Midgard on 2/1/2014 at 19:00
I discovered that the non-Creative Labs onboard sound on my Asus P8Z77 motherboard supports EAX in Thief Gold & Thief 2. Or at least I'm able to enable the EAX options in in the games' Options Audio menus through the OpenAL selection. But does it really add anything to the game or make a difference? All I hear is a lot of echo & reverb that can get rather cloying. So what's the story on the Thief saga and EAX? Do others use it and prefer it? Is it possible I'm not getting true EAX audio because my sound chip is not Creative Labs and it's most likely emulated? If an FM builder indicates that he didn't use EAX when constructing his/her fan mission do we still get that echo & reverb? I guess I might even be confused as to exactly what EAX is and what benefits it brings. I usually play Thief games with stereo headphones
M.
SlyFoxx on 2/1/2014 at 20:00
Can't stand it myself and have never bothered to incorporate it in any of my missions...nobody has ever complained it wasn't there.
Maybe if it was done better but to me every space sounds too "wet".
Now there are about 20 or so choices a mission designer can use ranging from small spaces to large ones so perhaps a good deal of the problem is designers not having a trained ear and implementing EAX incorrectly. The "sound" of a particular space is dependent on many factors, size being just one of them.
Daraan on 2/1/2014 at 20:31
EAX can really improve the ambiente when it's set correctly... and thats the problem. What's correctly and was it done?
No EAX => Just plain sound.
I don't know what games you are playing but you play with headphones get a nice soundcard (together with nice headphones). Especially with surround sound in games/movies there is a huge difference (depends on the ear ofc) between onboard and a good soundcard, some extern (usb)soundcards are quite good as well and are cheaper.
GORT on 2/1/2014 at 23:02
I like to use EAX effects for my FMs, but it can be quite a tedious effort trying to get all of the rooms to sound the way you intend it to be. Some FM authors don't even bother with working on the rooms' acoustics. But yeah, if done right, it can make you feel like you're in that very room.
PsymH on 3/1/2014 at 09:39
I'm also a big fan of EAX and use a X-FI XTremeGamer, which has a good sound production in thief. But the problem is, most of the FMs don't support EAX correctly. That's means, there only the default EAX room type (it's called "generic") is used, and that's the one with echo, which feels strange in outside areas.
Midgard on 4/1/2014 at 06:10
Well, I bit the bullet and decided to upgrade the rather crappy Realtek onboard audio on my Asus motherboard (I notice poor SNR & noise in the analog out), and just ordered a Sound Blaster Z sound card. I'm intrigued by its virtual surround sound mode which implements decent positional audio with ordinary headphones which customer reviewers seem to be raving about. Ironically, EAX is now emulated on Sound Blaster sound cards instead of a hardware-based solution since the Recon3D series. :D I wonder how it will sound with Thief 1/2.
M.
Midgard on 9/1/2014 at 04:55
Well, I got my Sound Blaster Z this week and I immediately encountered a nasty surprise - both Thief 1 & Thief 2 have virtually NO stereo separation using the Sound Blaster Z with latest drivers, either with EAX or without. This is so disappointing. More details in this other post I made today. (
http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=140151&p=2227524&viewfull=1#post2227524) http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=140151&p=2227524&viewfull=1#post2227524. I use Alchemy. Anyone have any ideas why I'm having this issue? It seemed to work fine using my Realtek onboard.
M.
Daraan on 9/1/2014 at 11:34
Check the other thread. What fixed it for me was inverting the polarity in the blue setup menu.
Somehow that feels like StarTrek inverting the polarity always does the job..:joke:
Midgard on 9/1/2014 at 21:19
Quote Posted by Daraan
Check the other thread. What fixed it for me was inverting the polarity in the blue setup menu.
Somehow that feels like StarTrek inverting the polarity always does the job..:joke:
haha. At first I thought you were being a wise-ass and giving me what I thought was a useless, star trek-geeky answer but I tried it and it seemed to help. I had one serious audio crash playing Thief 1 or 2 with the new Sound Blaster Z card (a loud endless audio screech) but I'm hopeful it was a fluke. Thanks for your help. :thumb:
M.
ticky on 3/10/2018 at 21:29
I've just purchased a Sound Blaster ZXR and will receive it in a couple of days. Do you have any experience with this card? Does it work with EAX via OpenAL? I really hope that Thief will sound good with this one.