I have been finding that EAX games from the Win9x days don't always sound correct on XP and later's EAX implementations. NFS3/4 are examples. It's not exclusive to Creative cards as I've heard changes with Realtek AC97 too (Sensaura based).
wrote:I have been finding that EAX games from the Win9x days don't always sound correct on XP and later's EAX implementations. NFS3/4 are examples. It's not exclusive to Creative cards as I've heard changes with Realtek AC97 too (Sensaura based).
I knew A3D could never sound good on XP (thanks to our friend @creative)
But I didn't think this could also happen with soundblasters.
Nevertheless this, if true, may just affect EAX 1.
NFS3 is using it for sure, it was on the market even before EAX 2 announcement. NFS4 might even be using the second version, but I don't think so.
Ultimately, would you be able to record/compare sound from there? :p
Besides, Realtek boards were never really.. accurate.. I don't know about older or newer driver releases though
pcgamingwiki.com
Realtek works fine with NFS4 in Win98 but like the Audigy there are problems with reverb on XP. Same with the NVidia Sonata VAPU audio drivers on XP. I was using a nforce3 board and could run either Realtek or NV audio drivers and they do sound different. I didn't test the Win98 NV driver though.
I have another card coming, a Philips Seismic Edge that uses QSound. I'm going to test it in XP.
wrote:Realtek works fine with NFS4 in Win98 but like the Audigy there are problems with reverb on XP. Same with the NVidia Sonata VAPU audio drivers on XP. I was using a nforce3 board and could run either Realtek or NV audio drivers and they do sound different. I didn't test the Win98 NV driver though.
I have another card coming, a Philips Seismic Edge that uses QSound. I'm going to test it in XP.
What about windows vista/7/8 with ALchemy/3DSoundBack ?
pcgamingwiki.com
Haven't tried Alchemy.
I've never had 3DSoundback working past Vista. Could be related to Realtek driver revision too.
I got the Philips Seismic Edge PSC705 card and gave it a run in 4 races of NFS4. Final drivers and XP. Surprisingly the card seems to perform the EAX reverb effects without issue. I am not entirely sure the EAX reverb is accurate though. For example when entering a tunnel the sound is attenuated with the reverb, which is certainly not realistic. I'm not sure if this is what happens with a Live! in Win9x....
wrote:Haven't tried Alchemy.
I've never had 3DSoundback working past Vista. Could be related to Realtek driver revision too.
3DSoundBack requires windows Vista compatibility flag to be run on 7 and 8
wrote:I got the Philips Seismic Edge PSC705 card and gave it a run in 4 races of NFS4. Final drivers and XP. Surprisingly the card seems to perform the EAX reverb effects without issue. I am not entirely sure the EAX reverb is accurate though. For example when entering a tunnel the sound is attenuated with the reverb, which is certainly not realistic. I'm not sure if this is what happens with a Live! in Win9x....
This is why I did my post about PCM audio recording because all these subjective testings are not really good enough and we should start to try finding something more comparable.
I mean.. After all you can't try all the possible configurations in the world alone 😵
The question actually is though: is it possible on windows 98, without additional hardware or the analog hole?
pcgamingwiki.com
wrote:3DSoundBack requires windows Vista compatibility flag to be run on 7 and 8
I know but it still didn't work when I tried it. I could tell it wasn't working because I was able to delete its dsound.dll from a game's directory while the game was running. I don't have a clue what game it was anymore. I remember wondering if Realtek driver revisions stopped connecting with 3DSoundBack at some point.
wrote:This is why I did my post about PCM audio recording because all these subjective testings are not really good enough and we should start to try finding something more comparable.
I mean.. After all you can't try all the possible configurations in the world alone 😵The question actually is though: is it possible on windows 98, without additional hardware or the analog hole?
The story so far is the only sound product that works fairly well for me in XP is the Seismic Edge. Other options have just been borked with abrupt EAX transitions. The NV audio drivers were even cutting off sounds.
Win9x is the only way it works authentically. But WIn9x is a pain in the ass so is a bittersweet deal. Creative's circa 2000 drivers give me similar feelings. 🤣 And that's assuming the cards will work reliably on a hardware level for you.
wrote:wrote:3DSoundBack requires windows Vista compatibility flag to be run on 7 and 8
I know but it still didn't work when I tried it. I could tell it wasn't working because I was able to delete its dsound.dll from a game's directory while the game was running. I don't have a clue what game it was anymore. I remember wondering if Realtek driver revisions stopped connecting with 3DSoundBack at some point.
The realtek chip must be the default audio device then.
And there isn't only dsound.dll that requires to be present. But also rtk_oal.dll.
And I even noticed now that "oal" certainly refers to OpenAL... So you could try to install it too.
wrote:wrote:This is why I did my post about PCM audio recording because all these subjective testings are not really good enough and we should start to try finding something more comparable.
I mean.. After all you can't try all the possible configurations in the world alone 😵The question actually is though: is it possible on windows 98, without additional hardware or the analog hole?
The story so far is the only sound product that works fairly well for me in XP is the Seismic Edge. Other options have just been borked with abrupt EAX transitions. The NV audio drivers were even cutting off sounds.
Win9x is the only way it works authentically. But WIn9x is a pain in the ass so is a bittersweet deal. Creative's circa 2000 drivers give me similar feelings. 🤣 And that's assuming the cards will work reliably on a hardware level for you.
Well, I wouldn't mind to try it on my Xonar DX, if I had time...
Though, VMware virtual machines have an Ensoniq ES1371/ES1373 virual audio device (otherwise known as Creative PCI128) that supports just EAX 1 (but this should be enough for NFS)
You may want to check that too 😀
pcgamingwiki.com
wrote:Though, VMware virtual machines have an Ensoniq ES1371/ES1373 virual audio device (otherwise known as Creative PCI128) that supports just EAX 1 (but this should be enough for NFS)
You may want to check that too 😀
Yeah the old Ensoniq AudioPCI-based cards did software-based A3D and EAX 1.0. If I had one I'd try it out.
I've ordered up a Turtle Beach Santa Cruz. It's about time I checked out this card that was talked up a lot back in ~2002-3.
I tried the Turtle Beach Santa Cruz in WinMe on VXD drivers and XP with WDM. Neither driver work at all with NFS4 EAX. Simply no discernible reverb effects. I tested for working EAX support with Rightmark 3DSound and EAX 2.0 presets do work. Just nothing with NFS. Maybe broken EAX 1.0 support?
Also, the Philips Seismic Edge sounds great on WinMe with the VXD drivers. No reverb attenuation as on XP, though XP was not bad either. I actually installed Win95 drivers because I'm not sure if their 98/98SE drivers are VXD or WDM. This is a great NFS4 card. Note that I am using the PSC705 with the VLSI Thunderbird Avenger chip. There are models of these Philips cards that use the older Thunderbird 128 which has lesser features and limited NT5 support. Pretty easy to identify because the old chip is huge. But it may also be a good chip for Win9x. The acceleration features are similar.
