soundcard for vista = worthless?

[macdawg]

"I dont know where you found this OpenAL information, but it's not true."

right....... OpenAL and Windows Vista, TweakGuides.com - The TweakGuides Tweaking Companion.

DirectSound - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"Because of Xbox and Windows Vista integration, Microsoft is actively pushing developers to migrate new applications to XACT. As a result of this, Windows Vista runs DirectSound in emulation mode on the Microsoft software mixer. The emulator does not have hardware abstraction, so there is no hardware DirectSound acceleration, meaning hardware and software relying on DirectSound acceleration will have degraded performance. In the case of hardware 3D audio effects, they will not be playable."

simply, vista forces most audio through SOFTWARE MODE and will not be able to use hardware accelerated functionality that the soundcard provides, the exception is as you know kingaustin, OpenAL applications.

It is nice to know however, that you didn't notice a degradation in sound quality on vista, whether the program used openal or not.

[KingAustin]

Originally Posted by macdawg

"I dont know where you found this OpenAL information, but it's not true."

right....... OpenAL and Windows Vista, TweakGuides.com - The TweakGuides Tweaking Companion.

DirectSound - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"Because of Xbox and Windows Vista integration, Microsoft is actively pushing developers to migrate new applications to XACT. As a result of this, Windows Vista runs DirectSound in emulation mode on the Microsoft software mixer. The emulator does not have hardware abstraction, so there is no hardware DirectSound acceleration, meaning hardware and software relying on DirectSound acceleration will have degraded performance. In the case of hardware 3D audio effects, they will not be playable."

simply, vista forces most audio through SOFTWARE MODE and will not be able to use hardware accelerated functionality that the soundcard provides, the exception is as you know kingaustin, OpenAL applications.

It is nice to know however, that you didn't notice a degradation in sound quality on vista, whether the program used openal or not.

"
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 guess your title should be "sound cards not made by creative useless for vista"

[macdawg]

completely unaffected in games using OpenAL of course, but most programs don't use openal, hence your soundcard is useless, for instance in winamp uses directsound....

[KingAustin]

I see your point then. I couldn't say I noticed a change when going to vista, but if played side by side then I probably would notice a difference. I guess this is just another reason to not upgrade to vista.

[macdawg]

In the little I've used vista I've been impressed, in everything I've read about vista I've been impressed, with the exception of my soundcard I spent $100 being worthless in many programs and thats the only thing I could knock against it.

The Creative ALchemy Project to make full use of your soundcard in EVERY program is excellent news, but it makes me mad that you have to pay for it, I feel they should support their customers.

Knowing this, I find it interesting to see how much people recommend spending on soundcards for vista, or bothering with them at all....