That's only for DirectSound interface (Thief DS and Deus Ex Invisible War use a very particular configuration where the OpenAL interface is already internally wrapped to DirectSound).
Unreal 2 only offers EAX through OpenAL, it's why is a good benchmark for OpenAL+EAX (UT 2004 can do EAX through OpenAL AND DirectSound)

Audigy 2 ZS drivers work but in Unreal 2 (Severnaya level, the one I use as audio capabilities/performance test) there's a crash caused by a DPC Violation EDIT: it was due to savegame data, solved 😀

So for now the only real solution for Unreal 2 is EAXEFX (on Windows 10 systems): https://github.com/bibendovsky/eaxefx

No crashes in UT 2004 (or Unreal 2 in other levels so far), always for the combination OpenAL+EAX 😉

EDIT: The crash was due to to savegame data, solved reloading the *level* from the start 😀

I can confirm that Audigy 2 ZS works fine!

lowenz wrote on 2021-08-24, 23:30:

As expected not working (audio dropping with incendiary shotgun ammos) in Unreal 2 where EFXEAX is working (no audio dropping)

X-Fi Titanium with Unreal 2 forced in "native" OpenAL mode (bypassing the "System Driver" aka DirectSound wrapping -> UseDefaultDriver=False).

https://web.archive.org/web/20170720035149/ht … ad.php?t=726283
https://old.reddit.com/r/SoundBlasterOfficial … titanium_cards/
That's because hardware OAL on original soundblasters is bugged on newer >2.17 drivers, it's not an alchemy problem (but I already mentioned that I guess, hopefully everyone understands)

With this said..
Could y'all people with those cards working (when they do, they still are the golden standard right?) report back to EFXEAX and DSOAL for appraisal?
So that once they get polished and rounded off once and for good, we can all forget about this long-drawn-out nightmare of hardware acceleration and locking?

Looking through https://github.com/bibendovsky/eaxefx I'm curious about this line:

"The project enables EAX OpenAL Extension for systems without appropriate hardware."

What is considered appropriate hardware? Do modern creative cards (external or otherwise) fall under this category?

Audigy 5/RX maybe (it's basically a PCI-Ex Audigy 2 ZS).
Other today Creative cards, I don't think.

rolloLG wrote on 2021-08-25, 13:04:

rolloLG wrote on 2020-11-19, 12:10:

This worked for me with Thief 3 Deadly Shadows:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filede … /?id=2291848228

Try this simple solution for EAX on any sound HW. Tested and working in some games (Dragon's Lair 3D, Thief 3, Prince of Persia 2008, Baldur's Gate II). It's the easiest and working solution I've found in all these years.

New update: 422 available (no changelog included though...)

I bought X-Fi MB3 about 7 years back, and I went to install it on my machine after a clean install of Windows, and it seems that the activation servers are down for it, telling me to connect to the internet. Does anyone else have this problem?

X-FI MB is a dead product, so there are no functioning registration servers up for it. I think the last version they were on was 5 and it was only something shipped with mobos at that point, which was some years ago. The only way to use it at this point is to crack it with a reg-key generator or download the already busted open versions.

RetroGamer4Ever wrote on 2022-02-12, 19:32:

X-FI MB is a dead product, so there are no functioning registration servers up for it. I think the last version they were on was 5 and it was only something shipped with mobos at that point, which was some years ago. The only way to use it at this point is to crack it with a reg-key generator or download the already busted open versions.

Thing is I installed it at some point last year fine, so this must've recently happened.

MrEWhite wrote on 2022-02-12, 20:12:

RetroGamer4Ever wrote on 2022-02-12, 19:32:

X-FI MB is a dead product, so there are no functioning registration servers up for it. I think the last version they were on was 5 and it was only something shipped with mobos at that point, which was some years ago. The only way to use it at this point is to crack it with a reg-key generator or download the already busted open versions.

Thing is I installed it at some point last year fine, so this must've recently happened.

"Sorry to inform you but support for X-Fi MB3 software is ceased.
Our software activation servers have been officially shut down on 13 Sep 2021."

Darn.

MrEWhite wrote on 2022-02-15, 02:53:

"Sorry to inform you but support for X-Fi MB3 software is ceased.
Our software activation servers have been officially shut down on 13 Sep 2021."

Darn.

Sound Blaster Acoustic Engine Lite is still available, free, and should activate. You can find it here: https://support.creative.com/Products/Product … %20BlasterX%20H.

Sound Blaster Control Panel (Sound Blaster Recon3D, Audigy Fx, Omni, R3/A6U, & Play! 2/3 versions) can work with the driver. Play! 3 was the last version of the control panel to be updated. I believe THX TruStudioPro works out of the box while Sound Blaster Cinema needs a little more effort to setup. MB3 isn't compatible, but MB5 is oddly enough.

MrEWhite wrote on 2022-02-12, 18:37:

I bought X-Fi MB3 about 7 years back, and I went to install it on my machine after a clean install of Windows, and it seems that the activation servers are down for it, telling me to connect to the internet. Does anyone else have this problem?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqydVNaLR1w

try this, works fine for me on win 10 pro. With alchemy i be able to activate eax 3.0 on fear 1

That doesn't look like anything related to audio
And as already said plenty of times, just try openal-soft and/or dsoal in 2022.

Hi there! I wonder if I'm able to play EAX supported game with my Audeze Mobius 7.1 headphones with 3D sound emulation.

Jugate wrote on 2022-03-12, 14:54:

MrEWhite wrote on 2022-02-12, 18:37:

I bought X-Fi MB3 about 7 years back, and I went to install it on my machine after a clean install of Windows, and it seems that the activation servers are down for it, telling me to connect to the internet. Does anyone else have this problem?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqydVNaLR1w

try this, works fine for me on win 10 pro. With alchemy i be able to activate eax 3.0 on fear 1

Wrong link, I think.

To normal users: dsoal and openal-soft are ripe nowadays.
Please go out and test them. Be the change you want to see in the world.

To devs and reverse engineers: do you happen to know if the Creative drivers ever implemented some kind of game-specific hacks (e.g. like those GPUs regularly ship)?
Because even once whatever unholy undocumented directsound/eax quirk seems to be addressed, far too many games are still reportedly subpar... and I cannot understand if the testers we get are really this incredibly gifted compared to the average guy of 15 years ago, or if perhaps it isn't that once upon a time unconventional fixes were actually used.

Fixes were either delivered in driver updates, EAX console patches, DirectX updates, or patches to the games themselves. Quite a few games had console commands and such that you could use to "fix" audio problems. I vaguely remember a piece of Creative software that paired with the soundcards that did have application-specific stuff, but my memory is so fuzzy since I haven't used a vintage SB card on an XP system in years.

Nucleoprotein wrote on 2017-09-10, 11:35:

You can run XFi MB3 with all(?) Realtek integrated codecs - you need to force install INF file containing MBfilt64.sys driver fr […]
Show full quote

Stretch wrote:

I just read about a program called "Sound Blaster Audigy ADVANCED MB" on the Wikipedia article Environmental Audio Extensions. Apparently the software allows you load soundfonts. Does anyone know how the soundfont synth compares to the EMU chipsets present on the AWE/Live/Audigy/Xfi and does it allow you to apply reverb/chorus etc to MIDI playback?

You can run XFi MB3 with all(?) Realtek integrated codecs - you need to force install INF file containing MBfilt64.sys driver from Realtek drivers, then install XFi MB3 software, and then if not work out of the box you need to use GenKGA to generate kga files. GenKGA source code is here: https://pastebin.com/r1Ls55Qn - I will not provide executable file for this so do not ask about it.
XFi MB3 is fully software emulated, dunno about soundfonts, I don't think it supports them at all.

PS: Now it seems is available to download and buy from here: http://software.store.creative.com/p/software … laster-x-fi-mb3

EDIT: Code on pastebin have a wrong password for one key, also to install new X-FI MB3 you require to 'fix' setup.inx of main installer (Setup directory) to skip activation (google 'sexy install shield decompiler'). Everything works on my old, integrated AD2000B - this X-Fi MB3 create new, virtual audio device so it should work on ANY audio card! Soundfonts/midi are not supported.

Like MrEWhite I also found recently that I can no longer activate my purchased copy of MB3. Can you elaborate a bit on how one would go around fixing setup.inx to skip activation in the installer? I have the XMB3-VDWEB-2-11.exe installer.

Did anyone compare the new version of OpenAL Soft that supports EAX and Host OpenAL (Sens_oal.dll)? I tried to find something like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2IiNemRjmw (this video uses old OpenAL Soft without EAX) on YouTube, but no luck.

Nucleoprotein wrote on 2017-03-12, 11:43:

New Alchemy (2.4.2.12 found in SBP3_PCDRV_L12_1_00_06) info (HOAL is same as before): […]
Show full quote

New Alchemy (2.4.2.12 found in SBP3_PCDRV_L12_1_00_06) info (HOAL is same as before):

• Alchemy dsound.dll 2.4.2.12: 0x64A10 -> 0x40 0xC3
  • Force Passtrough to ct_oal.dll 0x18480 -> 0x40 0xC3
• Sens_oal (32bit) 2.02.20.3090: 0xE0A50 -> 0x40 0xC3
• Sens_oal (64bit) 2.02.20.3090: 0x1189E0 -> 0x40 0xC3

PS: 0x40 0xC3 is:

Copy code to clipboard

1inc eax
2ret

Nucleoprotein wrote on 2017-06-18, 11:14:

Alchemy 1.45.12 & HOAL 2.02.93 found in SBP3_PCDRV_L12_1_01_06 […]
Show full quote

Alchemy 1.45.12 & HOAL 2.02.93 found in SBP3_PCDRV_L12_1_01_06

• Alchemy dsound.dll 2.4.2.12: 0x64A10 -> 0x40 0xC3
  • Force Passtrough to ct_oal.dll 0x18480 -> 0x40 0xC3
• Sens_oal (32bit) 2.02.20.3093: 0xE0A70 -> 0x40 0xC3
• Sens_oal (64bit) 2.02.20.3093: 0x118A30-> 0x40 0xC3

This works fine for the 32bit version of Sens_oal, but not the 64bit one (tried both 2.02.20.3090 and 2.02.20.3093). A quick way to test it is to rename Sens_oal.dll to OpenAL32.dll and copy it to a folder with ALCapsViewer32.exe/64.exe. With the 32bit DLL I can see an OpenAL device in ALCapsViewer32.exe, but with the 64bit DLL and ALCapsViewer64.exe there's no device. I'm not an assembly expert, so can be wrong here, but at least https://defuse.ca/online-x86-assembler.htm says that

1inc eax
2ret

is 0x40 0xC3 only for the 32bit architecture. It should be 0xFF 0xC0 0xC3 for 64bit. I tried patching Sens_oal (64bit) 2.02.20.3093 with these 3 bytes using the same offset (0x118A30), but it still didn't help.

Does anybody has tested creative alchemy derestrictor to use alchemy even with no sound blaster cards ?
https://www.mediafire.com/file/387vesqfe7o91f … or-1.0.zip/file
https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Glossary:Sound_card
https://community.pcgamingwiki.com/files/file … ts#comment-1174
"Use Creative ALchemy[16]

Download latest ALchemy 1.45.20
Open the Creative Control Panel and switch on Game mode (X-Fi model only)
Start the ALchemy installer and enable it for the interested games. It may be necessary to add a new profile for the specific game.

Notes

Restores EAX completely (all versions) and surround sound.
Could be made into a universal solution, just like IndirectSound or DSOAL, by using Creative ALchemy Universal (obsolete) or ALchemy Restriction Remover."