Eax support for non-creative labs cards?

[Ether Dragon 0]

How do I get EAX working in OF? If I turn on EAX/Hardware Acceleration I get the typical problem of hearing the footsteps of distant troops as if they were marching up and down my ear canal. According to the FAQ's, there's supposed to be a driver for Creative Lab cards, but that doesn't help for anyone with a different brand.

[Mister Frag 0]

EAX used to be a proprietary API, but it has since been opened up, and other vendors have implemented. I can't give you a complete list, but I have a Philips Acoustic Edge which supports it, and I'm pretty certain that Santa Cruz/Turtle Beach does as well.

[DodgeME 0]

I want Milla Jovovich

[Ether Dragon 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (DodgeME @ April 03 2002,06:20)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">I want Milla Jovovich <span id='postcolor'>

You can't have her, she's mine. I saw her first!

Back to the topic:

Is there any way to get surround sound without EAX? I'm using a Cambridge 4 point sound system, but everything seems to be in stereo. I can't tell which way a vehicle is coming from or anything. Surround sound makes a huge tactical difference - something I learned with Rogue Spear.

[Ether Dragon 0]

Update:  I did a little experimenting and found that I can turn on hardware acceleration without EAX and not get the amazingly loud footsteps.  About the only thing I noticed by doing so, however, was that everything seemed muffled, except the wind seems to have picked up a little.  Every once and awhile some loud noise popped in for a second, but it didn't really kill gameplay. What is hardware acceleration supposed to do for the game?  Is it worth messing with when EAX isn't working?

On another note, why does this game provide and EAX option when it doesn't work?  At least, it seems that it wasn't working before Creative Labs released it's new drivers - and that only provides support for their new Audigy.  The way I look at it, if you're going to provide a feature, and list it as a feature, it should work.  Otherwise you should just wipe it from the game so customers don't feel like they're getting ripped off.

[Mister Frag 0]

I have three sound cards at home, a SoundBlaster Live!, a Philips Acoustic Edge, and a Hercules Game Theater XP -- all of them support EAX.

The SoundBlaster Live! is what is currently in my system, and I have both Hardware Acceleration and EAX enabled in OFP, and it works fine. However, as was the case with the Audigy, EAX didn't start working correctly until the latest LiveWare drivers were released by Creative Labs. I also have a friend with an Audigy who is having terrible problems (including the infamous Squeal of Death even with the latest drivers for it.

The problems are with the sound card drivers, not the game itself. I'm not saying that the developers can't possibly work around them, but if the drivers for your card don't work right, you should take it up with Creative Labs, not CM/BIS.

[hbk 0]

I have audigy with newest drivers and i DO have the footsteps problem.

The way i see it it has somthing to do with a processing precision problem inside the EAX specs.

Maybe EAX HD would help but i don't think BiS would add such support at the time being.

Anyway BiS could try to do something to resolve the problem.

[Ether Dragon 0]

I created a similar post to this one on my sound card manufacturer's tech forum. One of the replies back piqued my interest, and I thought I'd pass it along in case anyone has either tried this or wants to. A reply in the thread provided this link: EAX key commands

While the site is Half-life oriented, the poster suggested that the commands are actually useable in any game. Maybe you need access to a console screen, though?

[Mister Frag 0]

They are only usable in any game based on the Half-Life engine.