Educate me on EAX in PR

[A_Grounded_Pilot]

I've been shopping for a new gaming headset. Due to frequent work travel, I game on a 15" laptop (XP Pro) which has Intel integrated sound with a single stereo output. In my quest for 5.1 surround sound, I've decided that the best route to take is a USB headset with an inline sound card, such as this, this, this, or this. Problem is, none of these are Creative products, and several of them specifically do not support EAX. I'm pretty sure that's a deal breaker for me. Of the units that do, only EAX 2.0 is supported. Now if I'm going to go through all the trouble to get some sweet-action 5.1 headphones, I want the sounds of the PR world to be there in all their glory. So would only having EAX 2.0 capability cripple the sounds of PR? To throw another wrench into it - I'll be getting a new laptop sometime soon (again, Intel integrated sound) and I plan on running Vista 64. How does OpenAL and ALchemy play into all this? Will lack of EAX support on the headsets be an issue? Do PR sounds even work in Vista without a Creative sound card?

[clueless_noob]

PR doesn't require Alchemy at all as it uses OpenAL, which in turn works flawlessly on Vista 64. And several mobo integrated sound chips supports OpenAL too.

What comes to EAX, I've been playing BF2 & PR with 'EAX 2.0 only' for over a year now and I've been more than happy (I'm using Razer Barracuda AC-1 with HP-1 headset). Last winter I purchased a new, state of the art sound card with EAX Advanced HD support (Auzen X-Fi Prelude 7.1), but after hearing it's version of PR sounds, I swiched back to my previous sound card. X-FI Prelude now sits in my closet collecting dust. I agree that it provided me with some new sound effects, but they weren't enough to compenstate degraded overall experience. Main problem was positional audio, which weren't even near of Razer's performance.

At writing of this I've tested all combinations of 4 different sound cards (2 integrated, X-FI Prelude, Razer) with 3 headsets/headphones (my better-than-average Sony stereo headphones, Speed-Link Medusa 5.1, Razer) and the only combination capable of providing decent gaming experience is Razer AC-1 with Razer HP-1.

This is only my opinion, but I don't recommend wasting money for EAX 5.

[thepalerider]

I'm still on the fence myself for a 5.1 headset.
While I was waiting, I decided to pickup a Plantronics
.Audio™ 90 from their online Clearance Store
I got the folding kind that look like this .Audio 470 USB headset
Mine are analog 1/8 mini jacks, I picked up for 8 bucks + shipping.
Since sold out from their online Clearance Store.
Now I don't know if it's because my motherboard supports 7.1 surround sound ,plantronics make good stuff or both, but these babys give me very good situational awareness on the cheep. I had a pair of those '3D' headsets with the 20 ounce magnets to vibrate for the low end sound and I really liked them, sound and vibrations made a 40 ton tank sound and 'feel' real, just like what you'd feel when your to close to a large bulldozer. Trouble was they were painful to wear very long.
Don't get the full cups if you have a large head and will wear them a lot no matter what you buy. If you can find a pair of the Audio™ 90s that fold for under 15 bucks, BUY THEM you won't be disappointed with them and they make a great backup set for travel. I love mine.

[clueless_noob]

I forgot to mention that EAX has nothing to do with positional audio. They are only effects; rattles and clanks of the equipment, sound of gravel under the boots, etc. Games can be played with or without EAX and using almost any speaker setup available. So you can use EAX 5.0 with stereo sound, EAX 2.0 with 7.1 sound, no EAX at all with 5.1 audio or virtually any combination of above. I have 5.1 audio with EAX 2.0 effects.

[[R-DEV]Jaymz]

Originally Posted by devnull

I forgot to mention that EAX has nothing to do with positional audio. They are only effects; rattles and clanks of the equipment, sound of gravel under the boots, etc.

Wrong. That is the most inaccurate post I have read in a long time. EAX simulates surround sound in any headphones* as long as the creative card knows you're using headphones and not speakers. I have a USB X-Fi card which doesn't support X-Fi in BF2**, so I have the settings on "hardware/high/EAXenabled".

My creative audio panel is set to headphones and hence, in game I can hear full directional audio.



*Do not waste your money on surround sound headphones. Any game with EAX support will simulate surround sound in any headphones. The only use for surround headphones is games that don't have EAX support and 5.1/7.1 Films and DVD-A.

**X-fi in BF2 only gives you more voices and better performance because it handles all sounds with its own RAM. It doesn't make anything sound better.

[clueless_noob]

Originally Posted by [R-DEV]Jaymz

My creative audio panel is set to headphones and hence, in game I can hear full directional audio.

Disable EAX support in BF2 audio settings and you can still hear directional audio. Its your sound card's DSP that does downmixing and spatialization for virtual surround, not game's EAX support. And for that you don't need Creative sound card. Dolby Virtual Speaker or Dolby Headphone, anyone?

Originally Posted by [R-DEV]Jaymz

gives you more voices

Rattle and clank, anyone?

Last but not least, quote from Wikipedia:
"EAX has nothing to do with actual 3D audio positioning."

Feel free to edit that Wikipedia page if you think it's incorrect.

[Brummy]

Just a small question, I have a good ol' Sound Blaster Audigy SE

So.. what does the setting in the EAX control panel do? To me it seems like it only gives more echo and stuff.. do I turn this off, or?

[[R-DEV]Jaymz]

Stand corrected about EAX simulating surround. The actual fact is that Creative cards automatically give 3D spatial placement in headphones. In BF2, EAX only really handles indoor reverb settings and a few other key elemants like air absorption and object occlusion. These will all be done even without an EAX supporting card but the results will be very different.

Example 1 : A non-EAX card will obstruct sounds a lot more than an EAX card.

Example 2 : A non-EAX card won't make good use of the air absorption features.

What is this rattling of gear stuff you're talking about? You mean that those sounds are not heard at all without X-Fi enabled?

Originally Posted by Brummy

So.. what does the setting in the EAX control panel do? To me it seems like it only gives more echo and stuff.. do I turn this off, or?

Enabling EAX in BF2 will turn it on during BF2. So leave it off in the control panel unless you want reverb on all your audio.

[A_Grounded_Pilot]

Guys,

Thank you for the intelligent conversation. I was pretty confused about all of this when I first posted, and I think I'm starting to put the pieces together. I'm now less concerned about surround sound and more concerned about EAX. What I've gotten from all of this is:

-Positioning and effects are two separate but equally important aspects of the sound environment.

-BF2 audio is rendered with two APIs; OpenAL for positioning, and EAX (which utilizes the DirectSound API) for effects.

-Windows Vista did away with the DirectSound API completely, and EAX went away with it.

-Again, positional audio in BF2 is done by OpenAL, which works fine in Vista, so the loss of DirectSound doesn't matter there.

-However, BF2's effects are rendered by EAX, which is now gone. Creative saw that Vista no longer supported EAX, and wrote an application called ALchemy that translates EAX calls into OpenAL for output. This essentially revived EAX in Vista. Unfortunately, from what I could find, only Creative cards can run ALchemy. So, without a dedicated Creative card, EAX is nonexistent in Vista. Is this an accurate statement?

[1st.Gunnery]

If you still searching for an headset, maybe you take a look at this one:
HS-1000 | Unmatched gaming audio, used by champions

its from creative with an usb dongle, im useing the version without usb + xf-i and it gives me a nice surround sound.

thnx

Gunny