A friend of mine recently came by the house to do a little LAN gaming. He brought his 2.0Ghz Intel rig (WinXP) against my AMDXP 1800 (WinXP) . While he was setting up, I was playing Jedi Knight II. I have a great sound system in my rig consisting of the SB Audigy Gamer card and the Klipsche 4.1 THX speakers.
While I was playing, my friend commented that on his system playing Jedi Knight II (He also has the SB Audigy and a 4.1 system), the sound is different. He described that he does not get the positional audio in four speakers, it sounds more like stereo and there is no "distance" in the sound effects, everything sounds like it is right next to him regardless of how far away it is on-screen. After listening to what he had said, I informed him that it sounds like he did not have the EAX HD option turned on and he assured me that he had the lastest 1.04 patch and that EAX HD is turned on. We finished setting up his system and loaded up Jedi Knight II to see if there was indeed a problem.
It turns out my friend was right. He has everything set-up identical to mine but he was not getting the EAX HD effects I was (it is VERY NOTICABLE, especially the positional 4 speaker audio). Well, needless to say, what was to be a dedicated gaming day turned into a troubleshooting extravaganza. We deleted and re-installed the JKII game on his system and then loaded the 1.04 patch and still could not get EAX HD even though it was selected in the options menu. I then accessed the console and enabled the OpenAL that way but it still made no difference.
If I unchecked EAX HD on my system, my JK II then sounded exactly like his, stereo and no distance effects. Check EAX HD, and it was a whole new audio experience. After scratching my head for a few minutes, I finally found the issue. HE IS USING THE LATEST CREATIVE DRIVERS (08/28/02) and I was still using the 21JAN02 drivers. Ok, I thought, let's check this out. I installed the lastest 08/28/02 drivers and restarted my system and ,VIOLA! I NO LONGER GET EAX HD EFFECTS EVEN IF I HAVE IT ENABLED. I then had my friend downgrade his drivers to the 21JAN02 drivers and Now his EAX HD works perfectly.
To be thorough, we wiped both systems clean and performed new WinXP installs and then installed the Audigy software and then installed the 21JAN02 drivers and tested JKII and EAX HD function fine. We then install the 28AUG02 drivers and, again, EAX HD no longer works. We performed the test with XP-SP1 as well (just to be sure it was not a bug in the SP-1). With each test we wiped the system clean and performed each test with fresh WinXP install and each time, the problem points to the latest Creative drivers.
I called Creative about an hour ago and I spoke to a Tech named Jeff and I informed him of the problem with the latest Audigy (WinXP) drivers causing EAX HD to stop functioning in JKII. He informed me that he will pass this info up and all he could really suggest is that I watch for new driver updates on Creative's web site.
I also checked some forums and found that other people were stating that they could not tell the difference between having EAX HD enabled vs. disabled in the game MAFIA, but they did not state what drivers they were using.
I plan on testing this issue further with other EAX HD enabled gaming (SOF II and MAFIA) to see if it is specifically a Creative Driver issue or if it is a problem with the lastest Creative drivers/JKII compatibility issue. I will post my findings after I get back from vacation this week (I need some serious R&R). Please post if you have any questions about this and I will help in any way I can.
Take care everyone!
Tempest35se
Post Your Comments Here
While I was playing, my friend commented that on his system playing Jedi Knight II (He also has the SB Audigy and a 4.1 system), the sound is different. He described that he does not get the positional audio in four speakers, it sounds more like stereo and there is no "distance" in the sound effects, everything sounds like it is right next to him regardless of how far away it is on-screen. After listening to what he had said, I informed him that it sounds like he did not have the EAX HD option turned on and he assured me that he had the lastest 1.04 patch and that EAX HD is turned on. We finished setting up his system and loaded up Jedi Knight II to see if there was indeed a problem.
It turns out my friend was right. He has everything set-up identical to mine but he was not getting the EAX HD effects I was (it is VERY NOTICABLE, especially the positional 4 speaker audio). Well, needless to say, what was to be a dedicated gaming day turned into a troubleshooting extravaganza. We deleted and re-installed the JKII game on his system and then loaded the 1.04 patch and still could not get EAX HD even though it was selected in the options menu. I then accessed the console and enabled the OpenAL that way but it still made no difference.
If I unchecked EAX HD on my system, my JK II then sounded exactly like his, stereo and no distance effects. Check EAX HD, and it was a whole new audio experience. After scratching my head for a few minutes, I finally found the issue. HE IS USING THE LATEST CREATIVE DRIVERS (08/28/02) and I was still using the 21JAN02 drivers. Ok, I thought, let's check this out. I installed the lastest 08/28/02 drivers and restarted my system and ,VIOLA! I NO LONGER GET EAX HD EFFECTS EVEN IF I HAVE IT ENABLED. I then had my friend downgrade his drivers to the 21JAN02 drivers and Now his EAX HD works perfectly.
To be thorough, we wiped both systems clean and performed new WinXP installs and then installed the Audigy software and then installed the 21JAN02 drivers and tested JKII and EAX HD function fine. We then install the 28AUG02 drivers and, again, EAX HD no longer works. We performed the test with XP-SP1 as well (just to be sure it was not a bug in the SP-1). With each test we wiped the system clean and performed each test with fresh WinXP install and each time, the problem points to the latest Creative drivers.
I called Creative about an hour ago and I spoke to a Tech named Jeff and I informed him of the problem with the latest Audigy (WinXP) drivers causing EAX HD to stop functioning in JKII. He informed me that he will pass this info up and all he could really suggest is that I watch for new driver updates on Creative's web site.
I also checked some forums and found that other people were stating that they could not tell the difference between having EAX HD enabled vs. disabled in the game MAFIA, but they did not state what drivers they were using.
I plan on testing this issue further with other EAX HD enabled gaming (SOF II and MAFIA) to see if it is specifically a Creative Driver issue or if it is a problem with the lastest Creative drivers/JKII compatibility issue. I will post my findings after I get back from vacation this week (I need some serious R&R). Please post if you have any questions about this and I will help in any way I can.
Take care everyone!
Tempest35se
Post Your Comments Here
