M$ Vista - Say Goodbye to Hardware Acceleration Audio

[Melbosa]

Source: http://openal.org/openal_vista.html

Some of you may be aware of this, but thought I would post it anyway.

Since Windows Vista does not inherit the hardware abstraction layer for audio that was present under previous versions of Windows, including Windows XP, there will be no more hardware acceleration of DirectSound? 3D.

So above may be an issue for anyone playing older games on Vista.

As already stated above, Microsoft? will be removing DirectSound 3D Hardware support from Direct X with the launch of Windows Vista. DirectSound and DirectSound3D will still function; however, they will no longer use hardware acceleration.

The native OpenAL devices on Sound Blaster Audigy and Sound Blaster X-Fi? soundcards do not use DirectSound or DirectSound 3D and so they will be completely unaffected. For games that use these devices, nothing will change. The game will continue to enjoy hardware based 3D audio and effects.

I suspected that Creative wouldn't have an issue with this, but can anyone honestly say they haven't had an issue with Creative Sound Cards and their drivers?

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.

So the question is, do you go out and upgrade your on-board sound when Vista comes out?  Do you have to updated that old Soundblaster Live! Card you've been using for years?  Interesting eh?

Yes I realize this is off the OpenAL site, but thought it was interesting information, if not a bit full of propaganda.

[Shayne]

So, since i use an X-Fi card it doesnt affect me eh?  Good to know

[Lazybones]

Show of hands who here actually maintains a surround sound speaker configuration for PC gaming, maybe one or two of us?

I know I will not miss it.

[Mr. Analog]

Raises hand, I do, though I'm finding simula-surround with headphones is even more immerisive (no gurgling from my radiator lol).

[Cova]

Argh - there's a little detail missing that makes this entire thing a non-issue.  The ONLY cards currently on the market that actually hardware accelerate DirectSound are SoundBlasters.  There is not a single integrated audio chip (except the rare MB that soldiered a SB-Live onto the board) with hardware acceleration support.

So - game developers wanting to use hardware sound now have to use Creative's API.  All of us with AC97 or Azalia audio are unaffected by this.

[Melbosa]

LOL was waiting for someone to point that one out.  Wanted to see if anyone caught on to that one .  Good catch Cova.

[Mr. Analog]

Even though I have onboard sound I have been using my SoundBlaster sound card for games, etc...

[Tom]

I've used onboard sound since my SBLive Value bit the dust.