shevalier wrote on 2023-05-11, 08:18:

All analogies lie, but I'll try. Discussing 3D sound and EAX without proper headphones is like discussing design while looking a […]
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Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2023-05-11, 07:03:

shevalier wrote on 2023-05-11, 05:59:

PS. A flat frequency response for headphones is considered not linear, but the Harmon curve
Thus, listening to 3D sound from EAX without headphones, at a level lower than the Sennheiser HD5xx series, is absolutely pointless.

You will get the best results from EAX when using high-end equipment, no argument there. But I respectfully disagree that playing on decent (but non-premium) components is "pointless". You can still enjoy the benefits that EAX brings, even on such a setup, at the expense of some sound clarity of course.

But I'd rather not have this thread devolve into that kind of audio discussion. Most of the people here (myself included) are not audio elitists, and just want to have fun with old games using sound cards that we dreamt of having back in the day.

All analogies lie, but I'll try.
Discussing 3D sound and EAX without proper headphones is like discussing design while looking at a 640*480 monochrome monitor connected via D-Sub.

Unreal tournament 2004 + x-fi patch (created by Creative itself) in normal headphones allows you to determine the direction in the entire sphere and understand what kind of environment the sound sources have.
Without neutral headphones, top/bottom positioning is impossible. Not to mention closer/further.
And applying EAX effects, such as Occlusion, turns the sound into a mess.
Just like Borderlands - a colorful cartoon. Everything flickers and bangs, fun, but unrealistic.

Can you please elaborate? What model of headphones would you recommend for ut2004+x-fi as ideal? And what do you mean by neutral headphones? What headphones would be the opposite?

Johnylyr wrote on 2023-05-11, 12:13:

Can you please elaborate? What of headphones would you recommend for ut2004+x-fi as ideal? And what do you mean by neutral headphones? What headphones would be the opposite?

from here
https://recordingsofnature.wordpress.com/2015 … elevation-cues/
Any change in the frequency response leads to a violation of the position of the sound source.

"Flat response" for headphones - is... not flat line.
Its something like that's

https://www.headphonesty.com/2020/04/harman-t … -curves-part-3/

For correct positioning, headphones are selected from the top 20 according to the Harmon curve.
For all the money that is not a pity
https://github.com/jaakkopasanen/AutoEq/blob/ … ults/RANKING.md

It`s no magic, it`s very simple Digital Processing.
And some physics.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2023-05-10, 05:22:

Ah yes, that's a good example. If I recall correctly, EAX support in NFS3 works best with VxD drivers, and the game exhibits some audio issues if WDM drivers are used instead. I noticed this type of behavior with a few other games which were made before 2001 or so. For example, Baldur's Gate 2 loses some occlusion effects when WDM drivers are used.

In contrast, games made in 2003 and later seem to expect WDM drivers, and may not work correctly if VxD drivers are installed. Examples include Colin McRae Rally 04 and Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness. My rule of thumb is, if a game is made before 2001, play it under Win9x. For anything newer than that, use WinXP.

Damn, I had no idea.

I had noticed playing NFS3 on a WinXP/SB X-Fi rig using the modern patch positional audio doesn't sound as good as with SB Live on a Win98SE system, but I shrugged it off as later driver issue/modern patch thing. I've got no idea does the patch mess with the audio causing the difference or is it because of X-Fi WDM drivers but either way that's good to know.

Sombrero wrote on 2023-05-13, 07:06:

Damn, I had no idea.

I had noticed playing NFS3 on a WinXP/SB X-Fi rig using the modern patch positional audio doesn't sound as good as with SB Live on a Win98SE system, but I shrugged it off as later driver issue/modern patch thing. I've got no idea does the patch mess with the audio causing the difference or is it because of X-Fi WDM drivers but either way that's good to know.

I first saw the WDM vs. VxD discrepancy in one of Phil's videos, where he makes a direct comparison between the two using NFS3. Can't remember in which video exactly he does that, but the difference is noticeable.

On a somewhat related note, Creative publicly released the specifications for both EAX 1.0 and 2.0 back in the day. They likely did it to allow other sound card manufacturers to use the API and thereby popularize it further. But I don't believe they ever did the same for EAX 3.0 and above. This explains how many on-board sound solutions from the mid 2000s have EAX 1.0 and 2.0 support. It's also why wrappers do a decent job at emulating those. But for EAX 3.0 and up, you pretty much need real hardware for all effects to sound correctly.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2023-05-13, 08:59:

But for EAX 3.0 and up, you pretty much need real hardware for all effects to sound correctly.

Nope
http://web.archive.org/web/20190609085410/htt … are/x-fimb5.asp
Must have $29.99. Or "alternative vision of copyright" 😀

Ah yes, I forgot Creative made that too.

I wonder if it sounds exactly the same as the real deal, or if there are differences.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2023-05-13, 08:59:

I first saw the WDM vs. VxD discrepancy in one of Phil's videos, where he makes a direct comparison between the two using NFS3. Can't remember in which video exactly he does that, but the difference is noticeable.

Found the video. It's in Phil's SBLive review, around the 7 minute mark.

He was actually testing NFS4: High Stakes, and not NFS3, though that game may have similar issues. You can clearly hear the incorrect EAX sounds with WDM drivers when the car goes through a tunnel.

Think you need to get one more soundcard, so there would be an a3d appreciation thread too :p

And to atleast add something.
On win10, I use a soundblasterx g6, so I tested Alchemy and it works fine. Fear sounded exacly the same as on x-fi card.
The only problem with it, not every eax game is supported.

Dolenc wrote on 2023-05-14, 09:54:

Think you need to get one more soundcard, so there would be an a3d appreciation thread too :p

Heh, I do have a Vortex2 as well, and it's currently sitting in this build. It gets used from time to time, and I really like how A3D 2.0 does positional audio over headphones. In particular, it sounds excellent in Quake 3 (up to patch 1.17) and Unreal Tournament '99.

It's clear where Creative got the inspiration for their CMSS-3D approach. Not sure if they reused any tech from Aureal, but it could be possible since they eventually bought them out.

Dolenc wrote on 2023-05-14, 09:54:

The only problem with it, not every eax game is supported.

ALchemy does have an option to add a game that isn't detected if needed.

Alchemy is just a wrapper that copies dsound.dll to the game folder.
In Windows 10/11, by the way, there is a ban on using system dlls from the application folder.
You need to change the key in the registry so that the wrapper dsound.dll works.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win … ry-search-order
https://oldforums.eveonline.com/?a=topic&threadID=992242

in short, if dsoundlog.txt did not appear, and it does not contain

Using Native OpenAL Renderer

Then you are listening to your imagination, not EAX.
PS. EAX3 is available in audiocreation mode via emulation.
Failed to init OpenAL

Using Creative Software 3D Library
Failed to init OpenAL

EAX 4/5 is only available in Game Mode.

To be honest, there are too many "urban legends" around EAX and Creative.

Added a link to this archived page from Soundblaster.com: EAX to EAX 4.0 Advanced HD - Part 1 and Part 2.

There's some info about why and when certain EAX features were added. It goes into a bit more detail than what's available in the About EAX subsections.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2023-05-11, 05:15:

dontbugster wrote on 2023-05-10, 21:24:

It's a pity that modern windows actively rejects eax support.

My Audigy Rx has real EAX support, but I can't enable it in these games because of windows.

I tried alchemy, replacing directx dll, but nothing worked

Have you tried using DanielK's Audigy driver pack? Some folks have had better luck with those than with official drivers, or so I hear.

That said, I switched to Linux several years back, so I have no personal experience with using EAX on modern Windows versions. But maybe someone else can chime in and provide some additional advice.

nope! but I will, thanks for the info 😀

shevalier wrote on 2023-05-15, 04:11:

To be honest, there are too many "urban legends" around EAX and Creative.

yes this is correct
Eax was an invent created by Creative as excuse just to sell their sound cards

what EAX basically does to games is to create some echos and ambient distortion, anyways those effects today can be emulated by some sound wrappers correctly
there is no need to install obsolete packages by creative as ALchemy

Here are the pair of sound wrappers which I use for those old games wich support EAX:

dsoal wrapper : supports all EAX versions

indirect sound 0.2 : supports EAX 1 and 2

you only copy dsound.dll to game folder and in some cases edit dsound.ini to enable EAX or add something else

Laser wrote on 2023-07-12, 11:39:

what EAX basically does to games is to create some echos and ambient distortion

Yep, it is pretty much what Creative EAX really is. It doesn't do hardware-accelerated "ray-tracing" (useful for sound occlusion) and modern CPUs can perform said effects with very low overhead nowadays.

On the gaming audio side of things, the state of it all is pretty sad in Windows 10 and 11. Hardware-accelerated audio is available again and can be used, but there is no interest in doing so from Creative Labs or RealTek. AMD and Nvidia GPUs both have powerful DSP audio hardware that can be used for Aureal 3D/Sensaura/EAX/3D Audio-type effects and bring great audio to games, but nobody is interested in using it and Intel seems to have no interest in gaming audio, though their GPUs do have the hardware and software capabilities to utilize existing OpenCL audio stuff that has been around for some time.

RetroGamer4Ever wrote on 2023-07-12, 13:56:

On the gaming audio side of things, the state of it all is pretty sad in Windows 10 and 11. Hardware-accelerated audio is available again and can be used, but there is no interest in doing so from Creative Labs or RealTek.

Yeah, it sucks that there's been so little advancement in gaming audio during the last 10+ years. GPUs can now do 4K with Raytracing, but not much has changed in terms of game sound.

I recently replayed Quake 4 and got to experience the EAX5 Pure Path tech first hand on my 5.1 surround speakers. It's a pretty neat effect when you're dodging missiles which are falling all around you. Gives you the feeling that you're actually in the game world. Modern games rarely bother with that kind of stuff.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2023-07-12, 14:16:

GPUs can now do 4K with Raytracing, but not much has changed in terms of game sound.

Yeah. 62% of Steam users still use FullHD monitors.
And everyone rushed to buy headphones for 1 thousand dollars for 3D audio.

4K ray tracing is now only available to Twitter employees.
Well, like everyone, well, those who remained

RetroGamer4Ever wrote on 2023-07-12, 13:56:

On the gaming audio side of things, the state of it all is pretty sad in Windows 10 and 11. Hardware-accelerated audio is available again and can be used, but there is no interest in doing so from Creative Labs or RealTek. AMD and Nvidia GPUs both have powerful DSP audio hardware that can be used for Aureal 3D/Sensaura/EAX/3D Audio-type effects and bring great audio to games, but nobody is interested in using it and Intel seems to have no interest in gaming audio, though their GPUs do have the hardware and software capabilities to utilize existing OpenCL audio stuff that has been around for some time.

Why would they? Windows environment had software sound only mentality for years. And game developers are not keen to jump into optional proprietary bandwagons with ASICs (AMD TrueAudio, etc), unless sponsored for that (Thief remake). Creative is not what it was 20 years ago in terms of market share and absolutely irrelevant with current trends for ITX systems.