Has anyone run across (free-as-in-beer) SDKs for doing EAX or A3D audio programming? I'm trying to find such and I'm getting nowhere.

As it would seem, you have to register with Creative for the new stuff [sad] But here EAX 2.0 SDK [wink] (~11mb) Docs here

Check out BASS. It's free to use if your software is free. If you sell your software as shareware, its $136-ish USD. Commercial licenses are more expensive.

OpenAL?

I'm quite adamant about going down to the bone here. Particularily with A3D.

Drew: Thanks for the EAX link!

It's a bit of a tangent, but did the A3D technology ever make it into EAX? I remember that when Creative finished killing Aureal off, Creative had the far inferior technology and didn't seem in any rush to add the A3D side of things into EAX.

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Original post by coldacid I'm quite adamant about going down to the bone here. Particularily with A3D.

Well I did some research and it seems tha A3D is now non-existant! All of the links and references that I found did not exist. Finally I saw some mention about how it was defunct and saw this:

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During 1999 and the first part of 2000, the major rivals for the most popular gaming 3D standard were Aureal's A3D and Creative Labs' EAX (Environmental Audio Extensions) technology. A3D, especially in version 2.0, was frequently regarded as superior to its Creative Labs rival. However, most developer support went to EAX. When Aureal closed in mid-2000 and was later absorbed by Creative, this spelled the end for A3D as a viable game API.

So looks like your stuck with EAX.

I just got a cold, chilling vision of the 3dfx logo as I read that excerpt...

I would recommend going with OpenAL, if you're even slightly interested in cross-platform development.

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Original post by Anonymous Poster I you have an ftp site i can upload the following file: A3D30SDK.exe.

Thank you! AP, that filename was all I needed [grin]. You can get the SDK for 2 and 3 here.

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Original post by MatrixCubed I just got a cold, chilling vision of the 3dfx logo as I read that excerpt...

Yeah... except that 3DFX made some horrendous mistakes such that they deserved to fail, mainly (a) Assuming everybody would prefer 16bpp to 32bpp if it meant higher fill rates, and (b) Assuming hardware accelerated transform and lighting weren't important.

By comparison, I was under the impression that A3D beat EAX significantly. I seem to recall it was a case of 3D positioning, doppler effects, occlusion, and various other nice options vs. 12 different reverb models. However Creative sued Aureal for patent infringement, lost, but bankrupted Aureal in the process thanks to the wonderful US legal system. Then it was a simple matter of purchasing Aureal's assets and sitting on the technology. (This is why I will never buy a Creative card.)