Why does using Hardware EAX sound in Unreal2003 affect performance?

[eno]

I know if I leave my Hardware EAX on in Unreal2003 I get around 10 to 20 less FPS, with a couple different drivers. Now is this a Audigy issue or will all EAX sound cards cause big performance hits in games if I enable EAX? I was considering the Turtle Beach Santa Cruz card to replace my Audigy. So do you think the Turtle Beach will have the same performance hits when I turn EAX on?

 

[Pink0]

EAX is a performance hit on any card.

 

[Dulanic]

You should try it with Asherons Call 2... holy does it drop your framerate... they say its a bug tho in that game and theyll fix it.

 

[zippy]

I don't know, but it makes EAX a pretty useless feature huh? Go Creative...you rule...

Heh. I have an Aureal Superquad Vortex 2 card.

 

[BD2003]

Its an audigy issue. Barely any difference in perf when 3d is on on my nforce. All those newfangled new features on the audigy suck cpu juice.

 

[Brian48]

This is NOT just an Audigy issue as the anti-Creative zealots would like to believe. The performance hit is just as severe when using HW sound (with or without EAX) whether using the Audigy, Santa Cruz, and especially the Acoustic Edge. I have all 3 cards in my various machines and can attest to this first hand. At least with the Audigy, the sound doesn't sound like total crap when it enable.

 

[ViRGE]

Make sure you're using the latest Audigy drivers from Creative's site. The older drivers are known to kill the frame rate.

 

[Brian48]

It doesn't matter driver you use. It's the way the game is programmed. Much of the instruction set for all positioning and effects are still done in software. Even Epic will tell you that 3d audio is a real system killer. This hasn't changed since the first UT.

 

[Wolfsraider]

i'm using an sblive value it doesn't seem to affect my performance

 

[vetteguy]

Originally posted by: Wolfsraider
i'm using an sblive value it doesn't seem to affect my performance

But are you using EAX???

 

[alkemyst]

i have an aureal 2 and hw sound crashes UT2003 demo at random intervals.

Everything works but no sound and no sound applications will usually even load (winamp).

 

[BD2003]

Actually, it does matter what driver you use, early audigy drivers have major problems, and no matter how much you dont want to believe it, hardware 3d barely hits my framerate at all. Its is good to have an nforce.

 

[Thraxen]

BD2003,

If you don't mind, run some of the built-in benchmarks with software sound, hardware, and then hardware + EAX and post the results. I've seen lots of people post benchmarks for the Creative cards, but only a few using other hardware. I'd like to see how the nforce holds up.

 

[boyRacer]

Originally posted by: Brian48
This is NOT just an Audigy issue as the anti-Creative zealots would like to believe. The performance hit is just as severe when using HW sound (with or without EAX) whether using the Audigy, Santa Cruz, and especially the Acoustic Edge. I have all 3 cards in my various machines and can attest to this first hand. At least with the Audigy, the sound doesn't sound like total crap when it enable.

What's wrong with the acoustic edge?... how much of a performance hit does it get?... i would rather use their Qsound instead of EAX but in benchmarks it doesn't seem to be more than a 5fps hit or so which really doesn't matter to me. I'm still looking for one and I'd like to know. The reason i dont' like creative is they tout most of their products like each and every one of them was a giant leap forward from the previous product... but to a casual user like me it was pretty much the same as the Live... but i guess that's my problem for biting in on their marketing...

 

[Brian48]

It is MUCH more than just 5 fps if you enable HW audio with the Acoustic Edge. What's worse is that it really doesn't improve the audio. It sounds really messed up so I'm stuck using software for both my Acoustic Edge and Santa Cruz machines. The following benchmarks are somewhat old, but they give a sense of what I'm referring to. I took them when I had a ti4600 and it's with the Demo version of UT2003. I'll post updated ones tonight with the full version using my new 9700 Pro.

At 1280x1024x32, MAX details, no FSAA or Aniso (v30.82 Detonators - was latest at the time).

DM-Anatalus - Direct3D - Software 3D enabled
21.628569 / 51.404018 / 96.431549 fps
Score = 51.428066

DM-Anatalus - Direct3D - HW 3D enabled
16.641504 / 36.796535 / 73.732719 fps
Score = 36.811890

DM-Anatalus - Direct3D - HW 3D enabled + EAX
16.743950 / 36.804096 / 68.401817 fps
Score = 36.819504

 

[Brian48]

Actually, it does matter what driver you use, early audigy drivers have major problems, and no matter how much you dont want to believe it, hardware 3d barely hits my framerate at all. Its is good to have an nforce.

Great. Please post some benchmarks then. I'm open to anything at this point. I've already sold off my last Audigy a couple of weeks ago in preparation for Audigy2. I would be thrilled to see any type of relief (or improvement) with 3d audio.

 

[Spicedaddy]

Brian, how do you benchmark individual maps like that? (all I know about is the automatic benchmark.exe thing) I want to see how the GTXP does...

 

[Brian48]

Go into your UT2003 benchmark sub-directory. There should be individual .bat files to run the various benchmarks.

 

[boyRacer]

Originally posted by: Brian48
It is MUCH more than just 5 fps if you enable HW audio with the Acoustic Edge. What's worse is that it really doesn't improve the audio. It sounds really messed up so I'm stuck using software for both my Acoustic Edge and Santa Cruz machines. The following benchmarks are somewhat old, but they give a sense of what I'm referring to. I took them when I had a ti4600 and it's with the Demo version of UT2003. I'll post updated ones tonight with the full version using my new 9700 Pro.

At 1280x1024x32, MAX details, no FSAA or Aniso (v30.82 Detonators - was latest at the time).

DM-Anatalus - Direct3D - Software 3D enabled
21.628569 / 51.404018 / 96.431549 fps
Score = 51.428066

DM-Anatalus - Direct3D - HW 3D enabled
16.641504 / 36.796535 / 73.732719 fps
Score = 36.811890

DM-Anatalus - Direct3D - HW 3D enabled + EAX
16.743950 / 36.804096 / 68.401817 fps
Score = 36.819504

15fps? :Q and it sound terrible?... how come every website seems to hail Qsound better than EAX which is actually the true API... . I don't expect any improvement on the Audigy2's 3D positioning... i wish they'd stop sitting their asses on A3D...

 

[Spicedaddy]

I lose 9 fps when enabling Hardware 3D audio on my GTXP compared to software. (EAX enabled or not doesn't make a difference) Sounds like the "Hardware" part refers to your CPU and not your sound card...

 

[MasterHoss]

Funny, I don't suffer using EAX + Hardware support playing UT2k3. I'm using the Audigy and any difference in performance (fps) is negliable.

 

[eno]

Well will the Santa Cruz sound as good as the Audigy? The Audigy now does not work with my new Epox board. It does work with older drivers but the second I try to install the latest drivers off the net, I get the BSOD upon windows2000 boot up. It really sucks cause I have enjoyed my Audigy up into this point. Well i might just throw it into my 2nd PC with a Soyo board, even though it has cheaper 2.1 Boston speakers and I hardly ever use that computer for games. So if I do that then I will be looking into a replacement card that will work with my Epox board. Is the Guillemot Hercules Fortissimo III 7.1 or Turtle Beach cards as good as the Creative Audigy sound wise? I am using Klipsch 4.1 and I want something that will sound good and clear. I don't really need the new 6.1 or 7.1 formats. What do ya think?

 

[fluxquantum]

this is interesting info. i didn't know about this until reading the forums. thanks for the post guys. i definitely don't need any more frames dropping since unreal is already resource hungry as it is.

 

[Brian48]

For music, I think my Santa Cruz is superior to the Audigy, but as far as gaming goes, I think the Audigy is the better card. I've made up my mind to give the Audigy2 a shot once the cheaper OEMs are out. They're using much superior DACs this time around.

 

[Thraxen]

So does anyone here have the Audigy 2 and UT2K3? If so, please post some benchmarks.