Diablo 2 Sound Question

[updawg]

Is it possible to get A3D and EAX working at the same time on this game? If so what configuration did you use? I am looking either to emulate and or build a dedicated machine to get this to work 100%. I would love to be able to preserve this timeless game and I don't mind spending a few hundred to do so. So if anyone can get me started down this rabbit hole I'd be greatly appreciative. Thanks!

[mirh]

You can't have both APIs enabled at the same time.
Some info here. But don't expect A3D to sound as good as if you had an original board.

[updawg]

Thanks for the reply. I am able to get Alchemy Universal working but I don't get full surround - does anyone have a card with EAX and can test to see if they get sound out of the rear speakers?

Also the A3D wrapper did not work - it would not even allow me to enable any 3d effects. Does anyone here have a Vortex 2 and be willing to test Diablo 2 to see if they can get it working?

Thanks again.

[jonpol]

In a strange coincidence I had someone ask about Diablo 2 and IndirectSound this week, and so I've been doing some tests in the opening level. I couldn't find any sounds that played in the rear speakers; they are all positioned forward from the listener. This is a small sample size (just running around the immediate local area when starting a new game), but extrapolating from that small sample size I would expect there not to be much (any?) surround. I also found this interview which seems to support that speculation:

https://web.archive.org/web/20050316091 ... iablo2.asp

I haven't run the game in XP with my SoundBlaster yet to verify (I try to limit by XP use nowadays, especially when an internet connection is required), but I imagine that on real Creative hardware there would be some sounds from the rear speakers in the cases of 3D sounds played really close to the listener. The way that Creative's 3D positioning works is that a 3D sound very close to the listener will play out of all speakers even if it is technically in front. (Microsoft's implementation, on the other hand, is more discrete, so that a 3D sound will only ever play out of one speaker, which is why using IndirectSound you won't hear any rear sound at all. Perhaps you are experiencing the same thing with ALchemy Universal?) I have it on my to-do list to try Diablo 2 in XP one of these days to confirm, but what I would expect to hear would be some ambient sounds that played subtly in the rear speakers as well as some default-ish EAX reverb, but nothing that really takes strong advantage of positional sound.

(This all refers to DirectSound and EAX, by the way. I don't have any experience or knowledge about A3D. My pure speculation would be that the situation would be similar, though, largely based on the interview I linked above.)

[updawg]

No strange coincidence John-Paul this is that same person. I came across your project initially from this forum. I would like to personally thank you for the amount of effort you put into trying to make the indirectsound work for my needs. Let me know if you ever fire up the old xp machine!

[jonpol]

Oh, haha, an expected coincidence then!

In that case, if anyone else reading this has a chance to try Diablo 2 with either real EAX or A3D hardware, updawg and I would both be interested in learning what you find out!

[mirh]

Also the A3D wrapper did not work - it would not even allow me to enable any 3d effects. Does anyone here have a Vortex 2 and be willing to test Diablo 2 to see if they can get it working?

Thanks again.

Remember that the A3D wrapper needs in turn a Directsound wrapper.

If this also does not work, try this. Sound may be distorted though.

[Stretch]

With my Guillemot Maxi Sound Fortissimo (YMF-744) in Win98SE, I can enable both 3d sound and Environmental Effects.

[jonpol]

With my Guillemot Maxi Sound Fortissimo (YMF-744) in Win98SE, I can enable both 3d sound and Environmental Effects.

Thanks for checking! Did you notice when you played the game whether any sounds were coming out of your rear speakers?

[Stretch]

Sorry, I only have 2.1 speakers and headphones.

[updawg]

Also the A3D wrapper did not work - it would not even allow me to enable any 3d effects. Does anyone here have a Vortex 2 and be willing to test Diablo 2 to see if they can get it working?

Thanks again.

Remember that the A3D wrapper needs in turn a Directsound wrapper.

If this also does not work, try this. Sound may be distorted though.

I stumbled across that link you provided a few weeks ago and when I installed the software it did not provide 3D sound within diablo as it was still grayed out. Only Creative's EAX, either through Alchemy or jonpol's Indirectsound, will allow you to enable 3D sounds and environmental effects. I have not tried physical sound cards with Diablo and I wanted to see if it made a noticeable difference. So thank you Stretch for showing me that it does work, if you wouldn't mind just plugging the speakers into the surround port and see if you hear anything it would be greatly appreciated. Lastly - I haven't seen one working case where someone managed to make an A3D card work with Diablo - I see posts here and there stating that it was never truly implemented. So anyone with a working vortex card and could test this for me I'd be forever grateful!

[JayCeeBee64]

I have a Turtle Beach Montego A3DXStream (AU8820, A3D 1.0) in my P3 600/Win98SE build and can tell you that 3D audio can't be enabled in Diablo 2:



The reason is evident in the startup log.

Code: Select all

---------------------------------------------------------------
ATHENA5 Realm startup at 2015-08-17 14:50:58.540
---------------------------------------------------------------
14:50:58.540  ------------------------------------------------------
14:50:58.540  2015-08-17 14:50:58
14:50:58.540  Diablo II running under Windows 98 (Version 4.001)
14:50:58.540  Vendor:  Intel
14:50:58.540  Version: Pentium III (Type 0, Family 6, Model 7, Stepping 3, Brand 0)
14:50:58.540  Speed: Approx. 601 MHz
14:50:58.540  Total Physical Memory: 511.48MB
14:50:58.540  Application Path: D:\GAMES\DIABLO II
14:50:58.650  Local IP: 127.0.0.1
14:50:58.650  Computer name: ATHENA5
14:50:58.650  ------------------------------------------------------
14:50:58.650 
14:50:58.650  imagehlp.dll loaded for better stack crawls.
14:51:00.950  ........DirectSound progress: 9 buffers available is less than min needed 16 buffers for 3d sound
14:51:00.950  ........DirectSound progress: 9 buffers available is less than min needed 16 buffers for 3d sound


I don't have an A3D 2.0 card to test unfortunately

[Stretch]

Also the A3D wrapper did not work - it would not even allow me to enable any 3d effects. Does anyone here have a Vortex 2 and be willing to test Diablo 2 to see if they can get it working?

Thanks again.

Remember that the A3D wrapper needs in turn a Directsound wrapper.

If this also does not work, try this. Sound may be distorted though.

I stumbled across that link you provided a few weeks ago and when I installed the software it did not provide 3D sound within diablo as it was still grayed out. Only Creative's EAX, either through Alchemy or jonpol's Indirectsound, will allow you to enable 3D sounds and environmental effects. I have not tried physical sound cards with Diablo and I wanted to see if it made a noticeable difference. So thank you Stretch for showing me that it does work, if you wouldn't mind just plugging the speakers into the surround port and see if you hear anything it would be greatly appreciated. Lastly - I haven't seen one working case where someone managed to make an A3D card work with Diablo - I see posts here and there stating that it was never truly implemented. So anyone with a working vortex card and could test this for me I'd be forever grateful!

I'll try on the weekend with my speakers on front and headphones on rear channels, because right now I'm using toslink spdif.

I have a Vortex2 as well, but I think it is pointless to try because I'm using 2041 drivers which have no reverb.

Plus, this post http://www.hardwarecentral.com/showthread.php?1818-can-t-enable-Aureal-3d-sound-in-Diablo-2 from 15 years ago shows Diablo 2 likely doesn't support A3d 2.0. The manual also doesn't mention A3d support.

[Stretch]

Had a free moment to try the Vortex 2 with driver 2041, and I was able to enable the 3D Sound option, but not the Environment FX.

The log file from Diablo 2 says EAX is not supported but implies I'm using DirectSound3d.

Code: Select all

WIN98 Realm startup at 2015-08-20 19:38:59.250
---------------------------------------------------------------
19:38:59.250  ------------------------------------------------------
19:38:59.250  2015-08-20 19:38:59
19:38:59.250  Diablo II running under Windows 98 (Version 4.001)
19:38:59.250  Vendor:  Intel
19:38:59.250  Version: Celeron (Type 0, Family 6, Model 6, Stepping 1, Brand 0)
19:38:59.250  Speed: Approx. 2199 MHz
19:38:59.250  Total Physical Memory: 510.76MB
19:38:59.250  Application Path: C:\PROGRAM FILES\DIABLO II
19:38:59.250  Local IP: 192.168.1.138
19:38:59.250  Computer name: WIN98
19:38:59.250  ------------------------------------------------------
19:38:59.250 
19:38:59.250  imagehlp.dll loaded for better stack crawls.
19:38:59.580  ........DirectSound progress: Unsupported EAX or EAX emulation

[Stretch]

I couldn't get any sound in the rear speakers, but it might be my setup because I didn't get sound in PowerDVD either.

[ZanQuance]

A while back I tested Diablo2 LOD expansion under Win98/ME and didn't get A3D enabled, so I took a look into the games exe and there are no A3D calls. So I concluded that at least with the expansion version, that A3D is not implemented what so ever and that everything is processed through DS3D instead.

However I did not look at the plain vanilla 1.0 EXE/d2sound.dll until today...
It has loaders for:
Riptide.vxd
YDSXG.vxd
es197x.vxd
EMU10K1.vxd
and CRLDS3D.vxd (Crystal SoundFusion)
So EAX and Sensaura are supported.
If it supported A3D there would be calls to A3D.dll and A3D.vxd in there, but there are none.
Possibly added in later patch version then removed? I'm thinking highly unlikely.

[Maf]

Found today something interesting (http://classic.battle.net/diablo2exp/faq/hardware.shtml):

What 3D sound options does D2 support?
We support DirectSound, Creative Labs's EAX, as well as Aureal's A3D.

So, are we sure that D2 doesn't support A3D? Or is this a 19 years old wrong/outdated info in Blizzard's official FAQ?

[Stretch]

It also supports Dolby Surround (ProLogic 1)