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First post, by Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman

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Stumbled upon this list, and it confirms my experience: many of my favorite old games like Neverwinter Nights 1 and 2, Max Payne, Freedom Force, and Warcraft III can work with either EAX 1, EAX 2, or both. Some games, like GTA San Adreas, support EAX HD 4, but they also support EAX 2 and 1. Only few games need EAX HD 5.

My next HTPC will use Windows 7, especially since my wife and stepdaughter aren't really familiar with the older Windows XP 😁 . Also, 16 GB of RAM certainly won't hurt, especially since the HTPC will also be used for Zoom meetings and desktop Whatsapp for my daughter's school during COVID pandemy. Regarding old EAX games, I have two options:

The first option is DSOAL as mentioned here. The downside that it only has full support for EAX 2, with only partial support for EAX 1, 3, and 4. But like I mentioned above, my favorite old games are EAX 2 games anyway.

The plus side is, of course, that DSOAL can work on any sound card. I haven't tried it myself, but at least in theory, it should work with GPU's HDMI sound output, thus delivering EAX sound on lossless, multi-channel PCM (LPCM). But even if it doesn't work with GPU's HDMI sound, at least I can use non-Creative sound cards like ASUS Xonar DSX with DTS Connect out of the box. If LPCM is unavailable, DTS is still an adequate alternative --certainly better than Dolby Digital.

The second option is, you know, using a typical Creative sound card with Alchemy, perhaps something like X-Fi or whatever. But I have two concerns:

(1) A Creative sound card needs Creative DTS Connect Pack to encode a game's multi-channel sound into DTS. The last time I checked, this kind of pack required online activation (though I may be mistaken, it's years ago). Does Creative DTS Connect Pack still need activation? I have tried Creative website and failed to find the answer.

If I couldn't use DTS Connect with a Creative sound card, then I'd have to use multi-channel analog ouputs, which is not only bothersome, but I'd lose most of my AVR's functionality like bass management, room EQ, and DSP. I actually like Yamaha CinemaDSP, and I'd like to use it with EAX games.

(2) The reason I have stopped using Creative cards is bloated software and driver. This is really bothersome. For this reason alone, I don't want to use Creative sound cards unless it's really necessary.

So, what are your thoughts and suggestions? If you're in my shoes, would you use a Creative sound card for the purpose?

Never thought this thread would be that long, but now, for something different.....
Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman.

Reply 1 of 24, by DracoNihil

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I don't think it's worth it at all primarily because Creative is a terrible company.

When you really look at it, the soundcards since AWE32 and above, are just music synthesizers being forced to do something they weren't designed to do in the first place: render MIDI music.

The drivers are absolutely abysmal, I've been through multiple generations of Creative's cards and had nothing but trouble with the software side, making the whole spending $100's on these cards a complete waste of time and money because apparently nobody at Creative cares about writing drivers that actually work. (And they will of course, go after people with legal teams that try to make drivers THAT DO WORK)

And then when it turns out it is a hardware problem, you could go all over the place trying to figure out what went wrong, maybe the capacitors on the card or some other component died, maybe your PCI slot doesn't work, maybe the bridge chip is faulty in the case of the PCIe cards (they aren't even real PCIe cards, they're bridge chipped!) or maybe your motherboard just absolutely wants nothing to do with the card in question!

Back on the software side through, there's also the wonderful problem with, apparently having enough RAM in the system completely ruins most of the cards functionality. I can't even load soundfonts properly on Creative cards unless I purposefully make my total system RAM less or equal to 2 GB. Otherwise I get bogus errors about there not being enough memory to load the soundfont. (even on the X-Fi cards that actually have RAM on them, the "XRAM" apparently can't be used for soundfonts because reasons!)

I think it's best to just stick with software based OpenAL solutions, like OpenALSoft. Atleast, when I play stuff like UT2004 it seems to be fully featured enough for that to work without issue even with the "3D Sound + EAX" option selected in the menus. It's just not worth the headache dealing with Creative being such a crappy company that doesn't care about it's own products or it's customers, the only thing they seem to care about is blind faith followers in their product line.

“I am the dragon without a name…”
― Κυνικός Δράκων

Reply 2 of 24, by RandomStranger

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"Worth it" is an interesting question. You can get an SB0100 for around $5, SB0350 for $10 and SB0460 for $15 with some luck.

The real question is, do you really need to use your communal HTPC for retro gaming instead of something dedicated?
For around $50-60 you can build a decent late-W98/early-XP machine, that's the cheapest era to cover.

sreq.png retrogamer-s.png

Reply 3 of 24, by Joseph_Joestar

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Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote on 2021-08-12, 07:37:

(2) The reason I have stopped using Creative cards is bloated software and driver. This is really bothersome. For this reason alone, I don't want to use Creative sound cards unless it's really necessary.

I use the DanielK driver pack for my X-Fi Titanium PCIe. It allows you to choose exactly which components you want to install. For a while, I had that X-Fi in my Win7 rig. Alchemy is hit and miss, some games are supported out of the box, others need to be configured manually. IMO, those cards really need WinXP to shine.

Is it worth it? I think it is, particularly when playing FPS and stealth games using headphones with CMSS 3D enabled. The Splinter Cell series sounds amazing when played like that, especially the third game: Chaos Theory. On the opening level of that game (Lighthouse) there's a camp with some tents and it's raining. When you enter one of those tents and hear the raindrops fall on the roof, it feels like you're really there.

PC#1: Pentium MMX 166 / Soyo SY-5BT / S3 Trio64V+ / Voodoo1 / YMF719 / AWE64 Gold / SC-155
PC#2: AthlonXP 2100+ / ECS K7VTA3 / Voodoo3 / Audigy2 / Vortex2
PC#3: Athlon64 3400+ / Asus K8V-MX / 5900XT / Audigy2
PC#4: i5-3570K / MSI Z77A-G43 / GTX 970 / X-Fi

Reply 4 of 24, by Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman

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DracoNihil wrote on 2021-08-12, 07:51:
I don't think it's worth it at all primarily because Creative is a terrible company. […]
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I don't think it's worth it at all primarily because Creative is a terrible company.

When you really look at it, the soundcards since AWE32 and above, are just music synthesizers being forced to do something they weren't designed to do in the first place: render MIDI music.

The drivers are absolutely abysmal, I've been through multiple generations of Creative's cards and had nothing but trouble with the software side, making the whole spending $100's on these cards a complete waste of time and money because apparently nobody at Creative cares about writing drivers that actually work. (And they will of course, go after people with legal teams that try to make drivers THAT DO WORK)

And then when it turns out it is a hardware problem, you could go all over the place trying to figure out what went wrong, maybe the capacitors on the card or some other component died, maybe your PCI slot doesn't work, maybe the bridge chip is faulty in the case of the PCIe cards (they aren't even real PCIe cards, they're bridge chipped!) or maybe your motherboard just absolutely wants nothing to do with the card in question!

Back on the software side through, there's also the wonderful problem with, apparently having enough RAM in the system completely ruins most of the cards functionality. I can't even load soundfonts properly on Creative cards unless I purposefully make my total system RAM less or equal to 2 GB. Otherwise I get bogus errors about there not being enough memory to load the soundfont. (even on the X-Fi cards that actually have RAM on them, the "XRAM" apparently can't be used for soundfonts because reasons!)

I think it's best to just stick with software based OpenAL solutions, like OpenALSoft. Atleast, when I play stuff like UT2004 it seems to be fully featured enough for that to work without issue even with the "3D Sound + EAX" option selected in the menus. It's just not worth the headache dealing with Creative being such a crappy company that doesn't care about it's own products or it's customers, the only thing they seem to care about is blind faith followers in their product line.

Indeed, that's why Audigy 2 was my latest Creative sound card. Unfortunately I have never use either DSOAL nor OpenALSoft. Inputs are welcome.

RandomStranger wrote on 2021-08-12, 08:01:

"Worth it" is an interesting question. You can get an SB0100 for around $5, SB0350 for $10 and SB0460 for $15 with some luck.

The real question is, do you really need to use your communal HTPC for retro gaming instead of something dedicated?
For around $50-60 you can build a decent late-W98/early-XP machine, that's the cheapest era to cover.

Already have retro systems for that purpose, I'd just like to play old games with my family. My eldest daughter already likes old games like the first Midtown Madness.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2021-08-12, 08:07:
Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote on 2021-08-12, 07:37:

(2) The reason I have stopped using Creative cards is bloated software and driver. This is really bothersome. For this reason alone, I don't want to use Creative sound cards unless it's really necessary.

I use the DanielK driver pack for my X-Fi Titanium PCIe. It allows you to choose exactly which components you want to install. For a while, I had that X-Fi in my Win7 rig. Alchemy is hit and miss, some games are supported out of the box, others need to be configured manually. IMO, those cards really need WinXP to shine.

Is it worth it? I think it is, particularly when playing FPS and stealth games using headphones with CMSS 3D enabled. The Splinter Cell series sounds amazing when played like that, especially the third game: Chaos Theory. On the opening level of that game (Lighthouse) there's a camp with some tents and it's raining. When you enter one of those tents and hear the raindrops fall on the roof, it feels like you're really there.

How about DTS Connect? Does Daniel K driver comes with DTS Connect?

Never thought this thread would be that long, but now, for something different.....
Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman.

Reply 5 of 24, by Joseph_Joestar

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Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote on 2021-08-12, 08:33:

How about DTS Connect? Does Daniel K driver comes with DTS Connect?

I think so, but license activation may be required. I never used this so I don't have any first-hand experience with it.

You can find more info here.

PC#1: Pentium MMX 166 / Soyo SY-5BT / S3 Trio64V+ / Voodoo1 / YMF719 / AWE64 Gold / SC-155
PC#2: AthlonXP 2100+ / ECS K7VTA3 / Voodoo3 / Audigy2 / Vortex2
PC#3: Athlon64 3400+ / Asus K8V-MX / 5900XT / Audigy2
PC#4: i5-3570K / MSI Z77A-G43 / GTX 970 / X-Fi

Reply 6 of 24, by Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman

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Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2021-08-12, 08:39:
Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote on 2021-08-12, 08:33:

How about DTS Connect? Does Daniel K driver comes with DTS Connect?

I think so, but license activation may be required. I never used this so I don't have any first-hand experience with it.

You can find more info here.

Very interesting, thanks. This is what the info says:

- ALchemy 1.45.20
- Audio Control Panel 3.01.04
- AutoMode Switcher 1.01.08
- Console Launcher 2.61.58
- DDL and DTS Connect License Activation 2.00.03 (*)
- Dolby Digital Live Pack 4.00.00 (*)
- DTS Connect Pack 2.01.00 (*)
- MediaSource DVD-Audio Player 2.00.78 (32-bit Windows only)
- Remote Control System 5.00.35 (**)
- SoundFont Bank Manager 3.21.02
- THX Console 3.50.09
- Volume Panel 2.21.18

This: DDL and DTS Connect License Activation 2.00.03 (*). Does it mean I don't have to commit online activation with Creative anymore? If that's so, then it's quite tempting to use a Creative sound card. Although, well, isn't Alchemy a hit or miss?

Never thought this thread would be that long, but now, for something different.....
Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman.

Reply 7 of 24, by Gmlb256

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As a former owner of a Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium I can related some of the things.

I can recommend the Daniel_K's X-Fi driver pack since they have less issue compared to the official ones. In my experience the official drivers had some issues such as attempting to use for X-Fi MIDI playback, I don't know if they fixed that one later since they driver team are currently understaffed.

I'm also aware of the fiasco back then when Creative released Windows Vista driver which were initially broken and Daniel_K fixed it.

EAX on Windows Vista and later only works with OpenAL (not OpenAL Soft) on older games that used it, since Microsoft rewrote the audio stack starting with Windows Vista to use WASAPI. Windows XP is better when it comes to dealing with EAX compatibility as Alchemy is not a guaranteed solution.

Funny about the bloated drivers though, the latest integrated Realtek driver I downloaded from the ASUS website was also equally bloated considering the amount of features in comparison and the size was 414MB. The ASUS motherboard by the way is Gryphon Z97.

VIA C3 Nehemiah 1.2A @ 1.46 GHz | ASUS P2-99 | 256 MB PC133 SDRAM | GeForce3 Ti 200 64 MB | Voodoo2 12 MB | SBLive! | AWE64 | SBPro2 | GUS

Reply 8 of 24, by Desomondo

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I've used Creative sound cards and EAX in games since the original Live and I do like the effect in most cases. Also in older games EAX (or A3D) was usually required to get quad and 5.1 surround sound to even initialize. I see lots of users complain about Creative products and drivers (and for good reasons from what I've read) but I guess I've always been lucky. Up until recently I've always have a good experience with their cards and I've owned almost every model since the SB16.

About a year ago I started having BSODs with my X-Fi Titanium when running OpenAL games, which apparently is a long standing bug. If you use an old enough driver the issues go away, but of course Windows 10 constantly updates the driver. Daniel K was recently working on new beta drivers to fix this but took the post down on his website after a short while. Thankfully I was able to download it first and it did indeed work. Windows 10 would still eventually override the driver however and Windows 11 won't even let you install it.

So I dug out and tried my Sound Blaster Z but from what I can tell all Creative Cards since the X-Fi use a different method of wrapping older APIs to OpenAL called HOAL. This works, and doesn't cause BSODs, but I immediately noticed that surround sound is completely screwed up in Doom 3 for example in OpenAL mode. All sounds come from all speakers. If I run it in DirectSound3D mode with Alchemy, surround sound works properly but EAX can't be enabled (in-game limitation). Surround sound in Quake 2 RTX also breaks when using OpenAL - same problem. OpenAL is just borked.

So finally, I just uninstalled the OpenAL and Alchemy components and used a combination of OpenAL-Soft (x86), EAXEFX and DSOL (or IndirectSound). This lets me use DirectSound3D in pre Vista games, and OpenAL with EAX wrapped to EFX. Doom 3 sounded good in both APIs. And the x64 version of OpenAL-Soft works great with Quake 2 RTX. I've only been trying this for a few weeks however and more testing is definitely required. I guess I could just ditch the Sound Blaster entirely now, since I was only using it for the backwards compatibility, but onboard audio (at least on my MB) still sucks - pops and clicks all day.

Win98: PII 400 | 440BX | Voodoo3 | Live + SB16
WinME: P4 HT 641 | 865G | Geforce4 Ti4400 | Audigy2ZS
WinXP: C2 Q9400 | G41 | Geforce GTX 280 | X-Fi
Win7: i7 2600K | P67 | Geforce GTX 980ti | X-Fi
Win10: R7 5800X | X570 | Radeon RX 6800 | X-Fi Titanium

Reply 9 of 24, by Gmlb256

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Desomondo wrote on 2021-08-12, 12:58:

Surround sound in Quake 2 RTX also breaks when using OpenAL - same problem. OpenAL is just borked.

OpenAL on latest games only works with OpenAL Soft since they use extensions not found on the Creative ones such as AL_EXT_MCFORMATS. Surround sound is supported on the Creative OpenAL but they use a different way for detection, that's one disadvantage when supporting multiple OpenAL implementations (which there are very few though).

Officially development on OpenAL has stagnated and the currently viable one for practical use is OpenAL Soft.

VIA C3 Nehemiah 1.2A @ 1.46 GHz | ASUS P2-99 | 256 MB PC133 SDRAM | GeForce3 Ti 200 64 MB | Voodoo2 12 MB | SBLive! | AWE64 | SBPro2 | GUS

Reply 10 of 24, by Desomondo

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So it is less a bug on Creative's part and more an outdated (or at least different) implementation? If that is the case then it's a shame since OpenAL support, and the backwards compatibility Sound Blaster cards offer through Alchemy which uses it, is one of their major features and benefits in my opinion. Then again I guess it is an ever shrinking niche market, like discrete channel surround sound itself. From watching gaming channels on YouTube, and reading other comments in various forums, it would seem everyone just uses cans these days which I've never been a fan of. Once again the community comes to rescue I guess.

Win98: PII 400 | 440BX | Voodoo3 | Live + SB16
WinME: P4 HT 641 | 865G | Geforce4 Ti4400 | Audigy2ZS
WinXP: C2 Q9400 | G41 | Geforce GTX 280 | X-Fi
Win7: i7 2600K | P67 | Geforce GTX 980ti | X-Fi
Win10: R7 5800X | X570 | Radeon RX 6800 | X-Fi Titanium

Reply 11 of 24, by svfn

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I don't think it is worth it for just casual playing, might be more trouble than it is worth to set up. But for these that want to experience EAX with the old hardware then yes, play it with headphones not surround sound systems for best effect. I have used X-Fi Titanium on my Haswell machine and now Rocket Lake with no issues, never BSOD, currently on win 10 ver 20H2. With Daniel_K's drivers of course.

My go to installation for X-Fi Titanium PCIe for Win 10 is:

Use the correct ALCapsViewer, 32-bit or 64-bit version to check if the X-Fi is set up properly, it should show SB X-Fi Audio in addition to Generic Software under OpenAL Devices, if you only see Generic Software, something is not installed correctly. See below.

If you only see Generic Software, the drivers might not have placed the necessary 32/64-bit 'ct_oal.dll' in the correct directory, most of the time you only need to do this for 64-bit which is rarely needed as most EAX games are 32-bit, except some remastered games like Mass Effect remastered legendary edition is 64-bit for example.

So to fix this, extract either the 32/64-bit 'ct_oal.dll' from XFTI_PCDRV_L11_2_40_0019 or Daniel_K's XFI_SupportPack_5_0 (extract package with 7zip or similar software, then look for the file), and place the corresponding one that you need in \Windows\System32 for 64-bit, or \Windows\SysWOW64 for 32-bit.

For most games that support DSOAL or are better on OpenALSoft, then don't use ALchemy for that, just use OpenALSoft. I don't really use ALchemy.exe, it is better to manually copy the dsound.dll and dsound.ini to whichever game directory that you want ALchemy to be used, so it doesn't mess with your games.

Some games do sound nicer, like Star Wars Episode 1 Racer (sadly no A3D as shown in the video here, but if you try with ALchemy it sounds close, well better than none), Dungeon Keeper 2, Dungeon Siege, Kotor 2, Warcraft III, Morrowind which I prefer X-Fi over DSOAL because it doesn't pan waterfall sounds properly. Baldur's Gate 2 I couldn't get to work properly for ToB for some reason.

Games that are better with OpenALSoft or DSOAL are many, like Prey (2006), Thief series, F:NV etc. Seems like Diablo II also supports DSOAL, let's see if the remastered version will remove EAX support.

SS7: K6-2/350 | FIC PA-2013 2.1 | 32MB PC-100 | 3dfx V3 2000 AGP | AWE64 CT4520 | Win98SE
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Reply 12 of 24, by chinny22

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I'm the same, only games I play that support anything newer then EAX2 are the GTA series.
That said I do prefer the X-Fi in my XP build over the Audigy 2 ZS, maybe its placebo effect but I think sound quality is improved.

Win7 though I was also unsure. I've no wish to mess around with wrappers. If I'm playing any of my EAX games it'll always be on a PC running XP or below.
I was looking at SoundBlaster Z and below and in the end just used an old Audigy 1 OEM card I had lying around. No EAX requirement simplifies things a lot.

So for you I'd agree with a few of the others have already said. As its just for casual gaming, and you have better rigs for EAX support. I wouldn't worry about it too much for this build

Reply 13 of 24, by Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman

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svfn wrote on 2021-08-12, 15:10:

Some games do sound nicer, like Star Wars Episode 1 Racer (sadly no A3D as shown in the video here, but if you try with ALchemy it sounds close, well better than none), Dungeon Keeper 2, Dungeon Siege, Kotor 2, Warcraft III, Morrowind which I prefer X-Fi over DSOAL because it doesn't pan waterfall sounds properly. Baldur's Gate 2 I couldn't get to work properly for ToB for some reason.

Very interesting. The games you mentioned are my favorite games, and KOTOR aside, those games (like WarCraft III, Dungeon Siege, Morrowind, and Dungeon Keeper 2) are EAX 1 and/or EAX 2 games. On Windows XP, I don't bother to run them on Creative sound cards, since EAX 1 and EAX 2 are supported by many non-Creative sound cards.

According to your experience, however, things are reversed on Windows 7. It is those games that need Creative sound cards (and ALchemy), because they don't run very well with DSOAL, do they?

What really turned me off about Creative sound cards are lackluster AVR integration. Unlike many other sound cards, Creative cards needs online activation to install Dolby Digital Live or DTS Connect, while using multichannel analog outputs makes most of your AVR functionalities unusable. This is what really made me eschew Creative cards during those days. Fast forwards several years later, somewhere in 2014, I tried to buy DTS Connect Pack from Creative, only to be informed by the website that Creative no longer provides online activation for Dolby Digital and DTS Connect.

As last resort, I might use my Creative DTS-610 to encode multi-channel analog into DTS, but it is a very unelegant solution.

chinny22 wrote on 2021-08-13, 11:29:

So for you I'd agree with a few of the others have already said. As its just for casual gaming, and you have better rigs for EAX support. I wouldn't worry about it too much for this build

Indeed, and that's what the original plan: eschewing EAX and use HDMI audio instead, since HDMI is lossless. However, I have to admit I was tempted to bring EAX to the family room, especially since I discovered that you can actually install Neverwinter Nights 1 on Windows 7.

Besides, my daughters seem to like old games anyway: Midtown Madness, Jane's World War II Fighters, No One Lives Forever, F.E.A.R, Dungeon Siege....

Never thought this thread would be that long, but now, for something different.....
Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman.

Reply 14 of 24, by svfn

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A lot of games could run with DSOAL, Warcraft III, Morrowind, Dungeon Keeper 2 I have tried and works with DSOAL. It is just user preference in the end to use it or not, like ALchemy, or running on a native XP machine without emulation.

There's a list here of games and what is supported, perhaps you could ask at the 3d Game Audio Discord server about AVR integration.

SS7: K6-2/350 | FIC PA-2013 2.1 | 32MB PC-100 | 3dfx V3 2000 AGP | AWE64 CT4520 | Win98SE
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Reply 15 of 24, by Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman

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svfn wrote on 2021-08-14, 14:32:

A lot of games could run with DSOAL, Warcraft III, Morrowind, Dungeon Keeper 2 I have tried and works with DSOAL. It is just user preference in the end to use it or not, like ALchemy, or running on a native XP machine without emulation.

There's a list here of games and what is supported, perhaps you could ask at the 3d Game Audio Discord server about AVR integration.

I see, great. HDMI audio it is, then.

Why do I still want to play such old games like WarCraft III and Neverwinter Nights? Because of mods. I haven't tried WarCraft I on WarCraft III engine, for example. Or Ultima IV on NWN engine.

Never thought this thread would be that long, but now, for something different.....
Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman.

Reply 16 of 24, by chinny22

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Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote on 2021-08-14, 15:41:

Why do I still want to play such old games like WarCraft III and Neverwinter Nights? Because of mods. I haven't tried WarCraft I on WarCraft III engine, for example. Or Ultima IV on NWN engine.

Sound's like a perfect excuse for another retro build, Family room retro PC!
You could always just use a laptop for the boring day to day stuff if space is an issue

Reply 17 of 24, by svfn

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Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote on 2021-08-14, 15:41:

Why do I still want to play such old games like WarCraft III and Neverwinter Nights? Because of mods. I haven't tried WarCraft I on WarCraft III engine, for example. Or Ultima IV on NWN engine.

100%, mods keep old games alive for me as well. They have always been a cornerstone and still remains largely in the domain of PC gaming, many genres or new games were born out of modding. It is a shame that modding support has grown lesser for AAA games and with the always online, games as a service model, opportunity for modding seems less and less likely.

SS7: K6-2/350 | FIC PA-2013 2.1 | 32MB PC-100 | 3dfx V3 2000 AGP | AWE64 CT4520 | Win98SE
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Reply 18 of 24, by The Serpent Rider

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X-Fi provides positional audio which to this day wasn't perfectly replicated in software.

I must be some kind of standard: the anonymous gangbanger of the 21st century.

Reply 19 of 24, by Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman

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chinny22 wrote on 2021-08-17, 08:19:
Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote on 2021-08-14, 15:41:

Why do I still want to play such old games like WarCraft III and Neverwinter Nights? Because of mods. I haven't tried WarCraft I on WarCraft III engine, for example. Or Ultima IV on NWN engine.

Sound's like a perfect excuse for another retro build, Family room retro PC!
You could always just use a laptop for the boring day to day stuff if space is an issue

😀 Indeed. And the good news, my daughters love old games too!

svfn wrote on 2021-08-17, 11:03:
Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote on 2021-08-14, 15:41:

Why do I still want to play such old games like WarCraft III and Neverwinter Nights? Because of mods. I haven't tried WarCraft I on WarCraft III engine, for example. Or Ultima IV on NWN engine.

100%, mods keep old games alive for me as well. They have always been a cornerstone and still remains largely in the domain of PC gaming, many genres or new games were born out of modding. It is a shame that modding support has grown lesser for AAA games and with the always online, games as a service model, opportunity for modding seems less and less likely.

Hey, I even still play Quake 1 just to try all those mods! Well, not all mods are cool though, but the Navy SEAL mod is still my most favorite.

Never thought this thread would be that long, but now, for something different.....
Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman.