Some questions re. CD-ROM Audio Cables.. \ VOGONS

Some questions re. CD-ROM Audio Cables..

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First post, by appiah4

Posted on 2017-05-18, 05:21

appiah4 Offline

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I'm in the process of building some PCs and I'm short on CD-ROM Audio Cables. Before I rush out and buy some, I wanted to ask some questions that bugged me since forever..

First of all, are CD-ROM audio cables absolutely necessary? I know that at some point in time, the CD-ROM audio data started to get transferred to the sound cards through the PCI bus, but I don't know which sound cards or systems or OSs can do this and which ones can't; Would I be correct to assume I need one for all Pre-Live! PCI cards (and all ISA cards) and Pre-XP OSs?

Secondly, in the case that the card/os/driver can pass the CD-ROM audio through the PCI bus, is this compatible with games that play Redbook audio music?

Last of all, when there is the option of connecting the CD-ROM to the sound card using a CDROM SPDIF cable, is this a direct replacement and inherently a better choice? And is this compatible with Redbook Audio music?

Thanks 😀

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Reply 1 of 4, by SRQ

Posted on 2017-05-18, 08:00

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Not absolutely, I know for one my SB-Live can do audio through the PCI bus but only under 2k or XP. Might differ for other cards.
Honestly for games past like, 1999 or so, it's pretty rare you'll see CD audio. I always install those cables because I have plenty and they're cheap so you really might as well, but often you won't even notice it.
Secondly, for the music note, yes I once played Jedi Knight with the music coming through exactly like that.

Afaik it's either CD audio or SPDIF and not both, although I'm not sure at the moment how to switch them and I'm not sure what the deal with that specifically is.

Reply 2 of 4, by Jorpho

Posted on 2017-05-18, 13:22

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appiah4 wrote:
Would I be correct to assume I need one for all Pre-Live! PCI cards (and all ISA cards) and Pre-XP OSs?

My memory is a little hazy, but I'm pretty sure Windows 98 can do it, and that you need a PCI card.

Reply 3 of 4, by duralisis

Posted on 2017-05-31, 01:39

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In general a WDM driver is required. Some sound cards label these as the "Windows ME" driver in regards to 9x support. You just tick a box in your Multimedia settings for the CD drive. But a YMF-724 works with the 1040 VXD drivers and digital audio extraction for certain things (Daemons Tools); so it's not always required.

Reply 4 of 4, by firage

Posted on 2017-05-31, 03:41

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It's necessary for DOS and Win9x in most cases, but I do hate the analog audio cable connection. The thing is an antenna for noise, and to begin with the quality is just whatever the drive's analog circuit can put out.

CD SPDIF is a bit of a rarity, at least before SB Live and Audigy. Could be the ultimate solution.

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