[Phos]

I think you might be able to trick alchemy into doing that for you by having the X-Fi installed as normal but move its OAL.dll like normal.

If blue ripple actually wants people to use rapture3D they should probably expand it to be a full audio middleware. Pretty sure as it is now it's just a software OAL implementation requiring just as much work from the developers as if they didn't license anything.

 

[Roller]

Quote:

Too bad we can't just replace XAudio2 + X3DAudio and FMOD Ex in all these new PC releases with OpenAL now...that would really go a long way toward making Rapture3D an easier sell.
 
What would also be nice is if they include their own DirectSound3D wrapper (a utility like ALchemy) to extend compatibility further, since I have more DirectSound3D titles than native OpenAL ones.

Agreed. I've been reading on some people that were trying to make an app for that, but I don't hold much faith in it, especially since the base audio is already flat, so it would be just stretching a 2D sound image.
 
And I'm definitely on the same boat as you, DirectSound3D makes up for the bulk of my game library.
 
Oh, apparently there is some restrictive info on Creative's EULA, so for the time being I can't release the app I was talking about. I'm still researching on workarounds for that, as I found about a few non-audio related tweaks that can improve performance on all systems, but I really want to find a loophole, as people with things like FiiO E7 or Benchmark DAC1 can use DirectSound3D.

 

[Ilya--s]

Frame rate wise, there has been reports of frame rate drops up to 15fps when using Rapture3D in ultra mode. Do keep in mind I'm just talking about visual performance penalties, as SQ wise they are quite close.

Yes, some people reported about low-perfomance with r3d, but i didn't experience this problem myself (ultra-mode, headphones, WinXP, Core2Quad). The difference was about 10-15%, overall framerate was 50-55fps.

 

[NamelessPFG]

Looks like anyone can just purchase X-Fi MB2 and get EAX 5 and those THX TruStudio Pro effects in software.
 
I doubt it's worth $25 for desktop use (where you can spend just a little more and get a real X-Fi card), but it might be better than nothing for laptop users that can't utilize proper X-Fi hardware (not without some hideously kludgy setups involving a PE-4L and an ExpressCard slot).
 
Anyone willing to experiment with this?

 

[Roller]

Quote:

Looks like anyone can just purchase X-Fi MB2 and get EAX 5 and those THX TruStudio Pro effects in software.
 
I doubt it's worth $25 for desktop use (where you can spend just a little more and get a real X-Fi card), but it might be better than nothing for laptop users that can't utilize proper X-Fi hardware (not without some hideously kludgy setups involving a PE-4L and an ExpressCard slot).
 
Anyone willing to experiment with this?

That's the thing, X-Fi MB and MB2 only work on a handful of onboard audio chips. They don't work on non-Creative internal soundcards nor external DACs.
 
EDIT: Anyone can give it a try for free, the software runs as a trial or 30 days before requiring activation: http://www.creative.com/swredir/sws/go.aspx?action=4&pack=XMB2VDSTD

 

[maverickronin]

Quote:

That's the thing, X-Fi MB and MB2 only work on a handful of onboard audio chips. They don't work on non-Creative internal soundcards nor external DACs.
 
EDIT: Anyone can give it a try for free, the software runs as a trial or 30 days before requiring activation: http://www.creative.com/swredir/sws/go.aspx?action=4&pack=XMB2VDSTD

Does it actually use the hardware as anything but a dongle?
 

 

[NamelessPFG]

 
Quote:

Does it actually use the hardware as anything but a dongle?

Depends on the card.
 
Most Live!, Audigy, and X-Fi cards have a powerful DSP for good reason, and you can bet that Creative's going to make good use of it.
 
On the other hand, you have cards like the Audigy SE, the X-Fi XtremeAudio, the Recon3D line, and so forth that really do just run everything in software on the CPU, figuring that modern CPUs can take the load when late 1990s-era CPUs couldn't.
 
I guess their reasoning for not making X-Fi MB2 work on their own sound cards is that they figure that if you had a sound card, you'd just use its features anyway instead of sticking to onboard audio codecs.

 

[maverickronin]

Quote:

Depends on the card.
 
Most Live!, Audigy, and X-Fi cards have a powerful DSP for good reason, and you can bet that Creative's going to make good use of it.
 
On the other hand, you have cards like the Audigy SE, the X-Fi XtremeAudio, the Recon3D line, and so forth that really do just run everything in software on the CPU, figuring that modern CPUs can take the load when late 1990s-era CPUs couldn't.
 
I guess their reasoning for not making X-Fi MB2 work on their own sound cards is that they figure that if you had a sound card, you'd just use its features anyway instead of sticking to onboard audio codecs.

I was asking because I was thinking it might be hacked it to work with whatever sound device you pointed it at or something.  If none of its done in hardware then you'd probably just need to mess with device IDs or something.

 

[Roller]

The really odd part is that in the old days, Audigy cards had some sort of non locked feature driver that allowed for full availbility of the hardware features present on the EMU10K2 chip, but when software could use features above what the card natively had, the card just sent a request to the software and the software enables those features in software as an emulation system. Unfortunately I changed cards before I could test that with things like Battlefield 2142, for instance.
 
 

 

[NamelessPFG]

Makes sense for OpenAL (which BF2142 uses), but did they pull that off for DirectSound3D as well, which isn't known for having good software fallbacks?

 

[Roller]

Oh, I only tested that with DirectSound3D titles, I didn't test a single OpenAL title, so it's definitely surprising.
 
I think around the time EAX 4 was made available, Creative began tightening up things, and forbidding developers to allow for higher EAX versions emulation on non-certified hardware.

 

[maggio]

Hi!
Noob time, I'm on the market for new headphones, this thread (and MLE's thread) is gold!! Although totally overwhelming!
thank you NamelessPFG and everyone for this extensive and elucidating read!
 
I've been reading headphone reviews, but after reading this thread, I know I've been searching blindly. Or looking only at half the picture...
 
Question:
To get the the best positional audio (online FPS on headphones) from a laptop (clevo p170hm) with THX TruStudio Pro, SPDIF out (mini TOSLINK i think...) and external 7.1 output, what's the best option?
Budget of ~200$ (headphones + dac/amp + external soundcard?)
I know it's low end budget comparing to most gear discussed in this thread, but that's my wallet for now...
 
I'm thinking headphones+Fiio e7?
I can increase budget if I buy the amp/dac now and the headphones later, or something like that.
I'm looking to upgrade my old Senn's HD202 (bassy and terrible for gaming).
 
Is the THX TruStudio surround effect comparable to DH or CMSS3D? Can I take it and run with it?
Or is the external soundcard a must? Which one?
 
Is it unreasonable to expect anything not crappy from this combo: laptop + SPDIF + 7.1 onboard + THX + 200$?
 
Thanks in advance... sorry for any confusion, I'm still trying figure how this will work.

 

[NamelessPFG]

The laptop part complicates things immensely. The only true X-Fi products are all PCI or PCI-Express-based, and I frankly doubt you're going to set up one of those in a PE-4L adapter connected to your laptop's ExpressCard slot due to the sheer kludginess of it all (and the cost of the PE-4L itself).
 
I haven't experimented much with THX TruStudio Surround; on the X-Fi Titanium HD, it's only available in Entertainment Mode and thus not of much use to me (because the DirectSound3D/OpenAL acceleration is only present in Game Mode). There is a bit of a surround effect to it, but I can't say quite yet how good or bad it is.

 

[Roller]

Quote:

The laptop part complicates things immensely. The only true X-Fi products are all PCI or PCI-Express-based, and I frankly doubt you're going to set up one of those in a PE-4L adapter connected to your laptop's ExpressCard slot due to the sheer kludginess of it all (and the cost of the PE-4L itself).
 
I haven't experimented much with THX TruStudio Surround; on the X-Fi Titanium HD, it's only available in Entertainment Mode and thus not of much use to me (because the DirectSound3D/OpenAL acceleration is only present in Game Mode). There is a bit of a surround effect to it, but I can't say quite yet how good or bad it is.

I have to admit that besides the whole convoluted process of getting a PE-4L system to work, it does indeed expand upgrade paths, but obviously a laptop will no longer be portable.
 
I have a mobile system that has THX TruStudio Pro, and while it's interesting to see Creative software packages expanding what onboard audio chips can do, I basically ended up disabling it and falling back to my X-Fi USB dongle.
 
About the previous post, adding a Creative X-Fi Surround 5.1 (non-Pro version) would help in both output quality and in positional cues, since even a Creative package applied on onboard audio chips doesn't make said chips any less crummy.

 

[LancerX]

This is my first post, so please bear with me.    
 
My current headset is a Razer Carcharias, and I'm considering upgrading to Audio Technica's ATH-AD700 (32 ohm impedance w/ 53 mm drivers).
 
My rig has Realtek ALC887 HD Audio on the motherboard.  Would I need to upgrade to a dedicated sound card to achieve good binaural surround sound when gaming, or would the onboard card achieve this goal?
 
If the onboard card is good for surround, will it be sufficient to drive the AD700s?
 
Thanks in advance!