Tried out a few more:

Total Annihilation – Supports 4 speaker surround. In the Sound menu, set “Sound Mode” to “3D”. Retail CD, no patch required.

Jurassic Park: Trespasser – Supports 4 speaker surround. In the Sound menu, check the “3D Audio Accel. Enabled” option. Retail CD, no patch required.

Sacrifice – Supports 4 speaker surround. In the Sound Options change “Current 3D Provider” to either “DirectSound3D - Hardware Support”, “EAX” or “EAX 2”, and then change “Speaker Setup” to “4 Speakers” or “Surround”. Even with the later option enabled nothing seems to play from the center channel. Retail CD, no patch required.

Project Eden – Supports at least 5.1 surround. In the Sound Settings set “Sound Mixing” to “Hardware”. Retail CD, no patch required.

No luck with Daikatana on the AOpen Cobra, as expected. I'll also try Homeworld as well when I get a chance.

Desomondo wrote on 2022-11-01, 03:02:

Tried out a few more:

Added, thanks! Kinda unexpected that Total Annihilation has surround support, since it's an RTS, but cool nonetheless.

No luck with Daikatana on the AOpen Cobra, as expected. I'll also try Homeworld as well when I get a chance.

I recently tried Homeworld: Cataclysm as well and still had no luck on my setup. Should be interesting to see if Sensaura fares any better.

Added Prince of Persia 3D and Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine.

Both of these deliver full 5.1 surround sound on my system.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2022-09-22, 06:26:

That's a very nice card indeed! I have a similar one but it's currently sitting in storage. I do remember testing its 4 speaker […]
Show full quote

Desomondo wrote on 2022-09-22, 02:55:

I dug out another sound card I had lying around, an AOpen Cobra AW744L II (Yamaha DS-XG), which supports Sensaura, and tried out a couple more games. It only supports 4 speaker output but it's better than my gimped Vortex 2 which is only stereo!

That's a very nice card indeed! I have a similar one but it's currently sitting in storage. I do remember testing its 4 speaker support some time ago and it worked well enough.

Star Wars: Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II - supports at least 4 speakers. Enable A3d in the sound menu. Unlike with the Audigy this time I could hear audio in the rear speakers!

Very interesting. Technically, one would expect this to work on the Audigy as well since its drivers do support A3D 1.0, but I guess Creative messed up somewhere. Oddly, the PC Gaming Wiki mentions 7.0 surround, but only when using software solutions like Alchemy or DSOAL. I'm not sure if it's possible to achieve more than 4.0 in this game when using actual retro hardware and Win9x.

MDK - supports at least 4 speakers. Requires an A3D patch (I used the combined D3D+A3D patch), then enable 3D sound in the Sound menu in-game. With the Audigy all sound was missing.

Nice! Another point for Sensaura/A3D it seems.

LucasArts games of the period (late-90's-early 2000's) had matrixed surround sound (Dolby Surround) implemented, for premium PC and console experience with - at the time - premium soundcards and speaker setups. In the late 90's, surround sound hadn't really been a consumer thing, outside of luxury homes and home theater enthusiasts (LaserDisc and DVD) who ponied up serious $$$$ for hardware, but some companies began to make PC speakers for surround sound experience - driven by PC DVD adoption at the same time - in the 97-99 period and quickly adopted 5.1 in the early 2000's, which took the industry by storm. Here's one of the more unusual gimmicks that came out during that early period of PC surround sound and would have been "perfect" for playing Jedi Knight....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ll-o4JttQk

RetroGamer4Ever wrote on 2022-11-20, 12:16:

Here's one of the more unusual gimmicks that came out during that early period of PC surround sound and would have been "perfect" for playing Jedi Knight....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ll-o4JttQk

Heh, that looks... kinda uncomfortable to wear. 😁

But I do find the Dolby Pro Logic decoder interesting. I think that might be able to extract surround sound from older games like WipeoutXL.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2022-11-20, 10:17:

Added Prince of Persia 3D and Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine.

Both of these deliver full 5.1 surround sound on my system.

Really? Maybe its emulation problem (i'm running Infernal machine through creative alchemy in win10 on x-fi soundcard), but i think there are no 5.1 surround on my system or its kinda faked..

KainXVIII wrote on 2022-11-20, 13:06:

Really? Maybe its emulation problem (i'm running Infernal machine through creative alchemy in win10 on x-fi soundcard), but i think there are no 5.1 surround on my system or its kinda faked..

I only test on real hardware under Win9x, so I can't comment on the various EAX wrappers and emulation solutions. Those are beyond the scope of this thread.

On my Audigy card, I get sound from the front and rear speakers, as well as center and subwoofer in both of those games.

POP supports (generic) 3d audio and Indy has Dolby Surround, so they would be upmixed to 5.1/7.1, if the audio device was configured to do that, which soundcards that employ 3D audio usually are. On an A/V receiver, you have to select that option, to engage DSP upmixing.

RetroGamer4Ever wrote on 2022-11-20, 13:27:

POP supports (generic) 3d audio and Indy has Dolby Surround, so they would be upmixed to 5.1/7.1, if the audio device was configured to do that, which soundcards that employ 3D audio usually are. On an A/V receiver, you have to select that option, to engage DSP upmixing.

Note that I specifically disable CMSS upmixing for my tests. It's clearly stated in the first post of this thread.

So any games that I've tested deliver sound to all speakers on my 5.1 system without that.

RetroGamer4Ever wrote on 2022-11-20, 13:27:

POP supports (generic) 3d audio and Indy has Dolby Surround, so they would be upmixed to 5.1/7.1, if the audio device was configured to do that, which soundcards that employ 3D audio usually are. On an A/V receiver, you have to select that option, to engage DSP upmixing.

According to my tests Creative soundcards do not support proper Dolby Pro Logic II decoding (that is upmixing Dolby Surround encoded 2 channel audio signal to 5.1 channels) .
The below attached test file works properly with external Dolby Pro Logic II decoders but does not work with Creative cards and drivers even with enabled CMSS. I could test it with SB Live 5.1 and Audigy 2 ZS.
BTW Dolby Pro Logic decoding does not seem to be a usual feature of consumer level 3D audio cards:
https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/are-ther … ogic-ii.924684/
https://arstechnica.com/civis/threads/do-any- … decoder.717288/

Falcosoft wrote on 2022-11-21, 15:42:

According to my tests Creative soundcards do not support proper Dolby Pro Logic II decoding (that is upmixing Dolby Surround en […]
Show full quote

RetroGamer4Ever wrote on 2022-11-20, 13:27:

POP supports (generic) 3d audio and Indy has Dolby Surround, so they would be upmixed to 5.1/7.1, if the audio device was configured to do that, which soundcards that employ 3D audio usually are. On an A/V receiver, you have to select that option, to engage DSP upmixing.

According to my tests Creative soundcards do not support proper Dolby Pro Logic II decoding (that is upmixing Dolby Surround encoded 2 channel audio signal to 5.1 channels) .
The below attached test file works properly with external Dolby Pro Logic II decoders but does not work with Creative cards and drivers even with enabled CMSS. I could test it with SB Live 5.1 and Audigy 2 ZS.
BTW Dolby Pro Logic decoding does not seem to be a usual feature of consumer level 3D audio cards:
https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/are-ther … ogic-ii.924684/
https://arstechnica.com/civis/threads/do-any- … decoder.717288/
Dolby Pro Logic II test.mp3

With headphone 7.1 virtual surround on the Sound Blaster X4, I can hear the channel separation with the test file.

I haven't had a 5.1 speaker setup since around 2009, so I can't test how well the file would decode, since I only have 2 channel speakers now.

I will admit the channel separation is better with Foobar2000's FreeSurround though.

I think the only consumer audio cards with official Dolby Prologic II decoding are older Asus Xonar sound cards and some older Gigabyte motherboards.

I recently tested GT Interactive's Driver (1999) and it delivered full 5.1 surround on my system.

Pretty interesting game for its time.

I'm not sure if it's possible, but Uru: Ages Beyond Myst and Myst V: End Of Ages both have EAX surround, at least with a 4.1 system. (I have a setup like that.)

T-Squared wrote on 2022-11-28, 22:36:

I'm not sure if it's possible, but Uru: Ages Beyond Myst and Myst V: End Of Ages both have EAX surround, at least with a 4.1 system. (I have a setup like that.)

Thanks! I've added Uru: Ages Beyond Myst as 4.1 for now. If someone with a 5.1 or 7.1 system has this game, let us know if it supports those speaker setting as well.

As for Myst V: End Of Ages, its system requirements (per Mobygames) list Windows 2000 as the earliest supported OS, so it doesn't seem to be a Win9x compatible game.

Since I've recently bought the retail version of Need for Speed 4: High Stakes, I can now confirm that it does indeed deliver full 5.1 surround sound on my system when D3D/EAX is selected under Options.

Furthermore, if you go to Options > Audio > Audio Test it will play a sound through every speaker individually in a 5.1 surround system.

Added Colin McRae Rally 3 and 04. I've only tested the single player demos, since I don't own the retail games, but both demos worked fine under Win9x and delivered full 5.1 surround sound on my system. The PC Gaming Wiki states that these games can go up to 7.1 so I'll defer to their assessment.

I should note that both Colin McRae Rally 04 and Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness only worked with WDM drivers under Win9x, at least on my system. The games either crashed or produced no sound when VxD drivers were used. Additionally, Colin McRae Rally 3 only delivered surround sound when WDM drivers were used.

While testing Glide games, I noticed that Motörhead delivers full 5.1 surround on my system with the latest official patch 3.0 applied and EAX enabled.

I was also able to confirm that Messiah, Requiem: Avenging Angel and Powerslide deliver at least 5.1 surround, as has been reported by others previously.

Removed Deus Ex 2: Invisible War from the list. While the PC Gaming Wiki claims that this game supports surround sound, I was unable to reproduce that while playing the retail PC version on period correct hardware. Furthermore, there are no references to surround sound anywhere in the game's menus, its manual or readme file.

If someone can provide a way to enable surround sound in this game, I will restore it to the list. For the moment, I view it as a false positive.

The game packaging said "Dolby Digital", which was definitely used on Xbox, but I can't say anyone has said anything firm about the PC version having it, despite the package graphics. Nvidia's NForce chipsets with Dolby Digital sound were a big thing in gaming systems back then and the box sports Nvidia signage, so maybe it was tied to those kinds of systems.

Steam version definitely has surround sound support (i'm using Creative Alchemy for 3d sound restoration, others use DSOAL or something)