DirectX9 vs DirectX10 *again*

[Ateo]

Em no? FEAR is using OpenAL as audio API.

It's not on the list:
http://www.openal.org/titles.html
AFAIK F.E.A.R. is EAX 4.0 HD
http://www.soundblaster.com/gaming/fear/
And using the "old" hardware rendering path that is NOT included in VISTA:

Basically without OpenAL you can't really get EAX4 HD or higher. So any game that supports EAX4 is most likely using OpenAL too.
However Half-Life 1 for example will indeed lose ability to use hardware acceleration and EAX under Vista...

Full Spectrum Warrior is EAX 5.0 HD, but not OpenAL:
http://www.soundblaster.com/eax/gaming/gameindex.asp?gameid=61744

Full EAX® ADVANCED HD™ 5.0 audio puts you right in the middle of the urban fighting

And not on the list of OpenAL titles:
http://www.openal.org/titles.html

So again you information seems to be incorrect.

 

[phenix]

Who says EAX sounds great? I try to avoid it whenever I can. Even if Vista drops EAX hardware support all I would say is good riddance.

 

[Ateo]

Who says EAX sounds great? I try to avoid it whenever I can. Even if Vista drops EAX hardware support all I would say is good riddance.

You forgot the part about no hardware acceleration under Vista.
Unless you go OpenAL.

Personally I use EAX where ever I can.
Try Q4 or BF2 on a X-Fi with EAX 5.0 HD.
Then try them without EAX.
Like gaming with no AA/AF...just plain ugly(sounding)

Sound in games is important to me, and the higher EAX the better.
I prefer EAX 3 or above...EAX 2 is old, very limited..and also the limit for others than Creative to use.
Read up here what diffrence each generation adds to the table:
http://www.soundblaster.com/eax/abouteax/

Oh..and have you even heard a EAX 5.0 HD game on 7.1 speakers?
(I have tried the X-Fi's headphone algorithm, and even if it is better than anything else on the market(in regards to 3-D posisitioning, headphones still don't come close to a decent surround setup IMHO)
Or was your EAX-comment directed at the EAX 2 and below(none Creative cards)?
Or just a stab at Creative? (some people are even more fanatic about disliking Creative than GPU-"fans" are about disliking the competition)

And know I seem to have wandered a bit offtopic...
"Bad Ateo...Bad Ateo"

 

[phenix]

You forgot the part about no hardware acceleration under Vista.
Unless you go OpenAL.

Personally I use EAX where ever I can.
Try Q4 or BF2 on a X-Fi with EAX 5.0 HD.
Then try them without EAX.
Like gaming with no AA/AF...just plain ugly(sounding)

Sound in games is important to me, and the higher EAX the better.
I prefer EAX 3 or above...EAX 2 is old, very limited..and also the limit for others than Creative to use.
Read up here what diffrence each generation adds to the table:
http://www.soundblaster.com/eax/abouteax/

Oh..and have you even heard a EAX 5.0 HD game on 7.1 speakers?
(I have tried the X-Fi's headphone algorithm, and even if it is better than anything else on the market(in regards to 3-D posisitioning, headphones still don't come close to a decent surround setup IMHO)
Or was your EAX-comment directed at the EAX 2 and below(none Creative cards)?
Or just a stab at Creative? (some people are even more fanatic about disliking Creative than GPU-"fans" are about disliking the competition)

And know I seem to have wandered a bit offtopic...
"Bad Ateo...Bad Ateo"

I used to own an audigy 2 zs card which supported up to EAX 4.0. Due to infamous crack-boom-bang issue I had to get rid of it. Although I have no experience with EAX5 I can say that so far I am not impressed by anything creative had to offer. I also think that sound is very important for games but I am not satisfied with the current offers. It is not even clear if vista is dropping hardware accelaration support altogether or tthis will efect only Creative's EAX. If it is only EAX which is affected I dont see it as a big loss. Thats what I am saying.

 

[Cuthalu]

I used to own an audigy 2 zs card which supported up to EAX 4.0. Due to infamous crack-boom-bang issue I had to get rid of it. Although I have no experience with EAX5 I can say that so far I am not impressed by anything creative had to offer. I also think that sound is very important for games but I am not satisfied with the current offers. It is not even clear if vista is dropping hardware accelaration support altogether or tthis will efect only Creative's EAX. If it is only EAX which is affected I dont see it as a big loss. Thats what I am saying.

The result is either a lot lower fps or worse sound quality, so it's definately a loss. Even with stereo-system eax upps the immersion.

 

[Ateo]

I used to own an audigy 2 zs card which supported up to EAX 4.0. Due to infamous crack-boom-bang issue I had to get rid of it. Although I have no experience with EAX5 I can say that so far I am not impressed by anything creative had to offer.
I also think that sound is very important for games but I am not satisfied with the current offers. It is not even clear if vista is dropping hardware accelaration support altogether or tthis will efect only Creative's EAX. If it is only EAX which is affected I dont see it as a big loss. Thats what I am saying.

It's DirectSound, DirectSound 3D, EAX ect .that is getting affected..for a "welcome" to a Vista software mixer.
In short = you loose preformance.
(Dedicated hardware getting dropped for the use of CPU-cycles)

Look beyond Creative (and your dislike of the company) please.

The result is either a lot lower fps or worse sound quality, so it's definately a loss. Even with stereo-system eax upps the immersion.

I have the same point of view.
Lower FPS and no EAX...nice downgrade

 

[phenix]

It's DirectSound, DirectSound 3D, EAX ect .that is getting affected..for a "welcome" to a Vista software mixer.
In short = you loose preformance.
(Dedicated hardware getting dropped for the use of CPU-cycles)

Look beyond Creative (and your dislike of the company) please.



I have the same point of view.
Lower FPS and no EAX...nice downgrade

Anyway, it will be possible to have hardware acclerated 3D sound (even EAX ) in Vista through Open AL. The only difference is microsoft will remove harware layer for DirectSound3D API.

http://www.openal.org/openal_vista.html

The good news for owners of advanced audio cards like SoundBlaster X-Fi is that the developer community has been preparing for this for over 3 years. Hardware audio will not be disappearing with the launch of Windows Vista. Games that support OpenAL today will continue to provide full hardware-enhanced 3D audio under Windows Vista. This includes games such as Battlefield 2, Doom3, Unreal Tournament2k4, Dungeon and Dragons Online, Prey, Quake 4, and many others (a full list can be found at http://www.openal.org/titles.html). These games have complete hardware-based HRTF support for multiple speaker and headphone setups as well as full support for all the different versions of EAX. Also, these games will be able to take advantage of the hardware-accelerated path on supporting hardware for performance and quality increases.

 

[Ateo]

Anyway, it will be possible to have hardware acclerated 3D sound (even EAX ) in Vista through Open AL. The only difference is microsoft will remove harware layer for DirectSound3D API.

http://www.openal.org/openal_vista.html

I refer to my post #101 in this thread.

 

[ChronoReverse]

Wow, what's with the ramped evangelizing for EAX? It's a loss to not have hardware acceleration for sure, but you're making it out to be the end of the world. Why all the anger?

Anyways, with all those extra cores we're starting to get and even more offloading being done (such as physics acceleration), moving audio to software *might* end up being a good decision. I'm inclined to think that it's a mistake, but time will tell.

 

[Ateo]

Wow, what's with the ramped evangelizing for EAX? It's a loss to not have hardware acceleration for sure, but you're making it out to be the end of the world. I can't believe you signed up for this forum just to say that without ulterior motive.

I didn't register due to this topic?
http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/showthread.php?p=842475#post842475
I will refrain from assuming it was a deliberate strawman-fallacy and give you the benefit of the doubt

Anyways, with all those extra cores we're starting to get and even more offloading being done (such as physics acceleration), moving audio to software *might* end up being a good decision. I'm inclined to think that it's a mistake, but time will tell.

Only game that has used extra cores for physcis is "Alan Wake"
The demo they showcased at IDF was using an entire core on the Kentsfield(Which where O'C'ed to BTW) and didn't impress me (physics wise)
Show me it running on a "normal" PC(single-/dualcore).
I have alwys used dedicated hardware to save CPU'cycles.
NIC, GPU, Soundcard, PPU are dedicated hardware that does the job better than the CPU could.

We are back at "the CPU is jack of all trades, master of none"
And according to all indications I have seen even a GPU is better at physics than a CPU.
So I agree with you on that point.
I would like to se DX10 embrace all:
Graphics, sound, physcis, feedback, input...under a common API.

 

[ChronoReverse]

I didn't register due to this topic?
http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/showthread.php?p=842475#post842475
I will refrain from assuming it was a deliberate strawman-fallacy and give you the benefit of the doubt

Yes, that was uncalled for and I noticed that I was wrong afterwards anyways.



I mistyped my comment. I meant that while we're getting more and more cores on our CPUs, things are getting offloaded AWAY from the CPU (such as physics). The point is what are we going to do with those extra cores? Game audio processing isn't enough to use up even a single modern CPU core, so it's possibly what MS was thinking. It still doesn't really make sense though unless the more flexible sound subsystem in Vista simply can't use existing audio acceleration and future sound cards will be accelerated again. But that doesn't seem very plausible to me either.

 

[Ateo]

Yes, that was uncalled for and I noticed that I was wrong afterwards anyways.

No biggie

I mistyped my comment. I meant that while we're getting more and more cores on our CPUs, things are getting offloaded AWAY from the CPU (such as physics). The point is what are we going to do with those extra cores? Game audio processing isn't enough to use up even a single modern CPU core, so it's possibly what MS was thinking. It still doesn't really make sense though unless the more flexible sound subsystem in Vista simply can't use existing audio acceleration and future sound cards will be accelerated again. But that doesn't seem very plausible to me either.

I don't understand the decision either nor see why this is a good thing.
Hardware accelerated sound gives me higher min. FPS, better sound and more effects.
A software based(CPU) soundsystem just don't make any sense to me in the year 2006.
Even the Amiga had a dedicated soundchip...offering hardware-based soundmixer...back in 1985...really confusing.

 

[ChronoReverse]

What I meant is that it probably won't reduce FPS anymore because we have a number of cores sitting there doing nothing nowadays. Still doesn't mean it can't or shouldn't be hardware accelerated, but that's a possible reasoning.

 

[Ateo]

What I meant is that it probably won't reduce FPS anymore because we have a number of cores sitting there doing nothing nowadays. Still doesn't mean it can't or shouldn't be hardware accelerated, but that's a possible reasoning.

And I still think dedicated hardware for the task is better for a long time to come.
And a very poor excuse for that games will run under XP with hardware support but only in softwaremode under Vista (games like F.E.A.R. eg.)

Some day will might have all funtions in a single chip(CPU,GPU, NIC, PPU, Sound processor ect.) but so far I prefer the "open architechture", where I can upgrade my sound and my graphics, but keep my CPU and enjy the benefits of offloading tasks from the CPU to dedicated hardware for better/more effects and preformance.

 

[Ateo]

Seems like I' not the only one that is worried:
http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/743/743502p1.html

November 02, 2006 - Thanks to Jess for the link to a story called OpenAL and Windows which previews what sort of sound solutions Microsoft has come up for Vista:
With Microsoft's decision to remove the audio hardware layer in Windows Vista, legacy DirectSound 3D games will no longer use hardware 3D algorithms for audio spatialization. Instead they will have to rely upon the new Microsoft software mixer that is built into Windows Vista. This new software mixer will give the users basic audio support for their old Direct Sound games but since it has no hardware layer, all EAX® effects will be lost, and no individual per-voice processing can be performed using dedicated hardware processing.
EAX has become the de facto standard for real-time effects processing. It has been incorporated in hundreds of games and has become the method of choice for game developers wanting to add interactive environment effects to their titles. Some of the best selling games of all time use the EAX extensions to DirectSound 5.0 and beyond, including Warcraft3, Diablo2, World of Warcraft, Half Life, Ghost Recon, F.E.A.R. and many others. Under Windows Vista, these games will be losing the hardware support that came as standard under the previous Windows Operating Systems, and will no longer provide real-time interactive effects, making them sound empty and lifeless by comparison to the way they sound on Windows XP.

In some cases, where a game specifically looks for a hardware audio path, it may even fall back to plain stereo output. This will be a very different landscape for 3D audio than the one that both Creative Labs and Aureal Technologies® pioneered 8 years ago.

If this hold true DX10 is not a step forward, but more sacrificing audio for graphics IMHO.

 

[swaaye]

There is no DirectX 10 though. This thread is referring to Direct3D 10 I believe.

 

[JHoxley]

There is no DirectX 10 though. This thread is referring to Direct3D 10 I believe.

You are correct - technically there is no DirectX 10, only Direct3D 10. Last I chatted with the people at MS they'd resigned to go with the flow on the naming - seems the enthusiast communities and press were on a roll with the DX10 name and it was a bit pointless to keep "reminding" them they were wrong

Cheers,
Jack

 

[Kaotik]

Actually there is DirectX 10, even if it has nothing new over 9's except for the Direct3D part, it's still titled "DirectX 10"

 

[Blazkowicz]

fuck creative labs and proprietary sound acceleration. if every game used software, that would allow us people not interested in X-Fi XXtreme Platineum Falal1ty bangbang 4 ZS to get the same sound.

and, why is hardware always better. I'm glad I don't have to buy a MPEG1 decoder card to read some old video.

 

[DmitryKo]

if every game used software, that would allow us people not interested in X-Fi XXtreme Platineum Falal1ty bangbang 4 ZS to get the same sound.

Yeah, sure... no ealier than the moment Intel CPUs feature dedicated effect processing block with 10000 MIPS of DSP power.

why is hardware always better

Because EAX is really a wrap-up for the capabilities present in E-MU 10K1/10K2/20K1 signal processors.

On the bright side of things, the driver model remains the same WDM Audio, with a minor extension in the form of new WaveRT port, the new mixer ifeatures 32-bit floating point precision and many "glitches" and stalls were eliminated... we shall see if it lives up to expectations.

There will also be a new low-level Windows Audio Session API that does bypass the new audio mixing layer and provides direct access to the underlying hardware, but it will probably be outshadowed by ASIO and OpenAL.