Alright, I goofed. I should have noticed these options those old posts highlighted (and I did to a degree):
And last but not least, you can quite easily use latest ALChemy versions with the stuff I or MST posted.
With this, you already cover 98% of games more or less.
But the problem was I misinterpreted these as being fixes to the X-Fi MB3, so I didn't think it would work on integrated audio chips without that. Anyway, thanks for having me review that more closely! I understand why such a thing isn't linked to on the pcgamingwiki article (talk about skating on thin ice), but for almost a year, that article was about all I had to go on. Until I bumped into this thread, I thought I was pretty much out of luck. Funny to think you have been indirectly helping me for such a long time though (and possibly other helpful contributors to the page). Anyway, I'll be sure to try out that fix.
mirh wrote:No, please.
In the name of everything that's holy.. they only deserve to die.
They bought the shit out of their competitors (A […]
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Licentious Howler wrote:So, I've read through the thread (and the woefully sparse info online), but it seems like the answer to this question is more or less "You sort of need to buy a Creative product to get EAX working." Is that about right?
No, please.
In the name of everything that's holy.. they only deserve to die.
They bought the shit out of their competitors (Aureal, Sensaura) to lock down as much as they could sound to their hardware..
Then when Microsoft decided to move everything in user space (because less kernel side stuff = less BSOD = profit, I don't blame them) and a decade of games were screwed.
And since they never gave damns about consoles (A3D worked there), when market moved to multiplatorm model of development (contrarily to the old one, where you had a preferred platform and then you had to port the game separately for every other), greatest common divisor (aka software middlewares) became the standard.
I won't dispute their deserving to die; I always suspected that Creative bullied their way to the top (though I never exactly sat down and studied this). Who said I was sending the money their way though? I was just going to buy an old used X-Fi from my local PC store. Now that you've showed my a new alternative, I'll hold off on that.
Indirectsound is already quite good in that.
If EAX 2 is enough for you, then there's 3Dsoundback (which is not all that lame imo)
Indirectsound will probably be very useful for me someday (especially if Mr. John-Paul Ownby adds in the EAX support that he has as a goal!), but right now I'm still on a 2.1 speaker system for my PC. Thankfully, I happen to love its actual sound quality.
3DSoundBack may work fine for others, but for me it just wasn't happening at all; the best of my results was from a Dell motherboard (an Optiplex something-or-other ~2008) with an old Realtek audio chip running under Windows 7. Unfortunately the thing is toast as of about 5 months ago, but on something as old as that, 3DSoundBack still wasn't working right; objects would be too loud at too far of a distance, and instead of echo or reverb, it tended to muffle and occlude sound. This was only for some of the games that it worked on though. Every other Realtek sound device I tested on just didn't work besides perhaps letting me enable an EAX option in a game on occasion--the sound was literally no different than vanilla DirectSound. Tested on a Dell laptop (~2013), Acer laptop (~2015) and my main rig--an ASUS mobo (2014)--all running Windows 8/8.1, and while I don't recall the hardware/driver on the other computers, I can at least say provide what was on my main rig:
Realtek® ALC892 8-Channel High Definition Audio (with updated driver, of course).
I'd love to just chalk this up to user error, but how? The UI for 3DSoundBack is practically non-existent! There aren't any options to screw up!
You should take into account that's based on the very first versions of ALchemy.
Different operating systems aside, I guess they was still struggling to make out efficient ways to hook games.
Download some old driver with of the time with the official one inside, and you'll see result will be the same (except that I guess creative had so much hardcoded and whitelisted their own cards that a soundblaster Z will be treated akin to realtek chips perhaps)
Oh believe me, I noticed how old the Universal variant is. My point of that paragraph wasn't so much to ask "why isn't this working?" but more to ask "what are the chances that this doesn't affect the sound of all of the first three Thief games, all of the first four Hitman games, all of the first four Splinter Cell games, both of the Serious Sam games..." I really figured at the very least one would work.
Again, I'd love to chalk it up to user error, but I confirmed a dsound.dll in the directory every time, and some games would allow me to enable an EAX option--but the sound wouldn't work. This occurred on more than one computer as well.
And furthermore, when I used the new official ALchemy with my Sound Blaster Z, well... you know.
Remember that latest version is this (contrarily to official stupid website)
For the remainder, see above.
Oh, I know. Again, that pcgamingwiki article has been very helpful to me.
Settings inside dsound.ini have really nothing to do with "calculations". I believe the only difference they could do is in performance and/or compatibility at most.
Aw, that's a shame; I really like how the EAX effects could be adjusted to a degree on my legacy machine.
Anyway.. you said you have an Audigy (not sure which though).
I know that for some reasons (which imo can only either be onf of the usual cases of openAL misconfiguration or creative harcoding it), alchemy has been reported to process proper reverb only with original creative hardware (which is, not even after you bought MB3)(thanks ZanQuance!)
I have not a really established rationale behind these claims yet, but I guess there might be the possibility that if your board is one of those that processed EAX in software it may also fall under this issue.
I'm using an Audigy 1. I got it specifically for the Gameport for old joysticks as any newer cards required some kind of adapter.
I really need to sit down and make a video comparison of this stuff, but the difference between the Audigy and ALchemy is very noticeable with Thief 1 & 2--not only are the echoes a little bit stronger under ALchemy, but sounds underneath, above or behind Garret are muffled. Even his footsteps. I made sure every relevant setting in my OSes were stereo, but no dice (it doesn't sound like I'm missing channels of audio though, to be honest--it sounds more like a full volume "muffle"... if that makes sense). The audio sounds a lot more believable on an the Audigy under Windows XP. (same computer, just a different OS). Strangely enough, the software under Windows 8.1 processes it this way regardless if Thief is Newdarked or vanilla, running with ALchemy or OpenAL. Who knows, maybe it is latching onto some sound processing path in my mobo...
Somewhat related, on my legacy PC, the Audigy sounds more echoey than a Sound Blaster Live! on most games, but I always figured that was down to driver differences or EAX revisions.
Well, there's the game on sale on humble bundle these days. You could get it there, and then complain directly to the developer :p
🤣 thanks. [joking]I think the bigger problem is that it's an Uplay version of Splinter Cell 1. That's just not right, man.[/joking]
By the way, I hope you read even the part regarding EAX unified (which for example in TRAOD is essential)
Yeah I took care of that some time ago. Thanks anyway.
I didn't realize I'd ever be speaking to the same well-researched fellow on this matter that contrubited so heavily to that pcgamingwiki article. Thanks again, you've done a lot more for me than just contained in this thread. I'll be sure to report my findings on the "Creative card requirement remover" program.