Yes.

Most burning suites support that format.

wierd_w wrote on Yesterday, 18:29:

Yes.

Most burning suites support that format.

Sorry to disturb you, but if you've successfully burned a redbook CD, could you let me know your program of choice? And for that program, any settings that are essential? (in case you remember)

Yeah the burning process is not the challenge there, if you have a proper .bin/.cue image most if not all programs will by default burn it right, including audio tracks. Pretty easy to validate your disc is correct with an audio player, if track 2+ are actual music tracks. The issue may be with your setup and your soundcard, do you have the analog 4pins CD cable hooked up to your soundcard to CD IN? Is the CD input enabled and not at volume 0 in your soundcard mixer settings? Digital Audio Extraction started becoming a thing in the win9x era, but I think it was only a feature under Windows, not under DOS (please correct me if I'm wrong anyone).

In any case, spin your burned disc into any known working audio CD player and tracks 2+ should have music tracks. If that works you know it's your computer setup and not the burned disc. Maybe give some more info about your hardware as well to help troubleshooting.

EDIT to your last message: again the burning process is basically foolproof. Burn image to disc option -> select cue sheet -> burn (as a rule of thumb, at a low speed if target drive is a retro drive). No specific settings necessary.

Some good burning tools:

ImgBurn
Alcohol 120%
CDBurnerXP (used to be good, haven't used in years, I just hope it didn't turn to shit?)

There's potential caveats that their data track is not the correct format.

I'm old and fuzzy, but recall that legit mixed mode discs need the data track in mode2 format, not mode1 format.

Depending on how the data track was ripped, that *might* be the issue, if OP is having one.

Boohyaka wrote on Yesterday, 18:46:

Yeah the burning process is not the challenge there, if you have a proper .bin/.cue image most if not all programs will by default burn it right, including audio tracks. Pretty easy to validate your disc is correct with an audio player, if track 2+ are actual music tracks. The issue may be with your setup and your soundcard, do you have the analog 4pins CD cable hooked up to your soundcard to CD IN? Is the CD input enabled and not at volume 0 in your soundcard mixer settings? Digital Audio Extraction started becoming a thing in the win9x era, but I think it was only a feature under Windows, not under DOS (please correct me if I'm wrong anyone).

In any case, spin your burned disc into any known working audio CD player and tracks 2+ should have music tracks. If that works you know it's your computer setup and not the burned disc. Maybe give some more info about your hardware as well to help troubleshooting.

Thanks and sure thing! Here's the setup I'm trying to get redbook game working in - motherboard is a gigabyte EX58 (don't exactly remember the full model name, but I will confirm this later when I get back to my hometown in a few days). The cd drive is TEAC DV W516GA with working audio out pins. The sound card is Audigy 2 ZS and at least in windows 98, with a connector between CD drive's audio out and audigy's CD-IN, the cd audio works perfectly (tried with a music album CD).

The catch is that in DOS, I definitely have to use either SBEMU or VSBHDA - both excellent programs but I don't know if they have some mixer. I know audigy 2 zs most likely doesn't have a DOS-native mixer program. As per what you said, first I have to burn .bin/.cue the right way, and then to check if VSBHDA/SBEMU have CD input enabled and unmuted...

wierd_w wrote on Yesterday, 18:53:

There's potential caveats that their data track is not the correct format.

I'm old and fuzzy, but recall that legit mixed mode discs need the data track in mode2 format, not mode1 format.

Depending on how the data track was ripped, that *might* be the issue, if OP is having one.

Does alcohol 120% allow checking whether the data track in .bin/.cue is in mode2 or mode1?

The .cue says if it is or not. 😁

Buuut... sadly.....

Redbook with vsbhda may be a crapshoot.
there are numerous reasons for that, but mainly, dos CDA is an analog thing, first and formost. It comes straight out of the cdrom drive and gets mixed by the soundcard through a designated input. If you are using vsbhda with an awe 64 gold or something that HAS CDA inputs, then there's a good shot at it working.

If you are using vsbhda with an HDA device that lacks such an input... ... well...

To be more clear:

A cdrom drive can be instructed to play an audio cd track by a program with very simple commands. THIS is what most DOS games the use CDA do. They just tell the drive to play a track, starting at a specific timestamp. The drive itself then just plays out the audio on its cd audio cable, the soundcard takes that audio, and mixes it in.

From the game's pov, there is no more supporting code than that.

In *RECENT* years, the way these discs get played in a drive is quite different. The digital track is actively read by the computer, and the raw pcm data in the track is *digitally* mixed.

HDA is a modern, digital, design.

To have proper cd audio from mixed mode discs in dos, your drive, and your sound hardware, have to support analog cd audio playback.

wierd_w wrote on Yesterday, 19:02:

The .cue says if it is or not. :D […]
Show full quote

The .cue says if it is or not. 😁

Buuut... sadly.....

Redbook with vsbhda may be a crapshoot.
there are numerous reasons for that, but mainly, dos CDA is an analog thing, first and formost. It comes straight out of the cdrom drive and gets mixed by the soundcard through a designated input. If you are using vsbhda with an awe 64 gold or something that HAS CDA inputs, then there's a good shot at it working.

If you are using vsbhda with an HDA device that lacks such an input... ... well...

So I have an Audigy 2 ZS that does have both a CD-in 4 pin input and an Aux 4 pin input. I guess in such a case it can work? I'll of course have to mount the CD drive as a device via SHSUCDX in DOS

Mounted images cannot playback the track!

Only a physical drive, attached to a physical audio card, will work!

wierd_w wrote on Yesterday, 19:12:

Mounted images cannot playback the track!

Only a physical drive, attached to a physical audio card, will work!

I'm really sorry I wasn't accurate in my last post and I misremembered the program to use to allow DOS to detect the CD drive. I meant MSCDEX (SHSUCDX is for images so that's why it got confusing). So the setup I'm trying to go for is: game .bin/.cue burned to a physical CD. The CD is put in a physical IDE CD drive. There is a connector between audio out of the CD drive and CD-IN of the audigy 2 zs sound card. Finally in DOS, using MSCDEX to get DOS to recognize the physical CD drive and mount it as a drive (e.g. F:\) in DOS. And using VSBHDA or SBEMU to enable sounds from audigy 2 zs.

Again, apologies for my vague and incorrect wording of the previous post

Yes, that has a shot at working.

Make sure the volume mixer has cd audio enabled, and not turned down to 0 on volume.

See Joseph_Joestar's comment here:

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2025-12-12, 04:14:

On Audigy 2 ZS cards (SB0350) only, digital CD audio (via CD_SPDIF header) doesn't work under Win9x when using VxD drivers. It looks like Creative deliberately disabled that, possibly due to DRM concerns.

Additionally, analog CD audio doesn't work in pure DOS on both Audigy 2 (SB0240) and Audigy 2 ZS (SB0350) cards. This is likely because there are no official DOS drivers for those cards, and Creative changed how analog audio routing works while developing the Audigy 2. More info here.

In summary, if you want analog CD audio in pure DOS on an Audigy card, stick with the Audigy 1 (SB0090). Similarly, if you want working digital CD audio under Win9x with VxD drivers, don't use an Audigy 2 ZS.

Re: No CD music (Redbook Audio) is being heard using SB Audigy 2 ZS (retail)

Otherwise, I would typically say to first check a commercial audio CD in DOS using CD Player software (such as this one) to rule out issues with burning images.

xtreger wrote on Yesterday, 18:19:

Hi, I have .bin and .cue files for a few DOS games that have redbook audio, like Tomb Raider.

Are these images from GOG by any chance? If so, this may help for Tombraider:

https://youtu.be/gvJuPWutxhc?si=x0QcrECxjCQcUeTf

Or if the audio tracks arent compressed then this one :

https://youtu.be/Q0_yGmUx3Q8?si=TY8373dV47KrjbAz

jh80 wrote on Yesterday, 20:17:

See Joseph_Joestar's comment here: […]
Show full quote

See Joseph_Joestar's comment here:

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2025-12-12, 04:14:

On Audigy 2 ZS cards (SB0350) only, digital CD audio (via CD_SPDIF header) doesn't work under Win9x when using VxD drivers. It looks like Creative deliberately disabled that, possibly due to DRM concerns.

Additionally, analog CD audio doesn't work in pure DOS on both Audigy 2 (SB0240) and Audigy 2 ZS (SB0350) cards. This is likely because there are no official DOS drivers for those cards, and Creative changed how analog audio routing works while developing the Audigy 2. More info here.

In summary, if you want analog CD audio in pure DOS on an Audigy card, stick with the Audigy 1 (SB0090). Similarly, if you want working digital CD audio under Win9x with VxD drivers, don't use an Audigy 2 ZS.

Re: No CD music (Redbook Audio) is being heard using SB Audigy 2 ZS (retail)

Otherwise, I would typically say to first check a commercial audio CD in DOS using CD Player software (such as this one) to rule out issues with burning images.

I wonder if the AUX input still works, technically you could forgo the ability to control the "cd volume" and connect the audio cable to the aux header

jh80 wrote on Yesterday, 20:17:

See Joseph_Joestar's comment here: […]
Show full quote

See Joseph_Joestar's comment here:

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2025-12-12, 04:14:

On Audigy 2 ZS cards (SB0350) only, digital CD audio (via CD_SPDIF header) doesn't work under Win9x when using VxD drivers. It looks like Creative deliberately disabled that, possibly due to DRM concerns.

Additionally, analog CD audio doesn't work in pure DOS on both Audigy 2 (SB0240) and Audigy 2 ZS (SB0350) cards. This is likely because there are no official DOS drivers for those cards, and Creative changed how analog audio routing works while developing the Audigy 2. More info here.

In summary, if you want analog CD audio in pure DOS on an Audigy card, stick with the Audigy 1 (SB0090). Similarly, if you want working digital CD audio under Win9x with VxD drivers, don't use an Audigy 2 ZS.

Re: No CD music (Redbook Audio) is being heard using SB Audigy 2 ZS (retail)

Otherwise, I would typically say to first check a commercial audio CD in DOS using CD Player software (such as this one) to rule out issues with burning images.

Thank you! I'll test this out

NeoG_ wrote on Yesterday, 21:03:

I wonder if the AUX input still works, technically you could forgo the ability to control the "cd volume" and connect the audio cable to the aux header

That could be worth a try. The main thing is whether VSBHDA or SBEMU mixers will allow aux audio channel with unmuted volume..

If you've not seen it, the guy who made the PicoGUS is making a PicoIDE where you can just put those .cue and .bin files right on an SD card. Not out yet, and doesn't directly answer your question OP, but worth looking into.

vt86 wrote on Today, 04:04:

If you've not seen it, the guy who made the PicoGUS is making a PicoIDE where you can just put those .cue and .bin files right on an SD card. Not out yet, and doesn't directly answer your question OP, but worth looking into.

It will have the same issue as a physical drive, the audio is output from a 4 pin analog cable to the sound card