PC sound card maker Creative Labs said today that rival hardware manufacturer Asus is misleading its customers by claiming that new drivers for Asus sound cards support EAX, a set of environmental enhancements for sound in games.

Responding to an announcement by Asus that newly released drivers for its Xonar line of sound cards support EAX, Creative communications VP Phil O'Shaughnessy said that the drivers effectively trick games into outputting EAX-capable sound.

"There are a small number of PC game titles that specifically query the audio device on the system to see if EAX 5 is available before they will attempt to render more than 64 3D simultaneous audio voices," O'Shaughnessy said.

"The new Asus drivers are falsely reporting EAX 5 capabilities in order to get these games to output 3D audio on Asus sound cards. Asus customers are not getting a genuine EAX Advanced HD experience with this driver update," he added.

High-definition sound and environmental effects have become an increasingly important feature for PC gamers, with complaints prompting Creative to release a software fix to remedy the lack of EAX effects in legacy titles on Windows Vista.

Can't stand those Acer's Ferrari line of notebooks? Then maybe ASUS and Lamborghini teaming up is more your thing. The Lamborghini Notebook Series will be available in yellow and black when released in the second quarter of this year. Thanks Tech Report.

Cool Tech Zone is reporting on ASUS AGEIA PhysX Expansion Card, mentioning that the card has actually been ready for a while now but has not yet been released due to the lack of game support. ASUS expects that several games will be out by February of next year, which is when it will start mass production of the physics accelerator card.

Xbits reports that AEGIA has determined the price of the physx cards, those funky new physics-engine accelerators. They will cost between $249 and $299, about the price of a new Xbox 360. More @ Xbits

Looks like Asus is doing the right thing(tm) and are pulling back their drivers:

Although ASUS did not officially release the “see-through” feature in the current 11.01, 12.00 and 12.10 drivers, this feature-enhancing codes were enabled by non-ASUS programmers and posted on various unauthorized websites.

ASUS recognizes that these features may offer unfair competitive advantages for some users and will take actions to curtail the use of these drivers. All codes related to these features will be removed in all future versions (Version 12.40 and up) to prevent any further tampering that may enable “see-through”. ASUS will also provide a way for web hosts to detect and disable “see-through” functionality.

They also provide code to detect the malicious drivers, so games can detect and ban players that use them. Read more @ CFGN

The evil cheaters at Asus, the guys with the drivers that you can use to look through walls, have posted a forum where you can vote for the drivers and voice your opinion directly to the evil asus guys. You should all go there and voice your.. *cough* "humble" opinions about asus and their drivers.

Give asus your two cents!. Eternal fame to ILF.

Another one of those online petitions is up. This time asking Asus to change their drivers to no longer include the transparent and wireframe view options.

Word from the guys at 3DChipset and RivaStation is that Asus has once again released drivers for their cards that support transparency and wireframe modes allowing people to cheat in online games. Everyone congratulate Asus on the no fucking consideration for the online gaming community award!

In August of last year Asus first posted word on the new features they wanted to put into their drivers before releasing them. After the uproar of the gamers they posted a poll asking if they should and after overwhelmingly being told no they promised to not release the drivers.

Congratulations again Asus, we all thank you.

TBreak has managed to get a hold of the ASUS GeForce3 presentation (Thakns Blues) with all the purty slides and stuff showing off what they have planned for their incarnation of the GeForce3.

Over at Xbit Labs they have taken a look at the Asus roadmap for January 2001. Yeah only one month, but it shows the launch of a product based on the AMD-760 (DDR ram) chipset.

There is a large review of the ASUS Pentium4 motherboard , which is better than Intel's own motherboard. There are kinds of benchmarks and what not included.

The techs over at 3D Spotlight have a review of Asus' latest AMD based motherboard (actually VIA Apollo Pro based, but you plug AMD processors into it). It supports all the nifty stuff, PC133 RAM, AGP4, but no ATA100 (wtf?)

I don't know how long this has been up already, but it's still important. ASUS has a poll on their page asking gamers and developers about what they think of the ASUS SeeThrough drivers, even explaining how it can help gamers. This will help them decide whether to release the drivers or not. Since the drivers were already unofficially leaked this will only bring it to an even larger audience. If you're not totally up to date on these special drivers by ASUS read this story.

Benefits of SeeThrough Technologies
- To help novice players to have a faster learning curve in playing 3D games
- To let skilled players to have a chance to test their skills with a new challenge
- To help users become familiar with 3D graphics rendering
- To save the time of developers for developing and fixing 3D graphics
Objections against SeeThrough Technologies
- It may be used as a cheating aid when playing online games

I'd say that single objection far outweighs any of the "benefits". Thanks Sujoy @ XSReality.

Everyone can get together and unwind your panties a notch. Asus has announced that they are releasing an extra lighting driver as their 'secret' weapon. There is no mention of the see through walls stuff. Check it out. Thanks RivaStation

Got Apex? has a Q&A with ASUS VP Raymond Chen, discussing the ASUS "cheat" drivers that allow people to enable transparent view, wireframe view, or extra light on the ASUS AGP-V7100 and AGP-V7700 videocards, as reported yesterday. It looks like their plans have slightly changed, as the transparent and wireframe view will no longer be appearing in the next driver update, however they are still planning on including the extra light function.

Q: It appears as though the proposed feature set has stirred up some controversy throughout the online gaming community. More specifically the Transparent View and Wireframe View features. What steps are being taken by Asus to ensure that this leap in technology meets the competitive gamers needs?

A: In light of the concerns, we are planning to only offer Extra Light in our upcoming driver release. We are planning to open up a discussion forum to hear from the gaming community in regards to the other technologies - Transparent View and Wireframe View. Based on the feedback received from this forum, ASUS will make its final decision

Rivastation has two movies [movie 1, movie 2] that show the graphic card options in effect.

It looks like the RivaStation guys have already gotten word that ASUS no longer plans to ship out that OpenGL driver that allows people to see through walls.

Rivastation has word that ASUS is planning to release a special driver for their AGP-V7700 and AGP-V7100 series graphics cards that offers a way to cheat in 3D games, by offering Transparent View, Wireframe View, and Extra Light in games. This is of course pretty awful, and was also done by the Wicked3D drivers at some point. Be sure and let ASUS know this is a huge mistake. Rivastation has a couple of (thumbnail sized) screenshots that shows you the options at work.

Asus has released a new batch of drivers for their V7700/V6800/V6600/V3800 cards. They now support ASV2 format and overscan/underscan TV modes. Thanks VoodooExtreme

Riva 3D has a press release announcing the ASUS V7700 GeForce2 GTS videocard, available in the 3rd week of May as a bare bones version for $349 or a Deluxe version (coming out in June) for $398 which comes with TV-out, Digital VCR, video editing, and 3D VR glasses.

Sharky Extreme visited the ASUS offices and wrote up about all they saw there.