Most (if not all) onboard or non creative soundcards support some level of EAX. I believe up to EAX 2.0.

Creative X-Fi goes up to EAX 5.0.

Vista / Windows 7 made some changes to the audio subsystem and EAX didn't work anymore so Creative came with Alchemy which translates EAX into OpenAL.

This works quite well but it might be easier to just setup a dual boot XP / 7 machine.

In general for gaming I can highly recommend the X-Fi range of cards, ideally one of the new PCIe cards such as the Titanium. There is one exception, the Extreme Audio which doesn't have the X-Fi processor and doesn't support EAX 5.0 (only goes up to 4.0).

So if you want to play (older) games that support EAX under 7 you really need a Creative Labs X-Fi card because of Alchemy.

The trend to PCIe is pretty clear, a lot of new Sandy Bridge boards don't have PCI anymore. So you will see a lot of PCI X-Fi cards for little money. I got a Xtreme Music for 40 bucks inkluding shipping, quite a decent price for Australian standards.

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

, a lot of new Sandy Bridge boards don't have PCI anymore.

Bah!! I still dislike modern boards that don't have PS/2 and/or floppy!!
And IDE being phased out also?!? 🙁
And now no PCI? It's the end I tell ya...TEH END!!!11

Tetrium wrote:

It's the end I tell ya...TEH END!!!11

🤣

good riddance to IDE , I hate it's awkward cables that mess your system 🤣

keropi wrote:

good riddance to IDE

Blasphemy! 😳 Burn the heretic! 😉

The current Sandy Bridge boards that have PCI slots use some kind of bridge chip.

Creative has released the EAX functionality in emulation mode drivers. The integrated audio on the motherboards usually come as Sound Blaster Audigy Advanced MB (supporting upto EAX 3.0) and X-Fi MB (supports EAX 4.0). Some are named EAX 4.0 Advanced HD, like those that come with the Asus G73 notebook series.

In Windows 7 and Vista, Creative cards require the ALchemy software to "turn on" the 3D Directsound. (Dunno why the heck Microsoft dropped the hardware 3D audio support from Vista onwards.)

What I'm not sure is, if the EAX emulation can "wrap around" ANY integrated audio solution. And I wonder if ALchemy can be used with other sound cards in Vista/7?

I was looking for X-Fi MB but couldn't find as to where you can obtain it. It seems to be bundled with certain mainboards.

Hot damn IDE is bitting the dust. Finally no more jumpers and giant cables.

Agreed. SATA all the way.

eL_PuSHeR wrote:

Agreed. SATA all the way.

Well if the host controllers were cost effective then I would opt for SAS all the way, can use both SAS drives and SATA 😉

Back On Topic:

I have not seen any onboard codec use anything above EAX2 unless it's one of the aforementioned X-Fi Onboard Audio CODECS instead.

I still prefer the sound quality of my Creative cards over anything else, so far that is.

Malik wrote:

Creative has released the EAX functionality in emulation mode drivers. The integrated audio on the motherboards usually come as Sound Blaster Audigy Advanced MB (supporting upto EAX 3.0) and X-Fi MB (supports EAX 4.0). Some are named EAX 4.0 Advanced HD, like those that come with the Asus G73 notebook series.

The Audigy MB is EAX 4-capable. X-Fi MB2 apparently has EAX 5 but I haven't been able to find it. EAX 5 is almost useless though because only a few games have used it.

I have a G73 notebook and I will say that the X-Fi MB software does work quite well, especially for headphone gaming and OpenAL games. CMSS-3D is excellent.

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

I was looking for X-Fi MB but couldn't find as to where you can obtain it. It seems to be bundled with certain mainboards.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus-gaming-n … -hd-2-48-a.html
This will work on any Realtek HD chip. 😁 The results are just about as good as my real X-Fi card from what I've experienced. I highly recommend it. I have tried quite a few EAX DirectSound games (Alchemy) and OpenAL games.

This kind of thing is the future. With the multicore CPUs we have now, with idle cores doing nothing, there is simply no real advantage to dedicated audio hardware anymore. Going pure software also has the advantage of bypassing pesky bus latency issues and the problems that has caused since forever.

Does onboard audio cause the same problems as onboard video as far as resouce-sharing is concerned?

Jorpho wrote:

Does onboard audio cause the same problems as onboard video as far as resouce-sharing is concerned?

XP pretty much did away with that right?

I'll never buy another sound card again. I used to be a onboard hater, but after being forced to use my onboard while using Win7 beta.....It surpassed my expectations exponentially. You heard it here first, sound cards are dead in today's games (OK there are probably 8 million posts saying this elsewhere).

But if for some reason, I could find a top of the line X-Fi for around $50, I might give in. Would make my system spec sig that much cooler if I had one. 🤣

Wonder how many console people complain about crappy onboard sound. 😁 Just a ponder.

In Windows 7 and Vista, Creative cards require the ALchemy software to "turn on" the 3D Directsound. (Dunno why the heck Microsoft dropped the hardware 3D audio support from Vista onwards.)

If I remember right they dropped it because most of the systems reliability was lowered with hardware sound drivers and implementation so they moved to openal for reliability of the OS. Its been over a year since I was researching data X-Fi cards. Creative never has been one with good driver support or frequent support as well.

I bought a X-Fi Extreme Gamer Fatal1ty Pro PCI (with 64mb X-RAM) card last year for around $60 off ebay. Part of a wholesale lot. Works good for me.

Most people these days don't care about EAX, if you really want it, then buy a X-Fi or the like.

Alot of people I see these days just run on-board digital output for a good solution. Usually onboard Analog output is subpar and the only reason to usually buy a add-on soundcard.

Personally I bought one because my speakers are still analog and I've had 2 motherboards with on-board audio (HD codec and AC97) that would make hissing and popping when volume was elevated. First board was a ASUS A8N32-SLI and I solved it by removing the PC speaker believe it or not! My current board ASUS M3A78-T has the issue and would not go away with PC Speaker removal. So I bought the X-Fi and it all sounds great.

EDIT: I even tried Installing Ferrite Beads on all the cables inside and out to eliminate on-board issues of RF/EMI interference but didn't help 🙁

@bushwack-

Pure console owners won't complain cause they don't know any better, just like on the graphics front. On top of that many players that into consoles only play multi-player and use headsets for team speak or pwnag dawg 😉

I'm also having the Asus G73Jh-A1. And like swaaye, I can vouch for it's excellent audio quality. The audio is clear and no electrical interference or hiss even when using an ordinary earphones.

Malik wrote:

I'm also having the Asus G73Jh-A1. And like swaaye, I can vouch for it's excellent audio quality. The audio is clear and no electrical interference or hiss even when using an ordinary earphones.

Yeah it has the cleanest Realtek implementation that I've heard. Even through headphones it is excellent.

you do realize that those onboard-drivers-that-makes-your-chipset-a-x-fi-wanabe use cpu resources to actually enable the crystalizer and other special features... it is the same as creative's own X-Fi Xtreme Audio card, that is actually a SBLive! with x-fi drivers that use the cpu to compensate the lack of a real x-fi processor....
not sure though how much the cpu gets used or if it does make a difference in performance

BigBodZod wrote:

I have not seen any onboard codec use anything above EAX2 unless it's one of the aforementioned X-Fi Onboard Audio CODECS instead.

EAX2 would be good enough for me, under xp and 7.

Jorpho wrote:

Does onboard audio cause the same problems as onboard video as far as resouce-sharing is concerned?

That was at the back of my mind too. Guess with multi-core cpu's it's less of an issue.

RogueTrip2012 wrote:

I've had 2 motherboards with on-board audio ...that would make hissing and popping when volume was elevated.

That's a problem I have had with on board sound, though not lately, which led me to question whether on board was basically inferior. Not a current issue though for me, think it turned out to be a driver issue anyway.

How can I tell whether my motherboard supports EAX2? Is there something in the control panel?