The move towards Vista...

[Dravic]

Originally posted by: chizow

Originally posted by: Acanthus
It is kind of ironic that a sound card company named "creative" stifles competition and makes proprietary APIs.

Everyone blames MS for dropping directsound, i think MS stomped out a demon by going to OpenAL. Big shocker, the companies that have been innovating have made the switch, and Creative can barely get sound through the friggin speakers.

I have to disagree here. EAX and its variants isn't a proprietary API, its proprietary within DirectSound which is available to everyone. No one else has cared enough about PC sound to develop their own proprietary environmental audio, so how is Creative to blame? Creative has been pioneering PC sound since the 8088 when the only other alternative was beeps and buzzes from an internal speaker.

Even if Creative were to give out free license to EAX and its variants, most sound solutions wouldn't even be able to use it (afaik, Creative has licensed out EAX to some sound providers). That's where Creative is at fault and running into problems. They designed hardware around their proprietary tech and that hardware leaves a larger footprint that can create conflicts with other hardware. They probably expected other industry players to bend over backwards (Nvidia, MS) to make their products work and that's simply not how things are playing out.

MS is still to blame for dropping DirectSound though, and its definitely not for altruistic reasons as you suggest. They wanted DirectSound out of kernel-space to improve overall stability and reduce support on their end. As a result, PC sound is about where it was 6-7 years ago. Creative was actually the first company to support OpenAL in Vista with the X-Fi and they continue to lead on the development front. If you don't believe me, go to OpenAL's site, click on downloads. Where does it re-direct you?

And thanks for the heads-up on that DVD Evolucion8, I'll have to search around for it.

I believe up to EAX2 is open to other game developers, just the newer versions remain closed to maintain their lead.

 

[fliguy84]

Two of my favorite games of all time, WC3: TFT and Original CS works fine with Vista

 

[n7]

I already put my two cents in my OP, but i've yet to run into a game that doesn't run on Vista 64.

I'm sure some exist, but personally, i haven't found any yet.

 

[Acanthus]

Originally posted by: Dravic

Originally posted by: chizow

Originally posted by: Acanthus
It is kind of ironic that a sound card company named "creative" stifles competition and makes proprietary APIs.

Everyone blames MS for dropping directsound, i think MS stomped out a demon by going to OpenAL. Big shocker, the companies that have been innovating have made the switch, and Creative can barely get sound through the friggin speakers.

I have to disagree here. EAX and its variants isn't a proprietary API, its proprietary within DirectSound which is available to everyone. No one else has cared enough about PC sound to develop their own proprietary environmental audio, so how is Creative to blame? Creative has been pioneering PC sound since the 8088 when the only other alternative was beeps and buzzes from an internal speaker.

Even if Creative were to give out free license to EAX and its variants, most sound solutions wouldn't even be able to use it (afaik, Creative has licensed out EAX to some sound providers). That's where Creative is at fault and running into problems. They designed hardware around their proprietary tech and that hardware leaves a larger footprint that can create conflicts with other hardware. They probably expected other industry players to bend over backwards (Nvidia, MS) to make their products work and that's simply not how things are playing out.

MS is still to blame for dropping DirectSound though, and its definitely not for altruistic reasons as you suggest. They wanted DirectSound out of kernel-space to improve overall stability and reduce support on their end. As a result, PC sound is about where it was 6-7 years ago. Creative was actually the first company to support OpenAL in Vista with the X-Fi and they continue to lead on the development front. If you don't believe me, go to OpenAL's site, click on downloads. Where does it re-direct you?

And thanks for the heads-up on that DVD Evolucion8, I'll have to search around for it.

I believe up to EAX2 is open to other game developers, just the newer versions remain closed to maintain their lead.

EAX2 is over 5 years old now...

Thats like saying Intel is allowing AMD to use I440BX chipsets now.

6-7 years ago? 5.1 surround is working fine on my azalia based machine.

 

[Chaotic42]

Originally posted by: VERTIGGO
Can't use an X-Fi. Subwoofer still doesn't work in Vista. Creative is so behind it's not even funny.

My subwoofer seems to be working with my X-fi in Vista.

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: Acanthus
EAX2 is over 5 years old now...

And still sounds better than what's offered in Vista by default.

Thats like saying Intel is allowing AMD to use I440BX chipsets now.

That analogy would hold true if the I440BX outperformed P35 or X38.

6-7 years ago? 5.1 surround is working fine on my azalia based machine.

As it did on my SB Live!, except I also had EAX support which is better than generic positional sound in Vista.

 

[Ackmed]

Originally posted by: Acanthus

Thats like saying Intel is allowing AMD to use I440BX chipsets now.

Not to get off topic.. but thats the best chipset ever, imo. So much was added and done with it. My BH-6 rocked.

 

[Acanthus]

Originally posted by: chizow

Originally posted by: Acanthus
EAX2 is over 5 years old now...

And still sounds better than what's offered in Vista by default.

Thats like saying Intel is allowing AMD to use I440BX chipsets now.

That analogy would hold true if the I440BX outperformed P35 or X38.

6-7 years ago? 5.1 surround is working fine on my azalia based machine.

As it did on my SB Live!, except I also had EAX support which is better than generic positional sound in Vista.

I sincerely hope you arent saying EAX sounds better on any "computer speakers".

The sad part is, i cant tell the difference between EAX and EAX4. (on xp machines of course, and with a real stereo)

Keep shelling out for those 5DB snr increases i guess... for your hopefully $1000+ 5.1 system where you can hear the difference of course.

 

[Acanthus]

Originally posted by: Ackmed

Originally posted by: Acanthus

Thats like saying Intel is allowing AMD to use I440BX chipsets now.

Not to get off topic.. but thats the best chipset ever, imo. So much was added and done with it. My BH-6 rocked.

BE6-2 for life!

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: Acanthus
I sincerely hope you arent saying EAX sounds better on any "computer speakers".

It certainly does, just like DD or DTS sounds better than Pro Logic on any 5.1 speakers.

The sad part is, i cant tell the difference between EAX and EAX4. (on xp machines of course, and with a real stereo)

Yep, because the original was just that good, which makes it even sadder that there's nothing in Vista that matches even the original.

Keep shelling out for those 5DB snr increases i guess... for your hopefully $1000+ 5.1 system where you can hear the difference of course.

I plan to, as there hasn't been a Creative upgrade yet where I haven't noticed the difference in sound quality (on my $1000+ 5.1 system).

 

[LittleNemoNES]

Vista is ok for games. The drivers are the real issue. ATI and Nvidia are mostly responsible for video instabilities. I'd wait for at least SP1, though.

 

[Ackmed]

Originally posted by: Acanthus

Originally posted by: Ackmed

Originally posted by: Acanthus

Thats like saying Intel is allowing AMD to use I440BX chipsets now.

Not to get off topic.. but thats the best chipset ever, imo. So much was added and done with it. My BH-6 rocked.

BE6-2 for life!

I had one of those too. Liked my BH-6 better, just because it overclocked better for me. Ahh, cartridge CPU's. Man, they sucked.

But to get back on topic... as I said before, no game has failed to run for me so far. I have had zero issues as well with sound, at least as far as I know. My sub works fine, 5.1 does as well.

 

[Brian48]

Originally posted by: Ackmed

Originally posted by: VERTIGGO
Can't use an X-Fi. Subwoofer still doesn't work in Vista. Creative is so behind it's not even funny.

My sub works fine with my 3 year old Z-5500's.

Same here. Klipsch 4.1.

 

[Acanthus]

Chizow, whats wrong with OpenAL again?

You keep saying we are back to the stone age with audio, but fail to put any real data supporting that on the table.

Being open source, you can make any effects you want... hence the name OPEN A L.

 

[wazzi]

mate vista is all sexy n all, but i've been facin this prob with my 8800 gts on vista 64 is that when ever i play a graphic demanding thing there is this error "Display driver nvlddmkm stopped responding and has successfully recovered", my screen goes all black or the screen has black n white dots i,ve been readin about it on net n every body says its a vista prob n i've not been able to find a solution so i would not recommend vista for now, if i do find a solution i'll let u know but this is a very common prob

 

[Noema]

Are you using the latest drivers? I've never encountered this issue with Vista 64-bit.

 

[Acanthus]

Originally posted by: wazzi
mate vista is all sexy n all, but i've been facin this prob with my 8800 gts on vista 64 is that when ever i play a graphic demanding thing there is this error "Display driver nvlddmkm stopped responding and has successfully recovered", my screen goes all black or the screen has black n white dots i,ve been readin about it on net n every body says its a vista prob n i've not been able to find a solution so i would not recommend vista for now, if i do find a solution i'll let u know but this is a very common prob

That is not in the known issues list for vista drivers.

I do not have that issue with my 8800GTS 320 in Vista64.

 

[aka1nas]

Originally posted by: wazzi
mate vista is all sexy n all, but i've been facin this prob with my 8800 gts on vista 64 is that when ever i play a graphic demanding thing there is this error "Display driver nvlddmkm stopped responding and has successfully recovered", my screen goes all black or the screen has black n white dots i,ve been readin about it on net n every body says its a vista prob n i've not been able to find a solution so i would not recommend vista for now, if i do find a solution i'll let u know but this is a very common prob

That sounds like your card is unstable. Are you overclocking it?

 

[wazzi]

well i first encountered this prob while installin 162.18 driver, at first i thought my card is unstable or my cpu is as i mild overclocked my cpu from 2.66 to 3.00 so i downclocked it again back to normal n used the older version 158.24......i stopped havin the error since then , but since yesterday i downloaded windows dreamscene n as i activated it things started to go all wrong again...............i used riva tuner to monitor any abnormal activity n there was none...............i still wanna know if this is my graphic card being unstable cause i jus bought it two weeks ago, but i've read on the internet that with xp u don have this prob, anyone who ever did have this prob moved back to xp n stopped having it

 

[n7]

Originally posted by: Acanthus
That is not in the known issues list for vista drivers.

I do not have that issue with my 8800GTS 320 in Vista64.

Count yourself lucky.

Many of us aren't so lucky: http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=86550

Since using the 163.11 & current officials though, the "driver stopped" issues has ceased for me though thank god, or i'd likely have kept my HD 2900 XT 1 GB not this 8800 GTX.

 

[VERTIGGO]

Originally posted by: Ackmed

Originally posted by: VERTIGGO
Can't use an X-Fi. Subwoofer still doesn't work in Vista. Creative is so behind it's not even funny.

My sub works fine with my 3 year old Z-5500's.

Are you sure that's when it's running 5.1 mode and not 2.1? (not sure about Z-5500s) My sub works fine, but only when my amp pulls the LFE from the stereo channels (iTunes and whatnot).

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: Acanthus
Chizow, whats wrong with OpenAL again?

You keep saying we are back to the stone age with audio, but fail to put any real data supporting that on the table.

Being open source, you can make any effects you want... hence the name OPEN A L.

When's the last time you used a Creative product in XP with a game that fully supported EAX? Sure, OpenAL "works" in Vista, but games still need to fully support it or its not going to sound any different than generic Vista sound. Having sound coming out of all 5 speakers in Vista is not the same as EAX.......

As taken directly from the OpenAL page:

DirectSound3D on Windows Vista

With Microsoft's decision to remove the audio hardware layer in Windows Vista, legacy DirectSound 3D games will no longer use hardware 3D algorithms for audio spatialization. Instead they will have to rely upon the new Microsoft software mixer that is built into Windows Vista. This new software mixer will give the users basic audio support for their old Direct Sound games but since it has no hardware layer, all EAX® effects will be lost, and no individual per-voice processing can be performed using dedicated hardware processing.

EAX has become the de facto standard for real-time effects processing. It has been incorporated in hundreds of games and has become the method of choice for game developers wanting to add interactive environment effects to their titles. Some of the best selling games of all time use the EAX extensions to DirectSound 5.0 and beyond, including Warcraft3, Diablo2, World of Warcraft, Half Life, Ghost Recon, F.E.A.R. and many others. Under Windows Vista, these games will be losing the hardware support that came as standard under the previous Windows Operating Systems, and will no longer provide real-time interactive effects, making them sound empty and lifeless by comparison to the way they sound on Windows XP.

In some cases, where a game specifically looks for a hardware audio path, it may even fall back to plain stereo output. This will be a very different landscape for 3D audio than the one that both Creative Labs and Aureal Technologies® pioneered 8 years ago. Both companies dedicated hardware power to rendering increasing numbers of 3D voices, with each voice taking full advantage of HRTF (Head Related Transfer Function) technology, wave tracing and other advanced processing. With the native Windows Vista audio APIs, all this advanced, hardware-based 3D audio processing will be inaccessible. Instead, basic mapping to a generic speaker placement scheme will be employed, and all interactive processing and rendering will be dependent on the host CPU. While it is true that CPUs continue to get faster, the Vista audio architecture intentionally simplifies things, such that the potential processing load for multiple 3D voices is limited. Inevitably there is a tradeoff. This will be especially true for gamers that have come to depend on the kind of high-end 3D audio experience available from products like the SoundBlaster X-Fi, with its advanced headphone 3D audio processing and dedicated hardware DSP effects. For gamers this would be the most noticeable loss in Windows Vista, and it would be a definite step backwards for PC gaming audio if developers only had the option of using native Windows Vista audio APIs. However, they do have a legitimate, proven alternative in OpenAL.

Again, this may improve with future hardware and games that specifically write OpenAL extensions for EAX, but until then, most games are simply not going to sound as good as they did under XP/DirectSound with EAX and game devs most likely will not go back and re-write OpenAL extensions to fully implement EAX in Vista.

 

[wazzi]

guys i fixed my prob it seems this prob is with the overclockin, my card is factory overclocked xxx from xfx(overclocked my a*se) i downclocked its core clock from 580mhz to 560mhz using rivatuner n its seems to be working fine now, i've checked the prob again an again by overclocking and downclockin the gpu's core clock n when ever i put it to 580mhz which is as default by the manufacturer its unstable in graphics demanding environmnt.....i didn't wish to switch to xp back as per my love for vista.......so here is the solution downclock ur gpu by 10 or 20 mhz n it will work fine.......its fine with me till now......i'll let u ppl know if the problem presists but its fine till now

 

[Ackmed]

Originally posted by: VERTIGGO

Originally posted by: Ackmed

Originally posted by: VERTIGGO
Can't use an X-Fi. Subwoofer still doesn't work in Vista. Creative is so behind it's not even funny.

My sub works fine with my 3 year old Z-5500's.

Are you sure that's when it's running 5.1 mode and not 2.1? (not sure about Z-5500s) My sub works fine, but only when my amp pulls the LFE from the stereo channels (iTunes and whatnot).

Im not an audiofili, but sound comes out of all 6 speakers. Sub and 5 sats.

 

[VERTIGGO]

If it's running stereo (headphones, 2 speaker, or 2/2.1) in the game or audio console, it's not sending a subwoofer channel separately, the subwoofer is being rerouted from the main two channels by the amplifier.