A lot of sound card offer features like EAX, CMSS, and Crystalizer, but I never understand exactly what they do. How do they effect the sound? Does anyone care to explain to provide me with answers or to resources that offer explanations?

Something to read to start from:

http://www.soundblaster.com/technology/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_audio_extensions
http://www.creative.com/products/speakers/tech/?id=62790
http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/multim...ative-x-fi.html
http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/multim...x-fi-part2.html
http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/multim...-interview.html


As a note, you be able to achieve similar results (even better in quality) by using virtual effects (VST/DX/AU/..) but, as these are software implementations ...


Juha

That explained everything. Thanks a lot.

24-bit Crystalizer = a total bullshit:

http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/av/docs/20061127/dal260.htm



I can't believe it's still around..

EAX is Creative Labs Enviromental Audio Extensions and is used by a lot of video games for Digital Signal Processing effects especially with the hardware acceleration. The new thing as mentioned in the wiki article is that OpenAL is now becoming popular especially amongst computer game developers who want to take advantage of EAX hardware rendering effects. The only drawback is that EAX is proprietary. I am sure the new Creative Labs cards have there own propreitary extension of OpenAL which is now emerging in a lot of computer games. CMMS and the Crystalizer don't do anything. It's been discussed on here millions of times in the past before especially two years when I thorough inspection was done. They arne't anything spectacular.

I got the idea that Crystalizer is better left turned off, but CMSS sounds like it would be useful. Why do you say it is not?

Crystalizer is a trick to reel in some uninformed users, yes.

However, CMSS3D-Headphones is something i don't want to miss anymore when watching movies late at night on my headphones. It provides a somewhat realistic surround effect, using all 5.1 channels of a movie's audio track. Even on 5.1 test clips it does a pretty convincing job. So, it definitely works.