VOGONS


First post, by pnkz

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I've been lurking these forums for over half a decade at least now, but never needed to post, usually was enough to read about peoples projects and there were already threads about common problems, until now.
I recently build a Windows 98 toaster for some older games, GeForce2 GTS, Sound Blaster Live!, Pentium 3, etc, but I'm having problems.

I installed Phils Live! drivers but I can't seem to get EAX working everywhere, some games like Half-Life let me enable EAX (I wonder if it's actually working though), while other games, like Call of Duty or Vice City let me select it (tried EAX 1.0 and 2.0, since that's what Live! should support) but after I click apply they either default to software DirectSound or their own software 3D sound solution (like MSS) and games like Serious Sam TFE say "EAX error: Cannot query property support".
I've tried reinstalling the drivers, but no luck.

Any help would be appreciated, thank you.

EDIT: I do have a ISA Sound Blaster AWE32 in it for DOS too, maybe two sound cards are confusing it?
EDIT2: I just took out the AWE32 and now EAX works everywhere. So now the question is, is there a easy way to manage the cards or have EAX working when both cards are installed?
EDIT3: Solved it! Check my post below.

Last edited by pnkz on 2021-07-04, 17:35. Edited 2 times in total.

Reply 1 of 4, by weldum

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weird, i have a sb live value in my 98se build and i've used the latest drivers from creative's website, granted they only install the driver and nothing more, but that's all i need and it works wonderfully.

DT: R7-5800X3D/R5-3600/R3-1200/P-G5400/FX-6100/i3-3225/P-8400/D-900/K6-2_550
LT: C-N2840/A64-TK57/N2600/N455/N270/C-ULV353/PM-1.7/P4-2.6/P133
TC: Esther-1000/Esther-400/Vortex86-366
Others: Drean C64c/Czerweny Spectrum 48k/Talent MSX DPC200/M512K/MP475

Reply 2 of 4, by pnkz

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Apparently it was the fault of the AWE32 being in the system. I guess some games just check the first sound card they come across and see it has no EAX, even though the Live! is selected as the main sound card.
I wonder if there's a way to "order" the sound cards? I'll try reinstalling the drivers in reverse (right now I installed the AWE32 before the Live!).

Reply 3 of 4, by weldum

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i didn't know that you had an awe32, if you only plan to use the live in windows, disable the awe32 from device manager, in dos should work fine

DT: R7-5800X3D/R5-3600/R3-1200/P-G5400/FX-6100/i3-3225/P-8400/D-900/K6-2_550
LT: C-N2840/A64-TK57/N2600/N455/N270/C-ULV353/PM-1.7/P4-2.6/P133
TC: Esther-1000/Esther-400/Vortex86-366
Others: Drean C64c/Czerweny Spectrum 48k/Talent MSX DPC200/M512K/MP475

Reply 4 of 4, by pnkz

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Thanks for your help, I'm grateful for looking into this with me, but it seems it's working now.

I removed the AWE32 and then reinstalled the Live! drivers (just folder of step 2 from Phils pack, the VXD drivers), afterwards I put the AWE32 back (did not even have to reinstall it's drivers) in and EAX still works and is now selectable in all games that use EAX that I have on that machine that previously wouldn't let me select EAX. Both cards also still work, I have speakers that have two sets of stereo RCA inputs you can easily switch between and if I launch a DOS game under DOS or Windows 98, I can configure it to use the AWE32 for everything, even when the Live! is set as the output card in Windows itself, both cards just work next to each other, Windows games use Live! and DOS games AWE32.

I'll mark the problem as solved and leave the thread up, if a mod thinks it's in the way, feel free to delete it but this might also have some good information for anyone running into the same problem.