DS3D GX 2.0 (EAX 1/2/3/4/5 in Vista/XP for ASUS cards)

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Moofasa~

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In the latest beta drivers for ASUS' Xonar series:

b. Add EAX5.0 in GX function. Upgrade to DS3D GX 2.0
Click to expand...

I find this development to be interesting. I think it also raises a few questions.

Obviously all the EAX extensions will still be done through software on the Xonar cards, but I wonder what kind of CPU/fps hit there will be from running the higher levels of EAX in software?

Also I find it strange that ASUS promotes EAX 5 as there are no EAX 5 DirectSound3D games, only a few EAX 5 OpenAL games (C-Media still doesn't have native OpenAL drivers). I guess this is more of an OpenAL question, but can the "generic hardware" renderer in OpenAL (OpenAL->DirectSound3D translation) handle higher levels of EAX (if it doesn't, it would seem EAX 5 would be pointless on this card)? If it does, why would anyone write native OpenAL drivers?

How much do you think ASUS paid Creative? I can't imagine Creative giving this stuff away cheap. At the same time I can't believe anyone would pay Creative to use EAX HD (3/4/5). Signs of desperation from Creative or ASUS (or both)?

Depending on the answers, this card (Xonar DX2) suddenly becomes interesting to me: PCI-E, no changing modes, working ASIO drivers. It would be nice if someone with a Xonar card to test out the new drivers on games like BF2/Quake4 and report back.
 
It also begs the question as to how reliably EAX Advanced HD (3/4/5) is duplicated in software, as we all know how many shortcuts other companies have taken with software EAX 2.0 support, offering missing effects or being generally buggy. The 20K1 isn't a monster of a processor by any means, but it also does a fair amount of stuff to have to dump on a general-purpose CPU.

As for how much ASUS paid Creative? I couldn't even guess at this point.
 
Interestingly they had released drivers for the D2X claiming EAX 5.0 compatability on February 26th.

Those drivers are no longer on their website. Perhaps a reaction to this release by Creative?
 
At first I was under the impression that Asus had licensed Creative labs technology but apparently it isn't so
 
Calling it "the truth" is rather naive, Moofasa. You are not naive, which gives...?

Let me summarize:

1) Creative introduced X-Fi range in 2005 and got much applause for this, as the new chip was quite an achievement. But as time passed and Vista came along new powerful sound cards came to market including Asus Xonar.

2) At its launch Xonar was marketed as EAX 2.0 card. As this is a standard from the late 90s this could not sell well to gamers so ASUS readied an update which claimed EAX 5.0 support.

3) EAX 3,4 and 5 are Direct X extensions proprietary to Sound Blaster. Some companies licence this e.g. Auzentech - with their Prelude card. ASUS does not. People here and elsewhere thought they do. But it appears they instead implemenetd an algorithm that aproximates what might have sounded like EAX - but it does not. ASUS admitted yesterday:

"Our implementation is not a 1:1 reproduction of EAX 5.0."

Well, if it is not 1:1 then it is not EAX 5.0. Coding is about zeros and ones, so you can't really bend that truth...
Creative say Xonar it is not EAX 3 or 4 either, consequently:

4) Creative have issued a statement in which they accuse Asus about false advertizing:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/multim...stek_of_False_Advertising_of_EAX_Support.html
Two days later ASUS fired back:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/multim...rt_Latest_Environmental_Audio_Extensions.html

For the time being it is not about truth, but PR statements of two large companies that talk $. We have yet to see any decent tests to see what the truth is ...

Interesting, nonetheless.
 
Absolutely correct Jim:

What is the actual real-world FPS impact of having EAX 5.0 (128 voices, 4 effects per voice) run on your X-Fi vs. emulated in software on the Asus Xonar?

What is the actual gaming sound experience like between these two solutions? Is the Asus implementation as painless as they make it sound vs. ALchemy? Does the Asus emulation of EAX 5.0 sound much different, if at all?

I have no problem with Creative getting some competition, but I do think Asus has to be clear in what their card does - and their previous statements aren't exactly clear. This more recent statement makes more sense now, but begs the question - was Asus deliberately misleading customers or just using bad wording when advertising their sound capabilities?
 
yar... I think they it's common to reverse-engineer whatever you can
unless you can come up with something inventive yourself...
But just to be on the safe side I'd rather use a different name, as somebody suggested already, perhaps !HOAX 5.0 instead of EAX 5.0 But even then it has yet to be seen whether ASUS !HOAX 5.0 comes close to X-Fi EAX 5.0 in terms of audio quality and accuracy... It seems it might not but with !HOAX 6.5 things might look differently, you never know.

This case is quite amusing when you think of it.

ASUS tries to sell you hardware and at the same time admits this hardware is not used. Instead everything is done in software. So they ask as much money as Creative does for their cards but they give you a generic C-Media codec (that you have on your motherboard anyway) with a driver that tricks games into taking it for actual EAX 5 capable hardware. Hilarious.
 
Uncle Jim said:
2) At its launch Xonar was marketed as EAX 2.0 card. As this is a standard from the late 90s this could not sell well to gamers so ASUS readied an update which claimed EAX 5.0 support.
Click to expand...
Interestingly, ASUS did try to market EAX 2.0 as if it were superior to EAX 5.0 (to media/investors) due to better game support even though EAX 5.0 is totally backwards compatible. Check this out. ASUS is no stranger to using misleading tactics to try and push their products.

Balthazor said:
What is the actual real-world FPS impact of having EAX 5.0 (128 voices, 4 effects per voice) run on your X-Fi vs. emulated in software on the Asus Xonar?
Click to expand...
Very dependent on the CPU and whether or not this is a multithreaded solution. Too early to try to call it at this point.

Balthazor said:
What is the actual gaming sound experience like between these two solutions?
Click to expand...
There's possibly little difference between the two, but it'd be pretty inefficient to duplicate the quality of EAX Advanced HD effects. They aren't that complex -- we all know most of the X-Fi's processing power (around 70%) gets spent on resampling -- but still reasonably complex. The question is whether or not the simplification would be audibly different.

Balthazor said:
...was Asus deliberately misleading customers or just using bad wording when advertising their sound capabilities?
Click to expand...
Based on what what I've seen, it looks like the former. ASUS said they implemented EAX 5.0 in the driver ("add EAX5.0 in GX function"), and that isn't what they did at all. It isn't even an emulation of EAX but a sort of rough approximation.
 
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