I like the Audigy 2, It's my default card for Win9x builds. you can get the dos drivers here
http://vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?fileid=1383&menustate=0

Audigy 1 is fine, but personally I think may as well go with the 2 as they are about the same price.

the Live! cards are dirt cheap, so good card if your on a budget, just confirm the SB number printed on the card first to check if it's an OEM card or not

Are you talking about the basic Audigy2? I have problems getting the line-in and cd-in to work in DOS with the patch.
Joseph_Joestar did change up more for the Audigy ZS than just unmuting it, it has no line-in on the card and just a spdif for the cd audio.
He did provide the code for the patch, but my understanding of c is very limited and there is no documentation that I can find how to do this.

I recently went through this decision process for my PIII build, which is intended for W98 gaming only, as I have another machine for pure DOS.

I ended up choosing an Audigy 2 ZS (SB0350). It works well and the only downside I've experienced so far is that I can't get the internal SPDIF (digital in) for my CDRW drive enabled in W98 with the vxd drivers.

Does't your CD-RW drive use a "CD-IN" style output, like this one :

mrzmaster wrote on 2022-05-24, 21:22:

I ended up choosing an Audigy 2 ZS (SB0350). It works well and the only downside I've experienced so far is that I can't get the internal SPDIF (digital in) for my CDRW drive enabled in W98 with the vxd drivers.

Yeah, I experienced the same issue as well. The VxD driver for the Audigy2 ZS simply doesn't expose the "CD Digital" volume slider, and it appears to be muted by default. I tried playing around with the registry to see if I can find some way to restore the missing slider but I had no success.

In the end, I went with an Audigy1 Platinum (SB0090) for my Win98 build because of this and a few other reasons. Oddly enough, when using these same ZS drivers on the Audigy1, the "CD Digital" volume slider is properly exposed and works just fine on that card:

I also tried using ZS drivers on a SBLive 5.1 (SB0100) and the slider is present and works correctly on that card as well. So my guess is that this is not simply a software issue. It seems that the combination of the ZS VxD driver and the SB0350 firmware causes the problem.

I finally found some Audigy 1s. They often list them as SB1394.

But still the question if the basic Audigy2 isn't just a re-released Audigy1. It has all the same features and on first glance they look like a 99% match.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2022-05-25, 02:05:

Yeah, I experienced the same issue as well. The VxD driver for the Audigy2 ZS simply doesn't expose the "CD Digital" volume slid […]
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Yeah, I experienced the same issue as well. The VxD driver for the Audigy2 ZS simply doesn't expose the "CD Digital" volume slider, and it appears to be muted by default. I tried playing around with the registry to see if I can find some way to restore the missing slider but I had no success.

In the end, I went with an Audigy1 Platinum (SB0090) for my Win98 build because of this and a few other reasons. Oddly enough, when using these same ZS drivers on the Audigy1, the "CD Digital" volume slider is properly exposed and works just fine on that card:

Good to know that the Audigy 1 isn't affected by this problem; I wouldn't be opposed to swapping the 2 ZS out for one. However, I have a SB0250 Audigy 2 ZS front panel; does anyone know if this would work with an Audigy 1 SB0090? It's black and it seems like the SB0010 (Audigy / Live!) front panels don't exist in black or are very hard to come by.

mrzmaster wrote on 2022-05-25, 14:42:

I wouldn't be opposed to swapping the 2 ZS out for one. However, I have a SB0250 Audigy 2 ZS front panel; does anyone know if this would work with an Audigy 1 SB0090?

I don't think that will work. The SBLive and Audigy1 use the same pinout for the LiveDrive front panel. I can confirm this from first hand experience. From what I understand (and I could be wrong here) the Audigy2, ZS and X-Fi cards use a different pinout which is not compatible with Audigy1 and SBLive.

BTW, it might be worth checking if the original (non-ZS) Audigy2 suffers from this problem. There is some indication that it doesn't.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2022-05-25, 15:00:

BTW, it might be worth checking if the original (non-ZS) Audigy2 suffers from this problem. There is some indication that it doesn't.

Interesting. It looks like the Audigy 2 (non ZS) exists as both model number SB0350 (which is the same as the ZS) as well as SB0240. Any idea what the differences of these are?

mrzmaster wrote on 2022-05-25, 15:26:

Interesting. It looks like the Audigy 2 (non ZS) exists as both model number SB0350 (which is the same as the ZS) as well as SB0240. Any idea what the differences of these are?

I wasn't aware that this was the case, to be honest.

What's your source for the non-ZS SB0350?

Here it is, albeit from a current eBay listing.

mrzmaster wrote on 2022-05-25, 15:52:

Here it is, albeit from a current eBay listing.

At first glance, I see that the AD_EXT and JOYSTICK headers are unpopulated, meaning no LiveDrive or gameport connectivity. It also doesn't appear to have gold plated connectors.

I think that might be an OEM card. If the seller has more photos, check if there are three large white stickers on the back, that would confirm it.

Hey, good catch. I can't believe I missed that - I definitely haven't had enough coffee this morning. 😁

It looks like the gold plated SB0240 Audigy 2 cards can be had very cheaply. I will grab one of those and test the vxd drivers on a fresh install of Windows 98 and post my results with the CD Digital option.

Btw have similar issues with the SB Live Platinum (SB 4760). The original CD did not come with the vxd Drivers, so I grabbed the Live 1024! CD.
Windows works 100%, all inputs and outputs work. Game performance is way worse than the Audigy2, but the DOS side again has no line-in, CD audio works.
I can not get Asterix & Obelix or the Smurfs to run past the title screen before crashing and Mortal Kombat does weird shit with the inputs now.
But on the flipside of that, the Jungle Book does run normal now. It was running at 5x speed and did random inputs in the menu before crashing on the Audigy2.
I could not test the Audigy 1 SB0090 yet, I only got the IGEL 5/4 at the moment and it does not want to boot with a Audigy 1.
I am waiting for my replacement Athlon1 to try it out.

We should start to keep track of what is really a DOS compatible PCI Soundblaster card.
I think the list goes something like SB0220 Live Digital 5.1 (I am sure because Phil demonstrated it) and SB0090 (Audigy1) with their original Drivers.

not a fan of them. They're resource hogs and consome 3 IRQs and force you to install firewire. You also have no option to individually disable things like everything except midi or disable midi and only use the soundblaster part. Where as on cards like XG, Aureal, ESS PCI cards you can.

Audigy 2 zs is where it’s at for win 9x retro builds with pci

The point is that they are always recommended as a starting point and most of the people come back with a catalog of problems. It's not about your or my favorite, it's a 100% working card.
You can choose to use a ZS, if you don't give a crap about CD's or routing the PC speaker back into the line in. But let people know that it's not working correctly.
I have spent way to much time and money because of this crappy default recommendation.

Robertkopp wrote on 2022-05-25, 09:19:

I finally found some Audigy 1s. They often list them as SB1394.

But still the question if the basic Audigy2 isn't just a re-released Audigy1. It has all the same features and on first glance they look like a 99% match.

No personal experience, but everyone I've seen has said the Audigy 2 has much cleaner output than Audigy 1. Though at least my Audigy 2 has very noisy analog CD audio and I have to keep it muted, no idea is the problem with all Audigy 2's or are the caps just telling me to swap them.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2022-05-25, 15:00:

BTW, it might be worth checking if the original (non-ZS) Audigy2 suffers from this problem. There is some indication that it doesn't.

The drive was fine by the way, it's the card. And still haven't gotten a SPDIF cable, can't find one in euroland and kinda stupid to pay 20€ shipping + taxes for a $2 cable 😐

Just buy a female dupont pinsocket and cut it down into 2 2 pin wide pieces. Solder 2 wires to it and you are set. You might need to sand down the sides a little more than you can cut without damaging the pins you want to preserve. This is the best method without crimping that I know.