such wrote on 2026-05-24, 19:04:

Some of the games on that list... don't even exist (X-Com: Alliance?), so always take it with a grain of salt. A3D 3.0 AFAIK also doesn't exist. Perhaps planned, but by that time Creative had already brutalized Aureal.

Wasn't Messiah a game with A3D 3.0 support? I think it makes use of the whole A3DVerb "non-modelled" (i.e. "EAX-like") reverb engine that came with the 2048 drivers (I think? Either that or 2041). Perhaps it's possible that I'm misremembering something, but I'm fairly sure I flipped between A3D and EAX and recall both settings having EAX-style reverb (with A3D having the typically pronounced positioning as well).
I also tried the Soldier of Fortune demo, yet I don't recall an A3D 3.0 option. Maybe that was only in the full retail version?

such wrote on 2026-05-24, 19:04:

AndreaColombo86 wrote on 2026-05-24, 15:34:

Thank you for that list. I was unaware A3D 3.0 existed. What we could have had…! […]
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Thank you for that list. I was unaware A3D 3.0 existed. What we could have had…!

Some games are reported as having A3D 3.0 support but I doubt that’s true. The standard was released shortly before Aureal closed up shop.

Also, some of the games in the list inaccurately report supporting A3D 2.0 (e.g. Baldur’s Gate 2).

There are games I could be interested in if they actually supported A3D 2.0:

- Neverwinter Nights
- Unreal 2
- Unreal Tournament

Does anybody know whether they do support it?

Apologies for derailing the thread with something only tangentially related, but I figured most audio aficionados who would know this stuff would hang around here.

Joseph—so it’s not like I can install the latest driver and call it a day?

Some of the games on that list... don't even exist (X-Com: Alliance?), so always take it with a grain of salt. A3D 3.0 AFAIK also doesn't exist. Perhaps planned, but by that time Creative had already brutalized Aureal.

A3D 3.0 did exist and Aureal had a deluxe soundcard offering to "push it", but it was really just the Vortex 2 chip connected to a 100MHz DSP, to handle the "premium digital audio" functions, even though Aureal had their own unused DSP design for that. Some people have managed to acquire A3D 3.0 engineering/test hardware and finalized cards that made it out of the wreckage of Aureal. Creative currently has no legal claim to anything that Aureal had, so it's possible to reverse engineer the Aureal stuff and do whatever we want with it, which at least one forum member had been doing back in the 2010's.

Thanks for clarifying. It's right on the edge of what I'd call... "existing", but interesting info nonetheless.

EDIT: deleted

AndreaColombo86 wrote on 2026-05-25, 10:35:

This is what A3D 3.0 would have brought to the table according to AI:

Using AI for getting retro PC gaming information often leads to inaccuracies. If you can't find a hard source, it might be better refrain from posting AI slop here. As the very post on this forum can be referenced as a "source" by some future AI search, leading to even more inaccuracies.

Also, a lot of people here frown upon the use of AI, myself included. You're less likely to receive help from people who have actual first-hand knowledge about a subject if you resort to AI "information". For my part, I'd rather not pollute this thread with AI slop, so please keep it to a minimum here.

My apologies. I’ve deleted the post.

So here’s a question: has anybody tried Unreal II on Win98SE?

On the Vogons Wiki it says it supports EAX 3.0 via OpenAL. Now, my Audigy 2 ZS definitely supports EAX 3.0, but I don’t know whether OpenAL was ever a thing on Win98SE.

AndreaColombo86 wrote on 2026-06-07, 16:41:

So here’s a question: has anybody tried Unreal II on Win98SE?

On the Vogons Wiki it says it supports EAX 3.0 via OpenAL. Now, my Audigy 2 ZS definitely supports EAX 3.0, but I don’t know whether OpenAL was ever a thing on Win98SE.

Games which used OpenAL usually shipped the required binaries on the disc. I haven't actually tried an OpenAL game under Win9x, so I can't say how that would go. It's possible that you may need to install WDM drivers in order for OpenAL to work under Win9x, but I don't know for sure. Those drivers are suboptimal for Win9x gaming when playing certain titles made before 2001 or so.

Personally, I make 2001 the cutoff point for Win9x gaming. Anything released in 2002 and later, I play under WinXP or on a newer Windows version. Maybe there's some edge case out there, but so far, I haven't found a reason to run games which use DX8 or DX9 under Win9x.

Thanks for your reply. I’m going to give it a try and we’ll see if it works.

Is there a preferred driver version for the Audigy 2 ZS under Win98SE? I reckon I should get a VxD driver, but I assume there are several 😅

Unreal II's EAX implementation isn't all that great, two years ago I tried it with two different systems and got audio pops with both. Having EAX on only made it worse so I turned it off and I don't remember noticing any missing sound effects.

In my experience Unreal 2 engine games in general aren't much of EAX showcases, they got positional audio and some occlusion effects but I personally haven't exactly been blown away by their accelerated audio.

AndreaColombo86 wrote on 2026-06-07, 17:02:

Is there a preferred driver version for the Audigy 2 ZS under Win98SE? I reckon I should get a VxD driver, but I assume there are several 😅

Under Win9x, the official Audigy 2 ZS installation CD will install WDM drivers by default. Running Creative's Driver Utility after that provides a way of switching to VxD drivers. That's the official method.

I wrote an unofficial guide which allows for direct installation of VxD drivers, but it's aimed toward advanced users, and can be difficult to follow for others.

Sombrero wrote on 2026-06-07, 17:15:

In my experience Unreal 2 engine games in general aren't much of EAX showcases, they got positional audio and some occlusion effects but I personally haven't exactly been blown away by their accelerated audio.

Thief: Deadly Shadows is an UE 2 game. 😉

Not sure if you include UE 2.5 in that, but if so, UT 2004 with the EAX 5.0 patch sounded pretty good to me. But only after I turned off the awful dynamic music and the crappy new weapon sounds.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2026-06-07, 17:29:

Thief: Deadly Shadows is an UE 2 game. 😉

Oh right, so it is. I guess that one is the outlier, I still haven't tried it but I trust your praise for its EAX is well earned.

Not sure if you include UE 2.5 in that, but if so, UT 2004 with the EAX 5.0 patch sounded pretty good to me. But only after I turned off the awful dynamic music and the crappy new weapon sounds.

Sure, but it did need a helping hand from Creative themselves to boost it up a bit later.

Sombrero wrote on 2026-06-07, 17:15:

Unreal II's EAX implementation isn't all that great, two years ago I tried it with two different systems and got audio pops with both. Having EAX on only made it worse so I turned it off and I don't remember noticing any missing sound effects.

In my experience Unreal 2 engine games in general aren't much of EAX showcases, they got positional audio and some occlusion effects but I personally haven't exactly been blown away by their accelerated audio.

I'd be quite interested to find out what sound card (and also drivers) you tried Unreal II with. I know that UT2003 has issues with missing sounds if you play with the original 2001 retail drivers on the Sound Blaster Audigy (the first model, SB0090, in my case), but that's not a problem with the AUDDRVPACK.EXE driver update (from August 2002) and onward (I think?). Popping and crackling is also another issue that the AUDDRVPACK.EXE update fixes from the retail drivers.

Now, there is some positional weirdness in hardware 3D audio mode with the early UT2003/Unreal Warfare engine flavor of Unreal Engine 2 games; if you look too far up or down, the left and right channels switch positions! A very unfortunate oversight 'that also plagues Postal 2 and, if I'm not misremembering, even Unreal II, but I have to double-check that one. Maybe also Devastation but, again, will have to confirm that one.

Dipshidian wrote on Today, 08:01:

I'd be quite interested to find out what sound card (and also drivers) you tried Unreal II with.

There's been some changes since I played U2 over two years ago and I no longer remember what card the other system had at the time, but the other system had SB Audigy 2 (SB0240) with driver 5.12.0001.0383 from Creative driver disc from April 2003 under WinXP.

The other system at that time had either SB X-Fi XtremeGamer Fatal1ty Pro or SB X-Fi XtremeMusic with driver 2.18.0015 for WinXP and Win7, I tried both operating systems on that machine. I don't think I had yet upgraded to X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Professional (PCIe SB0886) on that system but if I had the driver would have been 2.17.0008.

Now, there is some positional weirdness in hardware 3D audio mode with the early UT2003/Unreal Warfare engine flavor of Unreal Engine 2 games; if you look too far up or down, the left and right channels switch positions! A very unfortunate oversight 'that also plagues Postal 2 and, if I'm not misremembering, even Unreal II, but I have to double-check that one. Maybe also Devastation but, again, will have to confirm that one.

Heh, that's interesting. I'll have to see if I can replicate that at some point.

Sombrero wrote on Today, 09:46:

There's been some changes since I played U2 over two years ago and I no longer remember what card the other system had at the time, but the other system had SB Audigy 2 (SB0240) with driver 5.12.0001.0383 from Creative driver disc from April 2003 under WinXP.

Then it should work just fine, one would think. Drivers are more than fresh enough for the game, Audigy 2 cards pre-date Unreal II as well. Very odd!

I’ve had a similar issue, but sorta in reverse, regarding F.E.A.R. between one computer with an Audigy (1) and another with an Audigy 2 card. If I use the October 31st 2003 EAX4 drivers on both cards (it’s the aud_eax4drv_031031.exe installer for Audigy, and sba2_eax4drv_031031.exe for Audigy 2), I get crackles/pops constantly with the Audigy 1 but not with the Audigy 2. I get that this could maybe be caused by numerous other factors (potential on-board device interference/conflict, chipset incompatibility, etc.) — which I have yet to examine in any great detail — but it’s not impossible that the Audigy 1 might simply have been neglected in the last minute by the game’s QA department.

I won’t suggest the issues you had with the Audigy 2 in Unreal II is related the issue I had. As I do, however, also have an Audigy 2, I might give Unreal II a little spin myself, if only out of curiosity.

Dipshidian wrote on Today, 16:50:

Then it should work just fine, one would think. Drivers are more than fresh enough for the game, Audigy 2 cards pre-date Unreal II as well. Very odd!

I think it's just how the game is. There was something about the devs doing some heavy modifications to the sound engine mentioned in the readme, they may have just dug too deep. It also depends on DirectMusic so using WinVista or later OS will lead to issues.

The sound crackling wasn't too bad, I soon started to ignore it just fine. I just notice stuff like that easily as a headphone user and as someone who's hearing has always been a little too good. Trust me, you really can have too good hearing!