SansPlomb95 wrote on 2025-03-27, 17:59:

Now let's compare Doom 3 EAX agains Doom 3 BFG if his gripes were that much legitimate. From my subjective point of view, I think BFG sounds poor.

I came to the same conclusion a few years ago.

At that time, I played through classic Doom 3 + RoE expansion with EAX 4.0 enabled, and it sounded very nice to my ears. Right after finishing that, I played through the "Lost Mission" bonus levels of the BFG Edition, and that sounded noticeably worse. Both games were played on the exact same system, so it can't be a hardware issue.

I would agree with the critics towards EAX 4 and 5 and especially in Doom 3 is that the reverb engine was abusively used in most scenes which makes EAX sound like a gimmick

SansPlomb95 wrote on 2025-03-27, 17:59:

John Carmack also despised Creative during the Titanium era, I can't find the right source but he also claimed to have a similar in house solution for most of what EAX was doing so that explains why it was stripped away in the BFG edition past the Creative deal.
Now let's compare Doom 3 EAX agains Doom 3 BFG if his gripes were that much legitimate. From my subjective point of view, I think BFG sounds poor.
One thing I noticed was how the shotgun sound in the original Doom 3 was surely made to only sound right through hardware accelerated EAX given how it has been replaced by a much different sound in the BFG edition.

I'd argue Doom 3 sound design is pretty poor in general. EAX serves to make it sound more lively, which isn't hard to do when it sounds so dull to begin with. But you know, that's just...my opinion, man.

According to PCGW, Steam patched EAX out of KOTOR 2, but there's a fix to bring it back: https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Star_Wars:_ … ith_Lords#Audio

Unfortunately, it leads to a dead link. Does anyone know where else this can be found?

In any case, EAX in original form is tied to ANCIENT hardware that can no longer be obtained by the usual means. Yeah, I missed the era, and the former fact alone is deal breaker for me. So all I have is DSOAL and abandoned Creative ALchemy and Host OpenAL. Guess I'll never know the difference.

I'm not sure the difference from my recent sound hardware upgrade is as profound as the price I paid, so I have doubts "real" EAX would make much impression on me compared to what I already have.

BTW, ignoring EAX in DOOM 3, which indeed is not present in BFG Edition (but the latter's engine appears overall better optimized), it's worth noting original game shipped with very poor weapon sounds.

SansPlomb95 wrote on 2025-03-27, 17:59:

John Carmack also despised Creative during the Titanium era,

In 2004, Unreal Tournament 2004 and Doom 3 were released.
Both under the patronage and supervision of Creative.
Doom is a hit, UT is just another one multiplayer.
Suddenly it turned out that "X-Fi" is not equal to "technology that makes sales".
Which, by the way, is not available on consoles, Linux and Mac.
Who would be delighted with writing code that no one needs?

shevalier wrote on 2025-03-28, 06:11:

Which, by the way, is not available on consoles, Linux and Mac.
Who would be delighted with writing code that no one needs?

I think consoles are one of the main reasons why EAX was barely used after 2006. In addition to Vista killing off DirectSound3D of course.

With the rise of the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, it likely became impractical to code multi platform games with features that couldn't be used on console hardware. Granted, some AAA titles like BioShock and Mass Effect still supported EAX on the PC (via OpenAL), but it was probably a low priority issue, since most game sales happened on consoles.

Technically, only hardware buffers were killed. I don't need any wrapper for DirectSound3D even on Windows 10 (positional sound) if game is coded to not explicitly depend on hardware buffers. Though EAX is tied to hardware buffers. The excerpt from Wikipedia seems accurate to me:

The Environmental Audio Extensions (or EAX) are a number of digital signal processing presets for audio, present in Creative Technology Sound Blaster sound cards starting with the Sound Blaster Live and the Creative NOMAD/Creative ZEN product lines. Due to the release of Windows Vista in 2007, which deprecated the DirectSound3D API that EAX was based on, Creative discouraged EAX implementation in favour of its OpenAL-based EFX equivalent – though at that point relatively few games used the API.

EAX is a library of extensions to Microsoft's DirectSound3D, itself an extension to DirectSound introduced with DirectX 3 in 1996 with the intention to standardize 3D audio for Microsoft Windows, adding environmental audio presets to DS3D's audio positioning. Ergo, the aim of EAX has nothing to do with 3D audio positioning, this is usually done by a sound library like DirectSound3D or OpenAL. Rather, EAX can be seen as a library of sound effects written and compiled to be executed on a DSP instead of the CPU, often called "hardware-accelerated".

UCyborg wrote on 2025-03-28, 09:38:

Ergo, the aim of EAX has nothing to do with 3D audio positioning, this is usually done by a sound library like DirectSound3D or OpenAL.

While this is technically true, some games from the late 90s and early 2000s only provide 5.1 surround sound when EAX is enabled. Otherwise, you're stuck with plain old stereo.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2025-03-28, 06:36:

In addition to Vista killing off DirectSound3D of course.

Honestly, why does Microsoft need proprietary technologies?
To collect complaints, not to make a profit?
AMD gave Microsoft Vulcan, and this move worked, it became part of DX11+.
What did Creative expect?
Moreover, they spent time and money on X-Fi when it was already clear that it would not work.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2025-03-28, 06:36:

most game sales happened on consoles.

Heresy! Burn them, burn them all! They don't have these kinds of issues! Hmm, wait a minute...
...they don't have these kinds of issues! It's so much easier to buy old consoles for retro gaming!

I've often wondered if retro PC gaming could be made easier with FPGAs like they're doing for consoles. Imagine just plugging in a PCIe FPGA card that can become whatever you want it to be to support deprecated features.

Despite otherwise being very picky about everything audio - related (vinyl lover among another things), when it came to pc audio i didn't pay too much attention. I never bothered to try a dedicated sound card, always relied to onboard audio to do the job. A couple of months ago one of the major retailers in my country offered the Audigy Rx on a clearance sale at the price of 30 euros (60 euros is the cheapest you can find if otherwise) and that was at a time that i was really considering bying a (used probably) pcie Creative soundcard in order to be able to enjoy Eax on Windows XP. The offer was too good to turn down so i decided to give it a try. The RX is currently the only Creative sound card that is still in production and supports Windows XP. It is essentially an Audigy 4 with a dedicated 600-ohm headphone amplifier, a PCIe interface and some other tweaks and improvements. I have been using it for about 3 months now with the latest daniel k. Audigy support pack (essentially the whole of daniel k's support pack for the Audigy series is bases on the RX drivers) and i 've got to say that i am more than satisfied. Sound quality is really good (at least with headphones - Koss Porta Pro, Sennheiser PX 100ii), no problems, no sound glitches, no noise or artifacts of any kind, no EMI, lots of options, Cmss 3D works as it should.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2025-03-17, 21:06:

After reading this guide by Creative (aimed at Vista and Win7), my theory is as follows. If a game uses DirectSound3D or OpenAL, […]
Show full quote

SansPlomb95 wrote on 2025-03-17, 20:50:

But CMSS3D does not make use of a multichannel source, it starts straight from a basic stereo feed

After reading this guide by Creative (aimed at Vista and Win7), my theory is as follows. If a game uses DirectSound3D or OpenAL, then X-Fi CMSS-3D Headphone can use those APIs to position sounds in a virtual 3D environment all around the listener (including above and below). You can leave the Windows and X-Fi speaker settings at "Headphones" in such cases.

However, if a game isn't using DirectSound3D nor OpenAL, and instead has its own software mixer or some other API, then it's better to select 5.1 (or 7.1) inside the game's audio options (if available) prior to passing that to X-Fi CMSS-3D Headphone.

Again, this is just my theory based on what I've read so far. Someone feel free to correct me if different information is available elsewhere. Also, this theory specifically applies to X-Fi CMSS-3D Headphone, and not any other CMSS mode.

From my relatively thorough search on the subject, that is exactly the conclusion that i came into. So to be certain that Cmss 3D (with headphones) works as it should you should pick 5.1 or 7.1 speaker configuration in the Windows control panel, headphones from within the Creative software, un-check the synchronize with the Windows control panel option and within each game you should pick the multi channel option with the most channels available (if there is one, orherwise it will use the option that you have configured in Windows).

Huh, didn't know / totally overlooked that Creative still has one sound card in production with support for EAX and all that jazz. Maybe I should've bought that instead of Sound BlasterX AE-5 Plus.

Well if you absolutely want a sound card that works in Windows XP and has also hardware support for EAX then the RX is the only option currently in production. Combined with the daniel k. support pack it offers a more than satisfying solution for Windows XP gaming. Otherwise your soundcard seems pretty impressing.

UCyborg wrote on 2025-03-30, 18:41:

Sound BlasterX AE-5 Plus.

The Creative was saved by the ESS DAC some feature - its can work without a synchronization signal.
They released such a chip for the recon3d sb1350 (which was also included in the ZXR and AE) whose DAC clock rate was limited to 96kHz.
However, first of all they wanted to sell these cards without a DAC at all.

How did they even survive with that level of marketing?

@Dimos
I guess to me it's more about whether there's really any notable difference between "real" EAX and "emulated" EAX.

In addition, I'm a headphone user, I know Creative has HRTF in both ALchemy DLL and Host OpenAL DLL. Additionally, they used to sell Sound Blaster X-Fi MB3 (basically a virtual sound card), it can take multi-channel sound from applications, do something with HRTF and output it through headphones. In Windows sound control panel, you set the card to have 5.1 or 7.1 speakers and in X-Fi MB3, you set that you have headphones and make sure Surround effect is enabled. I guess CMSS 3D is a bit different, at least settings are different from what I've seen. Current Creative's software (that includes the older X-Fi MB3 and current Sound Blaster Command you can use with their newer cards) seems to have Surround effect for which you set percentage while the old CMSS 3D has on/off switch and MacroFX and ElevationFilter, whatever these do, at least from what I saw here.

Well as far the difference between hardware EAX (that is with a compatible Creative soundcard up until Win XP) and software - emulated EAX (Windows Vista and later and/or non hardware EAX compatible soundcard) is concerned i can't really tell you much. From what i 've gathered around various forums the general consensus seems to be that oftentimes emulated EAX works just fine, indistinguishable from the "original thing", but in other occasions it doesn't work flawlessly and various glitches or artifacts are present. As far as x-fi Mb3 is concerned i know about it, never tested it myself though, so if someone has firsthand knowledge it would be nice to share his/her experience with it. Also if i am not mistaken there is a way to get x-fi Mb3 to work with any soundcard, even with on board audio. Besides all this though i think we should never forget what the main feature of any sound solution should be, be it on board or discrete, audio quality.

Another thing to have in mind: many people underestimate how much of a difference a good set of speakers or headphones does. In most cases a really good pair of headphones paired with a mediocre sound card will produce much better results than a very good soundcard paired with crappy headphones.

I'm aware that headphones / speakers are more important, thanks for pointing out. I have something that's supposed to be decent for once, Beyerdynamic MMX 330 Pro, a bit pricey for headphones without extras. While I detect difference between both onboard audio that I have (on ASUS M3N78) and dedicated sound card or combination of old/new headphones/sound card, I can't say it's a very big difference, more on the mild side. Clarity is still in favor of more expensive gear. I was comparing listening to some music tracks stored in high quality FLAC files.

Someone here mentions that old Audigy 2 sounds better than Rx, that the latter sounds weak.

https://old.reddit.com/r/SoundBlasterOfficial … a_disappointed/

There is a saying "Don't believe everything you read on the internet", but with sound, it's especially like everyone lives in their own world.

X-Fi MB3, yeah, it's the point that it works with any sound card. Although it looks like it can't deal with applications that support outputting multi-channel sound if real sound card only supports stereo (eg. laptops) unless there was an update that I'm not aware of. In that case, you can't choose more than stereo on X-Fi MB3 either. That software was retired, can't buy it anymore and even if you bought it, can't activate it by usual means anymore.

You search for opinions, you see the one you posted and then you see that one: https://www.reddit.com/r/SoundBlasterOfficial … _the_audigy_rx/. So who's right? Probably both i would say. When it comes to computer sound there are many factors in play than can make the same product a very good option for one and bad for the other. The quality of speakers or headphones, the presence or not of interference from other pc components (Gpu especially), the individual settings than you choose in the soundcard's software etc. Speaking of the Rx for example, i stumbled upon a russian site, that among other things specializes in testing various sound related pc components and there was an extensive guide about the Audigy Rx. In it there was a part explaining that whenever some settings were enabled through the card's software such as Cmss 3d then even if you hadn't otherwise chosen some of the effects available (like environmental affects) automatically the reverb effect would be enabled and in order to disable it you should either customize or create a new effect, where you would turn the reverb slider all the way to zero and then save it and apply it. It wasn't something that detrimentally affected the sound, it was more like the sound effects in games and especially EAX effects, were more pronounced, maybe a bit overblown and you were missing some clarity, but after doing this everything got better. Another thing is that a sound card can be really good at one thing and mediocre at another. You might have a sound card that has a very good dedicated headphone amp, but at the same time is not that good in driving a multi speaker configuration.