When is OpenAL going to catch up with EAX?

[TestKing123]

I beg to differ.
I havn't seen any game with better 3D sound than BF2.

You be so kind as to link me to a game that matches it's 3D sound?

Then we can talk about what is "bloated" afterwards...

Why don't you be technically specific rather than feign with subjective opinions?

There's no need for EAX today. All audio and environmental effects can be implemented in game developer's native audio engine and packed into a bitstream to be processed by end user hardware. Some developers will do environmental effects, some won't. Frankly I've noticed most recent games do in fact include some kind of environmental effects, the best for me was playing Metro 2033 in the dark in an 8 channel setup on a bigscreen HDTV in 3D.

NOTHING beats lossless HD audio going to a high end receiver and surround setup. Not your 7.1 SB analogue speakers, not your dedicated SB soundcard. Of course, if you were an audiophile, you'd all ready know this. (And there is no better gaming experience than gaming in 3D to go along with it in my opinion).

 

[Lonbjerg]

Why don't you be technically specific rather than feign with subjective opinions?

There's no need for EAX today. All audio and environmental effects can be implemented in game developer's native audio engine and packed into a bitstream to be processed by end user hardware. Some developers will do environmental effects, some won't. Frankly I've noticed most recent games do in fact include some kind of environmental effects, the best for me was playing Metro 2033 in the dark in an 8 channel setup on a bigscreen HDTV in 3D.

NOTHING beats lossless HD audio going to a high end receiver and surround setup. Not your 7.1 SB analogue speakers, not your dedicated SB soundcard. Of course, if you were an audiophile, you'd all ready know this. (And there is no better gaming experience than gaming in 3D to go along with it in my opinion).

So you are one of the people confusing 7.1 sound with enviromental effects...gotcha.

Wake me up when you find a game with better sound than an EAX game...otherwise I have no time for you ignorance.

 

[TestKing123]

So you are one of the people confusing 7.1 sound with enviromental effects...gotcha.

Wake me up when you find a game with better sound than an EAX game...otherwise I have no time for you ignorance.

Uhhmm no. Try rereading my posts.

 

[Absolution75]

I can't believe anyone would actually want to use a creative product again.

They are likely the sole reason why the audio stack in vista/7 was moved from kernel level to user level. Their support for drivers is terrible - truth be told, that company should just go out of business rather than slowly die out.



As a developer though, there is no reason to use EAX extensions through OpenAL because there is hardly anyone with fully EAX 3.0+ compliant hardware. Creative is a huge bully with EAX and won't let any software codecs license it. They thought it would drive sales of their sound cards up, but I beg to say that it does the opposite since no games support EAX now. Who needs a dedicated soundcard besides the niche audiophile group.

 

[Maximilian]

When is OpenAL going to catch up with EAX?

Never, they're both dead in the water technologies. Not to knock hardware accelerated sound it used to be great but its had its day.

 

[skace]

I'd rather all my games come mute than I ever support Creative again. I'm willing to take that sacrifice.

 

[yhelothar]

I would disagree. Purchase come good cans and a quality sound card and the level of detail compared to onboard audio will blow you away. I felt similiar to you before I bought my current soundcard/headphone setup. Now I cringe when I hear onboad audio when listening to music/games someone else's setup.

Placebo much?
I have the Etymotic ER4S with a headphone amp, which is the closest thing to electrostatic without getting electrostatic. And I recently bought an Azuentech Prelude 7.1 with an upgraded opamp, and it sounds really really similar to my Intel HD audio that was onboard.
LOL I sent my neighbor, who is an audiophile to test it out. And when I was supposed to switch it to the onboard, I really just plugged it back into the auzentech to test if he would placebo this. And unsurprisingly, he told me the difference was night and day, the soundstage is so much wider, the timbre was so much more defined.
:biggrin:

I'll bet you anything that if you spent the money that you spent on that fancy soundcard on better headphones, $280 instead of $100 headphones, it'd sound a helluva lot better than what you have now. It's also possible that the difference you're hearing is because Xonar STX has a headphone amp and if your onboard was underpowered, it'd sound noticably thinner and weaker.

I know this because I also own the Beyerdynamic DT770, and Sony MDR-V6. The Etymotic ER4S blows both of them out of the water regardless what soundcard I plug them into.

Anyways, that wasn't even what I was arguing in that post you quoted too. I was arguing about game performance rather than music sound quality.

 

[skace]

I have an external DAC, Harbeth speakers and Sennheiser HD800 headphones. I'll never go back...

 

[yhelothar]

I have an Etymotic ER4S with headphone amp and I'll never go back.
In my experience, the difference between various brands and models of headphones are HUUUGE. Even between headphones that cost a lot. You'd think there'd be a reference sound, but there isn't. Each brand has their own sound signature.
But the difference between sources are minimal. A decently good DAC and a superb DAC might sound a little different. But the difference between two brands of headphones is HUUUGE.

 

[Anteaus]

I have an Etymotic ER4S with headphone amp and I'll never go back.
In my experience, the difference between various brands and models of headphones are HUUUGE. Even between headphones that cost a lot. You'd think there'd be a reference sound, but there isn't. Each brand has their own sound signature.
But the difference between sources are minimal. A decently good DAC and a superb DAC might sound a little different. But the difference between two brands of headphones is HUUUGE.

Agreed. That's why I stick with my Grado SR60s.

 

[motsm]

I never liked EAX effects anyways, the transitions from one room effect to the next was always unrealistic and disjointing.

You haven't heard the later builds of EAX then, because around version 4 I believe, they integrated transitions that cross fade into each other, and also integrated multi room effects. If a sound traveled through multiple environments, it would be filtered through both of them, and not just the current one you ere in, so combined with the cross fade, it was extremely natural going from one area to another.

Either way, as I said in my earlier post, in game environmental effects and EAX are both extremely outdated, and both need to move to ray tracing. Developers moving to nothing but CPU power just removes all potential for that to happen though, so game audio is always going to be relative crap.

 

[lamedude]

Half-Life using Aureal3D>all
I think EAX4 finally caught up to A3D but I've never played a game that uses it.

Never, they're both dead in the water technologies.

If you think of OpenAL as a cross platform audio API like OpenGL it serves its niche. If you only care about Windows there's little reason to OpenAL over Xaudio2 since non Creative users will just be using the OAL to DirectSound wrapper.

 

[Lonbjerg]

Half-Life using Aureal3D>all
I think EAX4 finally caught up to A3D but I've never played a game that uses it.

BF2 with EAX 5.0 HD on a X-Fi > everything else.

 

[Lonbjerg]

Uhhmm no. Try rereading my posts.

If it can be done...why dows all other games sound bad compared to eg. BF2 with EAX?

You show me a CPU sound game coming close...empty words don't rock my boat.

 

[SonicIce]

lol 3d audio was cool now its completely dead

hey remember physics cards? same thing

 

[Sureshot324]

Unfortunately there's not much incentive for anyone to invest in creating a really good software based competitor to EAX. Sound doesn't sell games, graphics do, and without any hardware to sell, what's the point?

 

[Sureshot324]

Anyone here play Dirt2/3?

The audio in that game is great, especially the environmental effects. It uses Rapture audio.

It sounds really bad to me. It sounds like I'm driving in a cave and it always sounds like there's another car near me even when there isn't. Maybe it's just a driver issue or my hardware setup.

 

[yhelothar]

Unfortunately there's not much incentive for anyone to invest in creating a really good software based competitor to EAX. Sound doesn't sell games, graphics do, and without any hardware to sell, what's the point?

Why did developers implement it before but not anymore? I remember there used to be many decent software competitors to EAX. Miles sound processing in GTA3, for example, was pretty kick butt.

Actually I think my question has already been answered.... consoles. Consoles need some of that environmental audio... seriously it doesn't take much CPU cycles anymore with CPUs being ridiculously powerful.

 

[Born2bwire]

I have an external DAC, Harbeth speakers and Sennheiser HD800 headphones. I'll never go back...

I love the HD800's but I have been meaning to go to the audio shop and do a long comparison with the Beyerdynamic T1's. But from an initial listening to them I don't think I will be blown away like I was afraid I might be.

Anyway, it seems that a lot of people seem to be confusing the issue here. This isn't about the sound quality but about the seemingly diminished support for 3D sound codecs and environmental audio. I use headphones these days but the 3D algorithms for headphones are basically nonexistant in the games I have been playing lately. I don't have the room or the sound insulation to do a proper surround sound setup. At least the nice thing about a Creative EAX or an old A3D card was that I wasn't relying on the developer to do a lot of work for me to experience the positional sounds.

As for the quality of the EAX experience, the transition of the environments needed a lot of work. But let's keep in mind that it's probably been several years since there's been any serious development on EAX. It would be nice to think that if an environmental sound thingy like EAX was fully reimplemented in games that it would be suitably more advanced than what we got when they used to do so.

I have an Etymotic ER4S with headphone amp and I'll never go back.
In my experience, the difference between various brands and models of headphones are HUUUGE. Even between headphones that cost a lot. You'd think there'd be a reference sound, but there isn't. Each brand has their own sound signature.
But the difference between sources are minimal. A decently good DAC and a superb DAC might sound a little different. But the difference between two brands of headphones is HUUUGE.

Yeah, I agree. Get a decent amp/DAC and you should be pretty much set even if you only spend a very modest amount. I think the primary problem with headphones is that they are near field sources. The headphones couple with your ears and head and everybody has slightly different heads and ears. It becomes a much more difficult problem in terms of measurement and desired frequency response. Each company seem to have different ideas on how they should measure and so forth.

 

[SonicIce]

yea who knows it may come back as a new thing like stereoscopic 3D

 

[Lonbjerg]

I love the HD800's but I have been meaning to go to the audio shop and do a long comparison with the Beyerdynamic T1's. But from an initial listening to them I don't think I will be blown away like I was afraid I might be.

Anyway, yeah it seems that a lot of people seem to be confusing the issue here. This isn't about the sound quality but about the seemingly diminished support for 3D sound codecs and environmental audio. I use headphones these days but the 3D algorithms for headphones are basically nonexistant in the games I have been playing lately. I don't have the room or the sound insulation to do a proper surround sound setup. At least the nice thing about a Creative EAX or an old A3D card was that I wasn't relying on the developer to do a lot of work for me to experience the positional sounds.

As for the quality of the EAX experience, yeah the transition of the environments needed a lot of work. But let's keep in mind that it's probably been several years since there's been any serious development on EAX. It would be nice to think that if an environmental sound thingy like EAX was fully reimplemented in games that it would be suitably more advanced than what we got when they used to do so.



Yeah, I agree. Get a decent amp/DAC and you should be pretty much set even if you only spend a very modest amount. I think the primary problem with headphones is that they are near field sources. The headphones couple with your ears and head and everybody has slightly different heads and ears. It becomes a much more difficult problem in terms of measurement and desired frequency response. Each company seem to have different ideas on how they should measure and so forth.

I don't have to suffer headphones, in my gaming area I have a X-Fi combined with 7.1 SB 750S speaker setup....it's gaming heaven..and YES 7.1 does a lot over 5.1...or 4.1...for gaming.
Allthough I seldom go over 60% volume....not needed

 

[Born2bwire]

I don't have to suffer headphones, in my gaming area I have a X-Fi combined with 7.1 SB 750S speaker setup....it's gaming heaven..and YES 7.1 does a lot over 5.1...or 4.1...for gaming.
Allthough I seldom go over 60% volume....not needed

I used to have a 5.1 surround setup. What I find interesting is the death of multimedia speaker systems. I can understand why they died though. The cost and competition against say a Home Theater in a Box is pretty strong. In fact, my last system was a Creative system (I can't remember the model offhand) and the satelites were actually satelite speakers from the Creative home theater line (actually not too bad). But I still miss the compactness of the multimedia systems. It's a bit difficult to get a home theater setup crammed into an office or desk situation.

...

Rereading my last post, I say "yeah" a lot... I better fix that.

 

[Lonbjerg]

I used to have a 5.1 surround setup. What I find interesting is the death of multimedia speaker systems. I can understand why they died though. The cost and competition against say a Home Theater in a Box is pretty strong. In fact, my last system was a Creative system (I can't remember the model offhand) and the satelites were actually satelite speakers from the Creative home theater line (actually not too bad). But I still miss the compactness of the multimedia systems. It's a bit difficult to get a home theater setup crammed into an office or desk situation.

...

Rereading my last post, I say "yeah" a lot... I better fix that.

I went from a 5.1 setup to a 7.1 and I am not going back again...ever!
Those 2 channels gives so much better 3D sound in games and movies.

This is the system I use for my PC:
http://www.guru3d.com/article/creative-labs-gigaworks-s750-71-speakers/

I have it setup and calibrated...I can't game without it...to much immersion lost.

 

[Born2bwire]

I went from a 5.1 setup to a 7.1 and I am not going back again...ever!
Those 2 channels gives so much better 3D sound in games and movies.

This is the system I use for my PC:
http://www.guru3d.com/article/creative-labs-gigaworks-s750-71-speakers/

I have it setup and calibrated...I can't game without it...to much immersion lost.

Ah, now I remember! I had the Megaworks 550 or 510D or something before, almost just the 5.1 version of the Gigaworks you have. My only complaint was that I could hear a low level white noise. I even returned and got a new system but the new one had the same white noise. Anyway, the Megaworks and Gigaworks are my last recollection of any major multimedia sets being produced. That had to have been over 6 or 7 years ago.

 

[Lonbjerg]

Ah, now I remember! I had the Megaworks 550 before, the 5.1 version of that basically. My only complaint was that I could hear a low level white noise. I even returned and got a new system but the new one had the same white noise. Anyway, the Megaworks and Gigaworks are my last recollection of any major multimedia sets being produced. That had to have been over 6 or 7 years ago.

I think my S750 is from 2005...and I havn't seen anything that would make me replace them yet...sadly.

I even got the "power button bug" on my s750 now.
If you flip the powerswitch of OFF..and back to ON again, the power LED will just be flashing....no matter how many time you do that (something about a broken capacitor)

I figured out a "fix" though.
Put powerswitch to ON
Gently (with 2 Fingers) move the powerswitch towards OFF...all of the sudden you will heard a *bzzztttthhzz* and the power comes on.

But the sound from those sats with their titanium tweets are just...freaking good...so I hope that sometime in the future I will get a 7.4 upgrade to my PC