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The Aureal Mystery - old Win Games and a3d in Windows XP

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First post, by Silent Loon

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Hi!

Not long ago I bought an old Diamond Monstersound II 300MX from ebay. I wanted to play those old(er) games that support a3d, now having the soundcard and the cpu-power to take advantage of the possibilities of the vortex2 chip.

I started with Jedi Knight on my retro PC with win98 - no problems, of course.

Than I shifted the card to my newer PC (Asrock DualSata 2 / Athlon 64 3200 / NVidia 7600 GS PCIe / Soundblaster Audigy 2 / 1024 MB Ram / Windows XP),
to try those games my retro machine seems to be to slow to.
There where no installation problems, the card is easily recognized by windows xp, only the second line out of the monstersound is not usable.
Trying games with a3d support, however, I got confusing results:

Unreal (w. patch 226) doesn't start (when audio-acceleration is enabled)

B-17 II - The Mighty 8TH starts, but says there are no Aureal drivers in the system.

I also installed the Aureal drivers I think to be the last ones released (VER 3.12) but did not overwrite the file where the system says the windows version is newer. This doesn't help either. I thought that XP simply doesn't support a3d, but when I tried the "bees-demo" of Aureal the 3d-effect was clearly there, and even more, it could be heard with both cards - the audigy 2 and the vortex2 (so I think the audigy at least supports Aureal 1.0.)

My questions are:

- Does Windows XP support a3d? Which version(s)?
- Does Windows XP support / work with games that support a3d and is a3d usable with them - or does the vortex2 card (in this case) simply use the directsound (3d) acceleration?
- Which drivers are the best to use?

Thanks in advance!

Reply 2 of 5, by ratfink

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I bought a Diamond Monster MX300 on ebay as well pretty recently, and I've used it both under Windows 2000 and Windows 98, which is where it is now [98].

I originally used the Aureal Vortex 2 drivers I already had, but recently downloaded "proper" MX300 drivers release 1.02. Was a bit of hassle to install them as they kept crashing, but eventually it came right.

With the older drivers, Diablo 2 did not allow 3D effects to be selected, whereas with 1.02 they can be. Not sure how much difference it makes really. Diablo 2 lets you use A3D if ithe card supports it, or environmental effects [EAX] if your card supports that. So that might be one way to tell what's available on your system.

Also Quake 3 lets you know about A3D if you've got it [and lets you select it].

Reply 3 of 5, by Silent Loon

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Thanks for your advice, ratfink!

Maybe I'll try to start a3d under xp with good ol' diablo II ! - Because I'm not sure if the problem under Windows XP is related to the drivers or the game, in this case B-17 II The Mighty Eighth by microprose.

Apart from that: the original 1.02 drivers by diamond are only working with WIN 95/98 in full A3D mode. There were (before diammond closed down for a little while... ) drivers for win NT4, but the readme says that a3d is not supported by them. So I wonder which ones you use with Windows 2000?

Reply 4 of 5, by ratfink

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I can't check because I don't have a Windows 2000 box with a vortex2 in right now, but iirc windows 2000 identifies the vortex 2 and loads its own driver. Did have some driver problem when I switched to the mx300 but I'm not sure what it was - there was a duff cd came with it.

I see on driverguide.com the official windows 2000 mx300 driver is listed, though now I've downloaded it it just seems to be the aureal driver rather than mx300-specific. Have you tried that one?

Reply 5 of 5, by Silent Loon

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...mhm... I think yes.
I've tried the Aureal drivers that came with B-17II game, I suppose version 3.10, and also the last ones from the web, Ver. 3.12, I think.
And Windows XP does the same as WIN 2000 - it has its build in drivers, which might be newer then the aureal ones (due to the unfriendly overtake of Aureal by Creative in ... the year 2000?). Nevertheless, B-17II The Mighty 8th does not want to recognize them.

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