[+] Sound (audio) situation in Vista ?!? What's the deal ? [+]

[Kimbo]

ok, as of today i still use xp, and will continue to do so...

i have vista ultimate as well, and have "used" it before - as in; i looked at it and spent a very short time in it.

i'm going to reinstall it (i multiboot) as another setup soon to give it another go. vista sp2 release candidate is out and i suppose the final version won't be too long now. actually i want to test a modem i have with vista so if nothing else i'll do it for that reason alone.

as i prepare to do this, by downloading the latest drivers (gpu, audio etc...)
i remembered one of the major reasons why i never switched to vista. the audio situation with games. back then, when i looked into it, just, i learned that because of the new driver model/restrictions of vista, no game would be using hardware acceleration or eax or surround sound. just about every game would be in stereo. so right there i didn't go any further... i know that for the x-fi cards creative has the alchemy software that supposedly fixes this issue, aldo i don't know how well and true it really is.

so my question is to those gamers that can shed any light on this matter;

has sound in games improved in vista ? (or was it never really an issue and i somehow misunderstood the situation back then?)

do all current/new games, at least from the major companies, run in 5.1 or better surround sound??

is eax dead in vista ? or is it alive and fine, but only in really new games written with vista in mind. or what ?

is alchemy really good ? does it actually do what it's supposed to? (i think it uses emulation in software mode to a point, so i wonder.)

or what ???

[Kimbo]

oh, really ? is that so ?

[DeusExMachina]

Originally Posted by Kimbo

oh, really ? is that so ?

Wish I can help, have Vista Ultimate SP1 x64 as my OS, but not using an audio card (using onboard Realtek HD sound for now). Nor do I have any newer games (unless you call Neverwinter Nights 2 "new"). Plus, I vowed to never get a Creative soundcard again over this whole Vista driver mess (and how Creative treated X-Fi users).

[klc314]

and i have an x-fi card with vista ultimate, but run only in stereo, as i have the output routed through a stereo receiver that is only capable of 2 channel, sorry. no issues with sound however in any of the latest games with this setup

[zapionics<alt>]

hi Kimbo, my understanding from what I've read is that EAX is dead in Vista (ie not supported)...

I've installed an X-Fi Titanium card (creative). I then installed a Creative application called "Alchemy" that provides some kind of EAX emulation.

Playing STALKER:CS in 5.1 sounds great. I hear positional sound find and it does have an EAX option. I dont know if its the Alchemy app thats helping or not, I havent tried testing it, all I can tell you is that the game sounds great and no complaints.

Ditto for FEAR and GTA:IV.

I think you can do a google on Alchemy and learn more about it, sorry about this sparse info, I'm not an audiophile.

Link: Creative ALchemy

[polonyc2]

Originally Posted by Kimbo

is eax dead in vista ? or is it alive and fine, but only in really new games written with vista in mind. or what ?

is alchemy really good ? does it actually do what it's supposed to? (i think it uses emulation in software mode to a point, so i wonder.)

the Vista audio stack was rewritten from the ground up, and in doing so they removed hardware acceleration for DirectSound...same goes for Windows 7

Alchemy works in restoring EAX but it only supports a certain number of games...I believe the complete list of games is on the Alchemy website

Originally Posted by zapionics<alt>

Playing STALKER:CS in 5.1 sounds great. I hear positional sound find and it does have an EAX option. I dont know if its the Alchemy app thats helping or not

I don't believe Alchemy works with Clear Sky...if it did it would be listed in the Alchemy program under the 'installed games' list...5.1 sounds works fine under Clear Sky using Vista's new audio kernal...what you are hearing is not EAX though

I have 6-7 new(er) games currently installed on my system and none of them are supported by Alchemy---Crysis, Crysis Warhead, Clear Sky, Fallout 3, Far Cry 2, Dead Space

[zapionics<alt>]

Originally Posted by polonyc2

...I don't believe Alchemy works with Clear Sky...if it did it would be listed in the Alchemy program under the 'installed games' list...5.1 sounds works fine under Clear Sky using Vista's new audio kernal...what you are hearing is not EAX though

Thanks for clearing that up. Also I'm not sure if you have to run Alchemy after each legacy game install or if there is a service running in the background all the time that does the EAX translation (havent checked)...

[polonyc2]

Originally Posted by zapionics<alt>

Thanks for clearing that up. Also I'm not sure if you have to run Alchemy after each legacy game install or if there is a service running in the background all the time that does the EAX translation (havent checked)...

after you install a game that has Alchemy support it automatically gets listed under the 'installed games' list and you then have to move it over to the 'Alchemy' list by clicking 'Add'...I'm not 100% sure of the details as the only game that I remember playing that had Alchemy support was Oblivion (which I currently do not have installed on my system)...you don't need to have the program running in the background after setting it up in the Alchemy program and I don't recall any background service running

[zapionics<alt>]

Originally Posted by polonyc2

...you don't need to have the program running in the background after setting it up in the Alchemy program and I don't recall any background service running

Wonder how it works? Must replace a games audio dll or something...

[edit] looks like it copies a couple of dlls to the games directory : dsound.dll and dsound.ini. There must have been corresponding files registered with Windows Xp for DirectSound.
Looks like having a separate ini means each games settings could be tailored for the game.

I wonder how efficient/accurate Alchemy is?

[edit2] M$ should have included legacy support for DirectSound... very annoying that they didnt... must have been some reason for that

[polonyc2]

Originally Posted by zapionics<alt>

I wonder how efficient/accurate Alchemy is?

I tested out Oblivion when I had it installed and I definitely enjoyed the sound better with EAX enabled...sounded much more positional and realistic to my untrained ears...I tested the same scene with Alchemy/EAX enabled and with the default Vista sound enabled...there was definitely a difference...not a huge night/day difference but I noticed a better sound with EAX on

EDIT: altough to be fair the differences in sound quality could have also been due to the fact that during my most recent playing of Oblivion I had upgraded my sound card (Auzentech Prelude 7.1) when compared to my previous playing of the game when I was using the Soundblaster X-Fi card

[polonyc2]

Originally Posted by Kimbo

is eax dead in vista ? or is it alive and fine, but only in really new games written with vista in mind. or what ?

one more thing...you're right in that the lack of hardware acceleration in Vista really only affects older games as most newer games were written with Vista in mind whereby the lack of EAX is not as noticable...Crysis, Fallout 3 etc sound fine for me without any EAX effects

Originally Posted by zapionics<alt>

Link: Creative ALchemy

I just visited the Alchemy site and saw that it has been updated with a new look...they have a 'Video' section where you can hear the difference in some select games running under XP, Vista and Visa + Alchemy enabled to hear the differences in sound quality

they also have an updated list of games supported...mostly older games that worked well with EAX...that's the reason you won't see any recent games from the last year or 2 on that list because they do not need the EAX ability as much