Is there anything that uses EFX?
It's apparently supposed to succeed EAX by integrating better with OpenAL, and it is also supported by OpenAL Soft.

d1stortion wrote:

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.

In my limited testing so far with the non-Steam version using Alchemy I would say it is a bit better with EAX. Not as big a difference as I had hoped. Also, sometimes the reverb is applied in the wrong area, which could be an Alchemy issue.

I wanted to say that it could be different (better?) in the Steam version, but then I remembered that they took the piss by removing it, among many other things.

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".

How much of that was due to Creative's infamous drivers more than anything, may I ask? Did you get such crashes on Aureal or Crystal Semi-based cards?

pyrogx wrote:

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.

If there's one thing I've found about EAX, just because it's mentioned on the feature list doesn't mean it'll sound correct.

Case in point: Battlefield 2 set to Creative X-Fi, Ultra High, EAX on in the sound options on anything that claims to support EAX 5, but isn't a real X-Fi EMU20K1/20K2 card with Game Mode. (That's basically all USB "X-Fi" devices, X-Fi MB software for integrated audio codecs, and most likely everything Sound Core3D-based like the Recon3D and Z-series.) For starters, there's reverb all over the menu sound effects that shouldn't be there in the first place.

Good call on Descent 3, by the way! A true 3D game that as such deserves 3D sound. It actually kind of irks me that neither DXX-Rebirth nor D2X-XL have bothered with implementing OpenAL to bring the audio positioning up on par with D3.

swaaye wrote:

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 th […]
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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.

I've got NFS3: Hot Pursuit on hand; I suppose I could test that.

If I'm not pleased with the result, though, this means I'm going to have to cram my SB Live! into my retrogaming box too...don't feel like running out and buying an Audigy 2 ZS or Audigy 4. It's already crazy that I've got three sound cards in that thing already, and Win98SE is already getting a bit resource-constrained between the AWE64 Gold and Montego II, only relieved in that the X-Fi Prelude isn't active due to lack of Win9x drivers.

The other disappointing thing is that unlike Aureal and Sensaura, Creative's approach to surround at the time was "MORE SPEAKERS!", which doesn't benefit a headphone user like myself. I don't think they started working with HRTF until the X-Fi and CMSS-3D Headphone/Virtual, which probably relies a lot on acquired Aureal and Sensaura tech anyway.

silikone wrote:

Is there anything that uses EFX?
It's apparently supposed to succeed EAX by integrating better with OpenAL, and it is also supported by OpenAL Soft.

Anything that uses native OpenAL and DOESN'T mention EAX at all most likely uses EFX, which is supported by every OpenAL renderer, even the crappy Generic Software one. Thus, I would think any developer who bothers with a proper OpenAL implementation would have no hesitation to use EFX.

I know Penumbra uses it, and the succeeding Amnesia games probably do too. Codemasters' many racing titles with Rapture3D bundled likely also use EFX due to Rapture3D itself not supporting EAX. Unreal Tournament 3 only mentions hardware OpenAL, nothing about EAX, so there's a chance that early UnrealEngine3 games (before UE3.5 brought the insanely idiotic change to XAudio2) may also default to EFX.

d1stortion wrote:

I wanted to say that it could be different (better?) in the Steam version, but then I remembered that they took the piss by removing it, among many other things.

No A3D or DirectSound3D + EAX, no Direct3D renderer, no DirectInput support if you wanted to use something other than KB+M if desired...what the hell, Valve? Making GoldSRC run on Linux shouldn't require such blatant downgrades; you didn't see that happen with other multiplatform games like Terminus or Unreal Tournament 2004. (Both of which had Windows and Linux installers right on the disc! Mac too, in Terminus' case.)

This certainly makes the retail/WON releases of the GoldSRC games much more valuable now, at any rate. The Steam versions had enough backlash a decade ago; I distinctly recall many forum posts of people insisting on the retail version, even knowing that the WON servers would be shut down soon.

There is actually that WON2 project for the retail versions. No idea if there is any activity on that though. I remember thinking how lame this new Steam thing was when they first forced it in 2004; now it's clear that it wasn't nearly as obnoxious as now with their brazen in-game advertising, forced patches removing functionality etc. Funny how times change.

NamelessPlayer wrote:

If there's one thing I've found about EAX, just because it's mentioned on the feature list doesn't mean it'll sound correct.

I found that in the CA20K2 specifications it doesn't even mention a MIDI synthesizer. Now it could be subsumed under some of those marketing terms, but generally companies try to list as many features as possible. Maybe they left it out and MIDI on X-Fi is just software? I mean it's still an E-MU processor, but it wouldn't surprise me, after all it's Creative we are talking about here 🙄

http://www.creative.com/emu/products/product. … y=505&pid=19169
Refers only to hardware accelerated effects.

Maybe a hardware MIDI synth is undesirable compared to going with software and using today's CPU power.

That's what is happening with 3D audio processing. The CPU can handle it now. Might as well use those extra cores and not lock your work to some piece of proprietary hardware with shitty driver support owned by like 5% of your audience.

I'm aware of that. Still for new "high-end" sound cards that cost more than a midrange graphics card I'd expect something better than just a glorified DAC. Sound card marketing is most intransparent. I think it's just more or less an artificial market created by their horrendous driver support for "obsolete" cards, while technically they seem to be moving backwards instead of advancing.

Also fixed-function hardware is all but dead. Look at Intel Quicksync.

Yeah sound cards and sound products in general are advertised with loads of bullshit and useless measurements.

I don't think I'm gonna miss hardware-accelerated game audio though because it has always been troublesome. For ex, Aureal cards were just as buggy as Creative stuff even if the software was less annoying to install. And cards that do hardware processing always seem to have some PCI-related sound quality problems.

The other problem is these sound cards apparently didn't sell well enough to keep companies interested in producing such hardware. Creative has had to diversify to survive.

d1stortion wrote:

Also fixed-function hardware is all but dead. Look at Intel Quicksync.

Video encoding is extremely demanding for CPUs. Quicksync makes quality and flexibility compromises though. As do the GPGPU methods because some algorithms don't make nice with GPU architecture and would kill speed.

You could also cite the dedicated video decode DSPs in phones and tablets, needed for both computation assistance and because the CPU would use more power doing it. Application-specific hardware is used where it makes sense.

d1stortion wrote:

I found that in the CA20K2 specifications it doesn't even mention a MIDI synthesizer. Now it could be subsumed under some of those marketing terms, but generally companies try to list as many features as possible. Maybe they left it out and MIDI on X-Fi is just software? I mean it's still an E-MU processor, but it wouldn't surprise me, after all it's Creative we are talking about here 🙄

Is THAT supposed to be a data sheet or something? I just couldn't stop laughing at it 🤣

I changed the text a bit, this is more correct.

Users can truly immerse themselves in scenes like underwater (muffled and distorted), volcano eruption (turning on on the mic when you least expect it), war zone (random screeching and popping) etc. Depending on driver version and it's mood today.

But seriously, I don't think the X-Fi cards do any hardware MIDI synthesis. The elite pro has a very hard time running large soundfonts on my P4. It's just as slow as a software soundfont synth. That must say something.

swaaye wrote:

Yeah sound cards and sound products in general are advertised with loads of bullshit and useless measurements.

Just for kicks, walk into a consumer electronics store now and try to find any amplifiers that do NOT claim overunity. Yes it's that bad.

Call it what you want... typical Creative BS. My point is that at least with Live! they were openly advertising a hardware MIDI synth that was using the system's RAM through PCI; although funnily enough I can find both 64-voice and 256-voice listings. On the bright side you could argue that they just continued the AWE64 "tradition", which then peaked in the X-Fi (or even Audigy?) not having any hardware synth at all...

Looking at some datasheets I got the impression that many 1st generation (around 2000) PCI audio chips are general purpose DSP devices rather than specialized sound chips that contain dedicated hardwired functions to support MIDI wavetable synthesis. Creative's EMU10k/20k won't be an exception.
Many of these DSP sound chips need some special "microcode" which lets them do all the 3D audio, reverb, MIDI synthesis, etc. things.

Well yeah... but the fact that they advertise a 10000 MIPS DSP on X-Fi and yet don't care to mention MIDI anywhere seems suspicious to me. Believe it or not, even the current $2000 Roland INTEGRA-7 with its thousands of sounds still has a GM2 logo on it 🤣

xfi does do midi
you can even use the dsp to add effects to midi

d1stortion wrote:

Well yeah... but the fact that they advertise a 10000 MIPS DSP on X-Fi and yet don't care to mention MIDI anywhere seems suspicious to me.

Very few modern (>2004) games use MIDI soundtracks, so h/w MIDI playback is not an important feature anymore, at least not for the audience the xfi is targeted at. Looking at the spec sheets and advertisements I think the xfi is geared towards in-game sound effects and home cinema stuff...

Nobody was doubting that there is a "X-Fi synth". The debate was about how much of it is done on the DSP. The fact that you can add effects doesn't prove much, because it could be applying them to the finished sound, similarly when playing an MP3 "with effects". Any HD Audio codec is capable of this (through software obviously). As jwt27 said the question is not purely academical, because large sound fonts can cause problems even on newer hardware.

d1stortion wrote:

Well yeah... but the fact that they advertise a 10000 MIPS DSP on X-Fi and yet don't care to mention MIDI anywhere seems suspicious to me. Believe it or not, even the current $2000 Roland INTEGRA-7 with its thousands of sounds still has a GM2 logo on it 🤣

But that IS a midi synth. Not a sound card. I don't think there are any current sound cards that offer hardware midi synthesis. It's pointless anyway if a VST or soundfont can do just the same. (unless, of course, you still use a P4 *cough*)

Well, I mainly wanted to point out the fact that calling it "X-Fi synth" is quite misleading when their past products included the functionality in hardware. As a customer you would expect that a "top-of-the-line" product would include everything that the predecessors had, but maybe I'm a bit old-fashioned here...? 😉

Back to topic... anybody tried the Realtek X-Fi drivers and can comment on how that EAX emulation sounds compared to a real card?

d1stortion wrote:

Well, I mainly wanted to point out the fact that calling it "X-Fi synth" is quite misleading when their past products included the functionality in hardware. As a customer you would expect that a "top-of-the-line" product would include everything that the predecessors had, but maybe I'm a bit old-fashioned here...? 😉

I was expecting that too. But after using this "Elite Pro" card for a while I don't expect much from Creative anymore.

There is a lot of confusion in my head about these sound technologies advertised in games and hardware, I dont know much about them since I only owned cheap on board audio and Soundblaster Live, and always disabled EAX in games thinking with was something related to ambience sounds, because in HL and CS 1.6 whenever I enabled EAX in a Soundblaster Live 1024 and submerged into water or ALT TAB, either the sound turned to very low volume or no sound at all.
Also about DirectSound3D does it make any difference in quality if a card supports it in hardware? I read somewhere that it can always be emulated in software and HW support is only for offloading your CPU from sound processing. GTA even has an option to switch from HW DS3D to SW. Also can someone explain these audio technologies Ive been seeing in games to me since some games allow me to choose between them but I cant tell the difference when I swicth between them:

Miles 2D fast positional audio
IAS: Interactive Around-Sound (some kind of software ICD?)
RSX3D: RAD Tools RSX 3D audio (some kind of software alternative to DS3D?)
Dolby Surround Sound
I3DL2
Sensaura Zoom FX

I was testing on XP with EAX on soundblaster Live! and in Halo it removed the ability to play 2 sounds at the same time and "cuts" the sounds. In Thief it completely removed 3D stereo sound!! In GTA made no difference at all and in Thief deadly shadows didnt allow me to use it.

Is it that bad in Halo? And there I was thinking it sounded pretty good, subtle etc. In UT it sounds like crap honestly, they completely overdid it with those effects. (demonstrations in the first post)