Asus Xonar GX feature, what is it for?

[ugnius40]

Hi,

I've bought Asus Xonar DG, and one of it's features is GX, I'm wondering is it of any use with modern games like Fallout New Vegas, because I noticed when it's enabled it makes Fallout crash randomly, foobar2000 (older versions) cannot init audio card, skype crashes (fixed with new drivers from Asus).
Am I missing anything when playing without it?
Could anyone please explain in simple terms where/why it's used.

Thank you in advance.

 

[ugnius40]

Not sure if Fallaut NV uses EAX or not, at least I fail to notice any difference with or without GX, but as for crashes it does interfere. So basically I should turn on GX if I'm unable to select more than 2 channels in game or notice EAX checkbox in settings.
Also one game I play sometimes is Dirt 2, I've heard it can make some use of EAX (I might be wrong here), not sure about stability with Xonar as i have it only for a half a week, hadn't had time to test thoroughly.

 

[ugnius40]

Dirt 2 does have EAX. It's an OpenAL based game but comes with BlueRipple audio, a software based OpenAL renderer. BlueRipple is quite impressive - pretty close to my X-Fi running in hardware mode. I would try both hardware audio in game options with GX on and blieripple audio with GX off.

GX isn't always successful at restoring EAX, especially in older games. I found it didn't work properly for Rome: Total War or Thief: Deadly Shadows for example. That's one reason I eventually went back to X-Fi.

All the games requiring Alchemy for X-Fi in this list would be worth a try with DS3D-GX: http://connect.creativelabs.com/alchemy/Lists/Games/AllItems.aspx

Please note that many newer OpenAL or FMOD games don't have an EAX option but do make use of it if the hardware is detected. In that case just Google the game title and EAX to find out if it's relevant or not.

Thanks for informative reply and suggestions