BF2 and X-Fi sound card

[knghtwhosaysni]

Re: BF2 and X-Fi sound card

lol super-old topic But I have to say I enjoy mine too. I couldn't even use 5.1 with my onboard on my last motherboard, so of course it was huge boost in audio quality. You really can hear where people are after the disappear behind a building or something.

[mcarda]

Re: BF2 and X-Fi sound card

I got the X-Fi XtremeMusic today and I LOVE it! BF2 is AMAZING! Will never go back to on-board and will upgrade the other computer to an Audigy 4 at least!

[nfuriate]

Re: BF2 and X-Fi sound card

I should be getting my X-Fi Fatal1ty and new 7.1 speakers this Friday or the following Monday. Can't wait as i've been on onboard sound all my computing life!

[knghtwhosaysni]

Re: BF2 and X-Fi sound card

Just saw this deal: http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/Produc...=290236&ps=ho5 pretty sweet X-Fi XtremeMusic for $60 after MIR

[Merlin]

Re: BF2 and X-Fi sound card

I got a X-Fi Fatality FPS edition, dam expensive but well worth it.

[Hugh G. Wrection]

Re: BF2 and X-Fi sound card

What's the difference b/w software and hardware rendering anyway?

Not what you I bet you think -- software rendering is *faster* than hardware (ie. less fps hit) but hardware rendering sounds way better.

[Stormy{CAN}]

Re: BF2 and X-Fi sound card

Not what you I bet you think -- software rendering is *faster* than hardware (ie. less fps hit) but hardware rendering sounds way better.

Think you got that backwards. Software means the cpu is doing the sound processing, hardware means the sound card is doing the processing.

So explain please how software would be *faster*.

[Hugh G. Wrection]

Re: BF2 and X-Fi sound card

Nope, that's what I mean -- in BF2, selecting software rendering results in less of an FPS hit than selecting hardware. You can do timedemo and see for yourself. However, software rendering doesn't give you the same quality you get from hardware rendering, eg. things just sound a bit mushier and indistinct, so software rendering is using the less complex audio algorithms, etc.

There are actually 3 levels of acceleration you can use in BF2 and the ordering is the same regardless of detail level selection (low, medium, or high):

1) Software: ----------------- fastest / worst quality
2) Hardware:
--> 2a) D3D Hardware -------- slower / better quality
--> 2b) Native Hardware ------ slowest / best quality

BF2 only gives you one "hardware" option. Whether you get generic D3D hardware acceleration or true native hardware acceleration depends on your BF2OpenAL.dll file in BF2 directory. OpenAL has a router dll (OpenAL32.dll in your win\sys directory) that sends OpenAL calls to either a native driver (if your soundcard supports native acceleration) or a generic D3D wrapper (wrap_oal.dll) that is also part of OpenAL.

BF2OpenAL.dll in BF2 directory is the OpenAL linker, which as installed by BF2 is the not the router, but the wrapper itself. So no way to get native acceleration unsless you replace BF2OpenAL.dll w/OpenAL32.dll. I'm sure DICE had good reason for this at the time, like the native driver Creative was shipping in drivers at the time caused crashes, etc. There is a not in sound.con about Creative's native OpenAL driver not being able to allocate enough RAM (which has since been fixed in later Creative drivers b/c many peeps have replaced BF2OpenAL.dll w/OpenAL32.dll from quite some time now).