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First post, by Procyon

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Hi there, 😀

For a while now I'm eyeing the Sound Blaster Audigy Rx since I'm not too happy with the audioquality of my onboard soundchip which I have hooked up to my livingroom TV and stereoset via HDMI.
It seems like a good deal, it has 7.1 surround (of which I think I will only use 5.1), supports EAX (something I always wanted but how good is this supported?), is PCI-express, is Windows 10 compatible and has Toslink optical out.
Or are there better options?

Also if I get this I will also need a surround amplifier and speakers.
I'm thinking of buying 2nd hand so if any of you have suggestions what to look for I very much appreciate it.
Preferably an amplifier with very low latency for playing games.

I thought I ask here as I'm not very familiar with hardware stuff.

Reply 1 of 9, by auron

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you have not specified which games you actually intend to play on this thing.

i have tried this card briefly on win7 x64 and it's essentially an audigy 2 zs bridged to pcie+toslink. being able to use it on the newest motherboards does make it somewhat interesting but the matter of fact is that EAX/hardware audio processing died with windows vista so you need to have a specific interest in older games for this card to make any sense, otherwise you could just buy any other modern card with toslink output.

this card supports up to EAX 4.0, so you can look up on wikipedia whether those games interest you, but be aware that on win10 you'll need to run a directsound3d->openAL wrapper called ALchemy for most games and i found this to be not entirely reliable. especially for very old titles settings tweaking may be needed and sometimes not even that may eliminate crackling, pops etc. i'd recommend building a windows xp pc over running this card in win10 but even then EAX is sometimes just unstable. check out the good old doom3 screen twitch bug that was never fixed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9EqCWZJsgf8

then there are openAL EAX 5.0 (or technically EFX i suppose) games like quake 4 that will run out of the box on this card even on win10 but sound rather thin because they were designed for x-fi cards. personally, i dislike the x-fi line even more because of numerous BSOD experiences with their inane 3-mode drivers.

Reply 2 of 9, by Procyon

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auron wrote:
you have not specified which games you actually intend to play on this thing. […]
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you have not specified which games you actually intend to play on this thing.

i have tried this card briefly on win7 x64 and it's essentially an audigy 2 zs bridged to pcie+toslink. being able to use it on the newest motherboards does make it somewhat interesting but the matter of fact is that EAX/hardware audio processing died with windows vista so you need to have a specific interest in older games for this card to make any sense, otherwise you could just buy any other modern card with toslink output.

this card supports up to EAX 4.0, so you can look up on wikipedia whether those games interest you, but be aware that on win10 you'll need to run a directsound3d->openAL wrapper called ALchemy for most games and i found this to be not entirely reliable. especially for very old titles settings tweaking may be needed and sometimes not even that may eliminate crackling, pops etc. i'd recommend building a windows xp pc over running this card in win10 but even then EAX is sometimes just unstable. check out the good old doom3 screen twitch bug that was never fixed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9EqCWZJsgf8

then there are openAL EAX 5.0 (or technically EFX i suppose) games like quake 4 that will run out of the box on this card even on win10 but sound rather thin because they were designed for x-fi cards. personally, i dislike the x-fi line even more because of numerous BSOD experiences with their inane 3-mode drivers.

Well I have stacks of old games that have EAX support, Half Life, FEAR, Colin McRae Rally 3, 04 and 2005, too many to mention honestly.
I guess I could live with the occasional game that doesn't work with it, as long as most games do work.
But what you are saying is that EAX doesn't work on Windows 10? Because then I don't understand why Creative put it on the box.

Reply 3 of 9, by auron

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windows vista introuced a new audio stack in which hardware support for the directsound/directsound3d APIs was dropped, which is what EAX was an extension of and what games have been written for mainly until that point. from vista on directsound only runs as a software emulation, so the DSPs on these cards suddenly became worthless. there is another API though called openAL which can still do hardware processing post-winxp, so creative came up with the ALchemy ds3d->OAL wrapper mentioned previously. native openAL games touting EAX support started probably with ut2004.

EAX is irrelevant for any game in the last 10 years or so but it's not deceiving of them to put it on the box, however even onboard audio drivers will do emulated EAX 4.0 in software openAL. it is the creative CMSS-3D HRTF headphone audio that's perhaps more interesting, although again, using that with ALchemy nowadays can be hit or miss.

Reply 4 of 9, by Procyon

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auron wrote:

windows vista introuced a new audio stack in which hardware support for the directsound/directsound3d APIs was dropped, which is what EAX was an extension of and what games have been written for mainly until that point. from vista on directsound only runs as a software emulation, so the DSPs on these cards suddenly became worthless. there is another API though called openAL which can still do hardware processing post-winxp, so creative came up with the ALchemy ds3d->OAL wrapper mentioned previously. native openAL games touting EAX support started probably with ut2004.

EAX is irrelevant for any game in the last 10 years or so but it's not deceiving of them to put it on the box, however even onboard audio drivers will do emulated EAX 4.0 in software openAL. it is the creative CMSS-3D HRTF headphone audio that's perhaps more interesting, although again, using that with ALchemy nowadays can be hit or miss.

I see thanks.
Though EAX should work with this card for old games right?
Even if it's just emulation how does it hold up?

Reply 6 of 9, by chinny22

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Procyon wrote:

I see thanks.
Though EAX should work with this card for old games right?
Even if it's just emulation how does it hold up?

Still cant beat the real thing but if you don't want a dedicated XP box I guess its ok
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLj9obfMppk

Reply 7 of 9, by Procyon

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chinny22 wrote:
Procyon wrote:

I see thanks.
Though EAX should work with this card for old games right?
Even if it's just emulation how does it hold up?

Still cant beat the real thing but if you don't want a dedicated XP box I guess its ok
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLj9obfMppk

Thanks, the comment section was quite interesting.

Reply 8 of 9, by ynari

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I personally haven't seen any issues with the X-Fi cards - I have both X-Fi (PCi-e) and Audigy 4 (PCI) cards.

If you want to run EAX properly you should build an XP box with an X-Fi card. Alchemy is alright, but it doesn't work with EAX 1.0 games such as Planescape:Torment.

I'm not sure if it's worth buying an Rx for modern systems. I would have thought HDMI out would be ok for sound - what's wrong with it? You need to look at whether it's the source (which is obviously all digital), or the processing/output that's not meeting your standards.

Reply 9 of 9, by Procyon

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ynari wrote:

I personally haven't seen any issues with the X-Fi cards - I have both X-Fi (PCi-e) and Audigy 4 (PCI) cards.

If you want to run EAX properly you should build an XP box with an X-Fi card. Alchemy is alright, but it doesn't work with EAX 1.0 games such as Planescape:Torment.

I'm not sure if it's worth buying an Rx for modern systems. I would have thought HDMI out would be ok for sound - what's wrong with it? You need to look at whether it's the source (which is obviously all digital), or the processing/output that's not meeting your standards.

Thanks maybe I will do that.

But enough about EAX.
I'm also interested in how this card compares to the rest of Creative's line up or maybe Asus as those seem to be the only ones still making integrated soundcards. I keep hearing that the soundquality is a improvement over onboard chips but is that true or is it barely noticable?