Tested Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force (2000) and Star Trek: Elite Force 2 (2003). In the first game, I couldn't trigger surround sound on my Audigy card. I don't think this game actually has EAX support (no mention in the documentation) only A3D. With an Aureal Vortex 2 card that has front and rear speaker output, it could likely deliver 4.0 surround sound.

The second game worked fine and had proper surround sound on my Audigy card. The in-game audio options menu supports up to 7.1 speakers. Interestingly, it's one of the few games from the mid 2000s which still offers A3D support, in addition to the more contemporary EAX.

Just finished testing a few more games. Giants: Citizen Kabuto delivers full 5.1 surround on my system, but you need to manually copy over some files as per these instructions and then run the game with the -snd3d parameter. Star Wars: Episode 1 Racer has full 5.1 surround support, no special settings needed. The MDK 2 demo also has 5.1 surround as long as 3D Sound Acceleration is not disabled.

And lastly, I noticed that Wipeout 2097 (a.k.a. Wipout XL) offers a Dolby Surround option at startup:

Unfortunately, I was unable to trigger surround sound even with that setting enabled. Maybe someone else will have more success with this game.

id Tech 3 games licensing Ritual's UberTools should have Miles sound with them (FAKK2, Alice, MOHAA, EF2)

DS9 the Fallen's one of the rare Miles implementations into UE1.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2022-09-03, 15:30:

... And lastly, I noticed that Wipeout 2097 (a.k.a. Wipout XL) offers a Dolby Surround option at startup: […]
Show full quote

...
And lastly, I noticed that Wipeout 2097 (a.k.a. Wipout XL) offers a Dolby Surround option at startup:

Wipeout_2097.jpg

Unfortunately, I was unable to trigger surround sound even with that setting enabled. Maybe someone else will have more success with this game.

CMSS 2 should be able to extract the hidden audio and upmix to 5.1

leileilol wrote on 2022-09-03, 20:52:

id Tech 3 games licensing Ritual's UberTools should have Miles sound with them (FAKK2, Alice, MOHAA, EF2)

Cheers! Added all of those.

Stretch wrote on 2022-09-03, 20:53:

CMSS 2 should be able to extract the hidden audio and upmix to 5.1

I just tried this and the sound did expand to all speakers (as expected of CMSS) but the results were unsatisfactory. For example, sounds which were only meant to play on rear speakers (such as a rocket hitting the ship from behind) are played on the front ones as well. So it's the usual CMSS fake surround, nothing more.

I just tested Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines. Normally, it defaults to stereo, but it's possible to enable surround support by setting the following in the game's config.cfg:

1snd_surround "1"

However, this appears to only deliver 4.0 surround. The front center speaker remains silent, even when NPCs are talking directly to the protagonist. If someone else knows how to enable full 5.1 surround in this game, feel free to share.

Tested a few more:

BloodRayne – supports at least 5.1 (enable 3D acceleration in-game)

Heretic II – supports 4 speaker surround (requires the 1.04 patch, and then enable EAX in-game)

Warcraft III – supports at least 5.1 (enable EAX 2.0 in-game)

Soldier of Fortune – supports at least 5.1 (set sound driver to EAX in-game)

Star Wars: Jedi Outcast – supports at least 5.1 (requires 1.03 patch, enable EAX in-game)

Desomondo wrote on 2022-09-06, 03:21:

Tested a few more:

Added, thanks!

The PC Gaming Wiki lists BloodRayne and Soldier of Fortune as supporting up to 7.0 so I've deferred to their tests in those two cases. Everything else was added as per your findings.

It's all good. I wish I had a 7.1 set up... oh well. A few more for the list:

Soldier of Fortune II – supports at least 5.1 (set sound driver to EAX in-game)

No One Lives Forever 2 – supports at least 5.1

Star Wars: Jedi Academy – supports at least 5.1 (might require 1.01 patch. The game would freeze with a black screen for me unless I updated to 1.01 so I couldn’t test vanilla 1.0 version. Patch 1.01 adds EAX 4.0 support according to the patch notes. Once updated enable EAX in-game)

Need for Speed: High Stakes – supports at least 5.1

Outlaws – supports 4 speaker surround (requires the 1.01 patch, and then enable A3D in the sound configuration menu). A3D support on the Audigy is a little suspect, but I could certainly hear things happening in the rear speakers.

Desomondo wrote on 2022-09-08, 03:11:

I wish I had a 7.1 set up... oh well.

Heh, me too! 😁 Who would have thought that so many Win9x titles actually support that. Some of those 7.0 games were even made at the tail end of the '90s.

A few more for the list:

Cheers, added all of those. I once again cross-checked with the PC Gaming Wiki and used their results when their speaker count was higher.

A3D support on the Audigy is a little suspect, but I could certainly hear things happening in the rear speakers.

From my experience, it works alright with A3D 1.0 games, though positional audio is not quite as good as on actual Aureal cards. However, I was unable to use A3D 2.0 on an Audigy in games which support only that, such as Quake 3. Unfortunately, my own Turtle Beach Montego II (Aureal Vortex 2 card) doesn't have a rear speaker jack. It's on the add-on daughterboard which I don't have, so I can't test surround sound in such cases.

Who would have thought that so many Win9x titles actually support that. Some of those 7.0 games were even made at the tail end of the '90s.

Yup! I should have splurged a little bit more back in the day. Oh well, it makes experiencing them for the first time now just that little bit more fun!

Unfortunately, my own Turtle Beach Montego II (Aureal Vortex 2 card) doesn't have a rear speaker jack. It's on the add-on daughterboard which I don't have, so I can't test surround sound in such cases.

Likewise, I have the same model of Vortex 2 as well, so I can’t check native A3D surround sound either. I should have done more research… I just snapped up the first cheap Vortex 2 card I found, and the only ones I can find these days with both speaker jacks are $150+. Have you ever seen the daughterboard for sale by itself?

Anyways, I’ve got a few more for the list:

Star Trek: Klingon Honor Guard – supports at least 5.1 surround. I needed to install the v1.1 patch just to get this one to not crash went navigating the menus so I couldn’t test v1.0. The patch notes mention that v1.1 adds “Creative Labs Sound Blaster Live support” so I assume it’s using EAX. Just like Unreal, open the advanced options panel, go to the “Audio” tab, and set “UseSurround”, “UseSpatial” and “Use3dHardware” to “True”.

Requiem: Avenging Angel – supports at least 5.1 surround. I also had to patch this one to get it to work since it requires DirectX 6, and only DirectX 6, until version v1.03. With this I could hear sounds coming from all five speakers, but the 3D positioning was… kinda off. Some sounds would pan correctly when I moved around a source, while lots of other sounds would stay fixed to certain speakers regardless of orientation. Also some sounds, like the player’s starting lighting attack, were very quiet when EAX was enabled, but fine otherwise. I tested A3D as well and that didn’t have the later problem, but some of the 3D positioning still seemed weird. This one might benefit from someone else also testing it, especially if they have a A3D capable card.

Dungeon Keeper 2 – supports at least 5.1 surround. There are options in-game for “environmental effects” and “Q Sound” but neither is needed to enable surround sound.

A few extra notes:

I’ve seen in a few places online that Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation supposedly supports A3D but I couldn’t confirm that, in-game, in any menus, or any read me files or patch notes. It seems to only support stereo sound from what I can hear.

I also briefly tested Star Wars: Dark Forces II - Jedi Knight, since it does have an A3D option, but it doesn’t seem to enable multi-speaker surround sound, or have any effect at all that I could tell, at least with the Audigy 2 ZS. Hopefully someone else with compatible hardware and a suitable set up could give this one a try as well!

Desomondo wrote on 2022-09-09, 02:54:

Likewise, I have the same model of Vortex 2 as well, so I can’t check native A3D surround sound either. I should have done more research… I just snapped up the first cheap Vortex 2 card I found, and the only ones I can find these days with both speaker jacks are $150+. Have you ever seen the daughterboard for sale by itself?

Sadly, I haven't seen a loose daughterboard for sale. And like you, I'm unwilling to shell out more money just for 4 speaker support, especially since contemporary reviews mention that the best surround effects on A3D cards are obtained by using headphones.

Anyways, I’ve got a few more for the list:

Added those as well!

Phantasy Star Online works on Win9x and had 3d audio support. (referring to the late 2001 japan only windows release, that is). I'm assuming it uses DirectSound3D. Didn't look into Blue Burst (3rd party server launchers are all XP+)

Tested a few more over the weekend:

Powerslide – supports at least 5.1 surround. Enable “3D Sound” in-game

Drakan: Order of the Flame – supports at least 5.1 surround. You need to launch the “Riot Engine Options” outside the game, go to the audio tab, and enable “Use 3D Sound Buffers”. You can also optionally enable EAX, A3D or both

Slave Zero – supports at least 5.1 surround. Enable the “Audio Hardware” in-game

Gunman Chronicles – supports quad surround. Enable EAX in the audio options

Clive Barker’s Undying – supports at least 5.1 surround. Check the “Enable 3D Hardware” option in-game

Dungeon Siege – supports at least 5.1 surround

Tron 2.0 – supports at least 5.1 surround. Make sure “Disable Hardware Sound” is unchecked in the Advanced Options menu

Call of Duty – supports at least 5.1 surround. Enable any version of EAX (from 1 to 3) in-game

Desomondo wrote on 2022-09-12, 02:57:

Call of Duty – supports at least 5.1 surround. Enable any version of EAX (from 1 to 3) in-game

Is there a reason surround sound depends on environment extensions?

Some implementations of OpenAL can be extremely picky about EAX API compliance even if the sound card could provide for earlier EAX and/or 4+ speaker output. Just one way of Creative vendor-locking stuff.

I remember the analogue Dolby Surround!
1990s shows like Star Trek Voyager proudly had an "in Dolby Surround" label in the intro..

Back then, external decoder boxes (set-up boxes in today's terminology) converted the alaongue stereo signal to quadro phonie, for four speakers.
The center box was missing I *think*?
But could be created analogue by a low-pass filter and a combined mono signal? Dunno.

Oh boy, that's so long ago. Never really heard of old Dolby Surround again.
Wasn't it renamed posthumously to Dolby Pro Logic or something?

Desomondo wrote on 2022-09-12, 02:57:

Tested a few more over the weekend:

Thanks! I've added all of those as well.

As usual, I used the results from the PC Gaming Wiki whenever they had a higher speaker count, except in one case. They list Gunman Chronicles as supporting 7.0 while you could only get it to output 4.0. Since this game is based on the Half-Life engine, I'm leaning toward your results, since that game (in its original form) maxes out at 4.0.

Just to be safe, could you test Gunman Chronicles one more time?

Jo22 wrote on 2022-09-12, 03:27:

I remember the analogue Dolby Surround!
1990s shows like Star Trek Voyager proudly had an "in Dolby Surround" label in the intro..

Back then, external decoder boxes (set-up boxes in today's terminology) converted the alaongue stereo signal to quadro phonie, for four speakers.

Interesting. I'm guessing Wipeout 2097 and other games which offer a Dolby Surround option might need such an analog decoder to properly output surround sound.

Wasn't it renamed posthumously to Dolby Pro Logic or something?

I know that many Sony PlayStation 2 games used Dolby Pro Logic II for surround sound. It was heavily marketed at the time.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2022-09-12, 06:29:

I know that many Sony PlayStation 2 games used Dolby Pro Logic II for surround sound. It was heavily marketed at the time.

It's Gamecube that's very dolby heavy.