XAudio 2

[gvlada]

Does anybody knows anything about this MS new sound format which is going to replace DirectSound in Vista SP1 and XP?? How will X-Fi handle this?
http://www.behardware.com/news/8986/directx-10-1-and-xaudio2.html

 

[spaceman]

no but I do think creative won't handle it lol.

 

[AdmiralFlameberg]

Creative might just pull there hair out if MS do that instead of putting Dsound back in

 

[schapman]

I'd imagine it would tie in with openAL to make it easy for everyone.

We can hope at least

 

[phide]

Support can be added in a driver release. Integration shouldn't be difficult, as XAudio 2 is platform-agnostic. I don't think there's any extension framework in XAudio 2, nor any hardware abstraction layer, which means no EAX (or anything like it).

DirectSound is still going to be supported (not "replaced"), but it is no longer going to be updated post DX10. This isn't surprising - it hasn't undergone many changes at all since DX8.

 

[gvlada]

So do you think that there will be no need for sound card upgrade?

 

[phide]

XAudio 2 won't be any kind of standard for a few years. We'll see titles here and there, but most developers are going to be sticking to the DirectSound/OpenAL route. In five years, XAudio 2 might be dominant, but it might also not be...and X-Fis might just end up fully supporting it anyway.

 

[ourfpshero]

So do you think that there will be no need for sound card upgrade?

there will always be a need to get away from noisy, cheap onboard codecs. that said -this will probably give more effects in-game than previously possible with non-creative cards