Sound Blaster Live or Audigy 2 ZS for Win98 build \ VOGONS

Sound Blaster Live or Audigy 2 ZS for Win98 build

Topic actions

Post a reply

First post, by GiSWiG

Posted on 2019-09-19, 16:08

GiSWiG Offline

Rank Member

Rank: Member
Posts: 247
Joined: 2013-02-28, 18:43

So far I have a build working very nicely. ASUS P3B-F, P3 933MHz running at 700 because of 100MHz FSB, Voodoo 3.

The big part is the sound. I already have an SB 32 w/ AWE64 chips (CT3670). This is currently piped through a TB Vortex2 card which amplifies the Line out of the SB 32 nicely. With the Vortex2 as primary, DOS games through Windows picks up the SB 32 without any config and keeping the Vortex2 the primary card and of course in MS-DOS mode; that's what I'm really happy about, pure DOS sound card doing DOS stuff, Vortex2 doing A3D stuff.

So next is EAX. I don't think there is much difference between the Live and Audigy 2 unless it is a world of difference sound quality wise. Back in the day, I had a Live, never an Audigy series. Now I have an Audigy 2 ZS with front panel which is a plus toward the audigy. As far as EAX versions for Win98 games, any use what the Audigy gives for games that do not work in XP or Windows 10? If a games works just as good in XP or Windows 10, I'd rather just play it there. I have an XP machine with X-Fi and my Win10 machine (my main) has a SB X AE-5 so I have Alchemy support.

Thanks for any info!

Reply 1 of 8, by cyclone3d

Posted on 2019-09-19, 16:18

cyclone3d Offline

Rank l33t++

Rank: l33t++
Posts: 7905
Joined: 2015-04-08, 06:06
Location: Huntsville, AL USA

The Audigy 2 ZS will have much cleaner output than the Live!.

Yamaha modified setupds and drivers
Yamaha XG repository
YMF7x4 Guide
Aopen AW744L II SB-LINK

Reply 2 of 8, by mothergoose729

Posted on 2019-09-19, 16:21

mothergoose729 Offline

Rank Oldbie

Rank: Oldbie
Posts: 1445
Joined: 2018-04-10, 03:04

My audigy 2 sounds very clean. I like it a lot. You will want to install the VXD driver through device manager, don't bother with the creative installer.

Reply 3 of 8, by chinny22

Posted on 2019-09-19, 16:31

chinny22 Offline

Rank l33t++

Rank: l33t++
Posts: 5088
Joined: 2011-08-26, 12:02
Location: Australian but living in the UK for now

Check the list of games and see which apply to your catalog, Not many Win98 games need anything more then EAX 3.
But the Audigy drivers are less bloated and it is supposd to have much better sound, I'll admit I cant tell the difference with that though.

I would say as you already have it go for it unless you have somewhere else to use it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_games_with_EAX_support

Reply 4 of 8, by Nemo1985

Posted on 2019-09-19, 16:42

Nemo1985 Offline

Rank Oldbie

Rank: Oldbie
Posts: 1185
Joined: 2018-05-15, 21:45

According to phil's test the Audigy 2 (ZS?) is one of the fastest win98 sound cards if used with VXD drivers.

Reply 5 of 8, by cyclone3d

Posted on 2019-09-19, 16:47

cyclone3d Offline

Rank l33t++

Rank: l33t++
Posts: 7905
Joined: 2015-04-08, 06:06
Location: Huntsville, AL USA

The other thing you could try is to install the Audigy drivers on the Live! That's what I did back when I have a Live!

It does improve the output quality and the Audigy drivers are less buggy. The Audigy 2 ZS is still a much better card though.

Yamaha modified setupds and drivers
Yamaha XG repository
YMF7x4 Guide
Aopen AW744L II SB-LINK

Reply 6 of 8, by Doornkaat

Posted on 2019-09-19, 16:53

Doornkaat Offline

Rank l33t

Rank: l33t
Posts: 2328
Joined: 2017-04-02, 06:50

With many sound card drivers EAX 1.0 to 2.0 can be calculated on the CPU without a DSP to help it. Sound Blaster Live! and Audigy cards offload some of it to the card's DSP so games run a bit faster but they aren't needed.
Starting with EAX 3.0 Creative went proprietary with further versions. Still EAX 3.0 was released with the Audigy in August 2001 so any game that uses it can be run on XP no problem. Audigy isn't a necessity on Win98.
My opinion: try both cards and use the one you like better. 😀

Reply 7 of 8, by candle_86

Posted on 2019-09-19, 17:06

candle_86 Offline

Rank l33t

Rank: l33t
Posts: 2799
Joined: 2010-08-06, 01:04
Location: Fort Worth, Republic of Texas

Live always feels right for 9x

Reply 8 of 8, by GiSWiG

Posted on 2019-09-20, 05:16

GiSWiG Offline

Rank Member

Rank: Member
Posts: 247
Joined: 2013-02-28, 18:43

Thanks everyone. I think I will go with the Audigy 2 ZS, at least first. The front panel is kinds cool. I think the hardware behind the panel is actually the same as the Live Drive with a different label.

What games really show off the EAX in a night and day level. I'll test out NFS High Stakes from Phil's SB Live best Win98 card, which is why I was considering it, but with the SB 32, I don't need SB emulation.

That is three sound cards in one build. Never thought about doing that in 25 years of PC building.

Go to top of page Go to top of page

Back to General Old Hardware

Main menu

Common searches