ynari wrote:I do have an XP installation so can run native, but I've seen one instance of someone saying EAX via Alchemy leads to delays in Oblivion. Likewise, Bioshock 'supports EAX', but from the look of things it also supports OpenAL so there's no need for alchemy
Bioshock is before all an OpenAL game. Then it has
also a fallback mode to DS.
Speaking of delays and hiccups instead.. that may be even due to an old version of the library. Last one was released just 3 months ago
philscomputerlab wrote:A while ago I compared how F.E.A.R. sounds like on Windows 8.1 with a Recon 3D with and without Creative Alchemy:
http://youtu.be/yO4WWOJbGX8
If you were in the mood of 100% scientific comparison, check
these ideas. There's nothing better than 8 channels PCM audio to measure things :p
jonpol wrote:Oblivion runs with 3D sound in Windows 7 x64, regardless of what audio hardware you have; it creates so-called "deferred" DirectSound 3D buffers which will be run in software in Windows 7.
(I know this because I used the beginning of the game extensively when I was first developing IndirectSound. It was a really nice test case because 1) the scripted sequence was deterministic, 2) Oblivion lets you attach a debugger, and 3) since it works the same with or without hardware buffers I could easily turn IndirectSound on and off to test whether my implementation was behaving correctly or not.)
Indeed, this also happen with Fallout 3, as I tested
here (yes, it's a bit messed but tl;dr read last post)
This does not mean though that restored hardware path (with either ASUS's DSGX, Creative's ALchemy or Realtek's 3Dsoundback) hasn't still an advantage over plain software (bass were way louder and as expected with it in FO3)