Blizz removes HW sound acceleration from WoW

[OldOfEvil]

Originally Posted by Yaboze

This thread might be a moot point now because it seems that Blizzard has added Hardware support back into WoW.

As of the 2.3 patch, on 11/13/07, there is a Use Hardware checkbox again on the client.

It seems they are using Hardware Directsound and not using EAX, but still using FMOD for effects.

I was able to enable (via checkbox and channels slider) and verify in the logs that my X-Fi has 128 channels 'found', 64 were allocated by Wow (default was 32).

My audio in Wow is fantastic again and I am hearing things I didn't even hear before all this software audio/voice chat nonsense.

I noticed that little check box, but it doesn't stick for me. It would be nice to have the "normal" hardware sound back and not this crap software sound.

[ATI_Dude]

Originally Posted by AlphaWolf_HK

Quote:
Define "reproduce audio"? Current multi-speaker implementations (including the ones that use HRTF) don't offer the same accuracy of 3D positioning on both a horizontal and vertical plane as headphone HRTF.

Vertical, possibly, but not horizontal.

That isn't an objective fact. Just because a surround speaker has more prominent placement of sound on the horizontal plane doesn't make it more accurate. Accuracy depends on several different factor including room size, distance, speaker quality etc. No matter which speaker set up you install it will never be able to reproduce sound in a completely realistic way corresponding to a given in-game environment. Room reverberation is fixed while you move through many different room types in a typical game with potenitally different types of reverberation. Reverberation of sound is much easier to control in a headphone environment since you don't have to adjust for outside factors such as room size, speaker size, distance between speakers and listener etc.

Originally Posted by AlphaWolf_HK

Quote:
Movement of air is irrelevant. The issue with close proximity positioning is related to the limitations of HRTF phase manipulation.

It is completely relevant. You are going to be able to physically feel midrange (and even higher spectrum) sounds that are closer to your body, and that adds to your perception of where an object is. This isn't possible with headphones. This is ultimately where the difference comes between when it sounds like it is coming from your head, as opposed to very close to you. You may be able to do this with high frequency sounds, like e.g. somebody whispering, but midrange sounds wouldn't work.

I don't see why it wouldn't work even with mid-range sounds. If you divide the near field into zones as Sensaura do you can control the actual positioning even for for mid-range sounds.

Even if it didn't work for mid-range frequencies how often do you actually interact with sound sources within 1 meter of your virtual self in a game? Typically near field sound effects are used to create cinematic effects such as bullets whizzing past your head or a whisper in your ear.

Originally Posted by AlphaWolf_HK

Quote:
But even this problem can be solved by enabling seperate HRTF filters for distant sounds and close proximity sounds. Sensaura developed a system called MacroFX which enables special HRTF filters for sound sources located within 1 meter of the listener.

I've never heard of this but there is no way it could be convincing. See above.

Nevertheless it works.

Originally Posted by AlphaWolf_HK

Quote:
I am referrring specifically to 3D positional audio in computer games.

Why? This is only about a third of the whole audio experience. I am talking about making it actually sound convincing. To quote:

Well "sound convincing" is a very broad definition. Where would you begin? 3D positional audio in games is a well-defined subject and much more suitable for an informal exchange of opinions.

[Yaboze]

I'm not sure why it isn't sticking for you, are you running Vista? If so, that could be why, there's no hardware audio there.

I am running a X-Fi Fatal1ity Gamer with the latest (a year friggin old) drivers, 10/2006.

[OldOfEvil]

Originally Posted by Yaboze

I'm not sure why it isn't sticking for you, are you running Vista? If so, that could be why, there's no hardware audio there.

I am running a X-Fi Fatal1ity Gamer with the latest (a year friggin old) drivers, 10/2006.

Then it would be Vista. Soon as I find my XP disc I'm going to reinstall, this is just another reason to ditch vista.