@lowle:
<quote from
hardwarecentral>
One of the great debates occuring in 3D audio is whether EAX or Aureal's 3D audio
extension, A3D, is better. The philosophies behind A3D and EAX are at 2 different
ends of the spectrum. Whereas A3D advocates total accuracy and complexity, EAX
backs a simpler "simulation" model. With A3D, a physical model of the environment
must be constructed just as with normal visual 3D models in the application. This
allows for accurate 3D sounds as the sounds are essentially "rendered" in the
environment according to acoustic physics. Hence, reflections off walls that are
closer will sound different than reflections that occur further away. EAX, on the
other hand, only simulates the effects of environments using real-time effects such
as reverberations.
From the point of view of the game developer, EAX is much simpler to implement.
As opposed to constructing a physical model (which takes a great deal of time),
EAX just requires the game developer to set the sources of the sounds and apply
"effects" to simulate the surrounding environment. But which one sounds better?
After closely listening the differences between A3D and EAX, HardwareCentral
found that A3D was much more immersive than EAX. While EAX effects sometime
sounded "canned", A3D always sounded very accurate for the physical
environment. In addition, while EAX requires the use of 4 speakers to simulate 3D
space, A3D only requires 2 speakers. While the 2 speaker A3D setup is slightly
inferior to a 4 speaker EAX setup, A3D eclipses EAX when used in conjunction with
earphones.
</quote>
Um's kurz zusammenzufassen: Bei EAX werden lediglich Soundquellen gesetzt
und Reverb-Effekte darübergelegt, während bei A3D der Sound entsprechend
dem Environment gerendert wird, was natürlich bei weitem realistischer klingt.
Kein Wunder, daß Creative da Angst bekommen hat, und Aureal niedergemacht
hat, um Konkurrenz auszuschalten.
-Ronny
