Hi,

Have you tried non-game audio applications like Media Player? If it just games it is possible that it is a broken DirectSound installation.

MagefromAntares wrote on 2026-07-06, 19:24:

Hi,

Have you tried non-game audio applications like Media Player? If it just games it is possible that it is a broken DirectSound installation.

I got a simple MIDI file to play with a third party midi player but when I tried to play an MP3 via Windows Media Player, I got a "no audio device found" error.

is there a way to fix a broken DirectSound installation or am I looking at a Windows 98 reinstall?

soviet conscript wrote on 2026-07-07, 16:15:

MagefromAntares wrote on 2026-07-06, 19:24:

Hi,

Have you tried non-game audio applications like Media Player? If it just games it is possible that it is a broken DirectSound installation.

I got a simple MIDI file to play with a third party midi player but when I tried to play an MP3 via Windows Media Player, I got a "no audio device found" error.

is there a way to fix a broken DirectSound installation or am I looking at a Windows 98 reinstall?

Hmm, if the MIDI file works but MP3 playback in Windows Media Player fails with a "no audio device found" error that means the MIDI device driver works properly, but most likely the normal Audio Driver have some issues, maybe something got wrong during the installation or there is a resource conflict.

As a first step, can you post how the device looks like in the Device Manager?

Everything seems ok with no conflicts.

its worth noting I did get audio to work fine with the built-in audio, games and all but it's pretty generic audio with obviously no real EAX support or anything like that. I've been through the BIOS several times and made sure anything related to the onboard audio was disabled. I also looked up the board to see if anyone else had issues with discrete sound cards but nothing. I also updated the DirectX version to i think 8 or 8.1, hoping it may fix any directSound issues but not changes.

Definitely an odd problem.

I would have thought it was DirectSound\DirectX related, but you said you tried that already.

The next thing I would do is try lowering the hardware acceleration for audio. If you go to Multimedia Properties and click "Advanced Properties" on your Playback device you should see a Performance tab to control that.

There is an example toward the bottom of this page:
https://www.nparc.org/library/soundcardsettings.htm

Lowering the acceleration can sometimes help to diagnose the problem. If lowering it fixes things then it could be a sound card driver issue, or possibly still DirectSound if something is really broken or incompatible.

You mentioned drying three different sound cards. What models were they? Also, there can actually be a big difference from one Sound Blaster Live model to another, so it's important to have the model number from the card too (like CT4760).

Try to reseat the card of give it a good push from top to bottom.

Also check dxdiag and see if it sees the card and that you can run the test DirectSound.

Reinstall the drivers?

Reduced hardware acceleration, no change.

moved sound card to a different slot and reseated firmly, no change.

running dxdiag it does not seem to see the card under the sound tab but it does under the music tab though it won't let me run the test option.

I tried a Turtle Beach Montego II card with an Aureal chip, I tried one of those Yamaha cards with built in XG sound and I've tried this SB Live! Value card with same results, sounds play in Windows but not games. Only sound I got to work properly was the built in AC97 which i guess is better than nothing but certainly not ideal.

have you disabled onboard sound? Have you tried changing IRQ?

Law212 wrote on 2026-07-07, 20:24:

have you disabled onboard sound? Have you tried changing IRQ?

on-board sound is totally disabled in the BIOS and does not appear in device manager so i'm not sure if theres anything else I can do.

I tried changing the IRQ of the Sound Blaster in System Properties but it won't allow me.

At this point I'm tempted to just format and reinstall Windows but ugh... it's a lot of driver installations and time and there's no guarantee it will work.

Did you remove the sound drivers and just reinstall those ? have you tried a different driver?

woops, NM, I see you already tried turning off acceleration.

Hmmmm....

soviet conscript wrote on 2026-07-07, 20:15:

Reduced hardware acceleration, no change. […]
Show full quote

Reduced hardware acceleration, no change.

moved sound card to a different slot and reseated firmly, no change.

running dxdiag it does not seem to see the card under the sound tab but it does under the music tab though it won't let me run the test option.

I tried a Turtle Beach Montego II card with an Aureal chip, I tried one of those Yamaha cards with built in XG sound and I've tried this SB Live! Value card with same results, sounds play in Windows but not games. Only sound I got to work properly was the built in AC97 which i guess is better than nothing but certainly not ideal.

Very strange. If dxdiag isn't seeing it and you have tried multiple sound cards, then it sounds like a DirectX issue.

Sorry if I missed it, but how recent is this Windows install? For testing purposes, do you have another drive you can install a fresh copy of Windows on (with a sound card you want to use installed)? I would then install an older version of DirectX, like 7.0, since a lot of these cards were from the pre-DX8 days. (Available here)

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2026-07-07, 21:01:

soviet conscript wrote on 2026-07-07, 20:15:

Reduced hardware acceleration, no change. […]
Show full quote

Reduced hardware acceleration, no change.

moved sound card to a different slot and reseated firmly, no change.

running dxdiag it does not seem to see the card under the sound tab but it does under the music tab though it won't let me run the test option.

I tried a Turtle Beach Montego II card with an Aureal chip, I tried one of those Yamaha cards with built in XG sound and I've tried this SB Live! Value card with same results, sounds play in Windows but not games. Only sound I got to work properly was the built in AC97 which i guess is better than nothing but certainly not ideal.

Very strange. If dxdiag isn't seeing it and you have tried multiple sound cards, then it sounds like a DirectX issue.

Sorry if I missed it, but how recent is this Windows install? For testing purposes, do you have another drive you can install a fresh copy of Windows on (with a sound card you want to use installed)? I would then install an older version of DirectX, like 7.0, since a lot of these cards were from the pre-DX8 days. (Available here)

It was a recent install, like a few weeks ago.

well, all is good now. somthing must of been really Borked on that other install. stuck in a spare HDD and reinstalled Win98 and all the drivers and seems to be working fine.

soviet conscript wrote on 2026-07-09, 01:52:

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2026-07-07, 21:01:

soviet conscript wrote on 2026-07-07, 20:15:

Reduced hardware acceleration, no change. […]
Show full quote

Reduced hardware acceleration, no change.

moved sound card to a different slot and reseated firmly, no change.

running dxdiag it does not seem to see the card under the sound tab but it does under the music tab though it won't let me run the test option.

I tried a Turtle Beach Montego II card with an Aureal chip, I tried one of those Yamaha cards with built in XG sound and I've tried this SB Live! Value card with same results, sounds play in Windows but not games. Only sound I got to work properly was the built in AC97 which i guess is better than nothing but certainly not ideal.

Very strange. If dxdiag isn't seeing it and you have tried multiple sound cards, then it sounds like a DirectX issue.

Sorry if I missed it, but how recent is this Windows install? For testing purposes, do you have another drive you can install a fresh copy of Windows on (with a sound card you want to use installed)? I would then install an older version of DirectX, like 7.0, since a lot of these cards were from the pre-DX8 days. (Available here)

It was a recent install, like a few weeks ago.

well, all is good now. somthing must of been really Borked on that other install. stuck in a spare HDD and reinstalled Win98 and all the drivers and seems to be working fine.

Ah, glad to hear that did it!

I've seen similar inexplicable issues with 3D accelerators in Windows 98. Drivers are installed, but DirectX (and everything that relies on that) just doesn't even know there is an accelerator installed. It could have been anything from a corrupt system file to a sloppy installation of an outdated\broken version of DirectX that some game decided to throw on there to be helpful.

I haven't really bothered trying to figure out what caused it in the situations I ran into, but this is a big part of why I have multiple copies of the Windows folder on my tester PC. If one gets broken, I can just swap a fresh one back in without having to reinstall from scratch.