Originally posted by: zephyrprime
Well, it's definitely true that MS kicked drivers out of kernal space and mostly into user space. This is actually kind of a throw back to older versions of NT.
Originally posted by: her34
or it's a good thing since msft is basically killing eax and allowing an open standard like openAL to flourish.
a hardware maker like creative controlling the api ruined the sound market
Originally posted by: 0roo0roo
Originally posted by: her34
or it's a good thing since msft is basically killing eax and allowing an open standard like openAL to flourish.
a hardware maker like creative controlling the api ruined the sound market
If anything, this hurts gamers, hurts Creative, and really only helps the guys selling low-end/integrated solutions. Now they don't even have to write drivers to offload audio processing like they currently do, Microsoft is doing it for them. All they need to do is supply a DAC, and by the virtue of Vista doing all the heavy lifting, they can fill a whole bunch of checkboxes on OEM product sheets.Originally posted by: Auric
Originally posted by: 0roo0roo
Originally posted by: her34
or it's a good thing since msft is basically killing eax and allowing an open standard like openAL to flourish.
a hardware maker like creative controlling the api ruined the sound market
Sophistry. Creative does not control DS3D (the API), Microsoft does. EAX is merely an enchancement which works with both DS3D and OpenAL. So killing off HWA DS3D is a blessing to Creative as they are the sole provider of OpenAL gaming cards for the time being. Indeed, some claim Creative controls OpenAL but certainly as an early and leading supporter they have more influence than they did over DS3D.
Don't be blinded by irrational hatred of Creative. If looking for some entity to blame for lackluster choice the logical culprits are the inept competition. Ask C-Media and its customers why they fail to support OpenAL at such a late date since major released titles have used the API for two years and obviously been in development for several years previous. Moreover, it has been casual public knowledge for at least six months that Microsoft's forthcoming OS will require OpenAL for any acceleration so the industry must have known for a long time or at least been aware of the possibility even if it had not been confirmed.
Originally posted by: ViRGE
If anything, this hurts gamers, hurts Creative, and really only helps the guys selling low-end/integrated solutions. Now they don't even have to write drivers to offload audio processing like they currently do, Microsoft is doing it for them. All they need to do is supply a DAC, and by the virtue of Vista doing all the heavy lifting, they can fill a whole bunch of checkboxes on OEM product sheets.
