Have a look at my stricky thread on overclockers.com.au:

http://forums.overclockers.com.au/showthread.php?t=844394

The X-Fi Titanium (NOT the HD) is the last one with XP support and IMO the "best" to go for classic EAX games. And definitely go with XP...

Use either CMSS-3D with good Hi-Fi headphones (DON'T use these 7.1 surround headphones but just normal Stereo Hi-Fi headphones) or a 5.1 speaker kit like the logitech z506 which has great positional audio.

A good game I remember is Splinter Cell Chaos Theory. With headphones you can hear the rain on tents and all in surround sound and rendered in real-time. A beautiful experience. Having this technology also helped me in BF2142. Think of having another sense and a slight edge on the enemy 😁

Thanks, going to give it a read 😀

System Shock 2 and Deus Ex i've experienced with EAX, though the former is a bit heavy with the reverb.

There's also some parts in UT2004 that use EAX well.

I'm kinda wondering what kind of effect it (or A3D, for that matter) would have in Half-Life. This game already has a rather sweet software reverb engine.

You may want to check Pył. It has great 3D sound effects. And you really need them to play the game.

Just to clear some confusion.
OpenAL = API for games to send instructions to the sound card (can also be done in software)
EAX = Extension to OpenAL that adds reverb, occlusion, et cetera
CMSS-3D = Creative's digital sound processor that converts OpenAL instructions into 3D headphone audio

I don't think I have ever played an EAX 5 game, but Quake 4 with EAX 4 sounded excellent to my ears.

That is correct but to my understanding EAX was originally created to be accessed through DirectSound/DirectSound3D and that does not work anymore after XP. Considering that the OpenAL games list has not been updated anymore since 2008 I kind of fail to see the point in expensive recent sound cards such as Asus Xonar and the newer Uber 1337 gaming editions from Creative as OpenAL accelerators. I doubt hardware acceleration for sound will be a big topic in the future if you look at fast multi-core CPUs.

Yes it's all done in software now and what matters are quality DAC, circuitry and features such as headphone amp, switch-able outputs, mixer, other features such as a noise reduction or dynamic compression.

They can still be used for converting 7.1 into HRTF, which is the only way to get decent positional audio these days.

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

And definitely go with XP...

Yes.

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

Use either CMSS-3D with good Hi-Fi headphones (DON'T use these 7.1 surround headphones but just normal Stereo Hi-Fi headphones)

YES! 😀

On the topic of good EAX games, I recall Prey was pretty good.

Some EAX 1/2 games don't sound right with WDM drivers. In other words you need W9x and the VXD drivers sometimes. Audigy 2 can do this.

swaaye wrote:

Some EAX 1/2 games don't sound right with WDM drivers. In other words you need W9x and the VXD drivers sometimes. Audigy 2 can do this.

Got a list of such games?

For that matter, I wonder if the EAX 1 titles in question also sound off on Aureal Vortex2-based cards. I'd rather not have to throw in my SB Live! into my retrogaming box when it's already packing an X-Fi Prelude for anything EAX-based under XP, with the impression that most Win9x-era games that support EAX also happen to support A3D.

*going back to the topic in general* As for DirectSound3D under Vista onward, there's ALchemy, which works fine in most cases, occasionally needing a little tweaking, but there are some games that just don't seem to work with it, like Planescape: Torment. (Though that's certainly a case where I DON'T think EAX benefits things at all...way too much reverb at the start.)

Now, what games DO benefit from EAX? The Thief series goes without saying, though I'll have to think harder about the other examples.

I am largely convinced that EAX causes more problems than it is worth. Or at least, I have the impression that step 1 for solving crash problems for many games back in the day was "disable EAX".

NamelessPlayer wrote:

*going back to the topic in general* As for DirectSound3D under Vista onward, there's ALchemy

Alchemy is old though. Has not been updated since 2008. Guess it shows how much they care about this stuff...

As for the EAX1/2 issue, I guess some of these games are better played on a Win9x rig anyway. A Live! should cut it too then, I suppose.

Jorpho wrote:

I am largely convinced that EAX causes more problems than it is worth. Or at least, I have the impression that step 1 for solving crash problems for many games back in the day was "disable EAX".

It is not always about using the things that are least problematic. At least not if there could be some benefits at the end. 😉 If it were like that nobody here would even think about messing with instable Win9x.

NamelessPlayer wrote:

For that matter, I wonder if the EAX 1 titles in question also sound off on Aureal Vortex2-based cards. I'd rather not have to throw in my SB Live! into my retrogaming box when it's already packing an X-Fi Prelude for anything EAX-based under XP, with the impression that most Win9x-era games that support EAX also happen to support A3D.

[...]

Now, what games DO benefit from EAX? The Thief series goes without saying, though I'll have to think harder about the other examples.

Vortex2-based cards support EAX1 and EAX2 (Reverb engine, Occlusions, Obstructions). Crystal CX46XX cards also do.
I think most games with changing "environments" (caverns, open range, inside buildings) should benefit from EAX (or A3D). Besides Thief and Splinter Cell, Descent 3 and Heavy Metal F.A.K.K. 2 come to my mind as good examples.

1.4 - What are the new features of the Vortex 2 over the Vortex 1? […]
Show full quote

1.4 - What are the new features of the Vortex 2 over the Vortex 1?

There are many new features of Vortex 2:

Larger HRTF filters for more accurate 3D positioning
Full A3D 3.0 wavetracing and reverb support
EAX 1.0 and I3DL2 support
Support for more 2D and 3D sources in hardware
Support for A3D streams up to 48 kHz
576 voice wavetable engine (64 hw / 512 sw)
10 band stereo graphic equalizer

http://www.quantexzone.com/vortex-of-sound/vo … x-2-faq-general

In my experience the EAX reverb offered in Vortex 2 drivers 2048-2050 is quite poor. It's sort of an alpha/beta level feature that didn't get finished.

NamelessPlayer wrote:

swaaye wrote:

Some EAX 1/2 games don't sound right with WDM drivers. In other words you need W9x and the VXD drivers sometimes. Audigy 2 can do this.

Got a list of such games?

The games that come to mind are NFS3 and maybe NFS4 as well. But I have not tested many games.

When you install a Audigy on Windows 98, there is a application installed that allows you to switch from the default WDM drivers to the VXDs. The VXD drivers are suggested for gaming, but you lose some features like the graphic equalizer functionality.

call of duty
unreal tournament with the eax addons
Unreal Tournament EAX Patch. In order to use the EAX sound enhancements, you will have to download and install this patch first.
Unreal Tournament EAX-enhanced CTF Levels. Install this after installing the EAX patch.
Unreal Tournament EAX-enhanced DM Levels. Install this after installing the EAX patch.
http://liandri.beyondunreal.com/Unreal_Tournament

soldier of fortune
get the eax enhancements
http://soldieroffortune2.filefront.com/file/E … nhancements;340
fix
http://soldieroffortune2.filefront.com/file/EAX_Fix;134

list of eax games
http://connect.creativelabs.com/alchemy/Lists … s/AllItems.aspx