Kingdoms + Xonar d2x

**c.ryo** · October 29, 2012, 07:06 AM

Hello guys

Recently reinstalled Kingdoms and wanted to give it a try with my new Asus Xonar D2X, but sadly could not use EAX 4 sound. Eax 2 option works, 3 and 4 doesnt , says hardware is unsupported. However in theory this card can run any EAX that is present up to date. Any ideas? Thank you.

**irishron** · October 29, 2012, 07:58 AM

I would not know. If you don't get an answer here, contact Sega support.

**PoleCat** · October 29, 2012, 11:49 PM

Originally Posted by c.ryo

Hello guys

Recently reinstalled Kingdoms and wanted to give it a try with my new Asus Xonar D2X, but sadly could not use EAX 4 sound. Eax 2 option works, 3 and 4 doesnt , says hardware is unsupported. However in theory this card can run any EAX that is present up to date. Any ideas? Thank you.

The card itself can run any EAX format present up to date. But Kingdoms is an old game that probably only allowed for EAX 2 in the first place. As the game was written before EAX 3 and 4 even existed then I'd guess it won't work with those formats. In short - it's a software limitation. You'll have to make due with EAX 2. Good luck!

**c.ryo** · October 30, 2012, 07:02 AM

The card itself can run any EAX format present up to date. But Kingdoms is an old game that probably only allowed for EAX 2 in the first place. As the game was written before EAX 3 and 4 even existed then I'd guess it won't work with those formats. In short - it's a software limitation. You'll have to make due with EAX 2. Good luck!

Yes I thought about that. But then at some degree it makes no sense to include EAX 3;4 options to the game.

**PoleCat** · October 30, 2012, 08:13 AM

Originally Posted by c.ryo

Yes I thought about that. But then at some degree it makes no sense to include EAX 3;4 options to the game.

You're absolutely correct. I was wrong earlier - EAX support through ver. 4 should be available for you. I was wrong about when Kingdoms was written and what it supported.

That said - I did a little digging on the matter and came up with this - OpenAL and Windows Vista.

It would seem that that the older library that Kingdoms would rely on was changed in Vista. It further looks like DS3D and the EAX interfaces may have been merged and are no longer used as they were back in Kingdoms time. That would seem to me to mean that the game is reporting the hardware as unsupported because of a driver issue.

Long story short - it looks like you'll need to try looking for an updated driver for your sound card or find some way to make it use legacy modes. Good luck!

**irishron** · October 30, 2012, 07:18 AM

CA has done things with this game that at times still has me shaking my head.

**c.ryo** · October 30, 2012, 10:37 AM

irishron
Still wait for Sega support reply, two days and counting.

PoleCat
Good point. Makes sense now. I had long ago my good old SoundBlaster platinum, but sadly due to technical issues ( or simply a marketing move that would force people buy new , modern, sound cards ) there were no drivers that would support Vista / 7.
I guess that EAX 4 may work on old sound cards + Windows XP.
But don't have hardware, nor XP to test that out. Also after some hours of thesting EAX 2 , it works but there are sound artefact's, like buzzing, noise, static noise. So switched back to default Miles.

Thank you for assistance guys.

**PoleCat** · October 30, 2012, 06:44 PM

I found out something about your sound card - it only supports EAX by hack and not natively. It would seem EAX is proprietary to X-Fi chips made by Creative. Asus uses their own sound engine to process the signal but it's not 100% effective.

Check out this article - it goes into the matter in depth: Asus Xonar D2X. In short - I don't think you'll be able to get better than EAX 2 without tweaking the card. Good luck!