EAX deprecated?

[buffheman]

I just read on the EAX wiki that EAX should be considered deprecated, thus will no longer be improving. Creative says new development should use the EFX interface...

Can someone give me some more details on this? I never really understood what EAX was in the first place, but I was about to buy an X-Fi card, now I'm thinking maybe I should wait... maybe?

[pejsaboy]

I forgt some of the technical terms, but here's the basics of it: EAX is a hardware accelerated function of sound cards. With windows vista, microsoft no longer supports hardware sound acceleration. From the reading I did, this is ultimately a good thing as there are more possibilities with software accel than hardware. If you're using Vista, Buying a card specifically for EAX is wasted money because you can't use the option. I'm not sure if the other features of the card will work as intended or not, however. I stumbled across this during some troubleshooting for a game and didn't take too much time with it because I don't have a discrete sound card.

[buffheman]

Phew thanks for the heads up on that. I'm so lost and confused in the world of sound technology.

[pejsaboy]

Sure thing. I don't want to steer you away from buying a sound card altogether, just want to make sure you know that Vista won't take advantage of the EAX, and possibly some other features. If there are certain features you're looking at, you can probably find out by googling something like "vista and [proposed feature]" to find out if it's hardware accelerated or not. You'll still gain the extra quality by using the card, but the supported features [or lack thereof] may allow you to spend less and get what you need.

[Neuromancer]

Sure thing. I don't want to steer you away from buying a sound card altogether, just want to make sure you know that Vista won't take advantage of the EAX, and possibly some other features. If there are certain features you're looking at, you can probably find out by googling something like "vista and [proposed feature]" to find out if it's hardware accelerated or not. You'll still gain the extra quality by using the card, but the supported features [or lack thereof] may allow you to spend less and get what you need.

So for those that play older games, would an XP and EAX card make the most sense? I have only seen "Miles fast 2 position audio" as option under sound in most games that I play. (Except for EAX I mean)

[pejsaboy]

http://connect.creativelabs.com/openal/OpenAL%20Wiki/OpenAL%C2%AE%20and%20Windows%20Vista%E2%84%A2.aspx

Here's a link to a pretty good read on Creative's website. It appears that they were planning ahead for the loss of hardware acceleration under Vista. Basically, if the game in question was written with OpenAL, then their [Creative's] cards can still be fully functional, though I'm not sure if it will actually use EAX or if it will provide the environmental effects by other means.

http://connect.creativelabs.com/openal/OpenAL%20Wiki/Games.aspx

Gives you a list of games that will support OpenAL, and thus the full features of Creative's cards. So to answer your question Neur0, if you can find your games on that list, you should be okay using Vista and an audigy or x-fi card from Creative. This particular list hasn't been updated in nearly a year though, so you might be better off googling to find out if a particular title supports OpenAL.

Hm, maybe I'll have to pick up a sound card instead of a new headset... I always thought games sounded pretty good with onboard sound, but apparently I'm missing out on quite a bit. Damn you reasearch, damn you!

[Neuromancer]

LOL

thanks pejsa I may have to look into a card for my gaming rig :)

[InsaneManiac]

Alright. Your in my crossing into my territory. EAX stands for Enviromental Audio Extensions. It's kind of like special audio effects that adds reverb, and various other kinds of tweaks to the audio to make it sound deeper, bigger, and better.

What Pejas says half true. Creative came up with the Alchemy solution to convert old Directsound to OpenAL. It's basically a wrapper to enable legacy EAX games to work under Vista. There is one case of a game that uses the EAX function but is natively under OpenAL. That game is Unreal Tournament 3. Lately the X-fi series is beat out by the Auzentech and Asus cards. We are getting to that point where a lot of developers are using their own audio engines versus Creative's implementation. A lot of games lately on the pc are not using them, hence the OpenAL standard. It makes it so that the audio market is level and is open to new kinds of competition.

[pejsaboy]

Ok, so let me make sure I'm understanding everything you've stated.

ALchemy "fixes" sound for older titles that take advantage of EAX under Vista. Easy enough to understand there.

UT3 runs under OpenAL, but uses EAX. Or, does it use OpenAL's features to produce the same effects that EAX did in the past?

You say developers aren't using Creative's audio engine in favor of their own. Does that mean that they're writing their own, or just slapping OpenAL into the games? Is that even how it would work, or is OpenAL just... The base for an audio engine?

[MadMan007]

Think of OpenAL as a software or semi-software version of EAX to do positional and effects audio which is necessary in Vista since the old driver model that allowed EAX through direct hardware calls is no longer there. Creative uses ALchemy as a wrapper for older EAX titles in Vista, it transaltes EAX calls in to OpenAL ones. Others like Asus use it in a similar way although it's not 100% EAX 5 it's close. However for games that are natively OpenAL having a Creative card won't make a difference, any OpenAL capable card will do the same thing and I believe it can be done on CPU as well. Going forward there won't be any new EAX games unless they're using an older engine and the developers choose to do EAX. I don't think that's happening too much if at all.

Overall this means that a soundcard no longer gets an automatic '+' for gaming for being a Creative EAX 3 or higher card. Other things might matter to an individual but EAX should not, or at least should be a secondary concern.

[pejsaboy]

Okay, I understand how it's working now. Thanks MadMan.