Creative: Asus Misleading Customers on EAX Drivers

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PC sound card maker Creative Labs said today that rival hardware manufacturer Asus is misleading its customers by claiming that new drivers for Asus sound cards support EAX, a set of environmental enhancements for sound in games.

Responding to an announcement by Asus that newly released drivers for its Xonar line of sound cards support EAX, Creative communications VP Phil O'Shaughnessy said that the drivers effectively trick games into outputting EAX-capable sound.

"There are a small number of PC game titles that specifically query the audio device on the system to see if EAX 5 is available before they will attempt to render more than 64 3D simultaneous audio voices," O'Shaughnessy said.

"The new Asus drivers are falsely reporting EAX 5 capabilities in order to get these games to output 3D audio on Asus sound cards. Asus customers are not getting a genuine EAX Advanced HD experience with this driver update," he added.

High-definition sound and environmental effects have become an increasingly important feature for PC gamers, with complaints prompting Creative to release a software fix to remedy the lack of EAX effects in legacy titles on Windows Vista.

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From The Chatty
  • reply
    March 25, 2008 8:08 PM

    So Xonar is just 5.1 WITHOUT the eax effects? Yeah that X-FI purchase is looking much better now thanks. Pay more for less? Fuck that. Creative may have shitty drivers but at least I get 100% functionality.

    • reply
      March 25, 2008 8:19 PM

      Asus is telling the games that support EAX 5, to output EAX 5. Nowheres does it say that the Asus cards are incapable of producing EAX 5.

    • reply
      March 25, 2008 9:14 PM

      "Creative may have shitty drivers but at least I get 100% functionality."

      Wait? What? The whole point is the drivers aren't 100% functional which is why people have problems with them.

      • reply
        March 25, 2008 9:25 PM

        Wait what? The x-fi drivers are 100% functional. Have been for in xp and vista since around 3 months after vista's release?

      • reply
        March 26, 2008 5:48 AM

        What are you talking about? I get 5.1 + EAX in Vista. Thats what I wanted when I was searching for a card, and it turns out Xonar didn't have it. I almost bought one because of the massive problems the X-FI series had caused. Yet I have one and it's working wonders right now.

        The only issue I had was due to not uninstalling my audigy correctly. Right now I enjoy better sound than I had back with XP, so I'm happy.

    • reply
      March 25, 2008 11:08 PM

      Your last sentence is flat-out hilarity. Thanks.

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