What does the log say?

Also what is this "Creative X-fi patch" I've never even heard of this patch. I had hardware mixed audio working just fine on Windows 7 Ultimate with a X-Fi Titanium HD (a system I nolonger have anymore) and I didn't need any kind of patch; I only needed the last version release of Creative's proprietary OpenAL library. On other soundcards including intergrated audio, OpenAL Soft has always worked fine for me when making UT2004 use it as the OpenAL provider rather than Creative's own OpenAL libraries.

DracoNihil wrote on 2024-06-08, 06:09:

Also what is this "Creative X-fi patch" I've never even heard of this patch.

Unreal Tournament 2004 originally shipped with EAX 3.0. To promote their X-Fi cards, Creative later released a custom patch which adds EAX 5.0 support.

It improves positional audio, adds customized dynamic music (which sounds terrible IMO), introduces (crappy) new weapon sounds and adds some other stuff. I've shared some of my experiences with that patch in this thread.

Also since you're trying to use OpenAL Soft with UT2004 put a alsoft.conf text file in UT2004's System folder with this in it:

1[general]
2drivers = wasapi
3channels = surround51
4frequency = 48000
5period_size = 1024
6periods = 2
7stereo-mode = speakers
8stereo-encoding = basic
9hrtf = off
10resampler = linear
11output-limiter = off
12
13[wasapi]
14spatial-api = false
15allow-resampler = true
16
17[eax]
18enable = true

The WASAPI backend in OpenAL Soft doesn't seem to allow picking a device, so you need to make sure you set your default device properly in Windows' global settings.

Thanks for the feedback.
Indeed I have installed the EAX 5.0 Creative patch and I'm running the 32bit version of UT2004.
I've tried adding the above config in the UT2004/System folder but get the same error.

The UT2004 log shows:
Log: ALAudio: AL_OUT_OF_MEMORY in Init (creating transient source)
Error: ALAudio: couldn't allocate transient source
Error: Audio initialization failed.

ALsoft log shows:
[ALSOFT] (WW) Querying error state on null context (implicitly 0xa004)
[ALSOFT] (II) Increasing allocated effect slots to 4
[ALSOFT] (WW) Error generated on context 0D3659D0, code 0xa005, "Exceeding 256 source limit (256 + 1)"

I have onboard sound but it's disabled in the BIOS as I just use HDMI output from the GTX 1080ti to my AVR.

I can upload the entire logs if required but that's the error messages I'm getting. No idea why the game seems to request more sources than is allowed in EAX mode. I've tried changing the sources limit from 256 but it always requests +1 so is over the limit.

kcajjones wrote on 2024-06-08, 09:37:

Log: ALAudio: AL_OUT_OF_MEMORY in Init (creating transient source)

I have no idea why you'd be getting that message.

Only thing I can think of trying is enabling one of those "memory status lies" that hopefully are still part of Windows these days, but I don't remember how to work Application Compatibility Administrator in years.

Does anything happen if you run UT2004 under; say "Windows XP" for compatibility mode?

DracoNihil wrote on 2024-06-08, 09:42:

I have no idea why you'd be getting that message.

Only thing I can think of trying is enabling one of those "memory status lies" that hopefully are still part of Windows these days, but I don't remember how to work Application Compatibility Administrator in years.

Does anything happen if you run UT2004 under; say "Windows XP" for compatibility mode?

No change for Windows XP compatibility modes sadly. I just edited my post to include the error from the ALsoft log.

*EDIT*
Just managed to fix the issue. Increasing the sound sources from 256 to 512 and sound is restored!

kcajjones wrote on 2024-06-08, 10:17:

Just managed to fix the issue. Increasing the sound sources from 256 to 512 and sound is restored!

I'm only even more confused why that fixed the problem.

DracoNihil wrote on 2024-06-09, 10:34:

I'm only even more confused why that fixed the problem.

Yes, as far as I know the X-fi processor could do a maximum of 128 sound sounds. I've posted the issue on the OpenALsoft github.

There's also this fix for voice chat using a modified OpenAL Soft build https://github.com/zenakuten/openal-soft/releases/latest