ALchemy uses OpenAL, so its being rendered in OAL there. If I remember right BioShock can use OAL if you want another test.

Yeah, that's why I figured it might be an ioquake-specific thing... Thanks for your suggestion, I'll try Bioshock but downloading the trial version will take a while.

Bioshock OAL info here

For the remainder... Are you using latest OAL 2.1.0.0?
Also I'd recommend newer daniel_k drivers

You should really not resort to ALchemy if the game has native OAL though (quality wise, theoretically)

Did you install openal or openal soft ?

mirh wrote:

Also I'd recommend newer daniel_k drivers

And I just updated to 3.2... This 3.3 pack wasn't on his website already. Oh well, thank you 😀
I should add, I performed a clean install since the 3.2 installer had no upgrade option.

mirh wrote:

For the remainder... Are you using latest OAL 2.1.0.0?

Thanks, will install these too. But, isn't this included with the drivers already?

Davros wrote:

Did you install openal or openal soft ?

I didn't install anything specific but I assume daniel_k's pack includes the right version of OpenAL. ioRTCW came with OpenAL-Soft DLLs, which I removed.

jwt27 wrote:

Davros wrote:

Did you install openal or openal soft ?

I didn't install anything specific but I assume daniel_k's pack includes the right version of OpenAL. ioRTCW came with OpenAL-Soft DLLs, which I removed.

Maybe this is the problem..
I mean, it's not like open source developers could really work with creative's openAL fork in mind.
I'd ask them if I were you

OpenAL = OpenAL, right? The API should be the same regardless of the renderer used. OpenAL-Soft is just a software renderer for those who have no hardware 3D support.

jwt27 wrote:

OpenAL = OpenAL, right? The API should be the same regardless of the renderer used. OpenAL-Soft is just a software renderer for those who have no hardware 3D support.

Technically yes, but in practice no. Creative "closed" OpenAL sometime ago (v1.1+), so there exists both their modern, maintained, but proprietary implementation alongside variants (like OpenAL-Soft) that are based on the same FOSS foundation from Loki, and follow their own development trajectories independent of Creative Labs.

jwt27 wrote:

OpenAL = OpenAL, right? The API should be the same regardless of the renderer used. OpenAL-Soft is just a software renderer for those who have no hardware 3D support.

The fact is, that openal-soft is based on old code forked years before the actual "official" and proprietary creative implementation.

On the other hand, at least this open source implementation is still developed at least, so it may have new features not present elsewhere.
TL,DR i'm just unsure.. and you'd have better to test both

So, I've installed the latest driver now, with the latest OpenAL dlls, and... nothing changed. 🙁

Bioshock finished downloading late last night, and seems to work okay. The EAX effects sound good, no glitches as far as I could tell, though its 3D positioning seems very vague and disorienting.
Also tried rtcw with OpenAL-soft, and did notice a few glitched sounds but nothing as bad as on the X-fi. A few sounds looped while they shouldn't and some were cut off early. So it might very well be bad implementation on ioquake's side.

I did notice an error message when entering \s_info in the console. Now how do I copy/paste this here?

mirh wrote:

Bioshock OAL info here

This site is not very helpful, misleading at best.

I tried SOF2 the other day on my X-Fi Ti. That's Quake3-based too. Its EAX mode is some early version of OpenAL and it was quite messed up on the X-Fi. Audigy has some problems like this too. Fallout 3 with Alchemy doesn't work properly for example. FEAR also has positioning and occlusion problems with Alchemy.

One thing that seems to work well is to just run old games on Windows XP with older drivers.

I think it's pretty clear that the APIs and drivers changed over time and altered expected behavior. You can go back to Windows 98 games where EAX for those often doesn't work right on NT-based drivers.

Does SOF2 have its own OpenAL implementation (not based on ioquake's)? I think I have this game somewhere...

jwt27 wrote:

Does SOF2 have its own OpenAL implementation (not based on ioquake's)? I think I have this game somewhere...

Yeah it has an "EAX" mode that seems to be OpenAL based.

Okay, I tried SOF2 briefly and it sounds fine to me. Procmon confirms this game loads the OpenAL DLLs. In what way is it messed up on your card?

And I just remembered, the community patch for Unreal adds an OpenAL option. This sounds good too, aside from some occasional clicks and pops, which as I recall happened on XP with DirectSound too. Overall, this OpenAL thing is a massive improvement over the original, by the way! Positioning is much clearer, sounds no longer cut in/off suddenly, and the reverb effect sounds much better.

Anyway, I think I can safely call this a bug in ioquake now...

jwt27 wrote:

mirh wrote:

Bioshock OAL info here

This site is not very helpful, misleading at best.

It says that if OpenAL is unavailable it will use DirectSound3D instead. If even that is missing, of course you have the usual crappy audio implementation that all older games have under Vista.
Still, the point is that the best solution is openal.
What does ALCapsViewer report?

swaaye wrote:

Fallout 3 with Alchemy doesn't work properly for example. FEAR also has positioning and occlusion problems with Alchemy.

Wait wait wait. I tried both and they sound massively better with ALchemy (or Xonar GX). What alchemy version are you using? 😒

mirh wrote:

Wait wait wait. I tried both and they sound massively better with ALchemy (or Xonar GX). What alchemy version are you using? 😒

They do sound better but I remember problems with occlusion. I'm not sure if this was on an Audigy 2 or X-Fi though because I was experimenting with both on Windows 8. Audigy's Alchemy behavior is different than X-Fi's. Both cards work better on XP though IMO.

swaaye wrote:

Audigy's Alchemy behavior is different than X-Fi's. Both cards work better on XP though IMO.

Are you sure? I thought after daniel_k's fiasco it was the same between the two cards.
Even because if even who uses a Realtek can made it to work... I don't see who's the moron that would block an Audigy

mirh wrote:

What does ALCapsViewer report?

Uh, this is weird. I am 100% sure it said Yes on all extensions two days ago. Now I get this:
<removed>

EDIT: Oh nevermind, the driver was in Audio Creation mode... 🤣
Here's the result in Game mode:

1------------------
2System Information
3------------------
4                  Report Time: 2015/4/3 16:59:14
5                         BIOS: ACRSYS - 1072009 BIOS Date: 03/19/14 13:26:23 Ver: 04.06.05 
6                    Processor: ~3400MHz Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4930K CPU @ 3.40GHz
7                       Memory: 16 GB
8    Default Audio Device Name: Speakers (Creative SB X-Fi)
9        Audio Driver Filename: {0.0.0.00000000}.{5f8baa41-4d14-4bf0-b1d7-14d35bfec3cf}
10    Audio Driver File Version: 
11 Audio Driver Product Version: 
12         ALCapsViewer Version: 1.0.3.0
13
14-----------------
15OpenAL Components
16-----------------
17Name            Path                    Version        
18OpenAL32.dll    C:\Windows\system32\    6.14.357.25    
19ct_oal.dll      C:\Windows\system32\    6.0.230.4      
20soft_oal.dll    C:\Windows\system32\    6.0.230.4      
21wrap_oal.dll    C:\Windows\system32\    2.2.0.7        
22
23--------------
24OpenAL Devices
25--------------
26                   Name: SB X-Fi Audio [A000]
27          Sample Offset: Yes
28  Linear Distance Model: Yes
29Exponent Distance Model: Yes
30                Capture: Yes
31            Enumeration: Yes
32                EAX 2.0: Yes
33                EAX 3.0: Yes
34                EAX 4.0: Yes
35                EAX 5.0: Yes
36                  X-RAM: Yes
37          Enumerate All: Yes
38                EFX 1.0: Yes
39
40                   Name: OpenAL Soft
41          Sample Offset: Yes
42  Linear Distance Model: Yes
43Exponent Distance Model: Yes
44                Capture: Yes
45            Enumeration: Yes
46                EAX 2.0: No
47                EAX 3.0: No
48                EAX 4.0: No
49                EAX 5.0: No
50                  X-RAM: No
51          Enumerate All: Yes
52                EFX 1.0: Yes
53
54                   Name: Generic Software
55          Sample Offset: Yes
56  Linear Distance Model: Yes
57Exponent Distance Model: Yes
58                Capture: Yes
59            Enumeration: Yes
60                EAX 2.0: Yes

61                EAX 3.0: No
62                EAX 4.0: No
63                EAX 5.0: No
64                  X-RAM: No
65          Enumerate All: Yes
66                EFX 1.0: Yes
67

mirh wrote:

swaaye wrote:

Audigy's Alchemy behavior is different than X-Fi's. Both cards work better on XP though IMO.

Are you sure? I thought after daniel_k's fiasco it was the same between the two cards.
Even because if even who uses a Realtek can made it to work... I don't see who's the moron that would block an Audigy

It's not blocked. In fact I use DanielK's Audigy Support Pack 4.5 when I use an Audigy 1/2/4 with Windows 7/8. Though there is a newer official Creative driver for Audigy 4 now IIRC.

Alchemy (or the OpenAL driver) just doesn't always work quite correctly. Or perhaps it doesn't behave as some DirectSound3D games expect it to. I'm not the first person to notice this.