MattRocks wrote on Today, 13:30:

Doom3 has its own software sound engine for effects. The sound engine does not rely on any hardware for audio effects.

This is true for the retail release, but I'm not sure if it still applies after EAX support was added in patch 1.3.

Per Creative's patch notes Doom 3 uses fully hardware based 3D (sound) mixing. Now, I'm no programmer, and I can't look at the source code to confirm this, but that's what Creative officially stated back in the day.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on Today, 13:43:

MattRocks wrote on Today, 13:30:

Doom3 has its own software sound engine for effects. The sound engine does not rely on any hardware for audio effects.

This is true for the retail release, but I'm not sure if it still applies after EAX support was added in patch 1.3.

Per Creative's patch notes Doom 3 uses fully hardware based 3D (sound) mixing. Now, I'm no programmer, and I can't look at the source code to confirm this, but that's what Creative officially stated back in the day.

Creative Labs were really very good at marketing, and a lot of strong business lessons can be learned from how they positioned themselves and made their products aspirational.

Patch 1.3 does not change the audio engine - what is adds is EAX reverb after mixing the audio.

Id could have trivially applied more reverb if that is the effect they were aiming for, so it's not an Id design - it's a Creative Labs marketing intervention.

After Patch 1.3 is applied, it can be said Doom3 supports EAX but it's not actual EAX processing. It's more like a post-process add-on effect chosen by users of EAX cards, not by the game studio.

Before patching, EAX reverb is set (in control panel) and applies globally. After patching, EAX reverb is set by Doom3 and applied to various Doom3 scenes.

But, another lesson learned: If you divide the Windows community into "have" and "have-not" then you'd piss off Windows developers and they will disable your hardware 😉

MattRocks wrote on Today, 14:04:

Id could have trivially applied more reverb if that is the effect they were aiming for, so it's not an Id design - it's a Creative Labs marketing intervention.

For what it's worth, in those same patch notes Creative states that the RoE expansion maps would be designed with EAX in mind. And having played it a few years back, I would say that their statement has some merit.

On a similar note, after having completed OG Doom 3 and its expansion on an X-Fi Titanium hooked up to 5.1 speakers, I then fired up the BFG Edition to try its "Lost Mission" bonus campaign. With that same hardware setup, the BFG Edition (which doesn't support EAX) sounded flat and lifeless to my ears. Its positional audio was also far less precise than OG Doom 3 with EAX. While this is purely anecdotal, it is what I've experienced on my hardware. Creative also states that the Doom 3 software mixer tops out at 5.1 surround, while their OpenAL mixer can go up to 7.1, but I had no way of testing that.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on Today, 15:18:

MattRocks wrote on Today, 14:04:

Id could have trivially applied more reverb if that is the effect they were aiming for, so it's not an Id design - it's a Creative Labs marketing intervention.

For what it's worth, in those same patch notes Creative states that the RoE expansion maps would be designed with EAX in mind. And having played it a few years back, I would say that their statement has some merit.

On a similar note, after having completed OG Doom 3 and its expansion on an X-Fi Titanium hooked up to 5.1 speakers, I then fired up the BFG Edition to try its "Lost Mission" bonus campaign. With that same hardware setup, the BFG Edition (which doesn't support EAX) sounded flat and lifeless to my ears. Its positional audio was also far less precise than OG Doom 3 with EAX. While this is purely anecdotal, it is what I've experienced on my hardware. Creative also states that the Doom 3 software mixer tops out at 5.1 surround, while their OpenAL mixer can go up to 7.1, but I had no way of testing that.

I also remember some Unreal maps released by Creative Labs, and the difference is that nobody played those. There’s a lesson in those Unreal maps: people were buying video games first, and audio experiences second. Game studios understood this and didn’t want audio that distracted from their core selling points.

BFG sounds flatter than OG because the Doom 3 developers were doubling down on what actually sold games (faster pacing, brighter visuals, and less audio distraction). This mattered even more at the time of BFG's release because dominant platforms by then were consoles, laptops, and smaller fixed-format systems that didn’t have replaceable sound cards or enthusiast audio setups.

I’m not against EAX; I’m against looking for EAX where it was never intended to be a defining feature. Neither OG nor BFG are good demonstrators of EAX.

MattRocks wrote on Today, 15:56:

BFG sounds flatter than OG because the Doom 3 developers were doubling down on what actually sold games (faster pacing, brighter visuals, and less audio distraction). This mattered even more at the time of BFG's release because dominant platforms by then were consoles, laptops, and smaller fixed-format systems that didn’t have replaceable sound cards or enthusiast audio setups.

Out of curiosity, I just fired up OG Doom 3 on my WinXP machine, with the aforementioned X-Fi Titanium and a 5.1 surround speaker setup. When EAX is turned off, positional audio is much less precise, even in the original version of the game. So no, this isn't specific to the BFG Edition.

With EAX turned on, when starting a new game and talking to one of the NPCs at the launchpad, I (mostly) hear their voice from the front center speaker, if I'm facing them directly. But if I turn around and start walking away from them, then their voice shifts to the rear speakers, and gradually gets quieter as I move further away. With EAX off, this doesn't happen, and the NPC voice always comes from the left/right speakers. I also checked the console, and the OpenAL mixer isn't used if EAX is disabled, so the inferior results definitively come from the game's own software mixer. This reminds me of the instances when I was playing through the campaign with EAX on, and I could literally hear an enemy spawning behind me (as they do in this game) on my rear speakers, which allowed me to react instantly. You don't get that level of precision with EAX off.

EDIT - I just googled this, and it turns out you need to manually add seta s_numberOfSpeakers "6" to DoomConfig.cfg if you want to use 5.1 speakers with the software mixer. In contrast, the OpenAL mixer seems to automatically detect your speaker setup based on Windows sound settings. After editing the speaker number manually, I do get the NPC voice from the front center and rear speakers with the software mixer, but the positioning is still not as precise as with the OpenAL mixer, and the voice doesn't fade as seamlessly when I move further away. So turning EAX on does provide some benefits here.

MattRocks wrote on Today, 15:56:

I’m not against EAX; I’m against looking for EAX where it was never intended to be a defining feature. Neither OG nor BFG are good demonstrators of EAX.

While I do agree that there are better games to showcase EAX, I personally like its implementation in Doom 3. At the very least, it improves positonal audio, as noted above. Though I will acknowledge that the added reverb/occlusion might not be to everyone's taste, and comes down to personal preference.