[halcyon]

EAX doesn't help in positioning.

It's an environmental effects engine.

This means that you get a big hall reverb when you are in a big hall inside the game, IF the game supports EAX and the game developer has encoded the hall to to have the appropriate environmental effect (and your sound card supports EAX).

What helps in positioning in CSS is CMSS3D that X-Fi line of soundcards offers.

This algorith does not need game support.

It takes the input of a multichannel sound (DirectSound3D) from a game and mixes it to headphones using a generic HRTF approach.

I use it all the time in CSS as follows:

1) 5.1 speakers selected in CSS as sound output
2) 5.1 speakers selected in Windows Control panel as sound output
3) Headphones selected in X-Fi Creative Console Launcher as output and with CMSS3D ON

This way 5.1 channels of discrete game sounds get mixed into headphone sounds with enhanced 3D positioning using just normal stereo headphones.

It works ok, but is not perfect.

What it improves most is front-to-back localisation, which is still not that great, btw. But you learn to use it as a cue by playing with it.

Some pet annoyances are too enhanced close vs distant volume muffling.

As for EAX, I can activate it on the sound card, but I don't think CSS has any EAX in it, so it doesn't use the functionality in the sound card.

 

[maarek99]

Quote:

Originally Posted by halcyon 2) 5.1 speakers selected in Windows Control panel as sound output

It shouldn't matter what is selected in windows control panel.

Quote:

It works ok, but is not perfect.

I think it works pretty well. I tend to disable MacroFX and Elevationfilter.

 

[j0j081]

Quote:

Originally Posted by maarek99 It shouldn't matter what is selected in windows control panel.

Actually I find when the Windows control panel is not on 5.1, my headphones sound horrible no matter what I set the Creative cp to. In CS:S the in-game setting synchronizes with the Win cp therefore it should also be on 5.1 Then with Creative cp set to 2.0/2.1 or headphones things are a lot better.

As far as CMSS goes, I wasn't aware I had to turn it on for games. I thought it was generally for music/movie listening depenind on what mode you chose?

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention. Sometimes to stop the Create cp from changing the Windows one to match it you have to disable cthelper from starting up in msconfig.

 

[oneils]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Behemot There is no pro music production card with EAX support out there. The card closest to pro level with EAX support is, love it or hate it, X-Fi. I have seen number of people running X-Fi Xtreme Music together with 0404 and that seems to be the best value combo for music and games. Or, you can use X-Fi for music production too, on its own.

How would someone do this? I wouldn't mind doing this, but when I switch from games...say to listening to music...would I just go the windows audio control panel and choose a different sound playback device each time? That would be great if I could do that without having drivers cause problems.

 

[injinuiti]

Quote:

Originally Posted by oneils How would someone do this? I wouldn't mind doing this, but when I switch from games...say to listening to music...would I just go the windows audio control panel and choose a different sound playback device each time? That would be great if I could do that without having drivers cause problems.

I have an audigy 2 and a 1212m. What I do is set the audigy 2 as default sound card in windows then set my 1212m for specifics (like foobar). I sent the s/pdif out from the audigy 2 into the 1212m. Then on the DSP for the 1212m I set it so that foobar plays through asio and the audigy 2 plays through wave. This allows me to listen to music and whatever is playing through the audigy 2 at the same time.

I'm still figuring out the DSP... so I'm not all that great at it yet but I hope this helps you out somehow.

For CMSS I tend to turn it off. I position much better with it off. To me it kind of "blurs" the sounds so its not as precise to me where everyone is.

 

[halcyon]

Quote:

Originally Posted by injinuiti For CMSS I tend to turn it off. I position much better with it off. To me it kind of "blurs" the sounds so its not as precise to me where everyone is.

CMSS 1 and 2 have this effect on me too.

CMSS3D on the X-Fi is a real generic HRTF implementation though. That is, a real headphone based virtualisation implementation. It works ever so much better than CMSS1 or CMSS2 on Audigy series, although not flawless either.

 

[j0j081]

Quote:

Originally Posted by halcyon CMSS 1 and 2 have this effect on me too. CMSS3D on the X-Fi is a real generic HRTF implementation though. That is, a real headphone based virtualisation implementation. It works ever so much better than CMSS1 or CMSS2 on Audigy series, although not flawless either.

I wonder if CMSS3D is a new hardware feature or if they simply added through the X-Fi only software. Creative has a tendency to do such things.

 

[sonance]

When they advertise that the X-Fi DSP has more processing power than a Pentium 4, I would hope they could implement such a thing via the DSP. Wouldn't surprise me if they didn't but to be fair they were previously limited by the older e-mu chip in terms of what could be achieved on-chip.

 

[halcyon]

Based on the reviews I've read, it's an algorithm that's offloaded for calculation to the x-fi processor (i.e. done in hardware).

Whether Audigy chip could also have pulled it off, I don't know.