Restore EAX on PC's without Creative hardware

How to restore EAX to Condemned (or any Directsound 3D game that has EAX support), on a PC without any creative hardware.

How to restore EAX to Condemned (or any other EAX title) on a PC with no creative hardware

Update: Just wanted to start off saying I STRONGLY suggest you set your PC's audio sample rate to 16 bit 48000Hz when playing a game with EAX and Alchemy. Otherwise you will most likely get very noticeable audio artifacts as a result of the up-sampling.

Hey guy, just wanted to share an easy guide for restoring the EAX effects the game supports, even if your PC does not have creative hardware. I feel this is one of the games that truly benefits from its optional EAX features.

So how do you restore EAX on modern Windows without a creative sound card. Just a few simple files all available from PC Gaming Wiki.

First, we will install EAX Unified 4.0.0.1. This ZIP file contains everything you need for this guide, EAX Unified 4.0.0.1, ALchemy, and the ALchemy restriction remover

https://1drv.ms/u/s!ApFFKWKFcTrxg7YXO2KhRKnS0jBcpw?e=8fnNkc

Second, we will install the latest version of Creative ALchemy (currently as of writing version 1.45.20). Just install it like normal, and reboot.

Then we will use a tool called Alchemy De Restrictor 1.0, this is what removes ALchemy's block to only work on systems with Creative cards. If you are worried about viruses, here is a virus total scan of the file

https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/04ab24ced0ed4a10e4b93015ad9c5b687f1db98bf8017e25479d0de043145864/detection

Also the full source code for the crack is included in the "src" folder (open with a text editor like notepad++).

This block by Creative is completely artificial, esp considering that ANY creative card newer than the X-Fi series uses software emulation running entirely on the CPU to process the old EAX effects. There is nothing about it that relies on a creative sound card being in your PC ALchemy simply translates the Directsound 3D API calls to OpenAL, as I said in the case of any hardware newer than X-Fi it dose all this on the CPU.

So open the "ALchemy Derestrictor 1.0" folder, and follow the simple readme instructions.

Now you have the latest version of Creative ALchemy for restoring EAX to older games that used the Windows DirectSound 3D API (this will work for more games than just Condemned).

To get Condemneds EAX options working just launch ALchemy.

Click the "Add" button

For title just put "Condemned"

Click the radio button that says "use game path"

Click the "..." to point ALchemy to the install directory of Condemned

Click Ok

If ALchemy did not automatically move Condemned to the right hand column just click on Condemned and click the ">>" button.

Then once you launch Condemned go into options>sound, and turn on "Hardware Mixing", "EAX 2.0", and "EAX HD".

I also HIGHLY suggest setting your systems audio sample rate to 16 bit 48000 Hz. This will help avoid any potential audio glitches that are the result of up sampling the audio (the audio files are only encoded in 16-bit 48000 Hz anyways) while emulating EAX. You can try it with your PC's audio setting on a higher setting first if you want. But in my experience (just tested it, 12-02-2023) running condemned with my system at its max settings (32 bit 192000 Hz) caused lots of crackling, specifically when moving (guessing something about transitioning between dif EAX "zones" maybe). Then I quit the game and set my PC to 16 bit 48000 Hz, relaunched the game, and no longer had any audio issues.

The rest of this is specific to Condemned. I also, recommend following one of the guides already on here for restoring missing sound to a few parts in the game. Most notably when you fall off the back of the train, and when you blow up a steam pipe to get past a gate. The train part is pretty much silent without the fix, and the other part is missing the explosion noise etc. These issues are unrelated to this EAX fix, the steam version is simply missing the files with the audio for those parts.

[»For Serious?«]

Thanks a bundle for the ALchemy installer. No idea why Creative only seems to include it within drivers now.
I have the Audigy Rx, so I didn't need anything else since it does EAX on the hardware—and it even has the EAX studio!

[Sean8102]

@Piojok Yeah, I'm sorry but I have no knowledge about how to do this with Linux.

[Pirojok]

Not work for Steam Deck. =/

[Sean8102]

@ActionKale You're very welcome. Glad it did the trick for you!

[ActionKale]

Seriously, thank you so much for this guide.

This helped me get EAX working 100% not only for Condemned, but also F.E.A.R, which I had been trying to get working for the past 2 days - I tried everything for that one, DSOAL + OpenAL Soft, editing the registry, building all versions of oal soft binaries, mix and matching .dlls, lol, nothing worked.

I came across this guide and BAM! I am now basking in the glorious reverb that is EAX :D

Cheers!

[Sean8102]

@Glnome No problem, glad it worked for you.

[Meren]

Thanks for this! I was able to restore EAX Reverb for the GOG version of Beyond Good and Evil on Windows 10 following your guide.

[Sean8102]

And the EAX is def processed better. Alchemy's software emulation isn't awful but it's def not 100% accurate. Which is crazy considering it's the official way of restoring EAX on modern Windows. But yeah the X-Fi drivers are WAY to unstable on modern Windows (Win 11). First to even get the drivers to install right you have to turn off a security feature called "Core Isolation". Then their are plenty of bugs. Mainly the card getting stuck in "game mode" requiring a restart to change modes. And sometimes just random complete audio lose that requires a reboot as well. Shame.2/2

[Sean8102]

ohh yeah. I decided to put my old X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty in my PC because I'm upgrading tomorrow from a 8700K to a Ryzen 7 7800X3D. So new mobo, RAM, and got a new SSD (2TB Samsung 980 Pro) so obv gonna do a clean install. There is a noticeable difference in the audio quality when using the X-fi card. It still sounds fantastic in general. But esp with EAX effects. Because they actually get processed on the hardware by the DSP. You can validate this by checking the "dsoundlog" file Alchemy places in the install directory. It will say using "Software implementation" when using the CPU emulation. But says it's using hardware when you have a X-Fi (or older) creative card. 1/2

[CalicoJack]

Yeah, i can only select Hardware and SB X-fi when i use Alchemy.

This is a picture of the audio settings, with "Hardware" selected.
https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/The_Regiment#/media/File:The_regiment_audio.png

Maybe i should try with the real hardware again, but on Win10 it always has complications. =/