- #SOUND BLASTER X FI XTREME MUSIC SB0770 VS ONBOARD VIA DRIVERS#
- #SOUND BLASTER X FI XTREME MUSIC SB0770 VS ONBOARD VIA FULL#
Environment Reflections allows developers to model such different environments modelled. In large spaces sound must travel further to reach a reflecting object, and will therefore be delayed and quieter. In small, enclosed spaces walls are close to the listener and sound reflections will be bounced back to the listener quickly and loudly. These reflections give important clues about the surrounding environment. The Environment Reflections feature simulates early reflections (the first reflections of a sound) from walls, floors, ceilings and other surfaces. Environments truly come alive as the reflections in a vast space or even small corridor can be added to deliver that extra element of realism! Environmental Panning™ enables the game developer to accurately pan and focus each environmental reverberation effect, simulating reverb reaching you from any type of opening, anywhere around your head!Įnvironment Reflections allows the simulation of the reflection of sound waves bouncing off objects in a gaming environment. With EAX 4.0, these environments can be rendered simultaneously, and each one localised to indicate the positions of the different acoustic spaces. In the gaming world, you can often hear sounds from several distinct environments. But crucially you can also hear the acoustic reverberation from the room reaching you through the opening on the right-hand side of the passageway. Obviously, you can hear that the machinery is on your right. While your footsteps echo all around you in the corridor, you can also distinctly hear a different reverberation emanating from the room.
The doorway leads into a room containing a noisy, clanking machine. Imagine you are walking along a corridor, and you notice a doorway to your right. This feature gives developers the ability to accurately position not only an object’s sound in 3D but also its environment! This provides the most realistic delivery of 3D audio environments possible today. Different materials will absorb or reflect certain frequencies – in outdoor environments high frequencies are more likely to be reflected than low frequencies, and low frequencies will be reduced in level due to the lack of surrounding reflective surfaces. It takes into account the type of objects in your surroundings and what they are made of. The technical name for this is 'attenuation' and Environment Filtering recreates this very accurately.Įnvironment Filtering also supports the creation of more accurate audio environments. Have you ever noticed how it gets harder to distinguish a sound the further away it is? It's not just the fact that it gets quieter – the air is literally getting in the way! In fact the air is absorbing higher frequencies and so sounds not only become quieter but more muffled.
Environment Morphing smoothly transitions the listener from one environment to another, just as in real life.Įnvironment Filtering offers more precise modelling of high & low frequencies in an environment to recreate how sound is affected as it passes through the air! Without Environment Morphing, crossing over a 'border' can cause an abrupt change in the audio: when moving from a large cavern to a small room the reverb and echoes of the cavern would suddenly stop. When game developers create the worlds that gamers explore, virtual 'borders' separate the different rooms and areas.
You do not need hardware Dolby decoding to enjoy Dolby movies.Įnvironment Occlusion improves the realism by allowing the reverb effect itself as well as the direct sound to be muffled due to occluding objects.Įnvironment Morphing delivers seamless transitions between environments. Onboard audio has come a long way from the default fuzz and crackle of five years ago.
#SOUND BLASTER X FI XTREME MUSIC SB0770 VS ONBOARD VIA DRIVERS#
Here are some generalities that ARE accurate:Īdd-on audio is typically better shielded against electrical noiseĪdd-on audio typically contains better DACs for higher signal/noise ratio and better/flatter frequency responseĪdd-on audio usually has some form of audio acceleration, unless you're in Vista - at which point, you're at the mercy of apps supporting OpenAL or drivers emulating things via OpenAL. But not all onboard sound automatically suffers from crackle and fuzz I have a four-year old onboard audio solution that has zero of these problems and works fantastically in Vista. Onboard sound can suffer from electrical noise in sub-optimal motherboard designs, and those designs are still out there in the wild.
#SOUND BLASTER X FI XTREME MUSIC SB0770 VS ONBOARD VIA FULL#
Later iterations of EAX allowed for more advanced functions, but VERY few games support the full EAX 5/HD featureset. I for one really never cared for EAX sound effects they were much akin to too much reverb in my opinion. If you are truly wanting the EAX sound effects, then you may end up missing them in a few games.