It looks like PCI bus hogging with video cards, this is mentioned in the "Vortex of Sound" FAQ:
https://web.archive.org/web/20031017062832/ht … lp/th-v2a13.htm
https://web.archive.org/web/20050207031402/ht … om/vgakills.txt

Perhaps your PCI bus is "overloaded", but before I give any advice, I'll first try to test these games on my minimal build (P2-350/440BX/AGP GF2MX/PCI SQ2500).

The Aureal cards were always a little problematic, from what I've experienced thus far, regardless of drivers or PCI slots. I can't use a Vortex 2 (Turtle Beach Montego II) in Thief: The Dark Project without some amount of popping happening occasionally. I've used both the 2000 (Aug/Sep 1998) and 2015 (December 1998) drivers for that game. Thief II: The Metal Age (with contemporary drivers) sounds fine in that regard, but that one exhibits weird positional 3D audio quirks (like sounds hard-panning to the wrong channel when looking too far up or down when facing a sound source, among other things) that no drivers can fix.

It's a shame, because I semi-recently committed to giving a fair shake to a bunch of A3D-supported titles with the real hardware, expecting to be pleasantly surpised, only to come across flaw after flaw. It's obviously not like that all of the time, but more than I would like (and in some of the best-sounding titles, no less).

I installed the 2041 driver on SQ2500 (AU8830B0) and ran Star Trek Voyager Elite Force with A3D.

Everything was fine at beginning of the prologue, but as I progressed, the ambient sounds disappeared. I only heard guns and the voices of NPC.
Without A3D all sounds are played normally.
This game also has miss-panning, but I didn't notice any loud crackling or glitching sounds.

But here's what's interesting: I decided to add PCI network card and heard crackling sound.
Muting all analog inputs didn't help.

I also have cheap 440BX motherboard, so maybe it doesn't isolate interference well.

ott wrote on 2026-04-23, 18:15:

I installed the 2041 driver on SQ2500 (AU8830B0) and ran Star Trek Voyager Elite Force with A3D. […]
Show full quote

I installed the 2041 driver on SQ2500 (AU8830B0) and ran Star Trek Voyager Elite Force with A3D.

Everything was fine at beginning of the prologue, but as I progressed, the ambient sounds disappeared. I only heard guns and the voices of NPC.
Without A3D all sounds are played normally.
This game also has miss-panning, but I didn't notice any loud crackling or glitching sounds.

But here's what's interesting: I decided to add PCI network card and heard crackling sound.
Muting all analog inputs didn't help.

I also have cheap 440BX motherboard, so maybe it doesn't isolate interference well.

How far did you progress?

I managed to figure out that it seems the Expansion pack breaks A3D support entirely. I installed the game without the expansion and I played through the entire intro-sequence on the Borg Cube, without issues.

Network card or no network card didn't really make any difference for me though with NFS2SE, neither did disabling Scan-Live interleave, to see if the chatter between the Voodoo cards was causing issues. Like i said, most games seem to run just fine, so I'm guessing some games just don't like Aureal cards, just like some just don't play nice with Sound Blaster.

I guess we've been spoiled with modern computers where stuff... just works. 🤣

Alexraptor wrote on 2026-04-23, 19:48:

How far did you progress?

I managed to figure out that it seems the Expansion pack breaks A3D support entirely. I installed the game without the expansion and I played through the entire intro-sequence on the Borg Cube, without issues.

I completed this exact mission.

Are you sure you were playing with A3D?
Every time I launch ST:V EF, this option is disabled and needs to be re-enabled in game menu, which is a bit annoying. I had the same issue in Quake 3 Arena.

I played with muted music, so the difference in the number of voices (A3D vs non-A3D) was more noticeable.
The latest patch V1.2 didn't help.

I also fixed the noise coming from the network card. It was in the slot next to the sound card.
I moved it to the bottom PCI slot and the noise went away (there's one free PCI slot between network card and sound card).
However, now my video card and network card share the same IRQ11, but everything seems to be working fine.

ott wrote on 2026-04-24, 16:51:

I completed this exact mission. […]
Show full quote

Alexraptor wrote on 2026-04-23, 19:48:

How far did you progress?

I managed to figure out that it seems the Expansion pack breaks A3D support entirely. I installed the game without the expansion and I played through the entire intro-sequence on the Borg Cube, without issues.

I completed this exact mission.

Are you sure you were playing with A3D?
Every time I launch ST:V EF, this option is disabled and needs to be re-enabled in game menu, which is a bit annoying. I had the same issue in Quake 3 Arena.

I played with muted music, so the difference in the number of voices (A3D vs non-A3D) was more noticeable.
The latest patch V1.2 didn't help.

I also fixed the noise coming from the network card. It was in the slot next to the sound card.
I moved it to the bottom PCI slot and the noise went away (there's one free PCI slot between network card and sound card).
However, now my video card and network card share the same IRQ11, but everything seems to be working fine.

Yes, it was most definitely turned on, positional audio worked beautifully.