Sound hardware acceleration, EAX performance of integrated sound cards

I've read that Windows Vista and 7 stopped supporting hardware acceleration of DirectSound/DirectX Audio. Many of the old games (most of them released in the 90's-early 2000's) that I used to play in Windows XP support hardware accelerated EAX 1 and/or 2 thru DirectSound. I would like to know if Windows 7 can still do the EAX 1 and 2 sound effects (even without hardware acceleration) in these old games (many of these games weren't designed to support OpenAL). Will there be significant performance issues (speed, correct emulation and quality of EAX sound effect emulation) in these old games under Windows 7? My laptop's motherboard has an integrated SoundMAX sound card (SoundMAX Integrated Digital Audio). I am using Windows Update-provided drivers. Is there any software/driver I can use to enable EAX 1 and 2 (with or without hardware acceleration) if Windows 7 can't support it (in XP, this sound card was able to support EAX 1 and 2)? Edit: Mistook the laptop sound card's brand to another of my computer's sound card.

Hey mate, I very much doubt that the sound acceleration would have a bad effect on the actual game. Whether your PC could handle the extra CPU usage is another thing but probably not a problem. Hope this helps, Redeye

Hey mate,

I very much doubt that the sound acceleration would have a bad effect on the actual game.

Whether your PC could handle the extra CPU usage is another thing but probably not a problem.

Hope this helps,
Redeye

Thanks for the reply.

My primary concern now is how to make EAX sound effects work in the old games (many of them don't support the newer OpenAL API) with or without hardware acceleration.

Hey mate, I don't want to sound bad, but is the EAX sound effects needed for your gaming? If so, do you get any errors shown whilst gaming (if not, do you hear any sound)? Cheers, Redeye

Hey mate, I don't want to sound bad, but is the EAX sound effects needed for your gaming? If so, do you get any errors shown whilst gaming (if not, do you hear any sound)? Cheers, Redeye

Hey mate,

I don't want to sound bad, but is the EAX sound effects needed for your gaming?

If so, do you get any errors shown whilst gaming (if not, do you hear any sound)?

Cheers,
Redeye

It's not needed, but they'll make games (mostly old ones that do support it) sound better.

About EAX, check these Wikipedia articles out:
EAX
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_audio_extensions

List of video games that support EAX
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_video…hat_support_EAX

I don't get any errors while playing games in WIndows 7, as of now. I have yet to see the 'EAX' option as selectable in many of the old games that I have installed (they are probably detecting that the sound card doesn't support EAX, as it is disabled in Windows 7, although EAX worked fine in these games in Windows XP). I will try installing other games though and see if EAX can be force-enabled and see if there are errors.

Hey mate, Perhaps we are going about this wrongly… By this I mean that we haven't even tried enabling EAX in windows 7. Since I am currently on a psp, I cannot c/p a link but a simple google on 'how to enable eax in window 7' should do the trick. Cheers, Redeye