Sorry - I didn't mean to come across as aggressive. I did read your post thoroughly though
. Unfortunately I still have to keep my initial stance that it's unreliable information. I won't let that go unchallenged because people make expensive purchasing decisions based on forum advice. Apologies if some of this is strongly worded. Nothing to do with you, just years of frustration trying to find an adequate (and as yet non-existant) soundcard.
I've recently tried to stick to one rule when giving advice on hardware forums:
if I've not tried it, keep quiet (or state explicitly that I'm passing on 2nd hand information). To give a bit of background info: I've used 3 different X-Fis (Xtreme Music, Go! and Prelude) and a Xonar D2 in my current machine (Edit: Nearly forgot a Club3D C-Media card and onboard Realtek - I guess that means I've tried something from most of the major PC audio providers). Stuck with the D2 as it was my favourite (the Prelude was supposed to be its replacement), but it ain't perfect. It's a compromise and I'm losing some features I'd rather have by not using an X-Fi. I have corresponded with Asus Support and they have confirmed that DS3D-GX does not get EAX working in a considerable number of games. Been through all sorts of loops sending them screenshots and stuff. Some issues have been fixed in their (all to infrequent) driver updates and patches but by no means all.
Your post above only provided links to information on Alchemy. Alchemy isn't really the problem here. I'd add that I have never failed to get a game working perfectly with Alchemy. I'm sure there are exceptions but they're rare. It can be a pain to get working but if you know what you're doing you can set it once and forget it. DS3D-GX on Xonar has to be set individually for each game. If you do not remember the correct setting for DS3D-GX either the game sounds frequently don't work or at worst games simply fail to run or crash. It's a manual change each time you change games. Huge difference in user friendliness.
Fact is, in spite of what Asus have claimed in their publicity material, DS3D-GX does not work
for EAX in a significant number of games. A quick read of Asus's support forums will quickly tell you a number of people that can't get EAX 3, 4 or 5 working in specific games. I can tell you for a fact that EAX 3 and 4 do not work in Rome: Total War or Thief: Deadly Shadows as I have tried them myself. Recent drivers have been an improvement. Multichannel surround usually works although it had problems with quite a few games in the previous set of drivers. Getting EAX (up to 5) working is now an advertised feature though. It would be different if Asus were still marketing Xonars as EAX2 cards but they claim up to EAX5 on their website. If you don't tell people otherwise they are entitled to expect it to be working.
On conversion - Alchemy is converting into OpenAL. However DS3D-GX is also converting into XEar3D. In practice it doesn't matter. Both are so close to instantaneous and with so little CPU load that you won't notice. There's practically no delay and no framerate drops. Very few games are still published now using DirectSound3D/HAL. Games are, however, still published with EAX. DS3D-GX has frequently failed to work with newer games, requiring patches down the line to work. Assassin's Creed and Bioshock come to mind. Mass Effect still sounds dreadful on Xonar without using software audio rendering.
Regarding the games list you posted. Creative have published the list and you can find it with a quick google. I've posted that list a number of times on this forum, sometimes giving advice on how to get games running with Xonar. Every game on that list that states Alchemy is needed also requires DS3D-GX to be switched on for Xonar. I think most of them work. However, many OpenAL games with EAX3, 4 and 5 (some of which aren't on the list) also need DS3D-GX. A significant proportion of these just do not work properly.
Let me know if you can find an Asus published EAX compatibility list for Xonar because I've never turned one up. Come across a lot of people on their forums complaining about crashes, missing sound effects, missing surround channels, missing music, crashes etc.
Edit: Deinos93. The bit of your post I was saying was wildly inaccurate was that Asus's emulation worked better than Alchemy. Most of the rest was fine. Sorry if it came across as tarring with the same brush.
Even the stuff on gaming compatibility you got wrong was just repeating stuff I've seen on reputable hardware websites. A lot of places predicted that X-Fi would no longer have an advantage in Vista because of the loss of the HAL. As it turned out, Creative came up with a solution that nobody has bettered. Part of this, I'm sure, is that Creative pay games companies to include EAX in order to sell their proprietary technology. Asus' solution is reverse engineered and it wouldn't surprise me if Creative are deliberately making it difficult for Asus to keep up with compatibility in newer games. It's an interesting situation. Kind of reminds me of the virus vs antivirus war.
Further edit: A few links to threads where people are reporting gaming issues:
http://forums.overclockers.com.au/showthread.php?t=775229
http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx...X&id=20080817073444078&page=1&SLanguage=en-us
