Like the 3D button on my Trust(y) SoundForce 80 3D Plus speakers, but software?

I don't think it will give any problems to post some screenshots from the manual.

On-topic. The first sound card which came to mind, is the YMF724. Just a simple on/off switch in the control panel. Sensaura?

Of course a lot of cards have chorus/referb sliders, or A3D / EAX et cetera, but that is not what you mean.

AudioPCI 128 just has a "spatial" checkbox

It looks like the screenshot. It does have a button toggle, but it also has a slider to determine how far you want the stereo audio to be seperated. I doubt it's an A3D feature, but can't confirm that yet. I'm POSITIVE, however, that it's not EAX. Judging by the screenshot, I'd say that Avance Logic might have made such cards. Sensaura might have too. I have the two aforementioned motherboards and they have the 3D Depth feature built-in. Under the drivers, Aureal and Sensaura are mentioned, so I tried an Aureal Vortex 1 BA88ST20A-02 PCI Card. The 3D Depth is listed under Volume Control's "Other" radio button, but it doesn't work at all. Neither does the "3D Stereo Enhancement On" option. I've done as much research as I can into this, but it can only go so far. The rest is up to the experience that other users have shared. Also, leileilol, does AudioPCI 128 have a slider too, or just a checkbox?

In Windows 98, there is a similar button, but it is called "3D Wide". Judging by your description, it does approximately the same thing (at least for the analog output of the card). I tried to turn this on and the music playing became more voluminous (the feeling that the sound surrounds from all sides) and the higher you set the slider, the stronger this effect. At the same time, high frequencies also became more pronounced. I didn't go on raping my ears and turned it off. The Yamaha YMF754 card.

Thank you for the info. I forgot to mention that turning on the "3D Depth" will slightly increase the volume at the same time, but it's at a constant +15%dB; it doesn't become louder the higher the slider. I'll look into this card for now. However, I have sensitive hearing and wouldn't want to mess my ears up either.

For Win9x, the Philips Acoustic Edge supports QXpander. Some of the YMF7x4 supported wide stereo.
For WinXP, CMI8768 cards support Xear 3d.

Asus used to make sound cards with Dolby Virtual Speaker technology, but I can't remember if those sound cards supported WinXP.

I'm a big fan of wide stereo technology for 2 speaker/headphone output, which is why I still utilize it in Windows 11.

I know this isn't exactly on-topic, but.. I once had Pro Audio Spectrum 16 (ISA) which had such a 3D sound feature (could be enabled via software).
But what I actually used back then was the "3D sound" feature of my PC speaker boxes.
It was entirely analogue, but worked quite nicely. It made the sound "wider".
So maybe that's another option. 🤷

There also were separate 3D sound boxes to put in line between a source and the speakers.
Not sure how it was named, though.

Well, I can't find this "Philips Acoustic Edge" for sale on the entire internet, so I'll have to settle for YMF754 when I have the ca$h.

I have a Philips SonicEdge (PSC605) that also has this feature. You can separate the channels with a slider to regulate the intensity.

The software works on 9x and XP.

I also remember that Audigy and X-Fi have CMSS but I don't have the sound cards installed currently, so I can't remember how the wide stereo is presented.

Ok, the PSC605 PCI sound card from Philips was delivered to me today. The only drivers I could find were for 98 and XP, and they're getting scarce online. I tried this card on Windows 98, and, unsurprisingly, no 3D Depth or 3D Wide showed up under Volume Control. Is it the driver I'm using, because there weren't any available on the Vogons Drivers site. I found v4.05 online because my card came used w/o a disc. The site had the XP and 9x versions available (both 4.05). How did you get the widening feature to work, schmatzler?

I found the manual and drivers on Philips website at View support for your PC Soundcard PSC605/17 Philips

The drivers should install a control panel visible in the task tray called Philips Sound Agent 2, which looks like a blue face in side profile.

The 3d Effects tab should allow you to enable QXpander for stereo files. QSurround is ideal for 5.1 audio files or games that support 5.1 audio.

If you use QSurround on 2.0 or 2.1 speakers, configure the Windows control panel speakers as 5.1, but the Philips control panel as 2 speakers.

Thanks. I'll give it a try right now.

Testing complete. Regretably, absolutely none of the Control Panel features work with my Windows 98SE. I'll test again tomorrow, but on Windows XP.

leileilol wrote on 2023-12-12, 08:03:

AudioPCI 128 just has a "spatial" checkbox

Yeah, equivalent terminology (although actual implementation may differ) ; can be done with a softsynth (VST) or dedicated in the DSP silicon ... can also be done in post processing (analog)...ie; TDA3810

The drivers from my Ensoniq 1373 also work under Win98SE in Vmware Workstation 16.

What I noticed is that when I play a midi file with mplayer2, the Wave indicator lights up in the AudioPCI mixer. But if I play a midi file with tmidi, the Synth indicator shows activity.

The spatial button wide setting noticeably widens the sound field when activated with whichever column shows activity.

Numbuh 128Bit wrote on 2023-12-21, 03:20:

Testing complete. Regretably, absolutely none of the Control Panel features work with my Windows 98SE. I'll test again tomorrow, but on Windows XP.

Make sure to set "Philips SoundAgent 2" as the primary output device. I think that's not done by default. The effects are routed through that device.

They do work on my 98SE box with the drivers from the Philips website.

And you should have a human head symbol in your taskbar where you can control all of the options.

Thank you. That finally did it. The card's features now work under Windows 98SE. The 3D feature works great as well as the equalizers. There was occasional stutter, plus I got a BSOD when trying to record. Most likely 'cause I'm using a 24-year-old HDD with 1GB of space left xD. Anyway, I can make space. Thanks so much, everyone!