Is EAX necessary?

[skilzygw]

I understand what it does. However is it really even needed? Why don't the game developers make their own 5.1 sound like doom III did?

I'm just interested in why there is even a standard like EAX?

I guess this came in response to the high price for the new x-fi cards from creative. Just wondering why?

As you can see i know nothing of audio and how it works.

thanks.

 

[Moloch]

No.
Sound isn't even needed but it can be desirable
I personally don't like the reverb bs and would just like good sounding 5.1 sound.

 

[thomase]

I understand what it does. However is it really even needed? Why don't the game developers make their own 5.1 sound like doom III did?

I'm just interested in why there is even a standard like EAX?

I guess this came in response to the high price for the new x-fi cards from creative. Just wondering why?

As you can see i know nothing of audio and how it works.

thanks.

EAX doesn't have ANYTHING to do with the number of channels of sound. EAX is used to modify sounds in such a way that accounts for the fact that sound waves can reflect, diffract, diffuse, etc. depending on the virtual game environment. Doom 3 may output 5.1 sound, but the sound output is totally uneffected by the virtual game environment. All the engine does is output the sound to some combination of speakers at different volume levels.

HL2 also does not use EAX, but it does process the sound based on the virtual game environment. This allows for a more consistent experience across all soundcards, but on the other hand, it is much more limited because it must use the CPU rather than an external hardware accelerator to do the processing.

Read this link:
http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/sound-technology/

 

[thomase]

No.
Sound isn't even needed but it can be desirable
I personally don't like the reverb bs and would just like good sounding 5.1 sound.

EAX is more than just reverb BTW. It also models occlusion, obstruction, air absorption and a whole bunch of other things.

Why is it that people do not like EAX? If used well, it can greatly enhance the game experience. I suppose though, that if it is used poorly it can be a detriment. However, if it IS used poorly, that is the fault of the game developer.

You can think of 3D audio as having 2 parts. The first is taking a sound, figuring out how it will propagate based on game geometry, and expressing this propagation as a set of filters applied to the original sound. The second part is to actually apply the filters to the sounds. EAX does the second part of these 2 steps. A3D did both. The problem with A3D was that what it did for the 1st step was an approximation of a VERY complex problem, and it was locked down in hardware that would not have necessarily scaled to support today's game environments. Also, the implementation of the 2nd part was necessarily going to suffer because you can only have so much hardware. Creative decided that since the 2nd part is relatively straighforward to accelerate in hardware, they sould concentrate on that, and leave the 1st part to the CPU. After all, there are a lot of tricks and optimizations that you can do on the 1st part if you know specific things about the game. But these tricks and algorithms are still evolving and will vary in applicability from game to game and engine to engine. A3D was kind of brute force.

You can argue that EAX filters degrades audio quality, but any kind of processing is going to do that. The new X-Fi will hopefully be cleaner because of its floating-point DSP. You can argue that perspetive corrected texture mapping of 3D polygons messes with the image quaility of the original texture images (that's why we do billinear, triliear, anisotrophic filtering, etc.), but that is a tradeoff we are willing to make to get cool 3D graphics.

 

[Moloch]

EAX is more than just reverb BTW. It also models occlusion, obstruction, air absorption and a whole bunch of other things.

Why is it that people do not like EAX? If used well, it can greatly enhance the game experience. I suppose though, that if it is used poorly it can be a detriment. However, if it IS used poorly, that is the fault of the game developer.

You can think of 3D audio as having 2 parts. The first is taking a sound, figuring out how it will propagate based on game geometry, and expressing this propagation as a set of filters applied to the original sound. The second part is to actually apply the filters to the sounds. EAX does the second part of these 2 steps. A3D did both. The problem with A3D was that what it did for the 1st step was an approximation of a VERY complex problem, and it was locked down in hardware that would not have necessarily scaled to support today's game environments. Also, the implementation of the 2nd part was necessarily going to suffer because you can only have so much hardware. Creative decided that since the 2nd part is relatively straighforward to accelerate in hardware, they sould concentrate on that, and leave the 1st part to the CPU. After all, there are a lot of tricks and optimizations that you can do on the 1st part if you know specific things about the game. But these tricks and algorithms are still evolving and will vary in applicability from game to game and engine to engine. A3D was kind of brute force.

You can argue that EAX filters degrades audio quality, but any kind of processing is going to do that. The new X-Fi will hopefully be cleaner because of its floating-point DSP. You can argue that perspetive corrected texture mapping of 3D polygons messes with the image quaility of the original texture images (that's why we do billinear, triliear, anisotrophic filtering, etc.), but that is a tradeoff we are willing to make to get cool 3D graphics.

I know it's more then reverb, but I haven't heard anything that is more than that type effect, i.e good implementation of that.
I however had no idea about that 3d audio two part deal.

 

[t0y]

Just think of EAX as programmable shaders for sounds instead of textures.
It may not be as flexible but its principle is the same.

 

[Moloch]

Just think of EAX as programmable shaders for sounds instead of textures.
It may not be as flexible but its principle is the same.

Except that most shaders are good and enhance the game whereas there are not too many good eax implementations atm.

 

[Diplo]

EAX is necessary when you want over-the-top reverb with stupid amounts of pre-delay that make everything sound like you are playing inside a metal pipe. It's also handy if you're CPU is too fast and you need something to slow it down. It also has the amazing distinction of being the only hardware-accelerated effect that actually runs slower than standard software processing.

All hail EAX!

 

[Moloch]

EAX is necessary when you want over-the-top reverb with stupid amounts of pre-delay that make everything sound like you are playing inside a metal pipe. It's also handy if you're CPU is too fast and you need something to slow it down. It also has the amazing distinction of being the only hardware-accelerated effect that actually runs slower than standard software processing.

All hail EAX!

QFT

 

[MasterBaiter]

If I remember correctly EAX essentially just piggy-backed on top of DirectMusic3d when it originally came out. It has evolved quite a bit since then. Perhaps in the beginning it might be fair to call if a reverb engine just about, but I don't think you could say the same thing now (unless you are just plain ignorant about it...) I'd prefer to consider OpenAL a stardard rather than EAX only for the fact that it is available to all parties, and is not proprietary. I can't even say that about Directsound.

 

[skilzygw]

Interesting stuff. I am still confused however. So why do I keep reading things like for the hardcore gamer you need an EAX capable card? I dont care about a few fps is that what they are referring too? Or are they referring to the actually sound? As in quality, number of effects you hear etc...

Is software implementation with like motherboard sound or a envy pci card, are you hearing less effects than a creative card? Or is it the same sound just maybe the creative sounds cleaner?

Basically i guess i'm asking if will I hear more effects, surround effects etc.... from an audigy?
ex.. Audigy supports EAX whatever they're up too lets say 4.
Envy only supports EAX 3.
(This is for arguments sake, I dont know what # they're up to. I just want to know what EAX 4 gives you that EAX 3 doesn't etc..)

What does that mean to me the gamer exactly?

thanks.

 

[Sxotty]

It means if you have more money and don't know where to waste it you can buy a creative soundcard, otherwise just send it my way

 

[hughJ]

Except that most shaders are good and enhance the game whereas there are not too many good eax implementations atm.

I would say shaders pretty much fit the same mold as EAX. We get over done effects in the same sense that we get too much specular highlights on everything from faces to rusty pipes to dull/dry brick walls.

 

[thomase]

Interesting stuff. I am still confused however. So why do I keep reading things like for the hardcore gamer you need an EAX capable card? I dont care about a few fps is that what they are referring too? Or are they referring to the actually sound? As in quality, number of effects you hear etc...

Is software implementation with like motherboard sound or a envy pci card, are you hearing less effects than a creative card? Or is it the same sound just maybe the creative sounds cleaner?

Basically i guess i'm asking if will I hear more effects, surround effects etc.... from an audigy?
ex.. Audigy supports EAX whatever they're up too lets say 4.
Envy only supports EAX 3.
(This is for arguments sake, I dont know what # they're up to. I just want to know what EAX 4 gives you that EAX 3 doesn't etc..)

What does that mean to me the gamer exactly?

thanks.

You need to separate the concept of sounds and effects.

For example, consider a gunshot sound for an FPS game. There is a single file which stores the sound of a gunshot. However, what you hear in the game changes depending on how far away the gunshot is, what kind of room the gun is fired in, etc. First you have to take all of this environmental context (size of room, material of walls, distance, direction, etc.), and figure out what kind of "effect" needs to be applied to the sound. Then, some amount of digital signal processing needs to be done on the sound before playing it in order to add this "effect". Some games do this digital signal processing in software and some use a Creative card to do it in hardware. Some don't do anything aside from adjusting the volume of the sound output on different speakers. Obviously, a software implementation will use up more CPU power. Also, you may simply not be able to do the same amount of work in software that you could do in hardware because the hardware is specialized for the work in a way that the CPU is not.

 

[MasterBaiter]

Interesting stuff. I am still confused however. So why do I keep reading things like for the hardcore gamer you need an EAX capable card? I dont care about a few fps is that what they are referring too? Or are they referring to the actually sound? As in quality, number of effects you hear etc...

Is software implementation with like motherboard sound or a envy pci card, are you hearing less effects than a creative card? Or is it the same sound just maybe the creative sounds cleaner?

Basically i guess i'm asking if will I hear more effects, surround effects etc.... from an audigy?
ex.. Audigy supports EAX whatever they're up too lets say 4.
Envy only supports EAX 3.
(This is for arguments sake, I dont know what # they're up to. I just want to know what EAX 4 gives you that EAX 3 doesn't etc..)

What does that mean to me the gamer exactly?

thanks.

Well for starters the Envy chipset only supports up to EAX 2.0 and that is through Sensaura (which Creative bought a spell ago...). Sensaura is of course a software solution which means that your cpu is doing all of the leg work. The benefit of the Audigy chipset is that all 3d acceleration (up to 64 voices) is done in hardware.
There is a definite difference on what you are hearing depending on which API is being used as well. I have 4 different sounds cards in use right now, and of them I can say the Audigy2 is the best (sound wise, and performance wise) for gaming IMO. This is closely chased by Nvidia's Soundstorm chipset. I have an M-Audio Revolution 7.1 in my 3rd system (not good for gaming, but great for audio quality), and a Hercules GameTheatre in another system (which is in the process of being redone, so I can't comment too much on that one).

You should probably check out Creatives EAX site for additional info on what it is and isn't:
http://www.soundblaster.com/eax/ (site seems to be down right now...)

This is a fairly decent breakdown of some of the API's: http://www.3dss.com/features/articles/APIs/APIs.html

 

[Moloch]

I would say shaders pretty much fit the same mold as EAX. We get over done effects in the same sense that we get too much specular highlights on everything from faces to rusty pipes to dull/dry brick walls.

I dont agree on that but I don't play alot of games so maybe I dont see all the bad ones.
I thought far cry was pretty good, pretty good textures and poly count with some nice shaders.
doom 3 however low poly and low res textures it has suits the style of game it is, since you don't notice the low res textures as much when it's so dark.
HL2 was pretty much a DX7 game with some shaders and I thought it looked pretty good with the high res textures but nothing mind blowing, as I said, just looks like an old game with a few tricks but the facial detail was good.
I really like the lighting with doom 3 and riddick, although both I don't think use tons of shaders, just that they lack traditonal detail i.e low res textures and low poly.
What I do possibly agree on is the overuse of bloom effects.
elder scrolls: Oblivion is a great example of that for upcoming games.

 

[Colourless]

Why you want a 'proper' SoundCard and 'proper' Hardware Sound mixing support in games is HRTF!

Want to use Headphones? You want HRTF!

 

[Rur0ni]

I play CS:S alot lately, and I have "surround" headphones I use with soundstorm.

Amazingly enough I hear steps and guncocks that people generally don't hear(and possibly don't realize where the sounds are coming from). When i'm spec'n and I hear steps behind or above im freaking out like "omg behind you!"

I figure if soundstorm can do that for me(i pick up hardware noise, particually when the harddrive is being accessed, and thats only recently after chaning audio drivers), that the audigy(or so to be X-Fi) must clear up that sound skipping that seems to be making the game skip(cpu?), clear up hardware noise for those of us who do experience that, and sound at least as good, and more voices.

 

[Sobek]

diffract

......

 

[thomase]

......

???