Hello,
I'd like to know if the Remastered editions of Bioshock and Bioshock 2 contain the EAX soundtrack and if it actually works on Windows 7.
Thanks!

EAX is available for the first game. It needs to be set through an .ini tweak though. As to whether it runs on Windows 7, that I cannot answer.

I though that EAX sound was disabled since DirectX10 (Windows 7). In fact, Creative included ALchemy to emulate EAX in old games.

You're not wrong.

EAX is still available in the remaster of the first game though - https://pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/BioShock_Remastered#Audio_settings

Thanks or answering. If EAX is missing from Bioshock 2 Remastered, which is a shame, I'll wait with playing until the original release becomes available and play that then. I'm not a fan of remasters anyway.

@22raider: I know about all that, but ALchemy isn't emulation but translating DirectSound3D EAX calls to OpenAL. At least the first Bioshock though did EAX natively via OpenAL.

A handy tid-bit of help in case anyone needs it. If you don't have a dedicated sound card capable of EAX/EAX Emulation you can emulate it in software via OpenAlSoft (Not to be confused with OpenAL which is hardware reliant.). Additonally, Alchemy as far as I can remember is a 16bit application and won't run under windows10, could be wrong on that one though.

Just in case anyone was having any issues related to this information.

Alchemy runs fine in W10.

I tested and EAX is not in the remastered edition at all, even when you ping the EAX option on. The original version relied on OpenAl32.dll to be in your directory and switching it to OpenAL in the config. I tried that and even with the file in the same directory as the exe, there is no sound at all.

Unless someone can redirect the exe to detect it or figure out any missing files that it needs, the remastered edition is stuck without EAX until GOG puts the vanilla version up.

It's possible that you have non-Creative card and that's why there was no sound. Source

The original PC Bioshock versions are much better that the newer releases, If you are fortunate enough to own an EAX capable sound card, like an Audigy ZS2 or an X-Fi Extreme Gamer or Music Edition and a 5.1 surround sound setup, then you will be able to enjoy the incredible multi positional audio of EAX 5.0 (possibly 5.0 HD), which makes for a night and day difference in immersion and enjoyment from the game, many games had superb EAX audio, and BS 1&2 were among them, also Max Payne 1 & 2 had fantastic EAX audio, so does Mafia, GTA 3/VC/SA, FarCry/FarCry2, Crysis and so many more, nothing sadly has ever come close to seceding EAX audio, Dolby Digital Live 5.1 is better than nothing, but it's generic surround placement falls massively short of EAX multi positional audio.

Just another example of PC gaming technology going backwards nor forwards, I'd love to see a company produce a really good legacy audio sound card with all in one audio solutions for FM/MIDI/EAX, perhaps you could even use it with PC emulation for accurate decent SMD/GEN, SNES audio, a PCIe card with an FPGA chip should be able to pull it of. OF course, I'd also really like to see good quality audio make a comeback in modern games, good multi positional audio and hardware accelerated cards to run it would be amazing. Imagine authentic modern real time high quality synth in modern games as well a high quality multi positional audio, there is so much potential for good audio in modern PC gaming, it used to be one of the best advantages of PC games.

Try Thief 2014 on Playstation 5 and you can hear the real power of "Convolution Reverb". TrueAudio was developed by AMD and some games with Audikinetic's Wwise support this awesome Reverb.
TrueAudio is a DSP for audio based on Cadence Tensilica HiFi EP DSP with Tensilica Xtensa SP float support.

Remastered version has EAX removed.

If you install Classic Bioshock you can use EAX.

Bioshock classic used OpenAL and DOES NOT require Creative Alchemy, that one is needed for DirectSound 3D games.

OpenAL will translate EAX calls into the modern EFX that OpenAL uses.

If you have creative soundcard that supports hardware openAl like the classic X-FI lines you can use it in windows ten with out issue.

Newer Creative Soundcards use Host OpenAL which emulates in software.

If you don't have a Creative soundcard you can install OpenAL from creatives website. Then installed OpenAL Soft dll into the proper locations you can get EAX that way as well. Open AL soft recently added EAX support all the way to 5.0 and supports the EFX library.

Sounds amazing, the PS5 is the only modern console or platform to have a real audio processor, that is its Tempest 3D audio engine, not sure how many games make use of it, but I have heard it sound incredible, it uses audio path tracing like EAX does, if only the PS5 had more exclusives, I'd buy one.