C0deHunter wrote on 2026-03-19, 06:05:

If I get an OEM version of the X-Fi Titanium (with 16MB X-RAM), which features would I miss compared to the Fatal1ty version?

Dolby Digital encoding might not work on some OEM X-Fi cards, if that matters to you. Otherwise, there shouldn't be much difference.

C0deHunter wrote on 2026-03-19, 06:05:

I am planning to play Prey, Quake 4, Doom 3, Battlefield 2, etc.

Those games make good use of X-RAM, and can store some audio files there for faster access, but that won't impact your listening experience. X-RAM was supposed to improve performance back in the day, when single-core CPUs were starting to struggle with demanding games and low-end mechanical hard drives made asset loading slow. But how much that helped is debatable. If you use a Core2 CPU or better in your WinXP rig, as well as an SSD, it likely won't matter.

AndreaColombo86 wrote on 2026-03-09, 22:46:

Would be nice to know for Mass Effect and Gears of War as well, if you have them handy 😀

I just got the original Mass Effect on the Steam spring sale. Here's the game running under Win10:

In this screenshot, it's using 127-10=117 simultaneous hardware voices. It also utilizes all of the card's X-RAM. Surround sound also works fine on my 5.1 speakers.

I did have to make some config adjustments to achieve that, as the game defaults to using only 64 voices initially. To fix that, I edited BIOEngine.ini and first changed the DeviceName from "Generic Hardware" to "SB X-Fi Audio [0001]" which is the OpenAL name of the X-Fi card on my system. After that, I set MaxChannels=128 and TotalAvailableChannels=128 (both were originally 64). Lastly, I set UseEffectsProcessing=True. Here's how the relevant section of BIOEngine.ini looks after those edits:

1[ISACTAudio.ISACTAudioDevice]
2MaxChannels=128
3TimeBetweenHWUpdates=15.000000
4MinOggVorbisDurationGame=20
5MinOggVorbisDurationEditor=4
6TotalAvailableChannels=128
7DeviceName=SB X-Fi Audio [0001]
8ReserveChannels=2
9UseEffectsProcessing=True

BTW, Mass Effect is using something called ISACT, which seems to be some sort of audio middleware. So it's not a pure OpenAL implementation as seen in Battlefield 2 or Quake 4. On an interesting note, Mass Effect enabled Hardware Audio under Win10 by default, even before I made any of the aforementioned edits to the ini file.

Lastly, here's an excerpt from page 3 of the Mass Effect manual:

Mass Effect Manual wrote:

Creative’s Sound Blaster® X-Fi™ sound card is an EAX® ADVANCED HD™- capable audio solution that guarantees the best audio experience. Not only does it deliver immersive EAX® ADVANCED HD™ effects with superior audio fidelity, it also gives you high voice counts—playing multiple sounds simultaneously—and ultra-fast 3D performance. The sound effects in Mass Effect are enhanced with EAX® ADVANCED HD™ environmental audio to give you the ultimate audio experience on supported hardware. To experience the audio of Mass Effect at its best, we recommend Sound Blaster® X-Fi™ series sound cards.

Thank you for that.

How can I find out the OpenAL name of my sound card?

AndreaColombo86 wrote on 2026-03-20, 11:12:

How can I find out the OpenAL name of my sound card?

Download Creative's ALCapsViewer from here. When you run that, your card will show up under OpenAL devices, and you can use the name listed there.

For convenience, you can also click File > Save Info to generate a text file, which makes copy/pasting the device name easier. One last thing to note, you need the 32-bit version of ALCapsViewer, not the 64-bit one. So be sure the file name is ALCapsViewer32.exe.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2026-03-20, 11:22:

Download Creative's ALCapsViewer from here. When you run that, your card will show up under OpenAL devices, and you can use the […]
Show full quote

AndreaColombo86 wrote on 2026-03-20, 11:12:

How can I find out the OpenAL name of my sound card?

Download Creative's ALCapsViewer from here. When you run that, your card will show up under OpenAL devices, and you can use the name listed there.

The attachment ALCapsViewer32.png is no longer available

For convenience, you can also click File > Save Info to generate a text file, which makes copy/pasting the device name easier. One last thing to note, you need the 32-bit version of ALCapsViewer, not the 64-bit one. So be sure the file name is ALCapsViewer32.exe.

You can also copy the driver's name directly from my OpenAL test program:
download/file.php?id=237957

Falcosoft wrote on 2026-03-20, 12:42:

You can also copy the driver's name directly from my OpenAL test program:

Nice! I forgot that field was interactive.

Final note, be sure to enter the device name exactly as shown by these utilities. Missing a single letter or even a space can cause problems. That's why I recommend copy/pasting the text into the BIOEngine.ini file.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2026-03-20, 10:23:

After that, I set MaxChannels=128 and TotalAvailableChannels=128 (both were originally 64).

After playing the game a bit more, I think the developers may have intentionally limited the number of channels to 64.

When I set the channel number to 128, I experienced a few crashes during more intense firefights that occur a bit later in the first mission. Reverting to 64 channels fixed that. While Unreal Engine 3 (which the game is based on) and the X-Fi card are capable of using more than that, it's possible that Mass Effect specifically has some issues with playing so many sounds at once.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2026-03-19, 06:24:

Dolby Digital encoding might not work on some OEM X-Fi cards, if that matters to you. Otherwise, there shouldn't be much differe […]
Show full quote

C0deHunter wrote on 2026-03-19, 06:05:

If I get an OEM version of the X-Fi Titanium (with 16MB X-RAM), which features would I miss compared to the Fatal1ty version?

Dolby Digital encoding might not work on some OEM X-Fi cards, if that matters to you. Otherwise, there shouldn't be much difference.

C0deHunter wrote on 2026-03-19, 06:05:

I am planning to play Prey, Quake 4, Doom 3, Battlefield 2, etc.

Those games make good use of X-RAM, and can store some audio files there for faster access, but that won't impact your listening experience. X-RAM was supposed to improve performance back in the day, when single-core CPUs were starting to struggle with demanding games and low-end mechanical hard drives made asset loading slow. But how much that helped is debatable. If you use a Core2 CPU or better in your WinXP rig, as well as an SSD, it likely won't matter.

I am not using Dolby Digital on this rig, so it's not an issue! Yes indeed I am running my XP system on a SSD with a Core2 CPU or better!

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2026-03-20, 10:23:

BTW, Mass Effect is using something called ISACT, which seems to be some sort of audio middleware. So it's not a pure OpenAL implementation as seen in Battlefield 2 or Quake 4.

Thanks for reminding me about Creative's ISACT.
I've been looking for it for a long time and now I've found it!

ISACT.exe v1.64
it includes:
- ISACT Production Studio (IPS) authoring tool
- ISACT SDK
- Docs, tutorials (IPS tutorial projects, IPS Tutorial.pdf, ISACT Programmers Reference.pdf)
- OpenAL runtime
- Windows Media Format 9 runtime (WMA support)

Note: IPS may crash at resolutions higher than 1080p. However, after launch you can set any resolution.

I haven't figured it out yet, but ISACT looks like an attempt to make full audio middleware based on OpenAL/EAX4.0.

Looks like Creative's press release regarding ISACT is still up on their website. From what I gather, it seems to have been developed by the Sensaura team (then owned by Creative) and was mainly used for multi-platform games that targeted consoles and the PC. Relevant bits:

Creative Labs wrote:

Creative also announced new enhancements to its Interactive Spatial Audio Composition Tools (ISACT) for PC and console game development. Originally announced at the 2003 Game Developers Conference, Creative ISACT introduced a revolutionary way for composers to create and render interactive 3D content. The ISACT Production Studio provides a powerful authoring tool for creating interactive, multi-channel, 3D spatialized music and sound effects for games and other multimedia applications. Creative has enhanced ISACT for the 2004 Game Developers Conference by adding additional run-time features and web page functionality.

The ISACT Production Studio places powerful audio creation capabilities in the hands of sound designers, enabling them to interact directly with audio to determine sound variables in a clean, professional and easy-to-use interface. The web plug-in delivers interactive sound to websites, creating an immersive web surfing experience for the end user. ISACT is slated for availability in May of this year, either as a stand-alone system for PC audio development, or as an add-on module with GameCODA Plus for cross-platform audio capability

Looking at some discussions online, it would appear that even the version of Mass Effect 1 which ships with the Legendary Edition still uses ISACT. I do have that in my Steam library, so I might test it as well.

Interesting, I haven't heard about Web support.

But to be fair, the Aureal and Flatland were the first to implement immersive audio on the web (1999).
The Flatland Rover ActiveX plug-in supported A3D 2.0 features and 3D hardware acceleration, sort of Minecraft of its time.

I just installed Unreal Gold on my XP machine with X-Fi card, but there is no hardware option in the sound tab.

C0deHunter wrote on 2026-04-02, 04:01:

I just installed Unreal Gold on my XP machine with X-Fi card, but there is no hardware option in the sound tab.

If I remember correctly, Unreal Gold doesn't expose 3D audio settings in its menu. You have to set them manually by editing the audio section of Unreal.ini like so:

1UseSpatial=True
2UseReverb=True
3Use3dHardware=True

After that, starting the game will create an Unreal.log file which should indicate that EAX support is active:

1Log: Bound to Galaxy.dll
2Init: Galaxy is using DirectSound
3Init: EAX 1.x sound hardware found!
4Init: Galaxy initialized

You are amazing! That did it! Thank You!

Those games make good use of X-RAM, and can store some audio files there for faster access, but that won't impact your listening experience. X-RAM was supposed to improve performance back in the day, when single-core CPUs were starting to struggle with demanding games and low-end mechanical hard drives made asset loading slow. But how much that helped is debatable. If you use a Core2 CPU or better in your WinXP rig, as well as an SSD, it likely won't matter.

So this 64MB of this 'extra' RAM exact as a cache/buffer for faster access, not EXTRA audio files then: I was always under the impression that I would be missing additional audio if I lacked this 64MB of RAM. What a relief!

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2026-03-20, 17:06:

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2026-03-20, 10:23:

After that, I set MaxChannels=128 and TotalAvailableChannels=128 (both were originally 64).

After playing the game a bit more, I think the developers may have intentionally limited the number of channels to 64.

When I set the channel number to 128, I experienced a few crashes during more intense firefights that occur a bit later in the first mission. Reverting to 64 channels fixed that. While Unreal Engine 3 (which the game is based on) and the X-Fi card are capable of using more than that, it's possible that Mass Effect specifically has some issues with playing so many sounds at once.

Thinking about this a little maybe you should try setting the max voices to 127 instead of 128 for Mass Effect since 128 voices actually are never available for any OpenAL games/apps under Windows.
If it still crashes you can try to experiment with other max voice values between 64 and 127 to find the sweet spot (e.g. 96).

Falcosoft wrote on 2026-04-10, 15:23:

Thinking about this a little maybe you should try setting the max voices to 127 instead of 128 for Mass Effect since 128 voices actually are never available for any OpenAL games/apps under Windows.
If it still crashes you can try to experiment with other max voice values between 64 and 127 to find the sweet spot (e.g. 96).

I don't have a lot of time to dive deeper into this right now, but maybe someone else can test it out.

But I did try something else back then. To ensure that this isn't some driver or Win10 related issue, I installed the retail version of Mass Effect under WinXP, where I was using the known good 2.17.0008 driver. And sure enough, the same issue still occurred if the number of voices was manually increased from 64 to 128. On that note, the retail game installed under WinXP still defaults to 64 voices on an X-Fi card.

sharangad wrote on 2025-08-03, 19:17:

Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay
https://youtu.be/_Wc6HJj_e5M

The EAX effects, if they're working aren't all that pronounced.

I know that they do work in some areas (Security Research levels, for example). You can confirm EAX is doing something by slapping any random surface with a gun/rifle butt and listening for the reverb decay. The game doesn’t appear to have a super-high wet gain for the reverb by default, though.

While working on the Vogons wiki EAX page, I've been reading portions of Creative's EAX SDK, and there are many more use cases for it beside reverb. A talented sound designer could do quite a bit with the functionality offered by EAX 3.0 and higher. So the lack of strong reverb isn't necessarily the sign of a poor EAX implementation.

New features like Environment Morphing/Filtering/Reflections/Occlusion made it possible for developers to utilize EAX in more subtle ways. Among other things, it could be used to simulate sound propagation more accurately. For instance, if you were in a room with an open window and a guard was patrolling outside, you would hear his footsteps more clearly if you were standing right next to that window. Stealth games like Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory and Thief: Deadly Shadows are good showpieces for the subtler uses of EAX. They do have strong reverb in appropriate locations, such as being inside a cave or cathedral, but in other places it's usually not that prominent.

A question about the Baldur’s Gate games.

Joseph, I think it was you who mentioned that Baldur’s Gate 2 outputs 5.1 surround sound when EAX is enabled. Do you know whether that is the case with the first Baldur’s Gate as well?

I wonder if I can get surround sound from it when playing the BG Trilogy mod (which essentially ports the first game to the second game’s engine.)

If the game is capable of 5.1 surround, then CMSS-3D should be able to virtualize that for headphones. Should I set Windows XP to 5.1 and the Creative control panel to headphones for optimal performance?