appiah4 wrote on 2024-07-09, 07:56:

Regarding the Audigy release date, Creative says it is 2003: https://us.creative.com/soundblaster/ourstory/ which is in line with my recollection. If there is proof to the contrary, happy to hear.

The original Sound Blaster Audigy was released in late 2001. Here's a period-correct review.

Tom's Hardware reviewed the Audigy 2 in November of 2002. The ZS model came a bit later, as indicated by this review from October of 2003, though I'm not sure if that's its exact release date.

appiah4 wrote on 2024-07-09, 07:56:

Sound Blaster 128 (which was the first of Creative's recycled Ensoniq PCI) was released in late 2000 according to reviews of it I can find in magazines.

Sound Blaster PCI 128 drivers can be found on the Creative site in 1998. The earlier PCI 64 is also found there.

Here's a nice 1998 timeline of press releases noting Sound Blaster PCI 64 in April '98 as their first Ensoniq PCI card (and nerfing the Ensoniq brand to the budget segment).

Regarding ram: When I build my retro P3-1000 for win98, I started out with 512 MB, as this is the max for the release version of the OS. When I started to install games, I soon downgraded the ram to 384 and then to 256 MB. The reason was that games would not install. After lengthy online searches, I found the info, took out the ram and voilá, it worked. Considering the time spend to find these issues, I decided to leave ram at 256MB for the win98se machine. If the game needs more than 256MB to work, it will work on XP/Win7.

I have no knowlege of slowing down an Athlon successfully. I tried with an XP-M and a Geode, but the results were not as stable as I had hoped for. The competition isn't a slowdown star either, the P3 can be slowed down to 386 level, but not to something faster. So I would suspect that you will not be able to play much from the list of speed problems.

If you want to use that system as DOS machine, check out how the board works with himem and ems386. How much memory can you free up?

Regarding the AWE64: People who were around longer already had interest in older DOS games and usually had aquired one of the better DOS sound solutions. With the turn towards PCI and Win98, they didn't all give up their favorite DOS games. We learned quickly that most early PCI DOS Sound emulations sounded awful. So it was an obvious choice to keep the best ISA sound card around while possible. Or put it back in after hearing the SB PCI card. I wouldn't worry about an AWE64 in a build with ISA slot.

jakethompson1 wrote on 2024-07-09, 06:08:

I wasn't a gamer so maybe it's a special case, but I went straight from ISA sound cards to onboard AC '97 audio. I have zero nostalgia for any of the Ensoniq or SB Live stuff. When did gamers typically give up on discrete sound?

Late 2000s. AC97 was complete utter garbage. What largely killed discrete sound was Microsoft and Vista. The Vista audio stack was completely redesigned around Intel's "Azalia" HD Audio and just... didn't play nicely with anything else. (e.g. it was designed on the assumption that every output would show up as a separate device, whereas every other sound card before exposed one device and then you picked in the mixer app what output that device went to) They removed a whole bunch of stuff and broke EAX or hardware-accelerated EAX or something - basically all the cool gamer features that an Audigy/X-Fi gave you. And then Windows 7 hid the MIDI Mapper options so... congratulations, no more nice SoundFont wavetable MIDI, you're getting the Microsoft Software Wavetable Synthesizer whether you like it or not.

Creative has stuck around to some degree and still has their loyal fans like me; interestingly, one of the reasons I got the mobo I got for my newest (now aging) Windows build was that it had an onboard Creative SoundCore 3D instead of Realtek. But... that's rare.

ux-3 wrote on 2024-07-09, 09:41:

When I started to install games, I soon downgraded the ram to 384 and then to 256 MB. The reason was that games would not install. After lengthy online searches, I found the info, took out the ram and voilá, it worked.

Do you happen to remember which games you had issues with?

VivienM wrote on 2024-07-09, 12:02:

What largely killed discrete sound was Microsoft and Vista.

Other factors that played into this was people not caring about discrete sound cards anymore, stagnation when it comes to development and diminishing returns in terms of performance improvements.

FWIW, audio hardware acceleration can be still used in Windows Vista+ thru Creative's "native" OpenAL implementation on some Sound Blaster cards but that was eventually abandoned.

And then Windows 7 hid the MIDI Mapper options so... congratulations, no more nice SoundFont wavetable MIDI, you're getting the Microsoft Software Wavetable Synthesizer whether you like it or not.

At least in Windows Vista and 7 it can be changed with third-party utilities or editing the registry. For some reason starting with Windows 8, Microsoft completely removed it but fortunately there is CoolSoft MIDIMapper as a workaround.

It only affected programs relying entirely on the MIDI Mapper though, newer programs give you the option to select which MIDI device will be used.

Shponglefan wrote on 2024-07-09, 12:47:

Do you happen to remember which games you had issues with?

Longbow 2 comes to mind right away.

appiah4 wrote on 2024-07-09, 07:56:

-I was wrong about the Ensoniq buyout date it is 1998; Sound Blaster 128 (which was the first of Creative's recycled Ensoniq PCI) was released in late 2000

1998, rebrand was overnight after acquisition. Why would you even think a corporation sat on a product for 2 years before releasing? 😮

appiah4 wrote on 2024-07-09, 07:56:

If you still had AWE64 in stock in 1999 that was because you couldn't sell them.

Im not talking corner shop in bump frick nowhere 😀, official Creative distributor for Central/Eastern Europe. We ran marketing (ads, computer shows) and had in stock whatever Creative send us.
Quick vogons search shows even SB16 were still sold new in 1999 Re: What was the last retail ISA sound card?

Shponglefan wrote on 2024-07-09, 12:47:

ux-3 wrote on 2024-07-09, 09:41:

When I started to install games, I soon downgraded the ram to 384 and then to 256 MB. The reason was that games would not install. After lengthy online searches, I found the info, took out the ram and voilá, it worked.

Do you happen to remember which games you had issues with?

Speaking of weird too much ram glitches - my favorite racing game Juiced doesnt run with more than 2GB of ram or with page file disabled.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-07-09, 07:24:

This was probably because EAX 3 and 4 were only available on Audigy cards, while EAX 5 was exclusive to the X-Fi. In contrast, E […]
Show full quote

chinny22 wrote on 2024-07-09, 06:58:

If you look at the list of EAX games EAX4 only has about half as many games vs EAX3 (era of the SB Audigy)
Even EAX3 has less support then EAX2 so you could say SBLive era was Creatives golden days.

https://www.vogonswiki.com/index.php/List_of_ … ith_EAX_support

This was probably because EAX 3 and 4 were only available on Audigy cards, while EAX 5 was exclusive to the X-Fi. In contrast, EAX 1 and 2 worked on many third-party sound cards as well, including some on-board solutions. IIRC, Creative's licensing model enforced this.

For that reason, developers likely catered to the most common denominator, and stuck with EAX 1 and 2 for quite a while. Later on, EAX Unified came along, which made it easier to support older EAX versions while still providing extra functionality on the newer ones.

However, the difference in quality between EAX 2 and EAX 4 (and especially 5) is noticeable. For that reason, I wouldn't call the SBLive era the "golden age" of EAX, since it was just starting at that point. For me, that would be the period between 2001 and 2005. We got some real EAX gems like the Splinter Cell games, Thief: Deadly Shadows, F.E.A.R. and Quake 4 around that time. But then Vista came along in 2006 and ruined everything.

What I meant by golden age was it was the peak of Creative cards and EAX game support.
I remember in late 90's SBLive was still kind of high end, early 2000's just about every gamer had one. This shows with how cheap and easy you can still buy a Live variant to this day.
Audigy and later cards never reached this level, many people just kept their live or switched to onboard, therefore as you say developers stuck with the common denominator, which then spiral effect as now was less need for discreate cards.
Then of course Vista really put the nail in the coffin in the already declining market.

You'll get no argument from me on the benefits of later cards though.
I noticed a slight difference between SBLive and Audigy 2, but the X-Fi is in a different league. (would love to try out one of the Auzen variants)
But by now both media and users alike were so focused on CPU and GPU speed, sound quality almost never mentioned.

chinny22 wrote on 2024-07-10, 01:03:

I remember in late 90's SBLive was still kind of high end, early 2000's just about every gamer had one. This shows with how cheap and easy you can still buy a Live variant to this day.
Audigy and later cards never reached this level, many people just kept their live or switched to onboard, therefore as you say developers stuck with the common denominator, which then spiral effect as now was less need for discreate cards.

It's worth noting - in the glory days of the SB Live, you could get motherboards without onboard audio. Large OEMs, e.g. Dell, had two versions of their motherboard - one with onboard audio and one without. If you picked one of the discrete sound card choices they offered, you got the board without audio. And as much as the 'Dell' edition of the SB Live is controversial, I'm sure they sold an absolute ton of these things.

I wonder when Dell stopped offering discrete sound card options on the majority of their lineup; my guess is that it was somewhere in the P4 (Dimension 8xxx era). Did they ever offer Audigys? eBay certainly doesn't seem overflowing with Dell Audigys the way it is with Dell SB Lives.

And that lines up with retail motherboards too. Every board I've seen since the P4 days had some form of onboard sound. Diehard Creative fans promptly turned it off in the BIOS and installed an Audigy or X-Fi, but it was still there...

VivienM wrote on 2024-07-10, 02:03:

It's worth noting - in the glory days of the SB Live, you could get motherboards without onboard audio. Large OEMs, e.g. Dell, had two versions of their motherboard - one with onboard audio and one without. If you picked one of the discrete sound card choices they offered, you got the board without audio. And as much as the 'Dell' edition of the SB Live is controversial, I'm sure they sold an absolute ton of these things.

I wonder when Dell stopped offering discrete sound card options on the majority of their lineup; my guess is that it was somewhere in the P4 (Dimension 8xxx era). Did they ever offer Audigys? eBay certainly doesn't seem overflowing with Dell Audigys the way it is with Dell SB Lives.

And that lines up with retail motherboards too. Every board I've seen since the P4 days had some form of onboard sound. Diehard Creative fans promptly turned it off in the BIOS and installed an Audigy or X-Fi, but it was still there...

Creative still made OEM versions Dell seems to have skipped Audigy 1 but do have Audigy 2 and X-Fi, like you say are far less common.
https://nomoregoatsoup.wordpress.com/model-index

I found a Dell SB0770 X-Fi card in a junk box at work once, it's a good card as long as you don't mind the non standard (and less bloated) drivers.

VivienM wrote on 2024-07-10, 02:03:

Did they ever offer Audigys? eBay certainly doesn't seem overflowing with Dell Audigys the way it is with Dell SB Lives.

They did, but those cards aren't that easy to tell apart from Creative branded ones, until you attempt to install the drivers. The Dell variants usually have three white stickers on the back and a "SB0358" instead of a "SB0350" in the serial number on the sticker of their Audigy 2 ZS model. These cards need Dell's special drivers, and don't work with standard ones from Creative's driver CD.

I believe Dell made some X-Fi cards as well, but I'm less familiar with those. I do know of their SB0770 model but not much else. See here: Sound Blaster X-Fi SB0770 Dell / Alienware OEM