Creative: ASUS Misleading Customers on EAX Drivers

[malware]

PC sound card maker Creative Labs said in a e-mail message today that rival hardware manufacturer ASUS is misleading its customers by claiming that new drivers for ASUS sound cards support EAX 3,4 and 5, a set of environmental enhancements for sound in games. Responding to an announcement by ASUS that newly released drivers for its Xonar line of sound cards support EAX, Creative communications VP Phil O'Shaughnessy said that the drivers effectively trick games into outputting EAX-capable sound, but they don't actually fully support it. "There are a small number of PC game titles that specifically query the audio device on the system to see if EAX 5 is available before they will attempt to render more than 64 3D simultaneous audio voices," O'Shaughnessy said. "The new ASUS drivers are falsely reporting EAX 5 capabilities in order to get these games to output 3D audio on ASUS sound cards. ASUS customers are not getting a genuine EAX Advanced HD experience with this driver update. Furthermore, the several hundred games that support EAX 3 or EAX 4 for delivering in-game effects will not provide those effects from ASUS sound cards." he added. ASUS representatives are still awaited to comment on the story.

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[DanishDevil]

Ooh, burn! I wonder how this one's gonna play out...

 

[tzitzibp]

It is very interesting to see how this is going to effect asus soundcard owners... maybe at the end Asus will be forced to provide even more updated drivers.
It is funny, because only yesterday, I commented on this issue in one of the thread here in TPU. To be more specific, ¨Conflict: Denied opps¨ has the problem described by Creative...

 

[BumbRush]

creatives eax 3-4-5 are not hardware bound anymore with current cards any maker COULD support them, problem is creative dosnt want that because its the ONLY selling point they have anymore.

see creative pretty much shot themselves in the foot when they put out the x-fi pci-e card thats just an hd ac97 codec on a pci-e card(no hardware dac) and renders EVERYTHING in software, what i mean is that the card "supports eax3-4-5" dispite lacking the hardware to truely support it........

so yeah, they may need to update their drivers, but if asus does it, then others are likely to follow, and when u start seeing cmedia based cards that support eax3-4-5 you will also see creatives balls shrink up inside them like a kid who just went swiming in a mountin steam!!!

screw creative.......

 

[tkpenalty]

:shadedshu

lol. At least there is some sign of competition

 

[Wile E]

I just wish somebody else would design cards that offload. So far, Ceative seems to be the only ones that are doing it. All other cards still render via cpu.

 

[INSTG8R]

I mean I dont see why Creative just dont use the opportunity to license out more than just EAX 2.0. If they werent so tight fisted with EAX then other manufacturers wouldnt be trying to end run around them....I mean they arent losing anything by licensing it out. If people like me want a Creative card we will buy one. I didnt buy my X-fi Fatality for the EAX...(tho its a nice feature)

 

[btarunr]

This is rubbish. EAX 4~5 require a hardware processing engine that cannot be software emulated. Afterall, the Xonar doesn't feature a audio processor, just a chipset. The Creative EMU10K series and CA20K1, CA20K-A2 processors can handle EAX HD 4 and 5. You cannot 'trick' an audio application to thinking an audio device supports EAX 3, 4, 5 as they are OpenAL extensions and Creative ships the ICD with its drivers.

All in all, it's just as big a marketing blooper as HIS / Diamond multimedia sporting a "THX" logo on some of their boxes.

 

[sinner33]

So what's going on here? Can the Xonar output the EAX 3,4,5?

 

[1c3d0g]

Creative is one of the most arrogant companies I've ever known. Their stupidity is incredible. Yet for all their faults they do produce good hardware, but it's the drivers that let them down. They should do like NVIDIA, sell their chip to whoever is interested and put a lot of focus on the drivers. This way add-in partners can worry about manufacturing/distributing/selling and Creative can do what it does best, make better APU's. At least they appear to slowly test the waters with Auzentech, and I hope this will open the way for other audio manufacturers to implement Creative's chips. Still, wouldn't it be great if NVIDIA offered a standalone, PCI-Express SoundStorm 2?

 

[btarunr]

Creative is one of the most arrogant companies I've ever known. Their stupidity is incredible. Yet for all their faults they do produce good hardware, but it's the drivers that let them down. They should do like NVIDIA, sell their chip to whoever is interested and put a lot of focus on the drivers. This way add-in partners can worry about manufacturing/distributing/selling and Creative can do what it does best, make better APU's. At least they appear to slowly test the waters with Auzentech, and I hope this will open the way for other audio manufacturers to implement Creative's chips. Still, wouldn't it be great if NVIDIA offered a standalone, PCI-Express SoundStorm 2?

How does this news item even relate to Creative being arrogant? The discussion is about a company falsely advertising Creative's proprietary technologies as marketing features which it can't. Auzentech has a license to those technologies and it can advertise. So the issue of 'arrogance' is out of the window.

Yes they sell their technologies to Auzentech and MSI...the way you were pointing out NVidia does.

Better APU's? The CA20K1 (X-Fi processor) is the best APU there is, name a competitor? (NVidia SoundStorm is out of the race).

 

[WarEagleAU]

Very interesting read indeed. Personally I dont care if the card supports EAX or not, to me I dont notice a difference in games.

 

[btarunr]

Very interesting read indeed. Personally I dont care if the card supports EAX or not, to me I dont notice a difference in games.

Doom 3 + EAX4.0 HD...can almost hear imps fart.

 

[Mussels]

what asus did was when the games asks, the drivers say "yes we support EAX 3/4/5"

This lets some games work better (the ones that disable 5.1 sound without EAX for example), but others (as have been mentioned) have problems with this.

Creative are pissy because as has been said they have released cards without the hardware acceleration that still have the full EAX support... so its been proven its not a hardware limit.

 

[tzitzibp]

spot on, Mussels... they are pissed with their mistake....

 

[BumbRush]

This is rubbish. EAX 4~5 require a hardware processing engine that cannot be software emulated. Afterall, the Xonar doesn't feature a audio processor, just a chipset. The Creative EMU10K series and CA20K1, CA20K-A2 processors can handle EAX HD 4 and 5. You cannot 'trick' an audio application to thinking an audio device supports EAX 3, 4, 5 as they are OpenAL extensions and Creative ships the ICD with its drivers.

All in all, it's just as big a marketing blooper as HIS / Diamond multimedia sporting a "THX" logo on some of their boxes.

um then explain this
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829102017

it dosnt have hardware rendering, yet according to creative supports eax3-4-5 that supposdely requier hardware rendering.........

as i said, creatives just pissed that somebody else is following their example and doing software support for eax above2.

and the cmedia current chips can deal with as many or more voices as the creative cards, they just have nicer, smaller, better working drivers and dont bugger up on common hardware!!!!

 

[btarunr]

um then explain this
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829102017

it dosnt have hardware rendering, yet according to creative supports eax3-4-5 that supposdely requier hardware rendering.........

as i said, creatives just pissed that somebody else is following their example and doing software support for eax above2.

and the cmedia current chips can deal with as many or more voices as the creative cards, they just have nicer, smaller, better working drivers and dont bugger up on common hardware!!!!

Get your facts straight. The Xtreme Audio does NOT support EAX 4 and 5.

 

[BumbRush]

then this dosnt eather
http://us.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=1&subcategory=208&product=16770

because you insist it requiers hardware support and that card is just an hdaudio codec on a pci-e card.......yet they claim it supports 3-4-5,things that arent sposta be supporable without the proper hardware like an audigy or x-fi DAC on the card.

just accept it btarunr, creative is a shit company that has shit drivers and lies about whats needed to support their bullshit audio extentions, if you look at the cmedia chips and some others they support more or as many voices as the x-fi, and thats what eax really is about, given time to flush out the drivers any card and even most of todays hdaudio codecs can run eax5 and lower no problem.

 

[btarunr]

then this dosnt eather
http://us.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=1&subcategory=208&product=16770

because you insist it requiers hardware support and that card is just an hdaudio codec on a pci-e card.......yet they claim it supports 3-4-5,things that arent sposta be supporable without the proper hardware like an audigy or x-fi DAC on the card.

just accept it btarunr, creative is a shit company that has shit drivers and lies about whats needed to support their bullshit audio extentions, if you look at the cmedia chips and some others they support more or as many voices as the x-fi, and thats what eax really is about, given time to flush out the drivers any card and even most of todays hdaudio codecs can run eax5 and lower no problem.

Excuse me, where does it say EAX 4 and 5 ? That page from Creative doesn't mention EAX 5.0 HD label either. I'm getting you a specs sheet. Accept it BumbRush, you're more of a Creative hating troll than anything useful to prove your contention.

 

[driver66]

then this dosnt eather
http://us.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=1&subcategory=208&product=16770

because you insist it requiers hardware support and that card is just an hdaudio codec on a pci-e card.......yet they claim it supports 3-4-5,things that arent sposta be supporable without the proper hardware like an audigy or x-fi DAC on the card.

just accept it btarunr, creative is a shit company that has shit drivers and lies about whats needed to support their bullshit audio extentions, if you look at the cmedia chips and some others they support more or as many voices as the x-fi, and thats what eax really is about, given time to flush out the drivers any card and even most of todays hdaudio codecs can run eax5 and lower no problem.

Dude if your start on these fine forums are to bash one of our most informative members then GTFO This is not the first thread I've seen you CHASING btarunr around in

Please take a deep breath and enjoy this forum or you will be "BYE BYE"

 

[BumbRush]

eax is nolonger listed as EAX support its listd as "Advanced HD" http://www.soundblaster.com/technology/welcome.asp?j1=eax

and the card supposedlysupports Advanced HD 4.0(curent version) so yes they claim full eax support on a card that lacks hardware dac......

Enjoy Realistic sound effects in games
Bullets whiz past your head. Explosions shake the room. Take your games to the next level with EAX® ADVANCED HD™ sound effects.

from creative specs on the product page.

 

[driver66]

THX

 

[BumbRush]

np, see, the thing is creatives EAX is their only selling point for their hardware really, its what sells their cards, so they charge ALOT to allow other makers to use their resorces to support it, on the other hand if a company put the time in to reverce engineer how the creative eax3-4-5 calls work they could support it in software, as creative has with their advanced HD4.0 support in the pci-e cards

 

[btarunr]

The Xtreme Audio PCI-E does not support EAX 4.0 or EAX 5.0. That's a hardware accelerated DSP.

Besides, other selling points include 128 hardware + 65536 software voices, CMSS-3D (which works) and Crystalizer which makes low bit rate audio definitely sound better.

 

[BumbRush]

creative claims it does support advanced hd(new name for all eax tech)

now as to your 128hardware voices.

and about quility cmedia vs x-fi hardware

just examps of the BS creative and their fanboi's hate to see, creative was once the choice for audio cards, now they are just, meh at best, crappy drivers, poor hardware design that dosnt work with all systems properly.