SB Audigy SE EAX vs X-Fi EAX

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Gautama

Limp Gawd
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Nov 5, 2006
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So, as I was looking at the box of my $30 soundblaster audigy SE and I noticed it said it had EAX. I was wondering, whats the diffrerence between the EAX on this and the EAX on a X-Fi?
 
Gautama said:
So, as I was looking at the box of my $30 soundblaster audigy SE I noticed it said it had EAX. I was wondering, whats teh diffrerence between the EAX on this and the EAX on a X-Fi?
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X-Fi supports much newer versions of EAX than the Audigy SE (I also think the Audigy SE supports EAX in software and not in hardware like the X-Fi does; not sure on that one though). X-Fi will also have full EAX support in Vista on all games (where as all other sound cards, even Audigy's, will not).
 
Moofasa~ said:
X-Fi supports much newer versions of EAX than the Audigy SE (I also think the Audigy SE supports EAX in software and not in hardware like the X-Fi does; not sure on that one though). X-Fi will also have full EAX support in Vista on all games (where as all other sound cards, even Audigy's, will not).
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Moofasa, thanks for the info about X-Fi and Vista. I found more information here.

It really sucks, IMO, that creative is only doing this for the X-Fi. The article I linked seems to imply that they *could* do it for the Audigy line in general because they are releasing a driver specifically for this, but are choosing not to do so.

Would this type of thing work for my M-Audio Revolution 5.1 I wonder, provided M-Audio ever updates the driver? It sure would be nice to have EAX in all games with it.

It seems like this is a software solution, not a hardware solution, but admittedly, I have absolutely no idea. I'd love more information on this.
 
Caffeinated said:
Moofasa, thanks for the info about X-Fi and Vista. I found more information here.

It really sucks, IMO, that creative is only doing this for the X-Fi. The article I linked seems to imply that they *could* do it for the Audigy line in general because they are releasing a driver specifically for this, but are choosing not to do so.

Would this type of thing work for my M-Audio Revolution 5.1 I wonder, provided M-Audio ever updates the driver? It sure would be nice to have EAX in all games with it.

It seems like this is a software solution, not a hardware solution, but admittedly, I have absolutely no idea. I'd love more information on this.
Click to expand...

Well to be fair to Creative, the X-Fi does have a different driver model than the Audigy series; so they are not purposely excluding the Audigy series, but at the same time they also are not willing to put resources into rewriting the Audigy's driver model (I am sure they were not happy about rewriting the X-Fi's driver model as it is).

Technically yes, a "hack" of this nature could work on any sound card, but that sound card would first have to support OpenAL (or some other API). If memory serves, the only API your Revo supports is DirectSound3D. Thus M-Audio would first have to write in OpenAL support for your card, then come up with a comparable hack. I don't foresee either one happening in the near future.

Lastly, your right, details of this "hack" is sketchy, but I assume the hack will work like Cedga and WINE works under Linux. The driver will simply map (basically intercept and translate) the DirectSound3D calls to OpenAL calls (just how Cedga and WINE intercepts Windows calls and maps them to Linux calls). There is no "real" performance drop with mapping under Linux, and since Creative probably has to do a lot less mapping in their drivers than Cedga/WINE has to do, it will be hardware accelerated like it normally is under XP. At least that's what Custom PC reported:


Custom PC said:
However, our source at Creative Labs exclusively revealed to Custom PC that the company has developed a driver for its X-Fi range of sound cards that will allow for full hardware sound processing in all games, not only those that use OpenAL.
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I saw on Creative's forums that they are planning to release a work-around for the Audigy series at a later date.
 
Hmm, i found the thread I thought I saw it on but now I cant find it. Coulda sworn I saw it somewhere...
 
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