Sound problem solved

[grahamwd]

Just thought i'd share this. I have vista and x-fi sound card and suffer from sound chopping when using the keyboard for accellerating or breaking. I have today changed to a wireless keyboard and optical mouse from a standard PS/2 setup. Lo and behold no more sound chopping and i'd swear it runs sweeter and higher fps, although i was not unhappy with its performance before.

grahamwd

[smarty2]

Hmmm that is interesting, i have an x-fi card with the latest drivers for Vista 64 and my 5.1 will not work? But yet it works perfect on my XP set up? Not sure however that i have noticed the problems you had though!
May be worth a try though since these aren't very expensive items to purchase.

Cheers

Mart

[RiscaStation]

Hmmm that is interesting, i have an x-fi card with the latest drivers for Vista 64 and my 5.1 will not work? But yet it works perfect on my XP set up? Not sure however that i have noticed the problems you had though!
May be worth a try though since these aren't very expensive items to purchase.

Cheers

Mart

Hi Mart

Just a suggestion but have you run DXDiag to check out your computer for sound issues?

Regards
Mike

[smarty2]

Yes i have and it reports that there are no problems? The previous drivers caused all sorts of problems sound dropouts and degradation, however 5.1 worked but not EAX and EAX still does not work. i know it isn't the hardware but most likely the drivers, creative haven't done a good job in my opinion of supporting Vista 64 bit systems.

Regards

Mart

[markpullinger]

Hi, can I put my 2p worth in? I thought that Vista didn't support anything above stereo as standard - which is why creative supplied their ALchemy programme to sort it. My machine doesn't like the drivers though (Vista 32 bit home premium).

Mark

[smarty2]

Hi, can I put my 2p worth in? I thought that Vista didn't support anything above stereo as standard - which is why creative supplied their ALchemy programme to sort it. My machine doesn't like the drivers though (Vista 32 bit home premium).

Mark

And which alchemy program would that be? And does it cover 64 bit systems?

Mart

[scefhwil]

And which alchemy program would that be? And does it cover 64 bit systems?

Mart

Well, smarty2, that would be the one that the Creative Software Update program (which you should have installed when you installed the Creative drivers) will find. Failing that you'll find it on, wait for it, Creative's web site!

I have Vista 64 and an X-Fi card and with Alchemy the RS (and other game) EAX effects work fine. You do have to add RS manually to Alchemy though.

Stuart

[smarty2]

And which alchemy program would that be? And does it cover 64 bit systems?

Mart

Well, smarty2, that would be the one that the Creative Software Update program (which you should have installed when you installed the Creative drivers) will find. Failing that you'll find it on, wait for it, Creative's web site!

I have Vista 64 and an X-Fi card and with Alchemy the RS (and other game) EAX effects work fine. You do have to add RS manually to Alchemy though.

Stuart

Well thank you Stuart, i will let the sarcasm go by this time because that's the type of guy i am, i don't have the update program as it wont work on my system for some reason? So evidently does NOT install when the drivers are.

Regards

Mart

[markpullinger]

Hi, The alchemy Drivers are available from creative.com world wide but usually redirect to a local one - in my case europe. If the update programme isn't working, you have probably not allowed it's activex to run - or you are not using internet explorer. It is also possible that you have not registered the product so customer support would not be forthcoming. If all else fails - go to creative's web site & search for Alchemy & this should find it.

@Stuart - How do you add Rail Simulator to Alchemy - the instructions with it are not very clear.

Thanks
Mark

[AndyM77]

Hi, can I put my 2p worth in? I thought that Vista didn't support anything above stereo as standard - which is why creative supplied their ALchemy programme to sort it. My machine doesn't like the drivers though (Vista 32 bit home premium).

Mark

Vista actually doesn't support "Hardware Acceleration", so any (EAX) sounds you hear are being processed via the CPU and none of the soundchips on the card are being used to their potential.

However, as you rightly point out the ALchemy programme works around this Vista limitation and makes the soundcard behave as it should

[PaulH2]

You really shouldn't have to use ALchemy with RS, as it uses OpenAL natively, not EAX (ALchecmy translates EAX DirectSound calls into OpenAL).

Paul

[scefhwil]

You really shouldn't have to use ALchemy with RS, as it uses OpenAL natively, not EAX (ALchecmy translates EAX DirectSound calls into OpenAL).

Paul

Hi Paul. Given the Audio Controls tech doc makes numerous references to EAX (and the need for an EAX enabled card; EAX4 by the way) and not once mentions OpenAL, could you post a refernce where you got that information from please?

Cheers, Stuart.

[scefhwil]

@Stuart - How do you add Rail Simulator to Alchemy - the instructions with it are not very clear.

Mark, I cut and pasted (from windows explorer) a full path to railsimulator.exe into the program path option. Didn't bother with the subfolders bit.

Stuart

[markpullinger]

Thanks Stuart, Rail sim didn't show in the games list so I assumed it wouldn't work!

Mark

[PaulH2]

You really shouldn't have to use ALchemy with RS, as it uses OpenAL natively, not EAX (ALchecmy translates EAX DirectSound calls into OpenAL).

Paul

Hi Paul. Given the Audio Controls tech doc makes numerous references to EAX (and the need for an EAX enabled card; EAX4 by the way) and not once mentions OpenAL, could you post a refernce where you got that information from please?

Cheers, Stuart.

The OpenAL32.dll file in the Rail Simulator directory, plus comments at release from RSDL on the sound design of RS discussing the use of OpenAL: http://www.soundblaster.com/products/ga ... egoryID=13

EAX is a set of sound extensions provided by Creative, what differs between XP and Vista is how these EAX extensions are accessed. On XP, the interface is via DirectSound3D (part of DirectX), however in Vista, Microsoft dropped the DirectSound3D interface and so OpenAL is used instead to access any 3D sound effects (or other hardware accelerated audio functions).

What ALchemy does is to convert DirectSound3D calls from older applications that do not support OpenAL into OpenAL calls. It still uses EAX for the effects, but the DirectSound3D calls do not work on Vista, hence the translator (which should not be used with applications that support OpenAL as you just end up increasing the CPU load translating the calls unnecesarily).

Unfortunately, RSDL haven't done a good job in the past of clearing this issue up and maxing the differentiation between EAX (a hardware function of the sound card) and OpenAL (the software interface between the OS and sound card that allows access to EAX).

Paul