When is OpenAL going to catch up with EAX?

[TestKing123]

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.

Then you need to get the wax out of your ears. And you still haven't provided a technical answer to my question like I asked for. Simply saying "BF2 with EAX sounds good" is weak attempt to argue subjectivity in favor of objectivity.

You need examples? How about Metro 2033? Witcher 2? Even good old Half Life 2, which progressed from EAX only to supporting 7.1 via OpenAL with environmental effects still intact.

I'm sorry you're still stuck with your Sound Blaster 7.1 speaker setup (an advertised 750 watt system with only 20 watts RMS for the satellites speakers lol) and can only get analogue sound quality. If EAX is keeping you anchored to your X-fi, then I feel even more sorry. HD Audio sounds so much crisper (granted it requires good end hardware), and I'm pretty sure there's some kind of alchemy wrapper for non creative cards if you insist on old lame environmental effects with old games.

 

[Anteaus]

Let's keep things on an even till. Creative had a bad few years, but let's not forget the decades of tech that they have spurned. MS wasn't the only company that suffered from Vista.

Considering that computer audio tech has been stagnant for years there really hasn't been a need for evolution. Games are still using the same lossy codecs for audio storage that have been available for many years. Because of this, there has been complacency in how audio is used in software.

However, the people here who trumpet HD audio are actually making the case for dedicated cards. As lossless audio takes hold the need to decode far higher bitrates will be necessary, and we aren't talking about the measely 6-8 channels that they use for movies. We are talking hundreds of channels, with applicable sound modifications Dedicated sound processing is not going away just as onboard video won't make dedicated video processing go away.

Sure, right now it doesn't take much to decode MP3 soundtracks of games that are on DVD sized media, but that doesn't mean it won't mean a new generation of PC audio requirements won't tilt that balance right back the other way.

I think we are just at a lazy time in audio.

 

[skace]

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

Suffer headphones is something someone with bad headphones would say. That is the reason I've always loved Sennheiser's open headphones. No band pain, no pressure build up, no headaches, I can wear them for 7 hours straight without an issue. Plus I get the added benefits of being able to block out all ambient noise except extremely loud things (like an alarm). For a single person listening to audio, nothing beats good headphones.

And Astroidea, those earplugs sound good, I'd possibly replace my Shure E4cs with them (maybe) but there is no way in hell I'd wear earplugs for 7 hours. That shit scares me. I like to wear those kinds of headphones when I'm at work or exercising, but only for limited periods of time.

I think the big problem with sound in games is that ultimately I tend to turn it off over time in favor of music. I'd much rather be listening to my own playlist. And the few times when I want to hear the sound, it is usually for competitive gaming, where all sorts of fancy environment sound effects aren't as useful as just being able to hear a guys footsteps clearly against dead silence or being able to hear your teammates voice clearly over vent.

Horror games benefit from really good sound, however.

 

[skace]

Let's keep things on an even till. Creative had a bad few years, but let's not forget the decades of tech that they have spurned. MS wasn't the only company that suffered from Vista.

Creative had many bad years. Unsupported products lacking drivers, drivers that were hideous when actually working and hardware that would instantly make a rock solid machine crash-prone. What creative did wrong wasn't have 1 bad release, it was hitting people with bad release after bad release, so when people got burnt twice in a row (like me, even with an extremely good turtle beach product in between to buffer the pain of the first burn) they eventually felt like fools for trusting Creative again.

Creative has never once tried to reclaim their userbase, they've never tried to resolve their issues and improve, they are completely content to sit on their big fat asses and sell EAX proprietary products to anyone who wants that functionality.

 

[Lonbjerg]

Then you need to get the wax out of your ears. And you still haven't provided a technical answer to my question like I asked for. Simply saying "BF2 with EAX sounds good" is weak attempt to argue subjectivity in favor of objectivity.

You need examples? How about Metro 2033? Witcher 2? Even good old Half Life 2, which progressed from EAX only to supporting 7.1 via OpenAL with environmental effects still intact.

I'm sorry you're still stuck with your Sound Blaster 7.1 speaker setup (an advertised 750 watt system with only 20 watts RMS for the satellites speakers lol) and can only get analogue sound quality. If EAX is keeping you anchored to your X-fi, then I feel even more sorry. HD Audio sounds so much crisper (granted it requires good end hardware), and I'm pretty sure there's some kind of alchemy wrapper for non creative cards if you insist on old lame environmental effects with old games.

Metro 2033's sound is no where near as good as the sound in BF2. sound is Half Life 2's sound no where near as good as the sound in BF2.
(Did you forget about the stu-stu-stu-stu-stuttering in HL2 at launch?!)

Witcher 2 is a console port right?

And you shouldn't joke about stuff, when you got the shite wrong.
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/multimedia/display/creative-gigaworks-s750.html

Satellite power 70W RMS per channel (70x7)

http://www.guru3d.com/article/creative-labs-gigaworks-s750-71-speakers/6

The internal BASH amp delivers 70 watts RMS to each of the satellites and 210 watts RMS to the subwoofer.

But let me guess...you think your 20KHz speaker are "HiFi"?

And to try and promote HD audio for gaming (we are talking both about sound and enviriomental effects) is a even bigger joke.

Have you ever tried a 7.1 system yourself...I have my doubts.

Come back when you have facts...not ignorance, okay?

 

[BFG10K]

Even good old Half Life 2, which progressed from EAX only to supporting 7.1 via OpenAL with environmental effects still intact.

I don't think HL2 or HL:S ever supported EAX or OpenAL. The original non-Source version of HL1 did, along with A3D.

 

[Born2bwire]

Metro 2033's sound is no where near as good as the sound in BF2. sound is Half Life 2's sound no where near as good as the sound in BF2.
(Did you forget about the stu-stu-stu-stu-stuttering in HL2 at launch?!)

Witcher 2 is a console port right?

And you shouldn't joke about stuff, when you got the shite wrong.
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/multimedia/display/creative-gigaworks-s750.html

Satellite power 70W RMS per channel (70x7)

http://www.guru3d.com/article/creative-labs-gigaworks-s750-71-speakers/6

The internal BASH amp delivers 70 watts RMS to each of the satellites and 210 watts RMS to the subwoofer.

But let me guess...you think your 20KHz speaker are "HiFi"?

And to try and promote HD audio for gaming (we are talking both about sound and enviriomental effects) is a even bigger joke.

Have you ever tried a 7.1 system yourself...I have my doubts.

Come back when you have facts...not ignorance, okay?

Just to clarify, the Megaworks and Gigaworks systems were literally cutdown versions of Cambridge Soundworks home theater packages. The satellites are the same that they used in their basic HT packages. You just get a cutdown subwoofer and amplifier instead of a discrete woofer and reciever. All in all it was a nice system but the problem was that it was just slightly cheaper than getting a full basic home theater setup (particularly since Cambridge Soundworks had HT packages that were practically identical). The Megaworks used the Newton MC50 and I think the Gigaworks used the Newton MC105 from the looks of it.

 

[Lonbjerg]

Just to clarify, the Megaworks and Gigaworks systems were literally cutdown versions of Cambridge Soundworks home theater packages. The satellites are the same that they used in their basic HT packages. You just get a cutdown subwoofer and amplifier instead of a discrete woofer and reciever. All in all it was a nice system but the problem was that it was just slightly cheaper than getting a full basic home theater setup (particularly since Cambridge Soundworks had HT packages that were practically identical). The Megaworks used the Newton MC50 and I think the Gigaworks used the Newton MC105 from the looks of it.

Newton MC105 have aluminum tweeters (22KHz), the ones I have have titanium tweesters (40KHz)

 

[darkswordsman17]

Yeah, audio in gaming really needs to step up. Its every bit as important as graphics, but its been an afterthought basically for ever. Doesn't help that audio in general is, even in audio industries (Loudness War for instance).

I was all for MS shaking up the audio stuff with Vista, but the problem is that they haven't done anything to improve it, and so we've ended up in actually a worse situation as they broke the only setup that was really doing much.

While integrated audio chips have gotten better, and yeah it is possible for there to be a stellar audio engine that runs on the CPU, it still would be better handled by dedicated audio hardware, or even a GPU actually.

Maybe we'll see that happen with the move to APUs, I hope so, but I'm skeptical. I'd expect physics (since its something people can literally see the improvements from) to likely be the more popular thing to do.

To really see computer audio change, I think we'll need to see one of two things. Audio processing DSP onboard (GPU) or on chip (CPU). Or, we need Microsoft (or possibly Apple) put a big emphasis on audio.

Right now, the best thing for PC gaming audio would be for Microsoft to buy all of Creative's patents on it, and then integrate them into DirectX.

Unfortunately, I don't really see any of that happening. There's a lot in the way, but the biggest hurdles is getting people to buy into audio. Most people view it as good enough and/or not terribly important. Plus, all the snake oil stuff in audio doesn't help, and has bred a disdain and distrust of many audio companies (that all too often is deserved).

Honestly, I think its actually the next big step for audio in general. Get away from channel encoding altogether. This way everything is processed spatially and then your hardware figures out how to get it to your ears based on the rest of your hardware (number of speakers, placement, etc). Then again, its really not that difficult to get mind-bogglingly good audio production out of just two channels (properly recorded audio actually has a lot of dimension and other aspects that really boost immersion).

I'm kinda losing my train of thoughts and rambling so I'll just stop there.

 

[TestKing123]

Metro 2033's sound is no where near as good as the sound in BF2. sound is Half Life 2's sound no where near as good as the sound in BF2.
(Did you forget about the stu-stu-stu-stu-stuttering in HL2 at launch?!)

Witcher 2 is a console port right?

Sorry, I disagree. I played BF2 with my old Audigy 4 and the best Creative 5.1 speaker package available at the time. That was an EAX HD showcase game with lots of audio channels and effects, which fits a fast paced game like that alot going on around you. I don't recall audio quality being "better" than anything in recent years, maybe your mind is just incapable of grasping the fact that a much slower placed game (like Metro 2033) can still have environmentally accurate sound without canned EAX effects from a multitude of different audio sources.

And you shouldn't joke about stuff, when you got the shite wrong.

Quite a lengthy defensive reaction from a Creative owner that needs to justify his/her purchase, as expected. What's funny is I get the feeling you believe a multimedia computer speaker system is somehow on par with an actual dedicated home theater sound system. Your very review even understands this shortcoming. You don't lol.

I game on a 46" LED Samsung 3DTV. Those Gigaworks speakers would be insufficient for my living room setup. And, like the review says, it lacks a digital input, the high frequencies are distorted, and the subwoofer resonates certain frequencies. So maybe for you this analogue setup might be good since you're behind a computer, but don't even think it's somehow comparable to to a proper HD home audio system. Just like how I left my Klipsch multimedia speakers behind and got myself a Yamaha HD 3D ready receiver and a set of 1000watt Pinnacle 7.1 speakers, you'd be smart enough to do something of the same when you switch.

But let me guess...you think your 20KHz speaker are "HiFi"?

And to try and promote HD audio for gaming (we are talking both about sound and enviriomental effects) is a even bigger joke.

Have you ever tried a 7.1 system yourself...I have my doubts.

Come back when you have facts...not ignorance, okay?

You have no idea what you're talking about do you? And you have the nerve to bring up ignorance? Remind me where you game again...in an office behind a computer with a sound blaster PC speaker setup. I game in the living room on a big screen 3dTV with a high end surround system. And you want to talk to me about audio quality? LOL!!!!!

Ignore EAX for a moment. Have you even heard HD audio? Anybody here that has heard or have an HD audio setup will tell you how much better it is than analogue. Let me guess, you're one of those dopes that argue component cable is just as good as HDMI? Now lets bring back EAX again. You'll only find EAX in older games. Current games can and often do use environmental effects in games, however its done natively instead of relying on EAX libraries which would only work on Creative and Creative licensed cards anyways. We're at a point where it's unnecessary, and it's not a matter of quality.

 

[TestKing123]

I don't think HL2 or HL:S ever supported EAX or OpenAL. The original non-Source version of HL1 did, along with A3D.

You're right, I just checked, it uses the Miles sound system. I do remember having to use Alchemy on Vista in order to get 3D sound, whereas it just worked on XP.

 

[motsm]

Ignore EAX for a moment. Have you even heard HD audio? Anybody here that has heard or have an HD audio setup will tell you how much better it is than analogue.

Going digital is not better than analog, that statement is completely wrong, it is simply different. If you go analog then your soundcard processes the audio, if you go digital your receiver will process the audio. It's just a matter of deciding weather your sound card or receiver has better components. So you can't simply say one is better than the other.

:Edit: I hope http://www.pinnaclespeakers.com/mb11700.html <these aren't what you were bragging about.

 

[Sureshot324]

Going digital is not better than analog, that statement is completely wrong, it is simply different. If you go analog then your soundcard processes the audio, if you go digital your receiver will process the audio. It's just a matter of deciding weather your sound card or receiver has better components. So you can't simply say one is better than the other.

:Edit: I hope http://www.pinnaclespeakers.com/mb11700.html <these aren't what you were bragging about.

Yeah, I gotta lol @ the people who think digital speakers are superior. With analog speakers, the DAC is in your sound card. With digital speakers, the DAC is in your speakers. That's the only difference. They function in exactly the same way.

If you have a crappy onboard soundcard, then digital speakers can be a good way of bypassing it, but if you have a good sound card or even good onboard sound, digital speakers are a waste of money because you're paying for redundant hardware (an extra DAC).

 

[Born2bwire]

Going digital is not better than analog, that statement is completely wrong, it is simply different. If you go analog then your soundcard processes the audio, if you go digital your receiver will process the audio. It's just a matter of deciding weather your sound card or receiver has better components. So you can't simply say one is better than the other.

:Edit: I hope http://www.pinnaclespeakers.com/mb11700.html <these aren't what you were bragging about.

The fact that he is talking about HD audio and games is enough to just ignore him.

 

[postmortemIA]

The fact that he is talking about HD audio and games is enough to just ignore him.

yup. back in day we had non-creative sound cards that did 5.1 or 7.1 and sounded like crap in games that supported EAX because they don't do environmental audio. The problem is that there's no standard that is good replacement for EAX. All we have now is some attempts in games to create their own game engines or license them from somebody else. Neither can't compete with years of work that Creative put in EAX.

Bioshock comes to mind as game with terrific sound effects - that is if you have Creative card. Most modern games that don't support EAX have "meh" sound effects.

 

[imaheadcase]

As for the onboard vs dedicated sound. A huge difference is noticeable in music, but its also subjective.

For instance if you have a few hundred songs you listen to over the course of a few years and like them a lot with onboard. Then take the plunge and shell out some cash for good headphones and soundcard +amp you will notice it sounding different (of course quality of those sounds means something to).

I've had people mention a song sounds different on my headphones than on the mp3 player they use simply because i got a better setup and they never listened to the song on anything but crappy speakers/headphones than came with computer/mp3 player they got.

 

[Lonbjerg]

As for the onboard vs dedicated sound. A huge difference is noticeable in music, but its also subjective.

For instance if you have a few hundred songs you listen to over the course of a few years and like them a lot with onboard. Then take the plunge and shell out some cash for good headphones and soundcard +amp you will notice it sounding different (of course quality of those sounds means something to).

I've had people mention a song sounds different on my headphones than on the mp3 player they use simply because i got a better setup and they never listened to the song on anything but crappy speakers/headphones than came with computer/mp3 player they got.

Dosn't all MP3's players suffer form "loudness wars"?

 

[yhelothar]

As for the onboard vs dedicated sound. A huge difference is noticeable in music, but its also subjective.

For instance if you have a few hundred songs you listen to over the course of a few years and like them a lot with onboard. Then take the plunge and shell out some cash for good headphones and soundcard +amp you will notice it sounding different (of course quality of those sounds means something to).

I've had people mention a song sounds different on my headphones than on the mp3 player they use simply because i got a better setup and they never listened to the song on anything but crappy speakers/headphones than came with computer/mp3 player they got.

The huge difference probably more has to do with your headphones vs their ibuds... and not very much so their mp3 player vs your soundcard.

Unless you had some audio effect like EAX or crystallizer turned on your soundcard the difference should not be much if at all.

 

[TestKing123]

Going digital is not better than analog, that statement is completely wrong, it is simply different. If you go analog then your soundcard processes the audio, if you go digital your receiver will process the audio. It's just a matter of deciding weather your sound card or receiver has better components. So you can't simply say one is better than the other.

:Edit: I hope http://www.pinnaclespeakers.com/mb11700.html <these aren't what you were bragging about.

Precisely the point. I'm sure creative DAC's are much better than your $50 Walmart receiver, but compare it to a high end receiver that processes HDMI audio then the difference is quite dramatic. (No, those aren't the speakers I have).

Yeah, I gotta lol @ the people who think digital speakers are superior. With analog speakers, the DAC is in your sound card. With digital speakers, the DAC is in your speakers. That's the only difference. They function in exactly the same way.

If you have a crappy onboard soundcard, then digital speakers can be a good way of bypassing it, but if you have a good sound card or even good onboard sound, digital speakers are a waste of money because you're paying for redundant hardware (an extra DAC).

The DAC is in the receiver if you use HDMI out. A high end receiver is better than any soundcard DAC out there. If you feel different, please prove me otherwise.

 

[yhelothar]

Precisely the point. I'm sure creative DAC's are much better than your $50 Walmart receiver, but compare it to a high end receiver that processes HDMI audio then the difference is quite dramatic. (No, those aren't the speakers I have).




The DAC is in the receiver if you use HDMI out. A high end receiver is better than any soundcard DAC out there. If you feel different, please prove me otherwise.

I assure you your home theater in a box speakers aren't going to take use of a DAC of any quality higher than the one in a creative card, or even onboard(which is pretty good in todays systems).

 

[Cerb]

Dosn't all MP3's players suffer form "loudness wars"?

No. The music being played does. Lossy formats in general suffer from the loudness wars, but that's not dependent on the player (less dynamic range = less useful data to compress = less data that can be safely thrown away).