ASUS XONAR D2X GETS EAX 5.0

Cozman · 11 Apr 2008 at 19:16

james.miller said:
thats great cozman, thank you. could you please tell me if you can use eax 5.0 effects in the rightmark 3d sound positional accuracy program? i can not with my card, i can only use eax2.0. thanks for your help

ummm actually i cant choose any options as they all greyed out lol .. only runs with default setting "DirectSound3D Software" so cant even test EAX2 or hardware version :confused:

have tried BioShock with EAX enabled but it only outputed what seemed to be 2.1 as sub was active & front speakers only , since then the game simply wont load anymore and keeps crashing to desktop :eek:

but then its been tempremental since Vista sp1 anyway

everything seems to work with EAX enabled but not 100% acurate so far but then the drivers are still only beta so hopefully they will get it right before the final release, only real problem ive had is steam/source based stuff which still only runs in stereo but according to the Steam forums its not the Xonar but rather a problem with the steam client which they say they are working on.

I own both the Xonar D2 & the Prelude 7.1 & would say that IMHO the Xonar is streets ahead of the X-Fi/Prelude in terms of quality especially for music & movies but of course in games its still playing catchup but it has improved wth each driver so far , difficult to choose between the two but my main rig (gaming & movies) has the Xonar in at the mo with analog 5.1 speakers with no plans to switch unless the Xonar gets really poor drivers in future that make things worse

Cozman

james.miller · 11 Apr 2008 at 19:21

thats interesting......are you using analogue or spdif? im pretty sure eax hardware isnt working if spdif is your default output device. you can just tell the program to use speakers without changing the vista settings though

thanks for that and thats a good unbiased account, too.

Cozman · 11 Apr 2008 at 20:20

i only have analogue setup so thats the default for the system ... im wondering if its maybe as im using Vista & technically there isnt supposed to be hardware acceleraction anyway in the OS so therefore the test wont run any hardware related tests ??? .. my best guess anyway but at least it reports the Xonar as being capable of all EAX modes though i cant actually test it ...

i found it interesting in one the articles you posted that when they tested EAX5 & contacted Creative for their input as to which game would be the most appropriate at enhancing the X-Fi and showing the differences in hardware/software EAX that Creative didnt respond with a single example for the testers ... funny they couldnt/wouldnt name one game that would show their product in a better light than the Xonar.

i know sound is a very subjective & personal thing but i could never tell the difference between EAX2 & EAX5 anyway through a 5.1 analog setup & i actually hope that Vista kills EAX off completely so its a level playing field & only the best products survive because they are the best & not because they have an exclusive feature such as EAX

james.miller · 11 Apr 2008 at 20:22

no, see im using vista and i can select eax2.0 but nothing more. i think its just a case of the drivers needing a few more tweaks lol.

i found it interesting in one the articles you posted that when they tested EAX5 & contacted Creative for their input as to which game would be the most appropriate at enhancing the X-Fi and showing the differences in hardware/software EAX that Creative didnt respond with a single example for the testers ... funny they couldnt/wouldnt name one game that would show their product in a better light than the Xonar.

lol yes, thats pretty amusing that. i didnt post it though, it was helmut who posted that when he was trying to convince us that asus were screwing us over lol

Parsley · 11 Apr 2008 at 23:14

Just a quick question James, more as a clarification. The latest Xonar D2X drivers are the 6.12.8.1731-RC01 ones right?

I'm just going to download those and install them right away rather than install the ones on the CD.

On a side not all this black circuit board does look rather shiney, I want a window on my pc now.

james.miller · 11 Apr 2008 at 23:19

yep they are the latest ones

dont even bother with the cd drivers lol

Parsley · 11 Apr 2008 at 23:21

Cheers, off to throw in my shiney new card then

.

It does look quite shiney really.

james.miller · 11 Apr 2008 at 23:22

they are very shiny, yes

Parsley · 12 Apr 2008 at 00:09

Well it's in and alls working. It's actually too long for my Asus P5K Premuim thought which struck me as a bit strange. I had to move the ram into a ram slot to the right as it actually goes over the first. Also I had to bend the pins for the power connection upwards to actually get that to fit as well. Daftness.

Oh well it all works

.

Parsley · 12 Apr 2008 at 01:51

Nothings ever easy. It works but it is really very quiet and I have no clue why. I've checked all the volume settings as well?

Parsley · 12 Apr 2008 at 03:40

Time to see if the Asus support is as bad as many say it is. The sound volume is just so low

.

AWPC · 12 Apr 2008 at 07:16

Corran said:
Time to see if the Asus support is as bad as many say it is. The sound volume is just so low .

Double check your settings again as I plugged a set of headphones into the card and on full volume (under Vista 32 bit) had to turn it down to about 75% as it was very loud.

james.miller · 12 Apr 2008 at 08:41

what ouput device are you using? speaker config? check everthing in the sound card software, as well as the windows mixer ect

Parsley · 12 Apr 2008 at 13:16

I've checked everything I can think of. Using headphones through a headphone amp (and even with the amp turned up it's still horribly quiet).

DanSolo · 12 Apr 2008 at 16:18

Corran said:
Nothings ever easy. It works but it is really very quiet and I have no clue why. I've checked all the volume settings as well?

I got my card friday and experienced the very same issue. Practically no volume on analogue. Switched to SPDIF and its working fine with a logitech 680 set and the volume is fine.

I took a look at the asus forums and this has been reported before, head over there for the specifics but it went along the lines of

-reset mobo bios
-resintall windows and drives in a very specific order
-cross your fingers.

Pretty crappy imo having to do this to get analogue output at the approriate levels.

Parsley · 12 Apr 2008 at 18:04

I'll get around to doing that eventually but I'm not really up for a Vista reinstall session at the moment

. I saw that on the Asus forums as well, just avoiding the inevitable reinstall I guess.
The guy that fixed it did something to do with jumpers and the onboard sound on his motherboard, I've sent off an email to Asus about that, seeing as I have their P5K board as well they might be able to help.

hohum · 16 Apr 2008 at 14:15

Testing of EAX capabilities:

http://techgage.com/article/creative_eax_vs_asus_ds3d_gx_20/

Doesn't do too bad really.

helmutcheese · 16 Apr 2008 at 15:23

I posted that after you but since I did not look in this thread and search did not show up any results, I made a new thread.

theforce · 17 Apr 2008 at 20:14

Just installed my D2 using the latest drivers from the website.
What can i say, totally blown away by the sound quality. Mostly hearing to music now using either hi-quality mp3's or mathematically lossless .wma. Sounds a bit more detailed and more loud than my Revolution 5.1 and the difference between the on-board is night and day.