The Windows 3.1 HD Audio driver you're probably looking for was created by Watler's World (archive link because the author's original site is down now). The driver is still available Here at Win3x.org but this is version 9.K while the latest version seems to be 9.L. I would attach the latest version here but there is no license statement at all included with the files, so I don't know if it's OK to redistribute.

onethirdxcubed wrote on 2025-05-30, 00:59:

The Windows 3.1 HD Audio driver you're probably looking for was created by Watler's World (archive link because the author's original site is down now). The driver is still available Here at Win3x.org but this is version 9.K while the latest version seems to be 9.L. I would attach the latest version here but there is no license statement at all included with the files, so I don't know if it's OK to redistribute.

Hello ! I was looking for the driver on the page you mentioned, I found it, but I had no luck getting it to work. Apparently it plays the sound, but I have a problem with the volume, I can't hear anything

There is a thread on MSFN where deomsh helps people with this driver. Try the different HDAICOUT.HDA files he posts in that thread and see if one of them will work with your particular audio codec. If not, you might need to get the datasheet for your codec and see what specific set of commands is needed to initialize everything, route the audio to your speakers and set all the volume controls. You might also see if SBEMU or VSBHDA work with your sound hardware in DOS.

I wish there was a proper Win9x audio driver that just worked without all this fiddling around but wishing won't make it happen.

onethirdxcubed wrote on 2025-06-12, 22:57:

There is a thread on MSFN where deomsh helps people with this driver. Try the different HDAICOUT.HDA files he posts in that thread and see if one of them will work with your particular audio codec. If not, you might need to get the datasheet for your codec and see what specific set of commands is needed to initialize everything, route the audio to your speakers and set all the volume controls. You might also see if SBEMU or VSBHDA work with your sound hardware in DOS.

I wish there was a proper Win9x audio driver that just worked without all this fiddling around but wishing won't make it happen.

Exactly, it's just what I'm looking for, configure the correct values ​​in the HDAICOUT.HDA file, so that it can play sounds in Windows 3.1x in protected mode (WIN/3).
As for VsbHDA, I didn't have any problems with the driver, and I also have audio in DOS and Windows, although in Windows 3.1x it works but only in standard mode (WIN/S), and sometimes the system becomes unstable or limited, wishing it could run in protected mode (WIN/3).

Hi, that HDA driver is new to me. 🙂
Does it emulate an Sound Blaster for DOS boxes, too, by any chance?
I'm asking, because the LPTDAC Windows driver for Covox Speech Thing had this ability.
Covox speech thingy!!!

Jo22 wrote on 2025-06-13, 01:54:

Hi, that HDA driver is new to me. 🙂 Does it emulate an Sound Blaster for DOS boxes, too, by any chance? I'm asking, because the […]
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Hi, that HDA driver is new to me. 🙂
Does it emulate an Sound Blaster for DOS boxes, too, by any chance?
I'm asking, because the LPTDAC Windows driver for Covox Speech Thing had this ability.
Covox speech thingy!!!

Hello!... First of all, I would like to provide information about the HDA driver for Windows 3.1x and, 9x? . This driver is designed to work with Windows, in my case I tested it with Windows 3.11, but I have seen that some people had success when experimenting with Windows 98se and it works! . I can't say yet if I could emulate Sound blaster in a DOS window, since I'm still trying to get it to work on my machine, but hopefully I can do it soon hehehe
Maybe @onethirdxcubed can guide you better

I was able to get this driver to work with 98SE in VirtualBox (same install instructions as 3.1, just change the wave=hda2.dll line to waveHDA=hda2.dll) but with choppy/crunchy sound, MIDI only working in some programs, and freezes with a page fault when opening a DOS prompt.
On both real systems I tried it on (Atom and VIA based thin clients) I got three pops then the startup sound then a 16 bit Windows error dialog and a hard lockup.

For Windows 98 I would really recommend adding a PCI or USB Audio Class 1.0 sound card instead, much more reliable than this driver. Any WDM sound driver will provide SB Pro digital sound and general MIDI emulation through sbemul.sys (but not AdLib).

I am currently doing research into writing a new proper HD Audio driver that works natively on Windows 98. It seems like it should be possible but no one has done it for 20 years. I'm not sure my C++ skills are up to the task though. There are some WDM driver examples in the ReactOS source code.

Installing DirectX 8.1 after the Watler's driver seems to help a lot with the scratchiness of the sound in VirtualBox but there's still stability problems when I just leave it sitting idle for a bit.

I have in fact started working on a new WDM driver - see my github.

Progress is going to be slow. ReactOS is kind of a bust unfortunately, their HD Audio bus driver has been an unimplemented stub for 5 years.

onethirdxcubed wrote on 2025-06-21, 19:08:

Installing DirectX 8.1 after the Watler's driver seems to help a lot with the scratchiness of the sound in VirtualBox but there's still stability problems when I just leave it sitting idle for a bit.

I have in fact started working on a new WDM driver - see my github.

Progress is going to be slow. ReactOS is kind of a bust unfortunately, their HD Audio bus driver has been an unimplemented stub for 5 years.

Brilliant! I am really very happy that you are starting to develop the HDA driver for Windows systems, and we hope to try it very soon, good luck brother!.

I finally have a somewhat working HD Audio driver, but it's only tested in VirtualBox so far and doesn't support variable sample rates yet. Also Winamp gets mad and only produces horrible screechy noises depending on the buffer sizes. Much more work and testing is still needed.

onethirdxcubed wrote on 2025-05-30, 00:59:

The Windows 3.1 HD Audio driver you're probably looking for was created by Watler's World (archive link because the author's original site is down now). The driver is still available Here at Win3x.org but this is version 9.K while the latest version seems to be 9.L. I would attach the latest version here but there is no license statement at all included with the files, so I don't know if it's OK to redistribute.

I did manage to find version 9 L re-uploaded by a win3x forum user.

@onethirdxcubed could you please verify if the file hosted on win3x is the same one you have (SHA256)?

I have a big list of things I've been meaning to try on 3.1. I'll add this one to the list.

I did manage to find version 9 L re-uploaded by a win3x forum user.

This is not a re-upload by a third party but archive.org links to a re-upload from the original author. So you should be fine.

Zilch wrote on 2025-10-21, 22:14:

@onethirdxcubed could you please verify if the file hosted on win3x is the same one you have (SHA256)?

I have a big list of things I've been meaning to try on 3.1. I'll add this one to the list.

I found version 9.L linked to by a MSFN forum member and it's also on Internet Archive and it all appears to be the same file. Wish I knew what happened to Watler though.

On another related topic, if anyone has a system set up with HD Audio and Windows 98/SE/ME, and a serial port, and a null modem cable, and is willing to set up a kernel debugger, I could use some help with testing my driver. It works in VirtualBox but hasn't been confirmed working on any real hardware yet. It freezes my Wyse Cx0 thin client and won't start on an Intel 915 board but I don't know why. I need a null modem cable to get debug information and the eBay seller sent me a lamp cord instead of what I ordered. I don't want to make a Releases thread for it until it's confirmed working on at least some real hardware and I can flesh out the features some more.

I finally got sound to work on Windows 3.1 (in Protected mode, not Standard) today on my netbook! It took a lot of fiddling and confusion for days but finally. It's not perfect though... starting up Windows with the driver takes more than 45 seconds with a busy mouse cursor as it tries to load the audio until finally hearing the tada and seeing Program Manager. Also the sound is choppy/sluggish, most apparent when playing an MP3 song in WinPlay3. But when I open an MS-DOS Prompt or other DOS program within Windows, the sound is mostly good and the song plays at normal speed. Returning back to Windows GUI it becomes choppy again. Maybe this is a clue for how to fix this problem.

This whole ordeal has been puzzling. HDADRV9J/K/L driver files have a lot of files in them that don't actually get used and that confused me as for why it's there. There were also very unclear instructions of how it works (the MSFN thread was nice, but all over the place). I've seen this HDA driver being discussed by users also on French language win3x.org and Russian language old-dos.ru. Big thanks to the user 'PluMGMK' from win3x.org who gave good instructions on the forum in French. Simply put what made it work for me is:

• Put HDATSR.EXE and WAVEOUT.EXE in C:\WINDOWS

• Put HDA2.DLL in C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM

(other files you may hear about like HDACFG.INI and HDAICOUT.HDA are auto generated stuff - this is something that really confused me before)

• Put line C:\WINDOWS\HDATSR.EXE in AUTOEXEC.BAT

• Put line wave=hda2.dll under [drivers] in SYSTEM.INI

FYI, when I look for sound card driver details in Win 3.1 for HDA it says: "High Definition Audio Intel ICH10 NFORCE MCP61 VIA".

Lualb wrote on 2025-05-22, 14:07:

Hello everyone... I've been searching endlessly for the HDA audio driver for Windows 3.1X. If anyone knows anything about it, please help me find and configure it. Thanks!

Have you been able to do it? I got HDA finally working on mine today!

onethirdxcubed wrote on 2025-06-21, 19:08:

Installing DirectX 8.1 after the Watler's driver seems to help a lot with the scratchiness of the sound in VirtualBox

Do you know if there's a similar solution for Win 3.1? (which does not run DirectX at all).

A few other sidenotes:

• Is it not possible to have HDA working within DOS itself?

• Is it possible to have MIDI playback? (with this HDA driver it doesn't)

• A little off topic, but the internal motherboard PC speaker does not beep at all in DOS. I can confirm it has such a speaker and it works fine in other operating systems on this PC. Any tips on how to get that speaker to work on DOS/Win 3.1?

1 and 2: yes it is possible
https://github.com/Baron-von-Riedesel/VSBHDA

AM_PM wrote on Today, 02:54:

... starting up Windows with the driver takes more than 45 seconds with a busy mouse cursor as it tries to load the audio until finally hearing the tada and seeing Program Manager. Ahow to fix this problem.

You can reduce the wait time by modifying the wait values in HDACFG.INI. E.g:
[HDA_8CA08086,A1821458]
cardmemregistersLO=$0000
cardmemregistersHI=$F743
Mytimer=1
Verbinterface=$1
wait1=$010
wait2=$010
...

AM_PM wrote on Today, 02:54:

This whole ordeal has been puzzling. HDADRV9J/K/L driver files have a lot of files in them that don't actually get used and that confused me as for why it's there.
...

Those other files are the Delphi/Pascal source files for the project(s). They are not needed for the driver to work but with the help of them you can modify the driver for your like. Delphi 1 is needed to compile them.

PS:
For better overall performance you should try PluMGMK's VESA video driver. The faster the GUI the better the audio performance.
https://github.com/PluMGMK/vbesvga.drv/releases

Hello everyone! After a long time, I have tried again to get the driver to work, but it seems that I have problems with the volume; nothing can be heard.