EAX Audio Issues Hope Resolved Soon!

Saint Thoth

I know, EAX and my card, are not fully supported yet... Bare with me.

First, let me say, I LOVE YOU GUYS - I have an Audigy2 ZS platinum which has drivers so f*cking batty that they've been driving me nuts! The ONLY reasons I purchased this damn $200 card are for the front side inputs and the EAX audio. This thing was a life saver in at least one of those areas, plus it may yet eliminate the Stop 0xD1 (0x0 0x02 0x0) IRQL_Not_Driver_less_or_Equal Errors I've been getting from time to time, rooted in ctaud2k.sys.

It is truly sad when a company as big as Creative makes drivers for their products so bad that a third party has to come around and do it right - all I can say is, thank God you guys came around - or I might have used this $200 card as a murder weapon by now.

Anyways, to the point:

My primary game platform is Half-Life, and the cornucopia of mods there under (NS/DOD). Positional audio is very crucial in these games. They are also very environmentally immersed.

I use the front audio jacks on my sound set for my rather pricey headphones and mic. Before your drivers, I had to alt-tab every time the map changed, and re-select the secondary mic under volume controls (often resulting in artifacts), or Half-Life would reset to the primary mic for input (the one in the rear, which is not connected). So second off, let me thank you for that as well. Under your drivers, the front side mic stays selected as it should.

The one downside I have with these drivers, is whenever the global client perception EAX settings change in Half-life (say, for instance, when you go under water), I not only lose my EAX - I lose my capability of perceiving even basic stereo afterwards. When I come up from the water everything is Mono (it maybe both channels are mirrored -but the effect is Mono-sound)... This is quite fatal in DOD (Day of Defeat) and NS (Natural Selection) - let me assure you. I have to completely shutdown and restart Half-life to fix this.

Now, this can be remedied by disabling the EAX audio, but there are two major drawbacks to that. Although the EAX audio isn't 3D perception per-say, when a little alien is scampering in the next room, you can hear the difference of material he is walking on, the size of the room he is in, and the materials it is made out of. This not only makes you a much more deadly opponent - but it also adds a great deal to the ambience of the game. Similarly, in DOD, you can hear the sounds of explosions, and determine the types of materials struck, and how your fire is more muffled by wooden walls than it is when you are outdoors. All these subtleties are lost without the EAX.

Now you may scoff at Half-Life being so old, and decide it doesn't need your support... But I should remind you that the most popular on-line game right now is Counter Strike... And although I don't play CS myself, Natural Selection is the best game of all time, and I've yet to see anything newer on the market that even compares to it.

If you have any solutions, please do tell. If there are some pending in the newer releases of kX - I shall similarly rejoice and send cash! Please! Support EAX!

System:
CPU: Pentium4ht 3.0 Ghz
Mobo: Abit IS7-E
Ram: 512MB DDR400
GPU: GeForce Fx5600 256MB (BFG)
AUD: Audigy2 ZS Platinum
Dual DVD+/-R Drives

dj_stick

EAX support is currently hindered by the lack of presets known to the developer… and there are other, higher priority issues he has to dix as well, including 24/96 recording

Saint Thoth

Grrr... I'll guess I'll have to uninstall these. After playing Splinter Cell PT without the EAX - I've discovered that's just plain fatal. The Poxy mines make no noise under kX, and I had a merc, who sounded like he was upstairs, turn out to be right behind me and stick his tazer up my bumb... (Different floors, different materials, have different EAX environments)

So - who do I have to kill at Creative Labs to get you guys the presets you need? Seems like they must be part of some SDK somewhere - otherwise the makers of Half-Life, and Splinter Cell wouldn't be able to program for them, yes?

Oh well... Looks like you guys are making this more for professional audio editing rather than gamers. Should you ever get back around to what the majority of us users these cards for, please do tell. Creative Labs can't make descent drivers, so you guys are our only hope!

Is there anyway to install the recording engine of kX and continue to use the Creative Labs output drivers? That would solve half my problems at least.

If you guys can guarantee me it will let you fix the EAX problem, I will send you an Audigy2 ZS Plat - and tie up and torture anyone at CLabs you need me to!

dj_stick

i don't think that any guarantees that eugene (the developer) could make, other than he could try to do it.
Perhaps if you email creative asking them to supply these presets to kxproject @ yandex . ru
for the record i do not work for the kX project (i only help with answering questions here and with documentation on the knowledgebase)

Ray Adams

Hmm, thats sad things. I'm looking for better drivers for my old SBLive, but wihtout EAX support no needs in Kx drivers for me
EAX and Creative is a simillar, like EAX amd SBLive. Gamers looking for Creative products, because they gives good HARDWARE EAX support.
So why we need driver wihtout EAX? Its like, I buy Radeon X800XT card but install driver wihtout 3D support.
___
Guyz, please think about it, it should be primary task for next releases!

JohnMcClane

I asked in cl forum for eax specs but they are just ignoring me, though I was very polite

Samir

Tried to be 'corrupted'? Send them an e-mail, say that you're doing student research, titled "EAX - Revolution in Social Engineering & Cognitive Psychology" & that you're student of the year at MIT... Ask them, very polite, to give you EAX1 & EAX2 enviroment presets data & specification... Maybe they would cooperate...

& keep us posted, i want to know if you had more luck than i did...

JohnMcClane

OK i'll try that,... possibly