Actually, when MS was first beginning work on Vista, they did plan to have DirectSound. They were actually working closely with both Creative and nVidia to incorporate an improved version for hardware access and other low-level chores. For whatever reason, late into the game, nVidia backed out, and soon after MS dropped the project altogether - I've yet to hear what happened, and who was at fault for this EPIC FAIL - and MS went ahead without DirectSound. They used the lame BS excuse that they were cutting the feature because the majority of system crashes in XP were due to software trying to access the audio kernel (reason I say BS is because I've never seen an audio-related BSoD in XP, and have never seen anyone else complain of a BSoD that turned out to be audio related). Either way, it left Creative with about 6 months to completely re-write their early Vista drivers, for an OS design they were not originally designing for. Big reason why their Vista beta drivers didn't release until about 1 month before Vista's release.
And I defi agree on the OAL point - Only Creative and Auzen properly support the API. ASUS, HT, C-Media and every other audio manufacturer need to get off their arse and start getting involved with the project. The only thing ASUS has been doing with OAL is using it to gain "backdoor" access for EAX3+ support (their "EAX" software operates nearly the same as Creative's ALchemy).
That's interesting. I had heard about Creative being involved with it but I'm really surprised at NVIDIA's participation especially since they dropped support for their SoundStorm line. The only reason I can think of that Microsoft switched gears like that is that they had no real confidence in Creative being able to carry the rest of the project to a degree to make going any further worth the effort. Not saying that I excuse the major FUBAR that Microsoft did but Creative really has not built up a lot of confidence especially considering their rather rabid defense of EAX.
I did some current reading on OpenAL and it looks like Creative is pretty much carrying things at the moment. This could explain why there really has not been any major adoption of it by say Realtek or C-Media since they've already been burned by Creative over the entire EAX fiasco. I mean, were I in the same shoes I'd be rather hesitant in order to work with them especially since Creative could turn around and incorporate any information into their own hardware regardless if it is an "open" standard.
Again, not an excuse for the involved parties but it could explain a great many things. Does not make it any easier for those of us on the front lines dealing with all of the fallout over the complete and utter lack of progress in audio.
Yeah, and even for those cards that do support OAL perfectly fine - there's also issues on the software side . . . some media programs are still having issues in Vista . . . and we need to see more software dev support with OAL as well.
TBH, I'm glad the audio industry is moving to PCI-E, as that has really cleared up a lot of audio clipping problems related to the PCI BUS, and the fact that most modern hardware is extremelly heavy on the SYS BUS. The increased bandwidth with PCI-E allows the card to send and recieve more info per clock cycle, and that's a major bonus with some processing heavy audio cards.
But, we need to see more audio manufacturers start going to native PCIE, instead of relying on the translators. As I believe I mentioned in an earlier post, it adds latency to the audio processing stream, and that's not exactly something you want in regards to audio. TBH, I've kinda felt it's a bit of a joke from all the audio manufacturers . . . everyone has gotten wrapped up with the SNR war, and keep stouting they have the best audio quality - but are using poor design architecture (even Creative were guilty of this with their first PCIE card).
Oh, do not get me wrong I know that the movement towards PCI-E is a good thing but I also have to be a realist here that a great many STILL use PCI-based audio cards. By designing fixes for resolving a lot of the PCI latency issues it carries forward to the PCI-E line. This, in turn, would allow for a larger potential customer base for sale AND would encourage game developers to hop onboard with OpenAL completely rather than the hackneyed software audio that they are currently using. I think a lot of momentum could also be garnered if the consoles went over to OpenAL as well.
Either way, the feature war needs to stop and we desperately need someone outside of Creative to take the lead towards driving OpenAL adoption across ALL hardware platforms. At the rate we're going now I'll be retiring before we'll actually see this happen.
BTW - if you're experiencing a lot of EMI noise, you could attempt some DIY fixes. It's a hard noise to get rid of, but there are some things that might clean it up - if the noise is being induced from the local environment . . . if the card is picking up noise via the SYS BUS, there's not too much you can do
I'm really holding off on doing anything major until I can get a new set of headphones to replace my ancient Razer HP-1's since I think they may be part of the problem. The fustrating thing is that finding a decent set of 5.1 dedicated audio headphones is not easy nor cheap. And whomever thought the entire USB 5.1 audio was a good idea needs to be repeatedly nut stomped until they can no longer produce children.
