kolderman wrote on 2021-01-17, 01:50:

Basically there were earlier titles that used DS3D which require stuff like Alchemy under Vista...but if the game uses OpenAL directly then it should just work.

Generally, yes. But sometimes games use a mix of both DS3D and OAL (Unreal Tournament 2003) or let you switch between DS3D and OAL (Colin McRae: DiRT).

I think Bioshock uses DS3D, OAL, FMOD and EAX5 where if you are on Vista+ it will replace DS3D with some software implementation with help of OAL.

Read:

1If there is no DirectSound3D device, or you are running Windows Vista which doesn't support DirectSound3D hardware sound, then OpenAL's software mixer will take over. The OpenAL software mixer currently has not been optimized for BioShock.

Source:

https://web.archive.org/web/20080514015042/ht … 5&categoryID=13

kolderman wrote on 2021-01-17, 01:50:

I can select EAX in options in Bioshock...the only problem is I could select it without the X-Fi after I simply installed OpenAL (with some onboard Realtek sound chip).

This is a bug that can be fixed with game patch 1.1.

Read:

1The "Use Creative EAX Audio" option is now greyed out when EAX-capable hardware is not present 

Source:

https://support.2k.com/hc/en-us/articles/2013 … 1-1-Patch-Notes

@Falcosoft: Thanks. Attached below is 5.1 SPDIF output (as multichannel FLAC files) recorded from Audigy.

Some observations:
Software OpenAL outputs a stereo downmix, and reverb is completely different. This may be difficult to notice in a real game, but easier with a test like this.
Hardware OpenAL preserves original channels (or generates 3D sound, in case of footsteps) and adds multichannel reverb. The Hangar effect is enabled with a delay - 1st footstep is still dry, the next 3 have the effect. And bathroom sound gets wet right at the 1st step 😀

Nice tool and nice tests!

Here are some relevant links of this audio era:

http://audio.rightmark.org/products/rm3ds.shtml

http://valet2.com/sounds/eax-comparison/ (Half-Life: Opposing Force and System Shock 2)

Another interesting thing is, theres creative software for onboard realtek audio, I think it was called creative mb2 or whatever, which does eax in software emulation, theres also modified realtek drivers that do it. There was an old thread somewhere here on vogons where members found out this emulated EAX does not sound the same as real EAX on creative hardware sound cards like audigy and x-fi. While they didn't also test for this, I believe same is true for newer Creative cards like Recon3D, SB Z, AE-5, etc., which also do EAX in software. Emu20k chip (X-Fi) being the last one that does things in hardware, is probably the last one that does EAX properly, even on newer OS. Hence why X-Fi is such desirable series of cards to have for our retro hobby.

God Of Gaming wrote on 2021-01-17, 14:16:

X-Fi is such desirable series of cards to have for our retro hobby.

I would just like to add that not just any X-Fi, but specific variants. For example X-Fi Xtreme Audio does not have "Game mode" - I have not verified if that fact causes problems but it most probably does.

That and the fact some (or all, not sure) X-Fi cards meant for XP do not have drivers for Windows 98, so if you want to dual boot 98/XP then you need 2 sound cards to have EAX in both systems. But there is probably not many EAX powered W98 games that will not run properly on XP (this is definitely something I plan on testing in the future).

Not all X-Fi cards have the emu20k1/emu20k2/ca20k1/ca20k2 chip, those that dont have the "game mode" are probably those that lack it. List of the cards that have it is avaialble here

No X-Fi cards have win98 drivers afaik, Audigy 2 ZS (retail versions only, no OEM) are last to have win98 drivers available. So an Audigy 2 ZS retail is good pick for w98/xp dualboot machine, but for XP+ machines, an X-Fi has noticably better capabilities than the 2ZS

Thanks for the link. Seems like there are various "Xtreme" variants. XtremeGamer , XtremeMusic, ...

The ones that I have seen mentioned without Game Mode were the "Xtreme Audio" variants:

https://microthuam.com/Uploadimage/product/ed … eme-Audio-3.jpg

This variant is not mentioned in your list so it's probably the only Xtreme variant that is affected.

Creative's ALchemy page has some info concerning EAX games on Vista and later operating systems:

https://support.creative.com/kb/showarticle.aspx?sid=28967

Interestingly, there seems to be a version of ALchemy which works on Audigy cards as well.

Going further back, there's win9x-era EAX games that won't sound right on NT-based win (including XP). For example NFS 3/4 are notorious for this. It's in particular about the type of creative sound card driver used - with .vxd driver they sound correct, with .wdm driver (the only kind of driver you can use on NT) EAX sounds broken in these games.

As mentioned earlier, I have now tested the other 2 titles.

Colin McRae: DiRT (EAX5)

WXP:
XFTI_PCDRV_LB_2_17_0008.exe

W7:
DanielK 5.0

Game has a very similar build to Race Driver GRID ("reviewed" above). It is from the same developer/publisher (Codemasters) and slightly older. Being slightly older and therefore closer in time to Vista release, they thought it would be a good idea to have dedicated DS3D/OAL switch in game audio settings. In later Race Driver GRID this is missing and the switching is done behind the scenes automatically.

I haven't noticed any difference using OAL between WXP and W7, both were fine.

The DS3D version (which I have only tried in WXP) seemed fine but I think it had an issue with having your car louder than the opponents. This was more apparent in replays. Not really a big issue but technically this makes the OAL implementation slightly better (which works fine in both WXP and W7).

As previously, I have not made any recordings and only used my senses/memory. Overall the positioning seemed a little worse than in Race Driver GRID which was already average.

TimeShift (EAX5)

WXP:
XFTI_PCDRV_LB_2_17_0008.exe

W7:
DanielK 5.0

Audio and positioning sounded the same in WXP and W7. Overall the positioning is on the better side.

Conclusions

Look closely at the release dates:

Windows Vista ... 2007-01
Colin McRae: DiRT ... 2007-06
Bioshock ... 2007-08
TimeShift ... 2007-10
Unreal Tournament III ... 2007-11
Race Driver GRID ... 2008-05

General findings is that everything works fine in W7 - except for Race Driver GRID which could maybe be fixed by downgrading the DanielK drivers since it breaks the same way on latest WXP drivers from Creative and they require downgrade to make it work.

These games probably work fine because they were released after Vista was released. If you were a game sound engineer back then, you have probably heard about Vista dropping some important audio tech. To me it seems like the devs knew about the issues by the time Vista dropped and prepared their games accordingly.

This is generally good news because Windows 7 has support for DSR, scanline-sync (RTSS) and is usually the cut-off "old" system for various community mods. Just bring the supported sound cards from the XP days to have similar experience to mine in Windows 7. These Vista-era games should provide great gaming overall in W7. I have only tested a handful of games but I am confident the situation will be similar with titles like these. I would still be wary of running DS3D/EAX games on W7 that were released before Vista. It is something I plan to look into as well.

I would also like to mention that some of the games ran better and seemed more stable on WXP, in terms of FPS, frametimes and random slowdowns. This may or may not be an issue for you or your use case. I have usually maxed out the in-game graphics settings and NVPI AA, at around 2560x1920 - so if the game has intense graphics this can be expected, you just need to lower them somewhat. You can also run the latest and greatest graphics cards in Windows 7 so that might take care of those pesky performance issues as well.

I consider the RTM date of 8 november 2006 as the Vista release date, it also coincides with the release of the 8800 GTX and the core 2 quad (QX6700)

duga3 wrote on 2021-01-17, 00:14:

Unreal Tournament III […]
Show full quote

Unreal Tournament III

WXP:
XFTI_PCDRV_LB_2_17_0008.exe

W7:
DanielK 5.0

I have not noticed any differences, both WXP and W7 sound great.

Out of curiosity, were you able to get UT3 to use EAX5?

I tried it today on my X-Fi Titanium and it seems to top out at EAX4, at least according to the Launch.log file. More details here.