VOGONS


First post, by xtreger

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member

I have an Audigy 2 ZS installed on Win98 with VxD drivers. I ran Hitman Contracts which uses EAX 3 and in certain scenarios (e.g. opening the map or navigating a menu), there seems to be some annoying pop sound that accompanies the map opening sound effect or inventory weapon switching sound effect. I don't know why, and this problem does not happen with WDM drivers, and this problem doesn't happen if I disable sound HW acceleration in VxD.

Secondly in road rash, the midi during race doesn't play unless I select the SB Audigy sw synth device from multimedia properties, and even then only the drum and bass instruments play - nothing else. This issue also does not happen with WDM drivers.

On the other hand, with WDM drivers if I play hitman contracts for long enough, the game eventually starts to stutter badly, and if I keep playing despite that, the game will eventually hang with the sound repeating. As if some buffer is filling up as I play and as that buffer gets full, performance degrades leading to an eventual hang. This problem does not happen with VxD drivers, and this doesn't happen if I disable sound HW acceleration in WDM.

Anyone has an idea of what on earth is going on? Is EAX broken with Audigy 2 ZS in Win98? Is MIDI also broken?

Reply 1 of 6, by Joseph_Joestar

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++
xtreger wrote on Today, 09:36:

I have an Audigy 2 ZS installed on Win98 with VxD drivers. I ran Hitman Contracts which uses EAX 3 and in certain scenarios (e.g. opening the map or navigating a menu), there seems to be some annoying pop sound that accompanies the map opening sound effect or inventory weapon switching sound effect. I don't know why, and this problem does not happen with WDM drivers, and this problem doesn't happen if I disable sound HW acceleration in VxD.

Rule of thumb, it's not a great idea to play games made in 2002 and onward under Win9x. There may be a couple of exceptions, but those are likely rare edge cases. Around 2002 is when WinXP really took off, and hardware manufacturers started optimizing their drivers for that OS.

That's probably why WDM drivers work better with Hitman Contracts, since that game is from 2004.

My retro stuff

Reply 2 of 6, by xtreger

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member

Got it, makes sense. But what about the road rash issue? Have you ever encountered that (provided you played road rash in an audigy 2 zs setup)?

Reply 3 of 6, by Joseph_Joestar

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++
xtreger wrote on Today, 14:40:

Got it, makes sense. But what about the road rash issue? Have you ever encountered that (provided you played road rash in an audigy 2 zs setup)?

I'm not overly familiar with that game, so I can't really say what could be the problem there. From memory, the only non-DOS games where I used my Audigy 2 ZS for General MIDI were Final Fantasy 7 and 8. That was years ago, so the details are a bit fuzzy, but I think they both worked fine with VxD drivers.

On the topic of WDM vs. VxD drivers, I do know that EAX 4.0 doesn't work with the latter, as I did test that in the past. And while Hitman Contracts tops out at EAX 3.0, it might still expect WDM drivers, since they were the norm at the time of its release.

My retro stuff

Reply 4 of 6, by LoStSOul

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie

Audigy 2 ZS was released in XP era, i am bit surprised you managed to install on windows 98.
Did these drivers (vxd) come from an original CD?

GamingPC: R7 9850x3d, x870E Aorus Pro,32gb, radeon 7900 xtx
DOS/Win95: P1 233MMX, 32MB ram, Sb AWE32 2MB mod, 3dfx voodoo1, S3Virge
Win98: P2 450Mhz, Matrox G200, SB AWE 64Gold
WXP: Dual P3 1Ghz, Abit VP6, 256Mb , SBLive, geforce256 1 ddr

Reply 5 of 6, by Dothan Burger

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member
LoStSOul wrote on Today, 19:49:

Audigy 2 ZS was released in XP era, i am bit surprised you managed to install on windows 98.
Did these drivers (vxd) come from an original CD?

Click the link in Joestar's post above yours.

Reply 6 of 6, by Joseph_Joestar

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++
LoStSOul wrote on Today, 19:49:

Audigy 2 ZS was released in XP era, i am bit surprised you managed to install on windows 98.
Did these drivers (vxd) come from an original CD?

The official Audigy 2 ZS installation CD does support Win98SE, though it will install WDM drivers by default.

After the installation is completed, you can find a program called "Creative Driver Utility" under the Audigy folder in the start menu. If you run that, it will offer to install VxD drivers instead. Phil shows the entire process in this video.

My retro stuff