Audio Codecs and API

[Moloch]

That's your opinion
I find it muffles sound more than dolby headphone.
And dolby headphone has nothing to do with powerdvd, it only supports it. Make sure you have powerdvd set for full dynamics, it defaults to normal, which is still compressed.

 

[Bludd]

Yes, I know, but I have nowhere else to select Dolby Headphone.

I want to correct what I said about compression. What I meant was that the field of sound feels compressed when I enable Dolby Headphone.

 

[Albuquerque]

I am not sure if that was originally Ateo's point.

If you keep reading, he was under the mistaken impression that simply having an EAX-capable XFi introduced "better positioning" into any game versus what you'd get onboard -- or at least, that's specifically what he claimed. AA and AF work regardless of developer effort, EAX does not -- that is my point.

Now, as for quality (not performance) increase? Only on EAXHD titles, as EAX 3 and below are nothing more than programmable reverb engines. EAX 4 is where it finally started doing something legitemately in 3D space, I think this is after they bought A3D and started taking some notes.

My point was simple...I do think that the X-fi does make a a difference.

I believe you, but in the one title I had a chance to listen to, it wasn't enough to warrant the price tag for me.

 

[Davros]

AA and AF work regardless of developer effort, EAX does not -- that is my point.

like I said before
He compares eax + af on the basis that they both improve quality and only on that basis
not on the basis that it can be enabled in any game, that was you. you decided that becauuse af can be applied in any game he must be saying eax can as well..

 

[Albuquerque]

like I said before
He compares eax + af on the basis that they both improve quality and only on that basis
not on the basis that it can be enabled in any game, that was you. you decided that becauuse af can be applied in any game he must be saying eax can as well..

He was mixing EAX support and X-Fi product specs as equivalent and making this claim:

don't have to, even if a game don support EAX, it dosn't take away the X-Fi's superior 3D positioning...when will you start being intellectual honest?

This is a lie. X-Fi has no superior 3D positioning unless the application is specifically using EAX. X-Fi does not add things that aren't there. AA and AF can "add things that aren't there". Do you understand this point? Ateo didn't.

I know you're nitpicking on why AA and AF give better results and so do EAX when it works, but that's a very strained observation at best. AA and AF work on 95% of 3D games; EAX doesn't work on 95% of games. This is an invalid analogy.

 

[Davros]

EAX doesn't work on 95% of games.

Eax is not as rare as you make out
as an experiment I checked the first column of games in my start menu
games with no white line next to them support eax if the game didnt support eax or I couldnt find out then I drew a white line next to it
out of 49 games 22 had eax support thats nearly 50%

 

[Albuquerque]

The only case where EAX provides "3d positioning" at any point greater than what you can get on any bog-standard onboard 5.1 audio card is versions 4 and greater.

Please filter your results for games that use EAX 4 or greater, and then come back and tell me how far off I am. EAX 3 and below was, again, nothing more than an enhanced reverb engine with offload capability for voice playback. Positioning in EAX 3 and below was limited to horizontal plane only.

 

[Davros]

have you any idea how long that bloody took me - you got no chance

 

[Albuquerque]

have you any idea how long that bloody took me - you got no chance

LOL, well I can help you out -- creative keeps a list last I checked. EAX 4 is a bit of a red herring, there's not much reason to go looking for it. All the 'good" EAX games use version 5 which was, by far, the best of them all. You get all the really good stuff like audio occlusion mapping and attenuation and of course vertical-plane processing.

EAX 3 is supported by pretty much ALL onboard audio solutions, as Microsoft licensed it from Creative eons ago. You don't get the nice offload capabilities (if that even still matters in the grand CPU-utilization scheme of things), but even my little crappy current onboard audio chip supports it like my prior Envy24 onboard audio did.

 

[willardjuice]

EAX 3 is supported by pretty much ALL onboard audio solutions, as Microsoft licensed it from Creative eons ago. You don't get the nice offload capabilities (if that even still matters in the grand CPU-utilization scheme of things), but even my little crappy current onboard audio chip supports it like my prior Envy24 onboard audio did.

That is incorrect. EAX 1 and 2 are open for everyone to implement (Microsoft has nothing to do with this, Creative made them open back in the day to gain market share). EAX 3/4/5 (or "EAX HD") must be licensed from Creative (so your Envy24 and integrated audio only support up to EAX 2).

I don't care if you hate Creative as there are many valid reasons to hate them. But you've been spreading around quite a bit of fud in this thread. Please check your statements before making them.

 

[Albuquerque]

Looks like I was wrong about EAX 3 being licensed from Microsoft, although it's still nothing more than a reverb engine with hardware offload for playback of voices. Further, I challenge you to specifically deny anything else in this thread that you think is FUD. I want to see your specific claims of FUD...

The XFi provides no additional benefit to positioning, sample rate, attenuation, or other such hardware-accelerated effects in games not specifically written to support EAX when compared to another generic 5.1 audio solution.

Further, the only case where vertical panning comes into play is indeed EAX 5, as referenced by the Wiki.

And nowhere in this thread did I say I hated Creative nor their products, I've owned them in the past and had generally good luck with them. But today, the cost does not provide sufficient benefit to me. Thus, you can entirely stop putting words into my mouth, and can also stop flame-baiting.