Please provide some links to backup your saying, I want to read some more since it seems such an interesting subject. I personally did a lot of search and couldn't find any articles about how EAX worked on pre Vista O.S.es...


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## Mussels (Mar 8, 2011)

Praetorian said:


> OK, no need for personal attacks. Like I've said, I used to read about this in magazines, and they were all saying that A3D, EAX and OpenGL *were competing* APIs for DS3D...
> Please provide some links to backup your saying, I want to read some more since it seems such an interesting subject. I personally did a lot of search and couldn't find any articles about how EAX worked on pre Vista O.S.es...



it was linked to and discussed earlier in the thread, someone linked to a page (IIRC, it was a creative webpage link) where it said it was based on top of DS3D.
Putting it to you another way: if it wasnt based on DS3D as an addon, why did it stop working when DS3D was removed in vista? it wasnt because hardware acceleration was gone, it should have at least worked (poorly) in software mode.

some of this is knowledge that you learn from years of reading up on and dealing with this stuff, and not clearly documented anywhere on the web. Its why i wanted to make this thread in the first place.


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## Praetorian (Mar 8, 2011)

Mussels said:


> Putting it to you another way: if it wasnt based on DS3D as an addon, why did it stop working when DS3D was removed in vista? it wasnt because hardware acceleration was gone, it should have at least worked (poorly) in software mode.



Because Vista features a completely re-written audio stack? Meaning that the direct path from the 3D sound API to the audio drivers does no longer exists. So everything related to 3D sound was dumped to drain including A3D, EAX, DS3D, etc. That's why I thing they were ALL gone. Only OpenAL remained because it uses a different implementation at/of sound path. I don't know the technical specs and details, but I do know that MS wanted to dump 3D sound on PC for various reasons....

But if what you're saying is right, why did they used to call them competing APIs for DirectSound3D? This is what I don't understand.


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## Mussels (Mar 8, 2011)

Praetorian said:


> Because Vista features a completely re-written audio stack? Meaning that the direct path from the 3D sound API to the audio drivers does no longer exists. So everything related to 3D sound was dumped to drain including A3D, EAX, DS3D, etc. That's why I thing they were ALL gone. Only OpenAL remained because it uses a different implementation at/of sound path. I don't know the technical specs and details, but I do know that MS wanted to dump 3D sound on PC for various reasons....
> 
> But if what you're saying is right, why did they used to call them competing APIs for DirectSound3D? This is what I don't understand.



they were competing layers, or additions on top of it.


kinda like how you have competing 3D graphics engines that use directX as their core - there may be a dozen competing game engines, but remove Direct3D and see what happens to them...


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## Praetorian (Mar 8, 2011)

Mussels said:


> they were competing layers, or additions on top of it.
> 
> 
> kinda like how you have competing 3D graphics engines that use directX as their core - there may be a dozen competing game engines, but remove Direct3D and see what happens to them...



No, no, no. I said API. API is what, to make the analogy, what Direct3D, OpenGL, RISpec and Glide (dead) are...


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## Dent1 (Mar 8, 2011)

Praetorian,

Yes, Creative bought the Aureal API. They might have branded it into the existing EAX brand. But did Creative ever use the Aureal API to any practical extent? Which games or support did it have since Creative's take over? Buying a company or technology (Aureal API) doesn't mean that the licence was ever used thereafter for that purpose. All official records and sources state that EAX is reverb, echoes and sound effects on top of DirectSound 3D. So it would seem that Creative's acquisition of Aureal API just to take out competition and leave the technology on the shelf?


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## erocker (Mar 9, 2011)

It seems as if TAViX couldn't help himself from posting here during his little vacation. He can come back in four days and continue this conversation.

No, tavix is now banned. This entire thread is his troll so now it's shut down.


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