DX10 worth killing EAX!!

[pmv]

Originally posted by: BD2003

They removed it for stability reasons, doing everything in software, a very reasonable thing to do since modern CPUs can pull of anything an XFi can do without breaking a sweat. If its all done in software, its compatible across the board no matter the hardware, and its overall better for everyone, whether or not theyre gamers.

Microsoft has nothing to do with OpenAL. Its "openness" is a bit of a joke, as the primary driving force behind it is still creative, and theyre doing their best to use it to keep sound blaster relevant and special. Thats exactly what MS doesnt want to happen, but completely locking out hardware access would have caused an even bigger outcry. But by allowing OpenAL to exist the way it does, they basically shift all the responsibility of it onto creative, and wash their hands clean of it.

Excuse my naivety about such matters, but does that imply that in MS's ideal world they'd do away with DirectX altogether, for similar reasons? Presumably the advantages of dedicated hardware are much greater with graphics than with sound so they can't hope for such a thing in the short-term, but logically would they not aspire to do the same as they've done with sound?

On a related note, how did Direct3D come to dominate so comprehensively over OpenGL? It seems to me that with the purely commercially driven decision to not provide DirectX10 in XP MS, having captured the gaming market for its API, have now effectively started charging for upgrades to DirectX. From a business point of view its clearly a great coup and a brilliantly successful manuever on their part, but from a consumer point of view its annoying - MS have surely now completely 'captured' the PC as a gaming platform, turning it into a glorified XBox.

Yet there seems a contradiction between this and their treatment of directSound. On the one hand they've washed their hands of the API and left everyone to do it in software, on the other they've gotten a commercial advantage by having everyone use their API and NOT do it in software. If graphics went the same way as MS want sound to go, they'd lose the ability to use DirectX as a means of forcing OS upgrades.

 

[BD2003]

Originally posted by: bunnyfubbles
That's not a very well thought out statement...if Creative really was trying to keep it relevant they'd have made sure to release Alchemy for free to begin with for their cards, with an option to buy it to use for non creative cards...

Perhaps more accurate would be "theyre doing everything they can to keep their sound cards relevant."This is still monopolistic creative we're talking about here though. It was free for XFi users. Audigy users had to pay (wink wink, upgrade to X-Fi). Anyone with a non-creative card? Buy an X-Fi.

I seriously doubt it, that might be true about having graphics rendering match real life in real time, why would audio be any better/faster?

3D audio was practically more advanced back in 2001 than it is now, we just had fewer speakers back then. There was plenty of great technology on the horizon back then that never really came to fruition - custom HRTFs to your ears, volumetric sounds, 2nd/3rd+ order wavetracing, material modeling for obstruction/occlusion, real-time synthesization - and that was just ahead many many years ago. Then creative killed it.

 

[BD2003]

Originally posted by: pmv

Originally posted by: BD2003

They removed it for stability reasons, doing everything in software, a very reasonable thing to do since modern CPUs can pull of anything an XFi can do without breaking a sweat. If its all done in software, its compatible across the board no matter the hardware, and its overall better for everyone, whether or not theyre gamers.

Microsoft has nothing to do with OpenAL. Its "openness" is a bit of a joke, as the primary driving force behind it is still creative, and theyre doing their best to use it to keep sound blaster relevant and special. Thats exactly what MS doesnt want to happen, but completely locking out hardware access would have caused an even bigger outcry. But by allowing OpenAL to exist the way it does, they basically shift all the responsibility of it onto creative, and wash their hands clean of it.

Excuse my naivety about such matters, but does that imply that in MS's ideal world they'd do away with DirectX altogether, for similar reasons? Presumably the advantages of dedicated hardware are much greater with graphics than with sound so they can't hope for such a thing in the short-term, but logically would they not aspire to do the same as they've done with sound?

DirectX for graphics sells OSes, hence DX10 being a big selling point for vista. People equate DX with graphics, ignoring everything else, because thats all people seem to care about. If people cared as much about audio as they did about video, it'd probably be a different story.

On a related note, how did Direct3D come to dominate so comprehensively over OpenGL? It seems to me that with the purely commercially driven decision to not provide DirectX10 in XP MS, having captured the gaming market for its API, have now effectively started charging for upgrades to DirectX. From a business point of view its clearly a great coup and a brilliantly successful manuever on their part, but from a consumer point of view its annoying - MS have surely now completely 'captured' the PC as a gaming platform, turning it into a glorified XBox.

It came to dominate because it was built in to the OS of course, just like IE. There are technical reasons why DX10 cant be done in XP, but youre essentially right about them charging for DX10.

Yet there seems a contradiction between this and their treatment of directSound. On the one hand they've washed their hands of the API and left everyone to do it in software, on the other they've gotten a commercial advantage by having everyone use their API and NOT do it in software. If graphics went the same way as MS want sound to go, they'd lose the ability to use DirectX as a means of forcing OS upgrades.

People care about graphics, so they wont let that happen. People apparently cant even imagine how audio could be improved, so theres no need to bother with it anymore as far as theyre concerned.

 

[Scotteq]

Originally posted by: BD2003

People care about graphics, so they wont let that happen. People apparently cant even imagine how audio could be improved, so theres no need to bother with it anymore as far as theyre concerned.

Speaking as an audio addict (not rich enough to use Audio"Phile"), and by way of support - It takes a certain level of fiscal investment to aquire equipment capable of reproducing even the level of sound current computer audio setups can deliver. You can buy a $300 sound card and it will sound almost exactly the same as onboard when the output is sent through $10 headphones and speakers. Yet unplug the cheap stuff and run into a good stereo/headphones, and the difference between the two is clearly audible.

In my experience the public at large are happy with "Sound Comes Out", rather than trying to replicate a "Real" sounding experience. Flat out - On a mass market level, most people just aren't willing to pay for it. So it makes sense to me that, again on a mass market level, computer audio hasn't progressed very far at all. There's little point in investing in the source when people aren't willing to pay the extra it takes to accurately reproduce what's already achievable. Especially when you can re-brand and re-market the same stuff and make more profits.


The down side, of course, is should someone choose to make the investment, some of the cheesy effects used in games also become clearly audible. "Gee - that cool sounding Light Saber effect now sounds like someone hitting a tight wire with a stick..." Well... Yeah - cos that's what the studio did to make the sound. Only now your gear is good enough that you can hear it...

 

[BD2003]

Originally posted by: Scotteq

Originally posted by: BD2003

People care about graphics, so they wont let that happen. People apparently cant even imagine how audio could be improved, so theres no need to bother with it anymore as far as theyre concerned.

Speaking as an audio addict (not rich enough to use Audio"Phile"), and by way of support - It takes a certain level of fiscal investment to aquire equipment capable of reproducing even the level of sound current computer audio setups can deliver. You can buy a $300 sound card and it will sound almost exactly the same as onboard when the output is sent through $10 headphones and speakers. Yet unplug the cheap stuff and run into a good stereo/headphones, and the difference between the two is clearly audible.

In my experience the public at large are happy with "Sound Comes Out", rather than trying to replicate a "Real" sounding experience. Flat out - On a mass market level, most people just aren't willing to pay for it. So it makes sense to me that, again on a mass market level, computer audio hasn't progressed very far at all. There's little point in investing in the source when people aren't willing to pay the extra it takes to accurately reproduce what's already achievable. Especially when you can re-brand and re-market the same stuff and make more profits.


The down side, of course, is should someone choose to make the investment, some of the cheesy effects used in games also become clearly audible. "Gee - that cool sounding Light Saber effect now sounds like someone hitting a tight wire with a stick..." Well... Yeah - cos that's what the studio did to make the sound. Only now your gear is good enough that you can hear it...

Well, youre not really making the distinction between 2d audio and 3d audio. You dont need a very expensive monitor to notice the difference between todays 3d graphics and older games. Youd probably notice the difference just the same on an old 14inch crt. Likewise, theres a ton they could do with 3d audio and mainstream speakers/headphones. If anything, the hardware bottleneck is much less with audio, especially when we're dealing with headphones. At that point, its almost all software.

Its a lot easier to imagine how much better graphics can get, but its just more difficult to imagine audio/sound in general. You cant put it on the back of a box, for one.

At its core, EAX5 is capable of some pretty decent effects. The only problem with it, and the problem with EAX since its inception is that it requires a lot of programmer intervention to add all the effects in, and 99.9% of the time, they just dont bother with anything but the basics. Virtually the only apps that take full advantage of the EAX's capabilities are the demos on the driver disc.

A3D OTOH required a basic geometric layout of the level, and it would calculate the way sound bounced off the walls. It would have taken material into account (wood, stone, etc). Even in its most basic form, it worked very, very well - you could tell whether you were in a long hallway, huge cathedral or bathroom just by the sound of it.

 

[ViRGE]

Originally posted by: BD2003
3D audio was practically more advanced back in 2001 than it is now, we just had fewer speakers back then. There was plenty of great technology on the horizon back then that never really came to fruition - custom HRTFs to your ears, volumetric sounds, 2nd/3rd+ order wavetracing, material modeling for obstruction/occlusion, real-time synthesization - and that was just ahead many many years ago. Then Creative killed it.

It would have died either way because people just don't give a damn, Creative just sped up the process. Otherwise I do agree with you.

*starts bawling like a baby*

 

[Scotteq]

Originally posted by: BD2003

Originally posted by: Scotteq

Originally posted by: BD2003

People care about graphics, so they wont let that happen. People apparently cant even imagine how audio could be improved, so theres no need to bother with it anymore as far as theyre concerned.

Speaking as an audio addict (not rich enough to use Audio"Phile"), and by way of support - It takes a certain level of fiscal investment to aquire equipment capable of reproducing even the level of sound current computer audio setups can deliver. You can buy a $300 sound card and it will sound almost exactly the same as onboard when the output is sent through $10 headphones and speakers. Yet unplug the cheap stuff and run into a good stereo/headphones, and the difference between the two is clearly audible.

In my experience the public at large are happy with "Sound Comes Out", rather than trying to replicate a "Real" sounding experience. Flat out - On a mass market level, most people just aren't willing to pay for it. So it makes sense to me that, again on a mass market level, computer audio hasn't progressed very far at all. There's little point in investing in the source when people aren't willing to pay the extra it takes to accurately reproduce what's already achievable. Especially when you can re-brand and re-market the same stuff and make more profits.


The down side, of course, is should someone choose to make the investment, some of the cheesy effects used in games also become clearly audible. "Gee - that cool sounding Light Saber effect now sounds like someone hitting a tight wire with a stick..." Well... Yeah - cos that's what the studio did to make the sound. Only now your gear is good enough that you can hear it...

Well, youre not really making the distinction between 2d audio and 3d audio. You dont need a very expensive monitor to notice the difference between todays 3d graphics and older games. Youd probably notice the difference just the same on an old 14inch crt. Likewise, theres a ton they could do with 3d audio and mainstream speakers/headphones. If anything, the hardware bottleneck is much less with audio, especially when we're dealing with headphones. At that point, its almost all software.

Its a lot easier to imagine how much better graphics can get, but its just more difficult to imagine audio/sound in general. You cant put it on the back of a box, for one.

At its core, EAX5 is capable of some pretty decent effects. The only problem with it, and the problem with EAX since its inception is that it requires a lot of programmer intervention to add all the effects in, and 99.9% of the time, they just dont bother with anything but the basics. Virtually the only apps that take full advantage of the EAX's capabilities are the demos on the driver disc.

A3D OTOH required a basic geometric layout of the level, and it would calculate the way sound bounced off the walls. It would have taken material into account (wood, stone, etc). Even in its most basic form, it worked very, very well - you could tell whether you were in a long hallway, huge cathedral or bathroom just by the sound of it.

Didn't feel the 2d or 3d distinction needed to be made - rather I was speaking to basic fidelity and dynamics. After all, most of the market only use cheap components. Admittedly the cheap stuff available now is still better than the abysmal state of 'computer' speakers years ago, but $20 headset/speakers aren't going to reproduce what current cards are capable of, let alone take advantage of something better. Basically, I'm pointing out that expending a lot of effort into creating better sound (effects) makes little sense if the gear used to reproduce that improved sound is garbage. $20 speakers are still going to sound like $20 speakers...

Regarding 3D, I agree there could/should be a lot better out there than is the current state. After all, on the home theater front, from Dolby to DTS, 5.1 and now 7.1 is out there to be taken advantage of. I fully agree this could be turned to GREAT advantage - both from a marketing point of view and from a strict performance perspective. The technology is absolutely there to do it. Though as you point out, there seems to be a lack of easy to use tools for programmers to add the capabilities into games.




(If it matters - My own setup uses the digital out from an Auzentech Prelude to an NAD T775/Polk Audio 7.1 setup, but the processing is being done using the D/A converter on the amplifier rather than any gaming~type sound effects being created by the computer itself. Tried the ALchemy app that was available for the card - Terrible, IMHO. Ended up deleting it and using the driver only. Sounds better unsullied.)

 

[BD2003]

Originally posted by: ViRGE

Originally posted by: BD2003
3D audio was practically more advanced back in 2001 than it is now, we just had fewer speakers back then. There was plenty of great technology on the horizon back then that never really came to fruition - custom HRTFs to your ears, volumetric sounds, 2nd/3rd+ order wavetracing, material modeling for obstruction/occlusion, real-time synthesization - and that was just ahead many many years ago. Then Creative killed it.

It would have died either way because people just don't give a damn, Creative just sped up the process. Otherwise I do agree with you.

*starts bawling like a baby*

Well, I'd like to think of people not giving a damn having more to do with how poor the technology was rather than a lack of desire. EAX3-5 sounds fantastic on paper. I honestly cant think of a single game where it was implemented beyond anything but simple reverb, occlusion and obstruction. And even then, it wasnt very carefully done, as developers just basically set a reverb mode for each stage and paid no attention to the actual structure beyond that.

I also place a decent amount of blame on microsoft for the fiasco - they basically never even tried with directsound3d. They created the absolute most basic framework, and let it rot that way for a decade. Perhaps it had something to do with creative owning certain patents, but the fact remains that there is an amazing amount of potential that has not been realized.