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The **OFFICIAL** Auzentech X-Meridian Thread

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This X-Meridian is a beast. I got mine about a week ago. No problems with the install, decoding, encoding, digital, analog, etc; no problems with anything. It bloody rocks.

And that includes gaming. You gamers who think EAX is the be all end all, I fell in love with Dolby Digital Live! back in the nForce2 chipset days. Try DD Live 5.1 for true surround and leave the fake surround of EAX behind forever.
 
Originally posted by: Joffi
And that includes gaming. You gamers who think EAX is the be all end all, I fell in love with Dolby Digital Live! back in the nForce2 chipset days. Try DD Live 5.1 for true surround and leave the fake surround of EAX behind forever.
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All DD Live 5.1 is doing is compressing the EAX/DirectSound3D into a 640 Kilobit/s digital stream that can be transferred over a single cable. If EAX is "fake surround", than you're also getting fake surround with DD Live.
 
No... and yes. Using the sorround/5.1/DD directsound driver settings in most games from '02 on is seperate from EAX; their is always a seperate EAX activation setting. You get the multichannel DD mix compressed and streamed through the single cable, yes, but it is not EAX, if you do not turn on EAX. It is two seperate animals.
 
Originally posted by: Joffi
No... and yes. Using the sorround/5.1/DD directsound driver settings in most games from '02 on is seperate from EAX; their is always a seperate EAX activation setting. You get the multichannel DD mix compressed and streamed through the single cable, yes, but it is not EAX, if you do not turn on EAX. It is two seperate animals.
Click to expand...

It's exactly the same animal...

Well, not exactly the same. The DD Live stream is inferior because of its lossy compression.
 
Originally posted by: Accord99
Originally posted by: Joffi
No... and yes. Using the sorround/5.1/DD directsound driver settings in most games from '02 on is seperate from EAX; their is always a seperate EAX activation setting. You get the multichannel DD mix compressed and streamed through the single cable, yes, but it is not EAX, if you do not turn on EAX. It is two seperate animals.
Click to expand...

It's exactly the same animal...

Well, not exactly the same. The DD Live stream is inferior because of its lossy compression.
Click to expand...

How are you saying that EAX and DDLive are the exact same thing???
 
Originally posted by: PurdueRy
How are you saying that EAX and DDLive are the exact same thing???
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Because DD Live is generated from whatever game audio you have. If you enable EAX in the game, then DD Live will have EAX.
 
I'm sure this card is awesome considering my Auzentech X-Plosion DTS has been nothing but wonderful since I purchased it when it first came out back around February. Totally awesome card with zero problems. A++
 
Originally posted by: Accord99
Originally posted by: PurdueRy
How are you saying that EAX and DDLive are the exact same thing???
Click to expand...
Because DD Live is generated from whatever game audio you have. If you enable EAX in the game, then DD Live will have EAX.
Click to expand...

I don't see how that makes them one in the same...but ok
 
Originally posted by: PurdueRy
I don't see how that makes them one in the same...but ok
Click to expand...
So how are they different? How is DD Live more true surround than DirectSound3D/EAX if the DirectSound3D/EAX information is the input for the DD Live compression?
 
Originally posted by: Accord99
Originally posted by: PurdueRy
I don't see how that makes them one in the same...but ok
Click to expand...
So how are they different? How is DD Live more true surround than DirectSound3D/EAX if the DirectSound3D/EAX information is the input for the DD Live compression?
Click to expand...

I didn't say that DDlive was more "true" surround sound as you put it.

They are completely different however. EAX is Creative's proprietary method of adding in the effects of occlusions, refractions, reflections and other such effects that are influenced by distance, material properties, and acoustics.

DDlive is a method for encoding in real time to enable 5.1 output on a single optical/digital coax line. It has nothing to do with adding in the effects of the environment. It only serves to make connection easier for those who have a home theater receiver that they wish to use for decoding.

Creative's cards have up to EAX5 I believe. However, they do not do DDlive nor do they have any capability to to encode in any matter to a digital connection.

This card only has EAX2 due to licensing restrictions put in place by Creative. However it does encode into DTS or DD on a digital connection.
 
Originally posted by: PurdueRy
I didn't say that DDlive was more "true" surround sound as you put it.

They are completely different however. EAX is Creative's proprietary method of adding in the effects of occlusions, refractions, reflections and other such effects that are influenced by distance, material properties, and acoustics.

DDlive is a method for encoding in real time to enable 5.1 output on a single optical/digital coax line. It has nothing to do with adding in the effects of the environment. It only serves to make connection easier for those who have a home theater receiver that they wish to use for decoding.
Click to expand...
Exactly. Now if only people like Joffi understood what DD Live really is, it's a compression method, not an alternative to EAX/DirectSound3D/OpenAL.

 
OK, SO what is the bit depth and frequncy of EAX sounds? what like 16 bit and possibly 48Khz? So if EAX sound effects were sent to the DDL enocder it techically wouldn't be compressing anything would it? I could be wrong here. Just a questions aren't most games that have EAX stereo or surround? What I mean is even with surround speakers and EAX enabled alot of games only send audio to the left and right channels correct? Only certain games are surroud enabled correct?
 
i believe very few, if any, games have 5.1 channels (or whatever) natively. anything putting out 5 channels is synthesizing the center and surrounds, and reprocessing the left and right.
 
Yeah I figured that out. It accepts PCM but DOes AC3 pass through. SO youmean all games with EAX 2,3,4 &5 are just stereo? I mean the EAX effects are stereo?
 
That makes sense. NO, I am speaking of other cards. I assumed EAX 3,4 &5 were surround sound effects. But I guess most people use CMSS 3d to upmix in the card anyway. So EAX effects are just stereo...is this correct? does anybody else want to pipe in about EAX and multi channel? is EAX effects stereo or surround?
 
Games that support DirectSound3D/OpenAL don't have a concept of discrete channels. That is done by the soundcard drivers. An Audigy 2 ZS or X-Fi can output 7 channels of discrete audio from almost all games supporting DirectSound3D or OpenAL.
 
true nut the base EAX effects are stereo..so all other mutlichannel effects are just Upmixs of the origial L & R channels..giving the illusion of Multi channel. I am not trying to change the subject I just need to know alittle bit more about EAX.
So the fcats remain that EAX itself is not multi channel....Back to the X-Meridian...
Thank you for your help guys, if anybody else has any further info for me please post it...
 
Originally posted by: The Boston Dangler
http://www.soundblaster.com/eax/

Nowhere on this site, nor it's subdirectories, is the word "multichannel".
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No, Creative substitutes the words 3D audio instead of multichannel. EAX is not stereo. Like Accord99 said, EAX does not produce audio channels, so it isn't really anything when viewed from that perspective. EAX is an extension of DirectSound3D, and now OpenAL. What it does is generate audio effects within a 3D space. The sound card drivers receive this information, and then determine which speakers receive which audio based on the speaker configuration you have. If you had 50 speakers and Creative made a soundcard capable of sending discrete audio to each, EAX could take advantage of that.

For a card that uses DDL, all it does is take the same EAX audio sound locations that a Creative card gets, and then compresses them into a DD compliant stream. With the exception, that current gen Creative cards use the much more advanced EAX HD 5.0 as opposed to the ancient EAX 2.0 that non-Creative cards support. DDL does not alter the audio or make it anymore "3D like." DDL is also limited to 5.1 channels, while most of the recent Creative cards support 6.1 or higher through analog. So, if you have system capable of taking advantage of it, Creative cards will also deliver more discrete surround channels than other cards. Anyone trying to claim that DDL cards produce more realistic gaming surround sound than Creative cards, is simply a snake oil salesman. A game running in DirectX 3 displayed on a digital flat panel will never look better than the game running in DirectX 9 on an analog unless something is seriously wrong with the setup, which would be the equivalent claim.
 
Originally posted by: Pariah
Originally posted by: The Boston Dangler
http://www.soundblaster.com/eax/

Nowhere on this site, nor it's subdirectories, is the word "multichannel".
Click to expand...

No, Creative substitutes the words 3D audio instead of multichannel. EAX is not stereo. Like Accord99 said, EAX does not produce audio channels, so it isn't really anything when viewed from that perspective. EAX is an extension of DirectSound3D, and now OpenAL. What it does is generate audio effects within a 3D space. The sound card drivers receive this information, and then determine which speakers receive which audio based on the speaker configuration you have. If you had 50 speakers and Creative made a soundcard capable of sending discrete audio to each, EAX could take advantage of that.

For a card that uses DDL, all it does is take the same EAX audio sound locations that a Creative card gets, and then compresses them into a DD compliant stream. With the exception, that current gen Creative cards use the much more advanced EAX HD 5.0 as opposed to the ancient EAX 2.0 that non-Creative cards support. DDL does not alter the audio or make it anymore "3D like." DDL is also limited to 5.1 channels, while most of the recent Creative cards support 6.1 or higher through analog. So, if you have system capable of taking advantage of it, Creative cards will also deliver more discrete surround channels than other cards. Anyone trying to claim that DDL cards produce more realistic gaming surround sound than Creative cards, is simply a snake oil salesman. A game running in DirectX 3 displayed on a digital flat panel will never look better than the game running in DirectX 9 on an analog unless something is seriously wrong with the setup, which would be the equivalent claim.
Click to expand...

4 surrounds+1 center+Xnumber of subs is all that is necessary for home users. 6.1, 7.1 are not needed and if you look into hardcore ht setups (~$20,000+) you will see that most use the 5.1 method (or possibly more subs).

if you talk to people in real ht stores (not bb or circuit city) they will tell you the same thing. so adding speakers really doesn't mean sh!t.
 
Thx for the info. I still haven't seen any info saying that EAX itself is multi channel, I mean besides opinions I know usually the Card supporting the EAX 2,3,4 or 5 standards is multi channel and most guys usually have CMSS enabled in one of it's flavor or CMSS for headphones. Just like info to support the claim...so in general a person using headphones with EAX enabled can be just as effective as a gamer with 5.1 surround and EAX enabled correct? Becasue all the info they want is basically in front of them....where a enemy is hiding etc? BTW a stereo system can use a Reverb algo and still be considered 3D audio....right? Just curious that's all...
 
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