Creative: Asustek's Sound Cards Don't Support EAX

Asustek recently released a new series of sound cards targeted at the enthusiast and high-end markets, which somehow ended Creative's supremacy on the market. Until Asustek arrived on the market, users who would like to enjoy a Hi-Fi audio experience had to knock on Creative's door. Things are about to change, and Creative does not seem too happy at all.

Creative officials claimed yesterday that its new competitor on the audio market is willingly misleading its customers with fake promises of EAX support. The EAX (Environmental audio extensions) technology is a set of environmental enhancements for sound in games, that can accurately simulate a real-world audio environment.

According to Creative communications VP Phil O'Shaughnessy, Asustek uses Xonar drivers that trick the users into believing that they enjoy the EAX experience, with 64 simultaneous audio streams.

"There are a small number of PC game titles that specifically query the audio device on the system to see if EAX 5 is available before they will attempt to render more than 64 3D simultaneous audio voices," O'Shaughnessy said.

Sound is a critical aspect in the nowadays' multimedia world, and high-quality sound effects are most important to gamers and high-definition movie enthusiasts. More and more users are migrating from the onboard sound solutions to fully dedicated soundcards, although the semi-professional offerings that come bundled with the high-end motherboards are surely appealing.

Creative's take at Asustek's Xonar range of sound products was expected, given the fact that the former company has a long tradition on the high-end sound market. However, Creative should focus on its own EAX-related problems, as many of its customers already prompted the company to release a software update and fix the lack of EAX effects that would occur when running Windows Vista.

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