VOGONS


First post, by [FMC]Ravage

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I’m planning on building a new system [Pentium 3 / Voodoo5 / MX300) and had some questions about DirectX and the sound card. I was originally planning on just sticking with DirectX 7, but there are a couple of games in my collection that require DirectX 8 (NOLF2, Comanche 4, ext). From what I’ve read on here, you need to use older versions of the driver (v2015) for it to work properly with DirectX 8. My question is, are those old drivers stable and am I missing out on any important bug fixes in the newer ones?

I’m starting to wonder if I’d be better off going with a different sound card…but I’m not sure. I have a fairly large collection of games from late dos to early 2000s. The majority being from 96-99.

Reply 1 of 16, by Horun

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Which version of the Vortex 2 do you have ? They are good cards but if you have issues I suggest a good SB Live or Audigy since you need DX8 but that is just my opinion....
added: I hate Creative for sueing them just to financially bankrupt them even though they, Aureal, won. Bad lawyers because in civil court the loser should have to pay for all fees but did not happen in that case AFAIK

Hate posting a reply and then have to edit it because it made no sense 😁 First computer was an IBM 3270 workstation with CGA monitor. https://archive.org/details/@horun

Reply 2 of 16, by [FMC]Ravage

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It's a Diamond MX300 (Rev A, AU8830A2 chip). I'm going to have a lot of games to install and patch (like 100+). I just didn't want to find out it's not going to work properly and hose the system swapping hardware (I know how finicky 9x can be).

I remember that lawsuit back in the day, I don't think anyone outside of creative was happy about it.

Reply 3 of 16, by aaron158

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there is several post out there that say something about if u go past dx7 with an aureal card that it can cause system lock ups. they say its ok if u a very old version of the driver but that old version of the driver some games will complain and say u don't have a3d hardware.

imo my suggestion is do windows 98 system with dx7 and the aureal card for games that's that need that. dx8 or 9 have a windows xp machine for those and use a sound blaster audgy2 zs or x-fi. most games that use dx8 are gonna be from late 2001 or early 2002 and beyond so they would be more geared for windows xp anyway.

tbh though i have tired a3d much i tired to get i going in star trek voyger elite force and another star trek game and it was super buggy in both games. people says its way better then eax but the handful of times i tired to get it working i just ran into issues.

Reply 4 of 16, by Horun

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Nice ! The Diamond MX300 version is a good card from what little experience I have with them. Did have a Turtle Beach Montego and really liked it back decades ago but driver updates became non-existent.
Yeah if you keep period correct and play just A3D supported games should be good. Yes DX7 was the last truly supported DX version for them without jumping many hurdles afaik

Hate posting a reply and then have to edit it because it made no sense 😁 First computer was an IBM 3270 workstation with CGA monitor. https://archive.org/details/@horun

Reply 5 of 16, by ZanQuance

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Since I've never encountered any issues with the Vortex 2 and DX9c on my Win98 machine, is there a replicatable test I can perform on my system regarding the lockups?
I would like to take a look and see if this is something that can be fixed or worked around.

Reply 6 of 16, by aaron158

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ZanQuance wrote on 2022-02-22, 02:18:

Since I've never encountered any issues with the Vortex 2 and DX9c on my Win98 machine, is there a replicatable test I can perform on my system regarding the lockups?
I would like to take a look and see if this is something that can be fixed or worked around.

not that i know of tbh i tired one very limited with dx9 and didn't seem to have any lock ups but i didn't try a huge amount of a3d games. tbh the games i was most interested in trying that support a3d were 2 star trek games and the a3d works like crap on them.

Reply 7 of 16, by Joseph_Joestar

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aaron158 wrote on 2022-02-22, 03:03:

tbh the games i was most interested in trying that support a3d were 2 star trek games and the a3d works like crap on them.

Do you mean Voyager: Elite Force? From my experience, installing the expansion pack will break A3D support in that one.

If you stick with the base game + patch 1.20 then A3D will work fine. I just played through it last week on my Turtle Beach Montego II and had a blast.

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 9 of 16, by aaron158

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Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2022-02-22, 04:27:
aaron158 wrote on 2022-02-22, 03:03:

tbh the games i was most interested in trying that support a3d were 2 star trek games and the a3d works like crap on them.

Do you mean Voyager: Elite Force? From my experience, installing the expansion pack will break A3D support in that one.

If you stick with the base game + patch 1.20 then A3D will work fine. I just played through it last week on my Turtle Beach Montego II and had a blast.

this was without ep. i tired with and without the 1.2 patch made no dif. when turning on a3d the phaser sounds were messed up if u held the fire button down or any of the weapons that had a constant firing sound when the button is held down the sound cuts off. there was also the fact that everytime u start the game up it would shut off a3d sound. i tired with both an actual aureal card and a diamond mx300 card and it was all the same. and with the aureal card if u tired using the digital optical out put it actually cut even more sound effects out then if using the analog outputs

Reply 10 of 16, by Joseph_Joestar

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aaron158 wrote on 2022-02-24, 20:14:

this was without ep. i tired with and without the 1.2 patch made no dif. when turning on a3d the phaser sounds were messed up if u held the fire button down or any of the weapons that had a constant firing sound when the button is held down the sound cuts off. there was also the fact that everytime u start the game up it would shut off a3d sound.

I have also experienced the A3D checkbox turning itself off each time I exited the game. But for me, it was simply a matter of turning it back on next time. This happens in Quake 3 as well, which uses the same engine.

Positional audio worked fine for me in the actual game. No issues and no cut offs. For what it's worth, I was using the drivers supplied on the Turtle Beach Montego II CD. You can find the image on Vogonsdrivers, but I'm not sure if they will work on other Aureal Vortex 2 cards.

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 11 of 16, by aaron158

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Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2022-02-25, 06:07:
aaron158 wrote on 2022-02-24, 20:14:

this was without ep. i tired with and without the 1.2 patch made no dif. when turning on a3d the phaser sounds were messed up if u held the fire button down or any of the weapons that had a constant firing sound when the button is held down the sound cuts off. there was also the fact that everytime u start the game up it would shut off a3d sound.

I have also experienced the A3D checkbox turning itself off each time I exited the game. But for me, it was simply a matter of turning it back on next time. This happens in Quake 3 as well, which uses the same engine.

Positional audio worked fine for me in the actual game. No issues and no cut offs. For what it's worth, I was using the drivers supplied on the Turtle Beach Montego II CD. You can find the image on Vogonsdrivers, but I'm not sure if they will work on other Aureal Vortex 2 cards.

i may try the turtle beach drivers and see maybe they did something to there's that makes its work. i was using the stock aureal drivers. i also tired with the the diamond drivers and those were even worst as diamond used super old versions of the aureal drivers to base there's off of and the game would just say u didn't have a3d hardware when u used those.

Reply 13 of 16, by aaron158

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Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2022-02-25, 06:07:
aaron158 wrote on 2022-02-24, 20:14:

this was without ep. i tired with and without the 1.2 patch made no dif. when turning on a3d the phaser sounds were messed up if u held the fire button down or any of the weapons that had a constant firing sound when the button is held down the sound cuts off. there was also the fact that everytime u start the game up it would shut off a3d sound.

I have also experienced the A3D checkbox turning itself off each time I exited the game. But for me, it was simply a matter of turning it back on next time. This happens in Quake 3 as well, which uses the same engine.

Positional audio worked fine for me in the actual game. No issues and no cut offs. For what it's worth, I was using the drivers supplied on the Turtle Beach Montego II CD. You can find the image on Vogonsdrivers, but I'm not sure if they will work on other Aureal Vortex 2 cards.

i finally had a chance to try out the turtle beach drivers they did install on the non turtle beach card and they work but the sound glitches were still a thing.

Reply 14 of 16, by Joseph_Joestar

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aaron158 wrote on 2022-04-29, 00:29:

i finally had a chance to try out the turtle beach drivers they did install on the non turtle beach card and they work but the sound glitches were still a thing.

Interesting. Does this happen for you in Quake 3 as well? Note that you need to use patch 1.17 or earlier for Q3, since the newer patches disable A3D support entirely.

IIRC, Voyager: Elite Force is based on the Q3 engine, so I imagine its A3D implementation should be similar. I didn't experience any sound problems with either game on my Montego II.

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 15 of 16, by aaron158

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Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2022-04-29, 06:47:
aaron158 wrote on 2022-04-29, 00:29:

i finally had a chance to try out the turtle beach drivers they did install on the non turtle beach card and they work but the sound glitches were still a thing.

Interesting. Does this happen for you in Quake 3 as well? Note that you need to use patch 1.17 or earlier for Q3, since the newer patches disable A3D support entirely.

IIRC, Voyager: Elite Force is based on the Q3 engine, so I imagine its A3D implementation should be similar. I didn't experience any sound problems with either game on my Montego II.

tbh i haven't tired q3 i guess i could though ill need to download a copy.

Reply 16 of 16, by Jasin Natael

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I haven't any issues on my P3 machine that has a Vortex 2 I'm fairly sure it is running DX 8, but I did have a whole plethora of issues getting my Vortex 1 to work properly in my Socket 7 machine.
I am pretty sure that the card wasn't to blame there though.