DailyTech - ASUS Responds to EAX5.0 Criticism on Xonar Soundcards

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Blog: Hardware ASUS Responds to EAX5.0 Criticism on Xonar Soundcards
Shane McGlaun (Blog) - March 27, 2008 3:52 PM

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13 comment(s) - last by noirsoft.. on Apr 1 at 12:28 PM

ASUS issues DS3D GX engine update for Xonar soundcards

ASUS announced today that it was issuing an upgrade to its Xonar soundcards after getting criticism and feedback from users of the soundcards over the compatibility with the Xonar cards and EAX 5.0. In response ASUS says it is issuing a DS3D engine upgrade from DS3D GX 1.0 to DS3D GX 2.0.

According to ASUS the upgrade to 2.0 will allow gamers to enable EAX sound options and schemes in games on Windows Vista and XP. The update involves three steps; the first is enabling EAX5.0 in game settings, second is redirecting DirectSound3D Hardware and EAX calls to the DS3D GX core, and the final step is upgrading the DS3D GX engine.

Upgrading the DS3D GX engine to 2.0 gets gamer’s multi-channel 3D positional audio with up to 128 voices and improved reverb effects and more. ASUS lists the improvements in the DS3D GX 2.0 engine in a statement:

Revives multi-channel (128 voice) 3D positional sounds and enhanced environmental reverberation effects on Vista for most DirectSound 3D HW compatible games including EAX 2.0/5.0 game titles.

Installs automatically with driver updates. DS3D GX aims to be more convenient and intuitive than Creative’s ALchemy solution, which requires users to manually setup and assign games into the support list. Moreover, ASUS does not charge its users for driver upgrades.

Retains vivid 3D sound and EAX effects for Vista users in most existing titles that do not support OpenAL.

Allows users to reproduce comparable 3D positional sounds and EAX effects to native EAX 5.0 sound devices in EAX 5.0 game titles, instead of reverting to stereo, 2D, or Windows-emulated 3D sounds.

Features VocalFX voice processing technology, which can apply realistic reverberations to users’ voices relevant to the dynamic in-game landscapes (VoiceEX), emulates background scenes as you use online chat (ChatEX), and modifies vocal pitches to disguise a user’s identity (Magic Voice).

ASUS points out that its implementation is not a 1:1 reproduction of EAX 5.0, but allows the gamer the choice of universally accessing game audio effects. DailyTech reported on the latest Xonar sound card in March 2008.

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ASIO

By dluther on 3/27/2008 7:01:24 PM , Rating: 2

Any word on ASIO latency or even support?

RE: ASIO

By noirsoft on 3/28/2008 12:48:01 PM , Rating: 2

If you really care about ASIO, you should just get a real ASIO card. $100 for the M-Audio 2496 PCI at Musicians Friend is the cheapest for a PCI-based card with low latency.

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/product/MAudio-Audi...

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RE: ASIO

By mindless1 on 3/29/2008 4:10:29 PM , Rating: 2

False, there are many cheaper cards that do this and are based on Envy24 chipset.

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RE: ASIO

By noirsoft on 3/30/2008 1:41:05 PM , Rating: 2

I looked up those cards, and they are still positioned as gamer/surround-sound cards and not professional audio cards, which is what ASIO was designed for. None of the ones I looked at had anything better than 1/8" connections, no multiple in/out except for 5.1 or 7.1, and none mention ASIO or pro recording app support. I still say that an audiophile 2496 (or similar) will give much better results in an ASIO environment than any of those cards.

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RE: ASIO

By noirsoft on 3/30/2008 1:45:36 PM , Rating: 4

Update/Correction: The Audiophile uses the Via Envy chipset, as do the Delta series of cards. It's the cheap cards that lack the proper ASIO drivers and good connections. I wasn't meaning to knock the chipset itself.

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RE: ASIO

By mindless1 on 3/31/2008 10:31:35 PM , Rating: 2

The ASIO support is already present, I run one with it using Foobar2k for playback. Recording is the limit (through analog in but who seriously does that for quality?), and none of the other things matter nearly as much as a decent DAC.

Basically you're an audio snob, and that's ok - in some ways I am too, as many audiophiles are in one way or another, but the central point was your statement which was, as written, false.

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RE: ASIO

By noirsoft on 4/1/2008 12:28:45 PM , Rating: 2

I was unaware that ASIO was being used for media player apps. ASIO is first and foremost a professional-level driver for Digital Audio Workstation recording and playback, where > 20ms latency is considered bad, and > 50ms is almost unusable. So, when someone asks about ASIO support, it is a natural assumption that they are a musician looking for a card to do music creation. What you call "Audio Snob" is really the bare minimum for getting productive work done.

In that realm, my statement is true: the M-Audio 2496 is the lowest cost card I have seen. Cards that use ASIO4ALL or a similar third-party driver to emulate ASIO by tunneling through standard Windows drivers are not in the same league. Looking at gaming-level cards and being worried about ASIO support is just impractical.

To abuse the usual car metaphor, it's like deciding between a Ford Focus and a Toyota Yaris based on towing capacity.

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this is so awesome

By andrewrocks on 3/27/2008 10:02:41 PM , Rating: 3

it's about time creative gets a taste of their own medicine

i might buy this card just because of this one reason.

RE: this is so awesome

By omnicronx on 3/28/2008 2:40:50 AM , Rating: 2

Creative isn't getting a taste of anything.. who do you think owns, develops, and maintains EAX.. They probably make close to the same amount of money off EAX licensing as they do selling cards..

Asus having the words EAX5.0 on their box probably forces them to pay creative for its use..

Its no wonder they still push analogue sound cards for gaming so hard ;) Lets have some DD tracks as the standard already so we can be away with creative once and for all..

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RE: this is so awesome

By mindless1 on 3/29/2008 3:54:32 PM , Rating: 2

You have it backwards. Analog is widely supported and at least allows for a moderate bit of competition in the low end, including motherboard integrated audio taking away Creative's sales.

Switch over to digital then people who don't need this higher quality are spending more, and smaller companies have a harder time pouring the R&D into a next gen product to cover this switch while a giant like Creative will once again have the clout and name recognition to pull in sales.

Further, the issue in gaming isn't just getting a bunch of channels of output, it's having them interactive to the environment. A positional audio standard would still have to exist, just DD wouldn't suffice.

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RE: this is so awesome

By MrBlastman on 3/28/08, Rating: 0

By MrBlastman on 3/28/2008 12:14:36 PM , Rating: 0

I don't know why there is all this hate going on about Creative. I've been using their cards since 1991 (Adlib before that) and haven't ever had any real serious problems with them.

Now, I'm not a musician so I might not hear everything as clear as possible... I DO have a great set of Klipsch speakers and a nice pair of Sony Headphones and have never noticed anything crummy.

As far a drivers working? I've never had issues with drivers either - and if I have had any, they are nothing compared with what sorts of stupid problems I've had with ATI drivers.

The X-Fi's simulated positional surround audio for headphones is absolutely amazing. It was a very nice upgrade from my SB Live and makes a huge difference in games, both EAX and non-eax enabled, as long as they support 4+ speaker support. You really can tell with far more accuracy where the sound is coming from.

But... I don't run Vista, and generally follow a good rule which states: Any time a new Microsoft OS is released, wait 2 years until you adopt it so all the problems can be worked out. It works great in XP.

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RE: this is so awesome

By BZDTemp on 3/28/2008 9:27:53 PM , Rating: 3

Let me think. Reasons for hating Creative

Did you have a SoundBlaster 128? If not here is what it was - it was a no-name card rebranded by Creative sold at a premium. What one got was a card which in DOS was only SB 8-bit compatible - how is that for sticking it to your customers.

Or for something more recent. All the stunts they pulled with EAX to get control of the gaming market. Or making cars that work internaly in 48 Khz meaning handling anything in 44.1 Khz gets resampled twice. Or how about promising and promising useable drivers on Vista...

Oh and BTW. If you only used Creative cards then you should look one the alternatives. Fx. HDA makes nice gaming cards which will encode to Dolby DTS meaning you can send the 3D sound from your PC via a digital cable into any nice surround sound amplifier. That makes a huge difference in quality and chocie. Oh and the HDA card is pretty cheap as well.

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They are calling out Creative!

By Slyons on 3/27/2008 11:01:00 PM , Rating: 3

I'm so happy about Asus actually releasing good drivers with an imbedded alchemy-esque solution. Obviously all the customers complaints weren't enough to convince Creative to create decent drivers. Hopefully competition like this will! Competition is always good!