Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2026-02-25, 20:44:

But on the topic of DanielK's drivers and OpenAL, in his release notes, he states that the issue has been addressed in the latest version of his X-Fi support pack (8.0 Refresh 3).

This is encouraging, as I could definitely use those drivers for the Forte. It does say the Forte won’t save settings unless you disable and reenable the card, which is kinda bothersome—but it’s also true that sound card settings lean on the “set and forget” side. If I end up not enjoying my experience, I can always resell the Forte and get the Titanium HD.

AndreaColombo86 wrote on 2026-02-25, 21:13:

This is encouraging, as I could definitely use those drivers for the Forte. It does say the Forte won’t save settings unless you disable and reenable the card, which is kinda bothersome—but it’s also true that sound card settings lean on the “set and forget” side. If I end up not enjoying my experience, I can always resell the Forte and get the Titanium HD.

The "won't save settings" thing is caused by fast startup feature in windows 8-11, which you should disable btw, but win7 doesn't even have that.

God Of Gaming wrote on 2026-02-26, 05:45:

The "won't save settings" thing is caused by fast startup feature in windows 8-11, which you should disable btw, but win7 doesn't even have that.

Very good to know, thank you for the information 😊

Incredible...fast startup is nothing more than "log off all users and hibernate, then resume on power up", it does speed up getting back to Windows from powered down state, especially if using HDD.

You can actually disable and re-enable Forte? Doing that with Audigy Rx just crashes the OS. The drivers for these cards are truly craptastic. So removing DirectSound HAL in terms of stability didn't do much. There's no recovering from errors like with GPU drivers...though with old ATI cards, it only worked partially in my experience (first time, driver was reset, second time, BSOD).

Is anyone here successfully playing EAX games on 5.1 speakers connected to an X-Fi card via TOSLINK? Is a DDL license required (no longer offered by Creative)? Thanks.

Barley wrote on 2026-03-04, 03:11:

Is anyone here successfully playing EAX games on 5.1 speakers connected to an X-Fi card via TOSLINK? Is a DDL license required (no longer offered by Creative)? Thanks.

I've got an X-Fi SB0886 set up as per Joseph's guide and it correctly outputs 5.1 over TOSLINK to my Pioneer AVR when playing EAX games.

TheIpex wrote on 2026-03-04, 04:45:

I've got an X-Fi SB0886 set up as per Joseph's guide and it correctly outputs 5.1 over TOSLINK to my Pioneer AVR when playing EAX games.

Wonderful! Thank you!

Barley wrote on 2026-03-04, 03:11:

Is anyone here successfully playing EAX games on 5.1 speakers connected to an X-Fi card via TOSLINK? Is a DDL license required (no longer offered by Creative)? Thanks.

It seems that Creative Dolby Digital Live Pack is currently only available for the X-Fi Titanium series (except HP OEM version) and doesn't require purchase and activation like other X-Fi cards:

(*) Purchase and activation required for all SB X-Fi PCI and SB077x (OEM), SB X-Fi Titanium OEM HP SB0963 (Subsys_2A83103C) and Onkyo Wavio SE-300PCIE (R2)
Source: https://danielkawakami.blogspot.com/

According to Reddit posts, Creative's activation server is down.

btw, gaming through AC3 encoder is probably not good idea, it adds delay to the sound (32-48ms).

ott wrote on 2026-03-04, 14:06:

btw, gaming through AC3 encoder is probably not good idea, it adds delay to the sound (32-48ms).

Thank you. Very helpful. Would an older receiver with multi-channel analog in work? Could I connect my X-Fi Titanium using 3x 3.5mm to dual RCA adapter cables?

Barley wrote on 2026-03-04, 15:04:

Thank you. Very helpful. Would an older receiver with multi-channel analog in work? Could I connect my X-Fi Titanium using 3x 3.5mm to dual RCA adapter cables?

Yes, the manual describes exactly this method:

You will have the same connections for 5.1 setup, only without Side channels.
The order of RCA inputs on receiver may differ.

ott wrote on 2026-03-04, 17:04:

Yes, the manual describes exactly this method: […]
Show full quote

Yes, the manual describes exactly this method:

The attachment Connecting Home Theater Systems.png is no longer available

You will have the same connections for 5.1 setup, only without Side channels.
The order of RCA inputs on receiver may differ.

Perfect. Thank you kindly. This is the route I will use!

Sorry if this is already mentioned somewhere, but does Win98 support EAX 3 as well, and if so, is there any notable difference between EAX 2 and 3? I know that it supports EAX 2. I googled this but couldn't find a straight answer. I ask this because for Win98, I was looking to get a PCI SB Live (either SB0220 or CT4780) since I've heard it has native DOS drivers and also supports CD-IN via SBEINIT, so a Live should be able to play redbook based DOS games too.

Audigy 2 ZS doesn't seem to have that well of a DOS compatibility as Live, and I was thinking that if there's not much difference between the two cards in terms of sound quality for music and gaming (I only use 2 channel stereo, not 5.1 or anything like that), then I might as well get a Live

xtreger wrote on 2026-03-05, 11:48:

Sorry if this is already mentioned somewhere, but does Win98 support EAX 3 as well

Yes, it does.

xtreger wrote on 2026-03-05, 11:48:

and if so, is there any notable difference between EAX 2 and 3?

There are a lot of differences between EAX 2.0 and EAX 3.0, but as always, it depends on how well the game developers utilized it. If you want more details, you can read about all of the EAX versions and how they differ from each other on our wiki page. That said, I'm not sure if you'd actually want to play EAX 3.0 games under Win9x, as most of them were released in 2002 and later. Performance in those games might not be so great on a system that's running Win98.

xtreger wrote on 2026-03-05, 11:48:

Audigy 2 ZS doesn't seem to have that well of a DOS compatibility as Live, and I was thinking that if there's not much difference between the two cards in terms of sound quality for music and gaming (I only use 2 channel stereo, not 5.1 or anything like that), then I might as well get a Live

If you want EAX 3.0 and DOS compatibility, you can use an Audigy 1 (SB0090). It has official DOS support which works reasonably well, including fully functional analog CD audio in pure DOS.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2026-03-05, 12:12:

Yes, it does. […]
Show full quote

xtreger wrote on 2026-03-05, 11:48:

Sorry if this is already mentioned somewhere, but does Win98 support EAX 3 as well

Yes, it does.

xtreger wrote on 2026-03-05, 11:48:

and if so, is there any notable difference between EAX 2 and 3?

There are a lot of differences between EAX 2.0 and EAX 3.0, but as always, it depends on how well the game developers utilized it. If you want more details, you can read about all of the EAX versions and how they differ from each other on our wiki page. That said, I'm not sure if you'd actually want to play EAX 3.0 games under Win9x, as most of them were released in 2002 and later. Performance in those games might not be so great on a system that's running Win98.

xtreger wrote on 2026-03-05, 11:48:

Audigy 2 ZS doesn't seem to have that well of a DOS compatibility as Live, and I was thinking that if there's not much difference between the two cards in terms of sound quality for music and gaming (I only use 2 channel stereo, not 5.1 or anything like that), then I might as well get a Live

If you want EAX 3.0 and DOS compatibility, you can use an Audigy 1 (SB0090). It has official DOS support which works reasonably well, including fully functional analog CD audio in pure DOS.

Thank you as always Joseph. If possible, can I get your input on a question I have in this thread: How to burn game images based on redbook audio to actual CD? ? Basically it's about getting redbook audio based games to play in DOS with full game audio+music, but the catch is using a PCI card (Audigy 2 or Live, etc. along with SBEMU or VSBHDA). I don't want to go off topic in this thread so that's why I'm linking to the above thread that's on-topic. I'm asking you because you know a lot of retro sound related stuff and also based on your sig, you have a couple of PCs with Audigy 2 so you may have experience in the matter

xtreger wrote on 2026-03-05, 12:40:

Thank you as always Joseph. If possible, can I get your input on a question I have in this thread: How to burn game images based on redbook audio to actual CD? ? Basically it's about getting redbook audio based games to play in DOS with full game audio+music, but the catch is using a PCI card (Audigy 2 or Live, etc. along with SBEMU or VSBHDA).

I don't really have much more to add aside from what was already said by others in that thread.

Neither analog nor digital CD audio will work on Audigy 2 and ZS cards in pure DOS, as those cards never had official DOS driver support. So you can either play DOS games which use CD audio from within Win9x, or get a different sound card. Though I'm not familiar with SBEMU and its various forks, so I can't say if those tools can affect this behavior in any way.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2026-03-05, 12:53:

xtreger wrote on 2026-03-05, 12:40:

Thank you as always Joseph. If possible, can I get your input on a question I have in this thread: How to burn game images based on redbook audio to actual CD? ? Basically it's about getting redbook audio based games to play in DOS with full game audio+music, but the catch is using a PCI card (Audigy 2 or Live, etc. along with SBEMU or VSBHDA).

I don't really have much more to add aside from what was already said by others in that thread.

Neither analog nor digital CD audio will work on Audigy 2 and ZS cards in pure DOS, as those cards never had official DOS driver support. So you can either play DOS games which use CD audio from within Win9x, or get a different sound card. Though I'm not familiar with SBEMU and its various forks, so I can't say if those tools can affect this behavior in any way.

Oh okay, but Audigy 1 or SB Live! may work for that purpose?

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2026-03-05, 12:53:

Neither analog nor digital CD audio will work on Audigy 2 and ZS cards in pure DOS, as those cards never had official DOS driver support. So you can either play DOS games which use CD audio from within Win9x, or get a different sound card. Though I'm not familiar with SBEMU and its various forks, so I can't say if those tools can affect this behavior in any way.

Technically, it's possible. I mean, enabling all available inputs on Audigy 2/2ZS in DOS.

The author of this article from 2017 (use Google Translate) figured out how to enable digital inputs on Audigy 2.
The hack involves dumping the E-MU mixer registers under Windows and applying the settings in DOS.
Unfortunately, it appears development has been stopped and dump utilities have never been published.

xtreger wrote on 2026-03-05, 13:25:

Oh okay, but Audigy 1 or SB Live! may work for that purpose?

Both of those cards have official DOS driver support. So yeah, if you install the relevant drivers, analog CD audio will work fine in pure DOS. But again, I'm not familiar with SBEMU and such, so I can't say how that would turn out for your specific use case.

Also, using newer motherboards (or rather chipsets) can negatively impact the DOS compatibility of these cards, so it also depends on your build. Generally, DOS compatibility on PCI sound cards is a very complex topic, and can be affected by many different factors. You may want to look into this thread: PCI sound cards and Chipsets from various manufacturers...

Had some time today, so I decided to test BioShock. I'm using the original version (from GOG) not the remaster. Also, I'm playing it on Win7 because this game supposedly has some sound issues under Win8 and up, per the PC Gaming Wiki.

In this screenshot, near the start of the Farmer's Market level, it's using 127-77=50 simultaneous hardware voices. From what I understand, BioShock uses FMOD for its audio. And it looks like FMOD can utilize EAX via OpenAL, at least judging from this page on Creative's old website. Still, it didn't seem to use quite as many hardware voices as pure OpenAL games such as Quake 4 and Battlefield 2, at least during my tests.