Did you connect the 4-pin cd audio cable? Windows uses digital readout, but for DOS games, you need the cd audio cable that connects the analog audio from the cd drive to the sound card.

I did not know that Windows 98 would read Redbook without the cable. Makes me want to try Windows without a cable and double check regardless. Any other config/driver stuff for SB Live DOS I may be missing? Does this card actually read Redbook in DOS?

When a DOS game plays cd audio, it just send a request to the drive to play a certain track. The drive does all the rest and analog audio is sent via the cable to the sound card. Windows 98 on the other hand reads the audio tracks as actual data and plays it just like it would do with wave files. No analog audio cable is required for this, unless it's a very old drive that does not support digital readout of cdda.

derSammler wrote:

When a DOS game plays cd audio, it just send a request to the drive to play a certain track. The drive does all the rest and analog audio is sent via the cable to the sound card. Windows 98 on the other hand reads the audio tracks as actual data and plays it just like it would do with wave files. No analog audio cable is required for this, unless it's a very old drive that does not support digital readout of cdda.

98 can be configured for redbook via CDDA or with the CD drive DAC, no?

If I remember correctly, W98 reads audio track through 4-pin by default. You have to check digital reading somewhere in settings.

Wolfus wrote:

If I remember correctly, W98 reads audio track through 4-pin by default. You have to check digital reading somewhere in settings.

Two pin SPDIF as well, but yes, that's as I remember it.

n1ghttr4p wrote:

I did not know that Windows 98 would read Redbook without the cable. Makes me want to try Windows without a cable and double check regardless. Any other config/driver stuff for SB Live DOS I may be missing? Does this card actually read Redbook in DOS?

From what I remember, 98SE and/or XP can either playback CD-Audio via the CD-ROM drive itself (4pin audio cable, SPDIF etc) or
by streaming the CD-Audio data in digital form over the IDE cable (or any other data cable such as SATA) depending on a setting in device manager.

You need a WDM driver to have direct CDDA playback without a cable to sound card.

Tiido wrote:

You need a WDM driver to have direct CDDA playback without a cable to sound card.

I think you need the WDM driver to even get SPDIF output from the CDROM to the Sound Card. With VXD drivers I think you are limited to 4-pin analogue.

kolderman wrote:

Tiido wrote:

You need a WDM driver to have direct CDDA playback without a cable to sound card.

I think you need the WDM driver to even get SPDIF output from the CDROM to the Sound Card. With VXD drivers I think you are limited to 4-pin analogue.

That will depend on the sound card. Non DAE CD audio playback outputs through both analog and SPDIF simultaneously.

kolderman wrote:

I think you need the WDM driver to even get SPDIF output from the CDROM to the Sound Card. With VXD drivers I think you are limited to 4-pin analogue.

No. CD drive plays CD Audio tracks through both 4-pin analog and 2-pin digital output always, it not depends on any drivers. You can use it ot not. Live! cards can receive in pure DOS analog CD input channel and digital CD SPDIF channel with the Creative's DOS TSR.

In Windows you can use CD playback through IDE data transmition and it is not by default.

I since solved this and feel pretty silly. Redneck Rampage will not enable CD-DA playback til you get in-game. At least the versions I've tried. It worked with all the proper setup (4 pin cable to drive, sblive init, everything confirmed working outside of the game including CD playback in other apps) at that point

Tiido wrote on 2019-08-01, 10:07:

You need a WDM driver to have direct CDDA playback without a cable to sound card.

I've found that at least Daemon Tools will play CDDA tracks both in and out of games with a VXD driver, for anyone curious.

n1ghttr4p wrote on 2020-10-18, 01:34:

I since solved this and feel pretty silly. Redneck Rampage will not enable CD-DA playback til you get in-game. At least the versions I've tried. It worked with all the proper setup (4 pin cable to drive, sblive init, everything confirmed working outside of the game including CD playback in other apps) at that point

Also of note is that I've found that the livedos files come with the CD mixer turned all the way down, which was also remedied.

WDM drivers business only applies to physical CD drives, emulation software can simply open a WaveOut stream and play the data as if you started a music file on the computer.