I don't remember any popping in old 3D era GTAs. Though going by my new Audigy Rx, Creative's stuff is mixed bag for me as far as general 3D audio and EAX effects quality is concerned. GTA: San Andreas sounds best to me with DSOAL + ReverbSA mod. Though you have to configure OpenAL Soft properly, you really want non-default HRTF filter for playing with headphones.

Yeah, not all games that support EAX sound equally good. Generally, higher EAX versions are better and more feature rich, but it also depends on how well the developers were able to utilize those features. This varies based on the genre as well, i.e. you're more likely to notice EAX in a first-person shooter than in a top down strategy game.

Broadly speaking, stealth titles, racing games and competitive shooters tend to make good use of EAX. Notable examples include Thief: Deadly Shadows, Colin McRae: Dirt and Battlefield 2.

UCyborg wrote on Yesterday, 10:48:

I don't remember any popping in old 3D era GTAs. Though going by my new Audigy Rx, Creative's stuff is mixed bag for me as far as general 3D audio and EAX effects quality is concerned. GTA: San Andreas sounds best to me with DSOAL + ReverbSA mod. Though you have to configure OpenAL Soft properly, you really want non-default HRTF filter for playing with headphones.

Yeah, maybe it's my version, wich is a 1.0 patch with some mods like skygfx. Not many more works on windows xp.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on Yesterday, 11:23:

Yeah, not all games that support EAX sound equally good. Generally, higher EAX versions are better and more feature rich, but it also depends on how well the developers were able to utilize those features. This varies based on the genre as well, i.e. you're more likely to notice EAX in a first-person shooter than in a top down strategy game.

Broadly speaking, stealth titles, racing games and competitive shooters tend to make good use of EAX. Notable examples include Thief: Deadly Shadows, Colin McRae: Dirt and Battlefield 2.

Dirt and Grid are alredy on my list!

Uninstalling old creative drivers *seemed* to fix the issue.

Do that from device manager on windows.
On windows 11 , I clicked the option the option here:

Then reboot and reinstall the drivers from Creative App.
I have also disabled my onboard audio on the motherboard.

igloo9697 wrote on Yesterday, 23:52:

Uninstalling old creative drivers *seemed* to fix the issue. […]
Show full quote

Uninstalling old creative drivers *seemed* to fix the issue.

Do that from device manager on windows.
On windows 11 , I clicked the option the option here:

Then reboot and reinstall the drivers from Creative App.
I have also disabled my onboard audio on the motherboard.

GUYS
I'm on WINDOWS XP.
I've said it in the main post and several times in the thread.

But yeah, changing drivers fixed most of the issues. The remaining ones are games related issues: Pops and cracking sounds can be heard in GTA San Andreas even with the onboard audio.

I used to have Radeon HD 4890 in this PC and remember having performance issues with it on XP, quite unexpected with once top of the line card. Maybe the driver is lagging causing audio issues?

UCyborg wrote on Today, 14:28:

I used to have Radeon HD 4890 in this PC and remember having performance issues with it on XP, quite unexpected with once top of the line card. Maybe the driver is lagging causing audio issues?

Yeah, I had a 4850 before this, and now a 6970. They had performance issues in XP with latest video drivers... Fixed by using older drivers before GCN cards existed. It was proved, here on vogons, that drivers launched with GCN cards would cripple performances on Terascale cards.

But no, the main issue was the unofficial Audio driver + GTA San Andreas having not great audio to begin with. Any other games appears to be sounding good, but I have yet to install the drivers and softwares I was suggested by Joseph_Joestar, I could try do them this evening, since yesterday I was busy getting a new CRT TV and trying to make it work my old PS2 on it with FreeMCboot.

Mondodimotori wrote on 43 minutes ago:

Any other games appears to be sounding good, but I have yet to install the drivers and softwares I was suggested by Joseph_Joestar, I could try do them this evening

If you do end up reinstalling the drivers, you may also want to look at this thread of mine: Guide: Installing Windows XP drivers on PCIe X-Fi Titanium sound cards (version 1.2)

It was written for PCIe X-Fi cards, but everything from section 4 onward is also applicable to PCI models, like the one you have. Basically, those are tips on how to properly configure the card for gaming under WinXP.