Aerothorn on 23/11/2009 at 12:32
So I'm looking to get a new sound card for my PC and am running into some confusion.
I know Vista changed the sound architecture such that there was "no direct hardware access" to the sound card, thus eliminating things like EAX and some of the benefits of nicer sound cards. Was this changed at all in Windows 7, or is it still the same story? I'm looking at getting an Auzentech X-Fi Forte but want to make sure the machine could use it to the fullest.
mudi on 23/11/2009 at 20:11
It's the same situation but solutions like ALchemy still exist.
Enchantermon on 23/11/2009 at 20:48
Quote Posted by Aerothorn
I know Vista changed the sound architecture such that there was "no direct hardware access" to the sound card, thus eliminating things like EAX and some of the benefits of nicer sound cards.
Wait, what? Why would Microsoft do that?
theBlackman on 23/11/2009 at 23:04
Quote Posted by Enchantermon
Wait, what? Why would Microsoft do that?
Microshaft being what they are and have been, that is a silly, silly question. :D
Enchantermon on 23/11/2009 at 23:57
Point taken. Don't you have to have a Soundblaster card to use Alchemy, though?
mudi on 24/11/2009 at 04:51
Yes, but the card referenced has a Creative chipset so ALchemy would probably work.
Some of the other sound card companies have their own ALchemy-like solutions, like Realtek's 3DSoundBack (which I haven't been able to get to work right...)
TBE on 24/11/2009 at 08:20
They got rid of DirectSound from the DirectX library and have some opengl shit or something. Supposed to better code for future, but think music industry was trying to stop people from recording "What you hear." I have an Audigy 2 soundcard with Windows 7 Ultimate. Seems to work fine, but I haven't tried direct hardware access.
Enchantermon on 24/11/2009 at 20:26
Quote Posted by mudi
Yes, but the card referenced has a Creative chipset so ALchemy would probably work.
Ah.
Quote Posted by mudi
Some of the other sound card companies have their own ALchemy-like solutions, like Realtek's 3DSoundBack (which I haven't been able to get to work right...)
Maybe I should look into that (I have a Realtek card).
EvaUnit02 on 25/11/2009 at 20:44
They completely redesigned driver architecture for Vista, it operates entirely in software. DirectHAL is what gave software direct access to hardware. They wouldn't remove DirectSound and DS3D, since like 90% of games use those API's, including new releases like Modern Warfare 2.
The brand new sound kernel introduced in Vista is world's above the old one, it gives you bit-perfect sound. The old one has been around since at least Windows 3.0. Sound was controlled through the Kmixer, which resided on the application level. It achieved volume control by adding and removing bits, that's a fucking horrible solution. The work-around was to use ASIO or kernel streaming solutions.
The ALchemy OpenAL wrapper has worked for almost every game that I've tried. The only exception that I've come across thus far was Planescape Torment.
BTW, I'm running Vista x64 SP2 + a Auzen X-Fi Prelude. I can confirm that at least the Prelude driver comes with ALchemy bundled.
You aren't restricted to official drivers though. AFAIK Daniel_k's driver pack has full W7 support.
sNeaksieGarrett on 28/6/2010 at 16:19
So I assume you have to have an x fi or audigy? I'm still using a Sound Blaster Live! 24-Bit Card.
