>>3186159
>Creative Labs sued Aureal for patent infringement in March 1998 [1], and Aureal countersued for patent infringement and deceptive trade practices. Aureal won the lawsuit brought by Creative in December 1999. However, the cost of the legal battle caused Aureal's investors to cease funding operations, forcing Aureal into bankruptcy.

>Creative then acquired Aureal's assets in September 2000 through the bankruptcy court with the specific provision that Creative Labs would be released from all claims of past infringement by Creative Labs upon Aureal's A3D technology. Creative Labs has not chosen to support the A3D API.

Wow. Just fucking wow.

>>3186215
Creative is run by Hitler, we all know that. Just don't buy their shit. By the way you don't need one of their X-Fi bullshit products for using Creative ALchemy (which enables EAX in Vista onwards), there is a patch for version 1.45.03 that removes this bullshit restriction. No need to give them jewgolds.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47LEgykMYF4

Here's a comparison in Descent 3.

A3D 2.0 focus more on audio positioning, and do so very well. EAX 2 is just a reverb effect on steroids, it's better than the typical flat audio in some games (like Diablo 2 dungeons), but these faggots killed Aureal just because their technology was superior.

What is the best wrapper for each?

>>3186819
http://pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Glossary:Sound_card#Restore_legacy_audio_effects_on_newer_OS

IndirectSound for DirectSound 3D.
Creative Alchemy for EAX.
A2D for A3D, there's two versions, for XP and Vista onwards.

IMO, A3D > EAX > DirectSound 3D.

>>3186819
The A3D wrapper isn't close to the real thing though.

>>3187667
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sol6_wT4_CU

Sounds cool to me senpai.

>>3187721
That's A3D 1.0, the real ear treat is A3D 2.0, with all wrappers missing real time reflections.

>>3187731
I think this support A3D 2.0 http://www.worknd.ru/ but it's for XP only.

Alternatively, I think you can use the regular wrapper a2ddrivers312.exe AND IndirectSound, on Vista or later but I haven't tested either.

>>3187758
That's even worse, A3DLive is absolute shit.

>>3187763
Yeah, better off using the regular A2D wrapper.

Isn't EAX just an extension for DirectSound3D?
The latter is resposible for 3D accelerated audio, while the former just expands it to support environments, obstruction, etc.

>>3189871
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_Audio_Extensions#Technology

It's a lib of sound effects mostly ambience.

>>3187667
Its not like aureal cards are super expensive. The only problem is A3D only works reliably under windows 98.