• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

what difference does EAX make?

N

natpond

Limp Gawd
Joined
Aug 11, 2004
Messages
162
so im building a new HT speaker setup (reciever and speakers) ad im looking to hook my computer up to it. The HDA Mystique is what im planning on buying, but i do a little gaming, so what difference will the absence of EAX make? like, what exactly is it, and what will i notice differently? for instancewill i still get surround sound in CS? (hear footsteps coming form where they come from?

thanks,
Nat
 
For me it's the difference between life and death...

... EAX adds several effects to sounds in a 3D enviroment. So in a game you'll hear footsteps, but with EAX you'll hear them coming towards you and reverberating off the walls of the virtual room you are in. The most obvious advantage is that you hear more realistic sounds. In a game like BF2, EAX3 allows me to hear the artillery being fired from far off, I can hear it screaming through the air as it comes down for it's death blow. This has saved me and my clan many times. My roommate even has EAX2 and doesn't get the sounds that I get ingame. In a game like DOOM3, EAX is going to tell you exactly where the monster on the other side of the door is, or just how close that guy with the knife is from slitting your throat, or It could be the simple click of a gun reloading in a far corner that gives you the 1/2 second advantage over you opponent. Many people discount good sound when playing games, opting for cheap onboard dealies, but really, it can only help you.
 
are ther any options that have DDL and EAX 3 or 4, as well as optical or SPDF out?
 
natpond said:
so im building a new HT speaker setup (reciever and speakers) ad im looking to hook my computer up to it. The HDA Mystique is what im planning on buying, but i do a little gaming, so what difference will the absence of EAX make? like, what exactly is it, and what will i notice differently? for instancewill i still get surround sound in CS? (hear footsteps coming form where they come from?

thanks,
Nat
Click to expand...


I don't think the EAX matters as much as the fact you are using a receiver, the creative audigy1/2 using a receiver (6 analogue) is not nearly as good as the digital connection from the Mystique as far as sound quality goes..

at least this is true for the Audigy/2/4.. i can't speak for the X-Fi as i don't own one (and i haven't really seen anyone give their opinion on it)..

you can go the route of using the digital out on the Audigy series but that is a prologic matrix signal, not the 5.1 Dobly digital..

you may also want to consider the montego, it is about 25$ cheaper than the Mystique but i can't comment on its quality as far as gaming goes.
 
would it be possible or worth it to, say buy a mystique now and use that for a while until i can get an x-fi, then use the Mystique for movies and music (75% of my usage) and make it so games use the digital out on the x-fi (x-fi has that mini spdf on it right?). if so what program could i use, or what settings would i change to make it so games used the x-fi?

thanks,
Nat
 
natpond said:
would it be possible or worth it to, say buy a mystique now and use that for a while until i can get an x-fi, then use the Mystique for movies and music (75% of my usage) and make it so games use the digital out on the x-fi (x-fi has that mini spdf on it right?). if so what program could i use, or what settings would i change to make it so games used the x-fi?

thanks,
Nat
Click to expand...

You've got it backwards. The ONLY reason to get a Mystique instead of an X-Fi is if you prefer the digital connection for games, as it has DDL while the X-Fi does not. The problem is that you have to give up EAX 3+ support if you get the Mystique. For movies and music the Mystique provides no advantage over the X-Fi. In fact, if you are only going to listen to movies and music, one of the cheaper non-DDL non-Creative cards should suffice.

I suspect that the main problem contributing to the perception of poorer quality when using the 6-analog outputs of an Audigy 2 connected to a receiver (vs. DDL connection with a Mystique) is the "bass management" issue. When using the crossover (necessary for games), the bass comes out 10dB lower than it should and its difficullt to correct this with most receivers. I believe this problem is fixed with the X-Fi (with the 12dB bass boost, or whatever it is called), but I haven't seen any objective analysis yet that proves this is the case. We need to hear from someone who owns the Audigy 2, Mystique, AND the X-Fi in order to find out if the X-Fi remedies the Audigy 2 issues wrt bass management when using analog outputs connected to a receiver.

You can be the guinea pig. First, make sure the receiver you buy has 6 analog inputs. Buy both the X-Fi and the Mystique. Test it out.

If you want the best features, I'd go with the X-Fi for its EAX support and other features which use the DSP (CMSS, Crystalizer if you like that sort of thing, etc.). The CMSS3D-Headphone wil be a big plus for gaming at night with headphones. Also, if you mostly watch movies and listen to music, the Mystique provides no advantage because the DDL is not utilized in this case. On the other hand, maybe you don't need a gaming card at all if you only listen to music and movies. Also, consider that the DTS-610 should be available soon (Creative claimed September availability), which will allow a digital connection to a receiver (although not without an extra DAC and ADC in the path). We won't know how all the different options compare until the DTS-610 is available:

1) DDL card such as Mystique or Turtle Beach using digital connection to receiver.
2) X-Fi with analog outputs connected to receiver.
3) X-Fi connected to external DTS-610 encoder which uses digital connection to receiver.

And don't forget that even if the DDL cards do have better "quality" in games, you have to balance that against the lack of EAX 3+. In this case, "quality" (digital connection) and "features" (EAX 3+) are not the same and it is difficult to trade off between them.
 
There is a lot of hype about EAX. Bottom line, in CS : Source I tried using my EMU0404 which has NO EAX AT ALL, not even 1.0, I could hear where everyone was coming from just fine. Sounds great.
 
here's a complete list of EAX supported games.

http://www.soundblaster.com/eax/gaming/gamelist.asp

the source engine doesn't have EAX support, but that's pretty much the only major engine out there that doesnt. both the Unreal engine and Doom 3 engine have EAX support.

for upcoming games, FEAR, Quake 4, Serious Sam 2 and BF2 expansion will all have EAX support.
 
jester1176 said:
h both the Unreal engine and Doom 3 engine have EAX support.
Click to expand...

This is misleading, Doom 3 didn't have EAX till the expansion, and even then it is only usable through OpenAL with a special driver from creative.

So I am guessing 1% of Doom 3ers experienced Doom 3 with EAX, and it has a great audio engine.
 
Svperstar said:
This is misleading, Doom 3 didn't have EAX till the expansion, and even then it is only usable through OpenAL with a special driver from creative.

So I am guessing 1% of Doom 3ers experienced Doom 3 with EAX, and it has a great audio engine.
Click to expand...

ID traditionally likes to keep everything as open source as possible which is commendable to say the least. It makes me wonder why more developers don't take this approach. From my understanding it's a pain to program for direct x as opposed to openGL, and I would imagine that EAX is pita as well.
 
if you really want to hear the games the way they were designed to be played you need to get a creative card with eax. There really is no substitute.
 
so, wait, someone want to run me through what DDL is then? i think i was confused as to what it was.
 
natpond said:
so, wait, someone want to run me through what DDL is then? i think i was confused as to what it was.
Click to expand...

Normally, in order to get 5.1 surround sound in games, you need to use the ANALOG OUTS of the sound card to do so, and either use a multimedia system that natively supports analog 5.1 (almost every 5.1 multimedia system does), or use a home theater system with a reciever that supports 6 channel analog inputs.

Dolby Digital Live lets you *encode* this normally analog signal into Dolby Digital 5.1, so you can only hook up ONE wire from your sound card to your digital audio reciever in your 5.1 home theater system, and be able to get true 5.1 surround sound in games. You would not otherwise be able to do this.
 
What about a Turtle Beach Catalina card doesn't it support eax 2.0 and Dolby Digital as well as DTS. It has optical in and out and is a 7.1 card.
 
rcf1987 said:
What about a Turtle Beach Catalina card doesn't it support eax 2.0 and Dolby Digital as well as DTS. It has optical in and out and is a 7.1 card.
Click to expand...
Your post is a perfect illustration of just how confusing the pc audio card market is.

Almost all soundcards support EAX 2.0. However, Creative has really made some major improvements to EAX, and those improvements are in EAX 3.0, 4.0, and now with the X-Fi, 5.0. IIRC, UT2k4 only uses EAX 2, so you would see all the benefits of EAX using any soundcard. However, a game like LOTR: Battle for Middle Earth has 2 modes: EAX 3.0 or no EAX. In this case, only a Creative Audigy or better will see the benefits of EAX.

Also, most cards these days support Dolby Digital and DTS decoding. This means that, if you are watching a movie that has DTS or DD sound, your sound card will be able to decode that digital audio signal into analog sound (for use if you either use computer 5.1 speakers, or if you use 6 channel analog output to a receiver).

However, some cards support Dolby Digital encoding. Like the HDA Mystique. For computers, this has become known as Dolby Digital Live or DDL. This means that it will take whatever sound your computer is currently making, and package that sound into a 5.1 digital signal, and output that 5.1 signal through either an optical cable or a digital coaxial cable. This comes in handy when you are hooking a computer up to a HT receiver. Then, your receiver would take that digital signal and send out a 5.1 sound signal.
However, since none of Creative's high end cards have Dolby Digital Live, if you want EAX 3,4,or 5 in games, and you want to hook your computer to a receiver, you would have to use analog 6 channel output. This would involve using 3 mini to RCA plugs, and hooking the mini plugs to your soundcards front, rear, and center/sub outputs, and plugging the RCA plugs into their correct spots on a receiver that has 6 channel analog input.
 
Maybe there should be a sticky FAQ at the top of the forum regarding Dolby Digital, DTS, and soundcards.
 
iD traditionally likes to keep everything as open source as possible which is commendable to say the least. It makes me wonder why more developers don't take this approach. From my understanding it's a pain to program for direct x as opposed to openGL, and I would imagine that EAX is pita as well.
Click to expand...

Then why didnt they use OpenAL instead of their own software mixer?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top