Vista hardware acceleration query (sound)

CurlyWhirly · 10 Mar 2009 at 19:31

I've heard that in Vista it doesn't allow hardware acceleration to be used in sound cards - is this true?

Apparently there's a Vista file called audiobg.exe running that handles the sound, this file is allegedly supposed to use a CPU core to itself meaning that on a quad core CPU you lose 25% of the CPU power - is this right?

Apparently the Hardware Abstraction Layer is absent from Vista?

If this is true then why would Vista refuse to defer to the soundcard for sound processing?

I have recently bought a Creative X-Fi sound card with quite a powerful DSP chip and had I known this then I may as well have settled for onboard sound

Would the reason why Microsoft has done this be something to do with Vista DRM issues?

Uriel · 10 Mar 2009 at 19:33

Use the Alchemy program that comes with your soundcard and everything (well mostly) will work as intended.

Edit: It's true that the HAL was removed. Microsoft left it up to soundcard manufacturers to come up with a solution. Creative, Asus and Realtek have all fixed it in their own ways.

CurlyWhirly · 10 Mar 2009 at 19:36

I didn't even know there was an Alchemy program, it must be on the CD

I'll have a check, thanks

Uriel · 10 Mar 2009 at 19:39

CurlyWhirly said:
I didn't even know there was an Alchemy program, it must be on the CD

I'll have a check, thanks

If not you can download it from Creative's web site. You might have it installed already. I think it's included in Creative's standard driver pack now.

CurlyWhirly · 10 Mar 2009 at 19:41

I just remembered what happened when I bought my X-Fi soundcard.

The CD itself couldn't be used as there was a crack in the CD and because the sound card itself was okay, I didn't bother to send it back.

I either downloaded the sound card drivers off the internet or let Vista install them I can't remember

I'm out of luck then as I don't have the CD

CurlyWhirly · 10 Mar 2009 at 19:42

Uriel said:
If not you can download it from Creative's web site. You might have it installed already. I think it's included in Creative's standard driver pack now.

I just saw your comment

I'll have a look on the Creative website as I don't think I've got it as I only installed the drivers.

Uriel · 10 Mar 2009 at 19:46

If I were you I'd uninstall the current drivers and then go to Creative's web site and download new ones. There's some stuff on the CD that you can't download but the drivers and Alchemy are fine.

CurlyWhirly · 10 Mar 2009 at 19:46

I've now found the Alchemy link thanks http://uk.europe.creative.com/corporate/pressroom/releases/detail.asp?ref=12682

“The result of Microsoft's removal of the hardware audio abstraction layer for Vista will confuse many gamers,” said Steve Erickson, vice president of audio at Creative.

Any idea why Microsoft did this as the article doesn't say :confused:

Uriel · 10 Mar 2009 at 19:47

It was supposedly to help stability. Apparrently a lot of crashes in XP were sound related.

CurlyWhirly · 10 Mar 2009 at 19:53

Uriel said:
It was supposedly to help stability. Apparrently a lot of crashes in XP were sound related.

Thanks for that.

I'm glad I posted this thread now

CurlyWhirly · 10 Mar 2009 at 20:02

I have another query if you don't mind

I've downloaded both the latest driver (not the BETA version) and the Alchemy application.

Does it matter which is installed first (after uninstalling the old driver of course) :confused:

My old driver is dated 7th October 2008 and the newer driver is dated 17th December 2008.

Uriel · 10 Mar 2009 at 22:52

IIRC Alchemy won't install unless you have suitable drivers installed for the X-Fi already installed.

You will then need to run alchemy to enable support for hardware sound in DirectSound3D games. OpenAL (or any other system that doesn't use DirectSound3D) games will be fine without it.

This page has a list of whether alchemy is required and if so, what you need to do to set it up

hohum · 11 Mar 2009 at 01:18

I've heard that in Vista it doesn't allow hardware acceleration to be used in sound cards - is this true?

Hardware acceleration is still possible (via OpenAL). Any modern game that offers the option to use acceleration will use this API (although it must be said, there aren't many games that do these days).

Apparently there's a Vista file called audiobg.exe running that handles the sound, this file is allegedly supposed to use a CPU core to itself meaning that on a quad core CPU you lose 25% of the CPU power - is this right?

Yes, it handles audio mixing, but the 25% CPU usage claim is total nonsense.

CurlyWhirly · 11 Mar 2009 at 18:45

Uriel said:
IIRC Alchemy won't install unless you have suitable drivers installed for the X-Fi already installed.

You will then need to run alchemy to enable support for hardware sound in DirectSound3D games. OpenAL (or any other system that doesn't use DirectSound3D) games will be fine without it.

This page has a list of whether alchemy is required and if so, what you need to do to set it up

Interesting link about the games, cheers.

I've installed Alchemy but for some reason my sound card drivers wouldn't update :confused:

CurlyWhirly · 11 Mar 2009 at 18:47

hohum said:
Yes, it handles audio mixing, but the 25% CPU usage claim is total nonsense.

I thought it was a bit far fetched using up an entire core

Here's a screenshot of where I saw this mentioned over on DSL Zone UK:

EDIT:
Deleted members username for privacy reasons.

james.miller · 11 Mar 2009 at 20:36

well, thats complete nonsense. It's as easy as checking the task manager to see he's wrong.

hohum · 11 Mar 2009 at 20:39

I can't say whether it's single-threaded or not (I suppose it's possible due to it not being a demanding task), but apart from that... the guy is talking out of his backside. There is no way that the audio mixer would reserve an entire core to itself, nor max it out. It may use 2-5% of a single core during regular use (out of 100%, not the 50% or 25% value attributed to multiple cores in task manager and the like), but that's it. Besides, if what he said was true, then you'd not be able to do anything on a single core processor would you?

It's ridiculous claims/myths such as that which keep people using XP.

Uriel · 11 Mar 2009 at 20:50

CurlyWhirly said:
Interesting link about the games, cheers.

I've installed Alchemy but for some reason my sound card drivers wouldn't update

How are you trying to update the drivers and are there any error messages etc?

Could you be running an OEM X-Fi? Some were made for Dell and a couple of other companies, which don't work with the standard driver package (or so I've heard). Without modding you have to get the drivers from whatever OEM supplied your card.

CurlyWhirly · 12 Mar 2009 at 00:39

hohum said:
It's ridiculous claims/myths such as that which keep people using XP.

Yeah no wonder why Vista gets a bad name :rolleyes:

I dare say that Vista had it's problems when first released as most operating systems do but I think that most of the bugs were ironed out with the release of SP1.

I've only been using Vista for around 2 months so I don't know how good or bad it was at launch.

CurlyWhirly · 12 Mar 2009 at 00:46

Uriel said:
How are you trying to update the drivers and are there any error messages etc?

By uninstalling them and allowing Vista to replace them with legacy drivers.

I then run the new driver installation routine but after rebooting the old drivers dated 7th October 2008 are still there.

The new drivers are dated 17th December 2008.

Uriel said:
Could you be running an OEM X-Fi? Some were made for Dell and a couple of other companies, which don't work with the standard driver package (or so I've heard). Without modding you have to get the drivers from whatever OEM supplied your card.

Yes it's an OEM version, just the CD and sound card with no manual.

How would I go about modding and is it difficult :confused: