Windows XP itself has drivers for Aureal sound cards but only do basic audio - no A3D, hardware acceleration, or anything else. Aureal never released XP drivers, nor did anyone else as far as I know.

Here's an old thread from another member trying to get an Aureal Vortex 2 working in XP:

Aureal Vortex 2

Best solution is to use another sound card that has better XP support.

Vortex 1 only really shines in Windows 9X, but it can work in Windows 2000, XP and Vista to some extent.
See Quantex Zone (Archived), click FAQs for Aureal Vortex windows XP related remarks:
https://web.archive.org/web/20080820080220/ht … dayc.vispa.com/

The drivers included with XP actually do support hardware acceleration but it is glitchy and it isn't entirely stable. Apparently this is an unfinished beta driver that MS itself put some effort into completing after Aureal went bankrupt. Windows Update used to recommend a newer driver with no acceleration as a remedy to the problems.

Thanks, I appreciate your answers!

I'm waiting for my CF to IDE adapter to arrive so I can better experiment with Win98. So far WinXP has served me well if it wasn't for a few small things.
It is such a shame that win98 drivers don't work on Xp...
We can get Vista drivers work fine on Win10 for example!

The problem is the only drivers Aureal made with full working functionality (and minimal bugs) are VXD type for Win9x. Win2K and XP can't use VXD drivers.

I have a feeling if Aureal had survived longer it would have taken a couple years to really get WDM drivers working well. That's how it went for most hardware accelerated sound cards I've used.

You can also use the A3D-Live wrapper from here http://www.worknd.ru/. Will enable A3D 2.0 and 3.0 support for XP. Aureal's demos work and Half-Life seems to work well too. Also, this wrapper is the only way you can enjoy Painkiller with A3D 2.0, since it is essentially unplayable with Aureal's native drivers in Win98 even on a Core2duo. With A3D-Live it has some bugs, like certain ragdoll sounds looping occasionally and background ambient noises playing louder than they should, but I feel it only makes the game sound more interesting and psychotic, fittingly to the genre. Give it a try.