GMAN and Others Worryed about Tracers.

[Chalenge]

My DxDiag is attached.

No, it isn't! Hehe

Not all X-Fi cards have the 3D positional processing. The Sound Blaster Z series does. I'm not telling you to go out and buy one, because if there is a bug or something and 3D positions are not working right now then that would be unproductive. However, I just spent a few hours online in the beta arena and I was locating other players very easily. There could be other reasons for what you are reporting, try recording something and sharing the film with us, so we can repeat what you are seeing (not hearing)? All I got.

I am hoping that there is something new causing the difference, but that there is a valid reason for it. I know if players encounter something that is not in line with their own experiences they sometimes consider it to be wrong right away, whereas in fact it might just be more accurate but also outside of their experience.

[Condor]

Whoops. Forgot to attach it. Here it is.

[Condor]

My sound card is the Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer if that tells you anything. Bought it in March 2008.

[Chalenge]

I am familiar with that sound card. I don't believe it has any 3D processing capabilities.

You might turn on automatic film recordings and if you run into the issue again share it with us. Unless Hitech speaks up and tells us different.

You want to run your monitor at native resolution, so you're good there. GPUs are optimized for 1080p, but I doubt 1200 is going to make that much difference. I have not had a Radeon card ever, so . . .

[bustr]

Any chance he is getting conflicts with this slot in card host controller?

Etron USB 3.0 Extensible Host Controller

[Chalenge]

I have heard of sound card and video card conflicts, and sound card and network card conflicts, but never a USB controller and sound card conflict. I guess it could happen, but then he would be reporting sound buffer type problems. I don't think that 3D processing is part of that.

It would be easy enough to open device manager and look for the yellow indicators.

[Condor]

No yellow exclamation points in device manager.

[Chalenge]

I think you would know anyway, because the sound would have stopped cold by now.

[bustr]

I worked for Media Vision in the dinosaur days of sound cards when we were neck and neck with SB's market share. I've seen it all. If his 3D processing is onboard the soundcard, it can be conflicted with. His sound card is antiquated at this point while his USB3 card is probably the newest part of his PC. The simplest test is to pull the USB3 card out and see if the 3D EFX problems go away. At this point in all of this trouble shooting for him, it's down to pulling hardware. Or if he can get his hands on another sound card.......

[Chalenge]

I don't know how to answer that, except to say that I don't think it's the right path to go. It's not a conflict that he is reporting, but inaccurate 3D results of his audio. The Extreme Fidelity models have very good sound, but I think that the low end models had some functions neutered. I just don't know which models those were. I had used one model years ago, the switched to the Fatality series, now the ZxR, and I even have another X-Fi (the 5.1 Surround USB DAC) and they all work great compared to the older ExtremeGamer model (I think it was). The problem for me, though, was Windows Vista which was Microsoft's original attempt to rewrite DirectX. Now they're trying it again and I think that between what we are seeing in AH3 and some of the 3D audio reports is that some of the updates being pushed to Windows 7 might be fouling things up. No proof though, just a gut feeling.

[Condor]

Can't pull the USB 3 card out because there is none. There are only two cards in the computer; sound and video. All USB ports are on the motherboard.

[Chalenge]

Have you got something like a monitor, keyboard, or anything else with a USB port built in?

[Condor]

Yes. USB 3.0 ports in monitor and I am using one of them. Don't really need it if it's a problem. I can disconnect the USB cable to the monitor.

Another question. Why am I experiencing this only in AH3 but not AH2 if it's a sound card issue?

[Condor]

Shallenge, Is this the sound card you're using?

http://www.amazon.com/Creative-Blaster-Audiophile-Performance-Headphone/dp/B00AQ5PK6I?ie=UTF8&*Version*=1&*entries*=0

It appears the X-Fi extreme gamer I have offers 3Dprocessing. I found several old eviews that say it has CMSS-3D technology.  I use it with a a Logitech X-540 5.1 speaker system and seemed to have good 3d surround sound with my old XP system. It may be an issue with the Windows 7 drivers. Need to work with that a little.

If I need a new card it looks like this one is the least expensive that offers 3D processing.   http://www.amazon.com/Blaster-Performance-Headphone-Forming-Microphone/dp/B009ISU33E?ie=UTF8&*Version*=1&*entries*=0

I'm not ready to buy anything yet. Just considering my options. My first priority will probably be a video card upgrade.

[Chalenge]

Who's Shallenge?

Yes that's the card I use. You don't need it unless you are doing sound editing, generally speaking. The Z that you listed at the end of your post is a great card.

Yeah, the reason I am on the fence about your card is that some of those cards use software processing instead of a dedicated processor for 3D positioning. CMSS-3D can be either a physically present processor, or software. I have a X-Fi external DAC that does the same thing. What it offers though is the ability to plug it into a computer without having to do surgery, and then having right/left RCA inputs but lacks ASIO. ASIO is important for reducing lag. Sound Blaster makes some external DACs that also offer Core 3D processors, but they run $350-$500.

The difference in software and hardware 3D positioning is precisely what you have mentioned, which is inaccurate results. Another indication is lag in heavy traffic locations while playing AH2 (I haven't seen enough traffic in AH3 to know about it). The ZxR will not have that problem, nor will the Z. I have heard that the Zx has reduced quality, but I don't why it would.

The new Z, Zx, and ZxR use SBX, which is a marriage of an improved THX and CMSS-3D. For the money the Z is the best bang for buck, especially for games that use 3D positioning to the extent that AH does.

There is a huge difference between XP and the way every Windows release since has handled audio. Basically, the way I look at it the Extreme Gamer cards died when Vista came out. They're not junk, because they can still produce really nice audio. They just don't measure up to AH, especially in ground vehicles and now with Windows 10 I think they may be not very useful at all. It's impossible to be sure through rumors, and anecdotal experiences, so I haven't told you to bin them yet.