TR Forums

Posted: **Tue Jan 05, 2010 1:11 pm**

Before today, I was always using "Entertainment" for everything, but the Unigine benchmark refused to run because of a missing OpenAL extension AL_EXT_LINEAR_DISTANCE.

The fix I found is to switch to "Game" mode, and it really works. But I never even had an idea that those modes go as far as to change audio capabilities. Kinda like in video card world that would be "Game" mode works in DX11 and "Entertainment" in DX9 or something.

Does anyone know more technical details on what else those modes change? There must be a tradeoff if "Entertainment" drops as much as AL extensions.

Posted: **Tue Jan 05, 2010 1:18 pm**

Mine always stays in "game" so I had not noticed this phenomenon.

Posted: **Tue Jan 05, 2010 1:35 pm**

JustAnEngineer wrote:
Mine always stays in "game" so I had not noticed this phenomenon.

I primary use my PC for audio and movies, so I avoided game mode somehow... Now I'll have to get used to mode switching

Posted: **Tue Jan 05, 2010 1:47 pm**

The whole idea of switching modes seems stupid to me... unless we're talking about speaker/EQ presets, it doesn't make much sense to me, as the audio hardware is already there.

Posted: **Tue Jan 05, 2010 2:00 pm**

morphine wrote:
The whole idea of switching modes seems stupid to me...

+1000000

But apparently you need to do that to get full EAX 5.0 level of sound processing via OpenAL extensions.

EDIT:
Here are the capabilities of X-Fi under different modes:
ALCapsViewer32/Entertainment:

--------------
OpenAL Devices
--------------
                   Name: SB X-Fi Audio [EC00]
          Sample Offset: No
  Linear Distance Model: No
Exponent Distance Model: No
                Capture: Yes
            Enumeration: Yes
                EAX 2.0: Yes
                EAX 3.0: Yes
                EAX 4.0: No
                EAX 5.0: No
                  X-RAM: Yes
          Enumerate All: Yes
                EFX 1.0: Yes

                   Name: Generic Software
          Sample Offset: Yes
  Linear Distance Model: Yes
Exponent Distance Model: Yes
                Capture: Yes
            Enumeration: Yes
                EAX 2.0: Yes
                EAX 3.0: No
                EAX 4.0: No
                EAX 5.0: No
                  X-RAM: No
          Enumerate All: Yes
                EFX 1.0: Yes

ALCapsViewer32/Game:

--------------
--------------
OpenAL Devices
--------------
                   Name: SB X-Fi Audio [EC00]
          Sample Offset: Yes
  Linear Distance Model: Yes
Exponent Distance Model: Yes
                Capture: Yes
            Enumeration: Yes
                EAX 2.0: Yes
                EAX 3.0: Yes
                EAX 4.0: Yes
                EAX 5.0: Yes
                  X-RAM: Yes
          Enumerate All: Yes
                EFX 1.0: Yes

                   Name: Generic Software
          Sample Offset: Yes
  Linear Distance Model: Yes
Exponent Distance Model: Yes
                Capture: Yes
            Enumeration: Yes
                EAX 2.0: Yes
                EAX 3.0: No
                EAX 4.0: No
                EAX 5.0: No
                  X-RAM: No
          Enumerate All: Yes
                EFX 1.0: Yes

ALCapsViewer64/Entertainment:

--------------
OpenAL Devices
--------------
                   Name: Generic Software
          Sample Offset: Yes
  Linear Distance Model: Yes
Exponent Distance Model: Yes
                Capture: Yes
            Enumeration: Yes
                EAX 2.0: Yes
                EAX 3.0: No
                EAX 4.0: No
                EAX 5.0: No
                  X-RAM: No
          Enumerate All: Yes
                EFX 1.0: Yes

ALCapsViewer64/Game:

--------------
OpenAL Devices
--------------
                   Name: Generic Software
          Sample Offset: Yes
  Linear Distance Model: Yes
Exponent Distance Model: Yes
                Capture: Yes
            Enumeration: Yes
                EAX 2.0: Yes
                EAX 3.0: No
                EAX 4.0: No
                EAX 5.0: No
                  X-RAM: No
          Enumerate All: Yes
                EFX 1.0: Yes

Appearently there is no X-Fi device in 64 bit mode...

Posted: **Tue Jan 05, 2010 2:22 pm**

Madman wrote:
morphine wrote:
The whole idea of switching modes seems stupid to me...

+1000000

But apparently you need to do that to get full EAX 5.0 level of sound processing via OpenAL extensions.

And not only that, as far as I know, ASIO is fully active only in Audio Creation Mode

Here is a summary:

Posted: **Tue Jan 05, 2010 4:00 pm**

I'd never heard of 3DMIDI so I had to look it up. Now I can feel like I'm standing in the middle of a marching band as the instruments go all around me. :lol:

TR Forums

X-Fi modes have undocumented features?

X-Fi modes have undocumented features?

Re: X-Fi modes have undocumented features?

Re: X-Fi modes have undocumented features?

Re: X-Fi modes have undocumented features?

Re: X-Fi modes have undocumented features?

Re: X-Fi modes have undocumented features?

Re: X-Fi modes have undocumented features?