[EAX] Prey 2006 Advanced HD EAX 5.0 Creative X-Fi Gameplay 3D Positional Audio 4K Gameplay
14Perhaps it’s the timing, or the fact that established industry giants are going toe-to-toe, but the recent face off between Creative and ASUS over EAX 5.0 functionality in the new Xonar sound card drivers from ASUS has attracted quite a bit more media attention than I’m used to seeing devoted to PC audio hardware.
3D positional audio with the environmental effects that EAX provides can make a huge difference in your enjoyment of games – they not only help you feel like you’re inside an acoustic space, but the cues from those environmental reverb effects can help you determine where other sound sources are located relative to yourself. With this in mind, it’s easy to see why 3D environmental audio is a subject that matters to gamers.
Creative’s EAX technology has dominated the 3D audio landscape for quite some time now, despite the fact that every version of the specification after 2.0 was proprietary. But ASUS has managed to incorporate the same basic functionality of EAX 5.0 (128-voice environmental reverb and occlusion) into their DS3D GX 2.0 driver extension, challenging Creative’s dominance and forcing us all to ask if the days of proprietary, hardware-bound environmental DSP could be behind us.
In the three games I tested, I found that while EAX effects on the Creative X-Fi had a slight edge in sound quality when compared to the Xonar, it was hardly a night-and-day difference. The strange artifacts I heard under BioShock were likely due to the fact that I was using a patched driver to conduct the tests – ASUS sent me an updated file to be included in the driver installation that would allow EAX to be enabled within BioShock.
It’s clear that the Xonar drivers and ASUS’ DS3D GX extension set both need a bit more work to bring them up to the level of Creative’s hardware-based DSP, but the success of the ASUS card under both BioShock and Prey definitely proves that software-based DSP effects are coming of age.
The significance of the testing and conclusions detailed in the preceding three pages is thus: While ASUS hasn’t managed to de-throne the X-Fi’s hardware-accelerated EAX environmental and positional audio effects where sound quality is concerned, they’ve come extremely close, and have managed to duplicate much of the functionality of EAX 5 to boot.
In fact, as far as practical conclusions are concerned, in most games you’re not even likely to notice a difference, and if you do, it’s a slight one at that. There was also no perceptible effect on smoothness of gameplay when using the ASUS Xonar sound card, despite the fact that my ‘reference’ rig might have been cutting edge, oh, say, a couple years ago (with the exception of the video and audio subsystems).
I’m convinced that some games are developed simply to give somebody something to do for a while. Human Head’s Prey is one of those games – not much more than an interesting combination of tired first-person gaming clichés. However, this game makes use of EAX 5.0, and was recommended highly by Creative for testing, so I decided I’d give it a whirl.
While the EAX 5.0 performance of the Xonar card left a bit to be desired in BioShock, the Xonar performed admirably in Prey, dramatically heightening the ambiance of the half-living alien spaceship and the perception of location and distance of sounds. To test Prey, I played through the “Downward Spiral” level, which takes the game’s main character on a meandering path downward through the alien spacecraft.
EAX makes a huge difference – just out of curiosity, I tried playing the level through without EAX enabled, and the game audio was drab and lifeless. Yet with it enabled, environments took on spaciousness, depth, volume, and air. The Xonar’s EAX 5.0 performance in Prey was problem-free, with none of the random noise that plagued BioShock.
Switching to the X-Fi, I noticed that the effects, again, possessed better detail, and sounded a little bit more realistic. But only a little – in fact, the EAX effects in Prey with the Xonar card sounded almost exactly as they did with the X-Fi. As with Kane & Lynch, the difference between the two cards is so slight that you’re likely not to even notice a difference. That alone should be enough to scare Creative.
See the next page for my final thoughts on the matter.
If there’s one thing we see over and over again in this industry, it’s that competition produces innovation, or at the very least, consistent improvement. Creative appears to be very interested in defending their position as the heavyweight of the PC a
NO COMMENTARY GAMEPLAY Guide Nintendo Switch NX Emulator Wii 3DS XL DS Apple iPhone 2019 Games Cheats #fru77y iPad 2020 iOS Google Android Play Steam Coop PLAYTHROUGH Solo Campaign 100% WALKTHROUGH 4K 60FPS Multiplayer LET'S PLAY Solution Complete Story Review 1080p HD Microsoft Xbox One X Enhanced 360 Achievement Sony PlayStation 2021 PS4 Pro Trophy PS3 Vita TV PSP Portable Console Windows PC Gaming
https://www.youtube.com/FRU777Y