Do we need sound card's hardware acceleration?

Do we need the sound card's hardware acceleration?

  • Yes

    Votes: 39 88.6%

  • No

    Votes: 5 11.4%
  • Total voters
    44
The audio engine, fundamentally, is typically the same for both EAX-enhanced and non-EAX platforms. In some cases, developers will utilize EAX extensions to achieve certain results that may be typically processed in software (such as distance attenuation), but there's always a non-EAX software fallback. The audio engine is doing things differently by making EAX calls, but it's not a different engine, nor are audio engines somehow inhibited by non-EAX hardware.

And, actually, the inverse of your last statement is true. Without EAX, developers would rely more upon the processing possibilities of APIs and software engines. With OpenAL, you're given the capability to do API-wide effects and are given a great deal of control over how they function. The limitation is the number of effects sends. If you aren't using OpenAL, you can always build these effects by hand via the audio engine. The audio engine becomes more complex and more robust out of necessity. Crysis is an example of this.

For games that support EAX, they're just using EAX extensions and having the engine pass the variables. They can fine-tune the variables that get passed, but they're also potentially limited in how extensible these effects can be. They can also only utilize these extensions if the user has some sort of EAX-capable hardware.

I think EAX is an excellent tool, but, like 3dfx's old Glide API, later versions are a proprietary and hardware-specific means of achieving the end result. EAX is a good thing, but it's also a very bad thing. Those that fail to see this duality are somewhat blind to reality in my opinion.
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Except I wasn't talking about EAX. :confused:

Developers will not create a sound engine that eats up 30% of a CPU. They will develop a sound engine that will eat up the smallest amount of CPU possible (within reason). If they know a decent amount of consumers have hardware accelerated sound cards (regardless of EAX or other reverb effects, just has DS3D/OpenAL hardware accelerated), they will develop a more immerse audio engine (because they won't be afraid of a massive performance drop). If we dropped hardware acceleration altogether, there will be little reason for developers to improve and make their audio engines more complex than it is today (and trust me there is a lot of room in this area).
 
On nVidia's forum too, I got the best answer (Edit: I wanted to hear?) from nVidia's forum and also a good answer on Creative's forum. There are more Creative's fans here than on Creative's forum lol.
 
Moofasa~ said:
Developers will not create a sound engine that eats up 30% of a CPU. They will develop a sound engine that will eat up the smallest amount of CPU possible (within reason).
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Of course the goal is to implement the "lightest weight" solution, but not at the cost of continual advancement. Physics systems are growing more complex by the day, and we've just begun to get into hardware acceleration of those processes. Processors also advance at a modest pace, not in terms of clock speeds these days, but we're certainly seeing an exponential outward growth of physical processors per CPU. To not leverage such computing power is especially wasteful, and sound engines can be very fine-grained, making the spread across execution cores very efficient.

The pace of advancement may have slowed without acceleration, surely, but there's always going to be a fairly steady pace in tune with the pace of technology and consumer expectations.

Moofasa~ said:
Fixed
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Pegged :)
 
phide said:
Of course the goal is to implement the "lightest weight" solution, but not at the cost of continual advancement. Physics systems are growing more complex by the day, and we've just begun to get into hardware acceleration of those processes. Processors also advance at a modest pace, not in terms of clock speeds these days, but we're certainly seeing an exponential outward growth of physical processors per CPU. To not leverage such computing power is especially wasteful, and sound engines can be very fine-grained, making the spread across execution cores very efficient.

The pace of advancement may have slowed without acceleration, surely, but there's always going to be a fairly steady pace in tune with the pace of technology and consumer expectations.


Pegged :)
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You must be talking about the next generation games because my GPU is still the limiting factor when playing BF2142, even with the X-Meridian in Ultra(128 voices) mode, I can play the game around 50+fps at 1600x1200, not crawling like some expected it to be though.
 
Moofasa~ said:
If we dropped hardware acceleration altogether, there will be little reason for developers to improve and make their audio engines more complex than it is today (and trust me there is a lot of room in this area).
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Exactly!
 
Moofasa~ said:
Except I wasn't talking about EAX. :confused:

Developers will not create a sound engine that eats up 30% of a CPU. They will develop a sound engine that will eat up the smallest amount of CPU possible (within reason). If they know a decent amount of consumers have hardware accelerated sound cards (regardless of EAX or other reverb effects, just has DS3D/OpenAL hardware accelerated), they will develop a more immerse audio engine (because they won't be afraid of a massive performance drop). If we dropped hardware acceleration altogether, there will be little reason for developers to improve and make their audio engines more complex than it is today (and trust me there is a lot of room in this area).
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Tell this to the guys that created Crysis and ask them why they make an audio engine for the CPU.
 
alg7_munif said:
Tell this to the guys that created Crysis and ask them why they make an audio engine for the CPU.
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So is this the only game that will come out? Will all games ship like that? I don't think so.
 
alg7_munif said:
Tell this to the guys that created Crysis and ask them why they make an audio engine for the CPU.
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Oh so you know already that the Crysis sound engine will be the greatest sound engine of all time? If it's anything like farcry, I rest my case.
 
alg7_munif said:
This could be the beginning.
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IMHO, I doubt it!

Other game makers are very use to using/coding with EAX and or OpenAL. Epic, id, Dice and crap loads of others. This is like saying, do away with the Autobahn because cheap cars can't keep up. That makes little sense since that's what the slow lane is for. If you haven't done so, give Prey a shot.
 
Donnie27 said:
IMHO, I doubt it!

Other game makers are very use to using/coding with EAX and or OpenAL. Epic, id, Dice and crap loads of others. This is like saying, do away with the Autobahn because cheap cars can't keep up. That makes little sense since that's what the slow lane is for. If you haven't done so, give Prey a shot.
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Most game makers are used to using/coding without EAX for consoles...
 
alg7_munif said:
Most game makers are used to using/coding without EAX for consoles...
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Sorry have to disagree with you 100% there. Games that don't use EAX or OpenAL are far and few in between=P Find a list of Game that don't? I've given you list before, please return the favor? Until last year, most Console Games had PC-Versions with EAX support.
 
Some of latest hot games without EAX Gear of War, Resistance: Fall of man, Call of Duty 3, Halo 3, Oblivion.
 
http://www.openal.org/titles.html

Since many of the Games feature both EAX and OpenAl support. So what is Game makers what less sound effects. The best Game that doesn't EAX or OpenAL IMHO, is Halflife2, I agree Farcry kind of Sucked sound wise.
 
Donnie27 said:
Gears of War, Resistance, Call of Duty 3 and Halo 3 are all Console only titles for at least now.
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Exactly, game developers are more interested to consoles now and consoles don't have EAX. It is sad to see the consoles section in stores are getting bigger and PC games section is getting smaller. Maybe it is easier for the developers because a console's platform can be used for a few years but PC hardwares are always changing, and games for PCs can be easily pirated compared to a console game. EA's games now are almost recycled games from the older version.
 
alg7_munif said:
Exactly, game developers are more interested to consoles now and consoles don't have EAX. It is sad to see the consoles section in stores are getting bigger and PC games section is getting smaller. Maybe it is easier for the developers because a console's platform can be used for a few years but PC hardwares are always changing, and games for PCs can be easily pirated compared to a console game. EA's games now are almost recycled games from the older version.
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Sadly I have to agree with you about the sized of the Games sections of the stores, to see the lack of Games for the PC was sickening. I was shocked looking at this and talking to the salesperson at CompUSA the other day.

When I stop using mine for mainly Games, I'll go with an EMU 1212:)

I wonder how the X-Box link software works with the PC :confused:
 
Should I turn this thread to PS3 vs XBox360 vs Wii (edit: the sound engine)lol?
 
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