Tried different s_khz values like 44?

I've solved the problem. It is caused by the Elite Force Expansion Pack. If you install only the original game, A3D works, and it still works with the v1.2 patch as well.

There's another quirk though. The voiceovers are coming out of the wrong channel (reversed). I think every other sound is correctly placed. My impression is they didn't test A3D because it is very obvious the voices are reversed.

I've solved the reversed audio problem too now. It's caused by Vortex 2 driver 2048. I tried 2035 and 2041, both of which work fine. Before I tried older driver versions, I tried varying the A3D API version since those are separately available. That had no effect.

Also, other Quake3-based games with A3D support may need the older driver as well.

Between hours figuring this out and hours figuring out A3D problems with Sin, I wonder if the Aureal worship folk ever actually used the cards. 😀

I'll mention Quake3 itself removed A3D support in a patch because of business/financial reasons 😳

Most of the other Q3 licensees often bolted Miles Sound System to it instead (All of Ubertools games, and the Call of Duty series included. Raven games seem exempt from this and use OpenAL instead)

As in Aureal stopped financing id to put it in and keep it working? id tries to avoid proprietary tech so it wouldn't surprise me.

Elite Force doesn't use OpenAL. It uses Directsound or the A3D API. That is what is displayed in the console. I think JK2 or SOF2 was their first OpenAL foray.

I beat the game. I figure it took around 10 hours. Overall I'd say it was entertaining because it is like playing part in an extended episode of the TV show and the voice acting is top notch. But as a shooter, it is quite average, with really dumb enemy AI a general very safe feeling to it, and extremely brain dead simple progression. One mission is stealth-based and that was a nice change of pace. In most missions, enemy encounters are endless, with waves of morons that beeline you. Some of the weapons they came up with are neat, if ridiculously out of character for the Trek universe. There are few meaningful player decision points and I don't know if they affect any part of the storyline. Squad AI is quite good though and well scripted in parts.

The retro config I settled on was an Athlon XP with a 6600GT and a Vortex 2 card, running 98SE. I played at 1920x1200 with 2X Quincunx AA. Quincunx filtering at this resolution has a supersampling-like effect that nicely improves the overall quality the image. Visually I think the game still impresses at times.

The only reason I didn't play on my modern machine is because I wanted to play with A3D audio and that means Win9x. After figuring out the problems I was having with it, I found it to be well done and most definitely an improvement over plain stereo. Played by headphones, the audio positioning is clear and effective. Spatial effects also add depth to the game environments.

I took some screenshots along the way.

oh god the multiplayer on that game was SO FUN. you could never fill a server with humans, but the bots did okay if you put them on maximum. 😜

plus you could kill nelix, thats worth the price of admission. If only starwars games let you kill jar-jar binks

swaaye wrote:

The retro config I settled on was an Athlon XP with a 6600GT and a Vortex 2 card, running 98SE. I played at 1920x1200 with 2X Quincunx AA. Quincunx filtering at this resolution has a supersampling-like effect that nicely improves the overall quality the image. Visually I think the game still impresses at times.

The only reason I didn't play on my modern machine is because I wanted to play with A3D audio and that means Win9x.

It would be interesting to see a "framerate comparison table" with the following graphics cards: 6600GT, Radeon 9800 Pro & XT, and FX59xx. What Athlon XP CPU did you use?

retro games 100 wrote:

It would be interesting to see a "framerate comparison table" with the following graphics cards: 6600GT, Radeon 9800 Pro & XT, and FX59xx. What Athlon XP CPU did you use?

I started with a 5200 Ultra, but that could only manage about 20fps at 1600x1200. I'm using a 24" 1920x1200 LCD so I really wanted that resolution. The 5900U and 6600GT perform similarly in this game but the 6600GT runs considerably cooler. Both cards manage 60fps 2xQ 1920x1200 almost without exception.

Initially I was using a Palomino 2000+ on a KT333 board but I dislike how hot those CPUs are so I switched to my XP-M Barton. Eventually I switched from KT333 to nForce 2 U400 as well for AGP 8x and 200 MHz FSB. I ran the CPUs from 1667-2200 MHz. But I think even a KT333 + any Palomino is more than enough to max out this game.

Davros wrote:

plus you could kill nelix, thats worth the price of admission. If only starwars games let you kill jar-jar binks

George really came up with a Neelix beater with Jar Jar.

swaaye wrote:

... I think even a KT333 + any Palomino is more than enough to max out this game.

It's really good to know that this type of CPU is sufficient to max out the game. When testing Palomino XPs, I also noted their relatively high heat output. For a well cooled "2100 rated" CPU, I was getting temperature readings of about mid 50C.

BTW, after reading your comment that "I wanted to play with A3D audio and that means Win9x", I came across this (pro-hl website) A3D with Windows XP suggestion page, and noted with interest the "Crystal Clear A3D" paragraph at the bottom of the page..

That looks like a way to get A3D 1.0 working on the cards that support it, like most Creative hardware. A3D 1.0 was commonly supported like EAX 2. Aureal cards don't have useful drivers for NT5 and they are the only cards with A3D 2.0 support.

This workaround may still be beneficial and worth a try though.

A3DAPI.DLL is quirky software and manages to occasionally kill the 9x kernel so I wonder what it will do to NT5. Maybe since it won't be interfacing with VXD drivers, things will go better.

I've already created this retarded topic here Post 277957 , because I've somehow missed this one. Big thanks to leileilol for linking me this thread.
I've uninstalled the 1.2 patch and now it's working properly except those reversed channels for voices, and that's because I'm on the 2048 version of drivers. I just want to ask you, pro-guys, about one thing. Here it is said that 2048 drivers added a3d 3.0 support: http://www.quantexzone.com/index.php/vortex-o … a-driver-issues (chapter 2.3) and also a3d reverb. Since the game works fine on previous version of drivers - does this mean that Star Trek Elite Force is not a A3D 3.0 supporting title? I've read somewhere that it is.

And one more random off-topic question: how does this Aureal's EAX implementation works? As I see it, it simply overlays one specific EAX preset on top of the A3D rendering. Is that so? Or is it more complicated and adds a whole lot to A3D? Also this "Disable geometric reverb" setting in drivers. To me it looks as if they had plans to somehow integrate EAX into their sophisticated A3D engine but didn't have enough time to do that.

Hi Zoomer. Yeah I had a few hours of troubleshooting fun recently, to get this game working right with A3D.

I'm not sure if A3D 3.0 is used by any games but I too have seen the reference to the game being 3.0.

Regarding the A3Dverb and EAX emulation, whenever I've tried it the results have been either annoyingly over the top or obviously broken. It seems to be quite buggy and unfinished indeed.

The usual driver I see people mentioning with Aureal cards is 2048 but after this Elite Force experience I think 2041 is perhaps the best available. This version still occasionally kills the Win9x kernel when initializing a3dapi.dll! That's some craziness there. Let me know if you see that at any point.

Hey Swaaye. You can't even imagine how grateful I am for this thread and for all the troubleshooting you've done. There's absolutely no material in the Internets about a3d, EF and that infamous patch. That's weird because all the guys who were enjoying A3D, simply lost the ability to do so in the expansion or in the multiplayer (since AFAIK 1.2 patch was mandatory for the MP).

I've been tinkering with those 2048 drivers and found out, that when I set output mode to 'Headphones' I'm getting inverted channels everywhere. Even in that testing app of 'aureal audio properties' panel. It's ok with quad and stereo speakers though.

Oh yea, and I also dug up some info about that reverb. It looks like EAX reverb and geometric reverb (the one the tick is for in the settings) are different things. 'EAX reverb engine' is an attempt of Aureal to emulate EAX and geometric reverb is actually an enhancement of A3D engine which was promised with A3D 3.0 iteration. More so, those games, which support only A3D 2.0, got reverb automatically, as noted on quantexzone:

2.5 - Can I get reverb in A3D 2.0 games?

Yes. A3D 2.0 games that utilize the Wavetracing engine will automatically be upgraded with reverb with the A3D 3.0 drivers. This would include Heretic II, Sin, Half-Life, Descent 3, Nascar 3, etc. No code changes to the game are necessary.

How this works is that games which initialize the Wavetracing engine with the A3D 2.0 interface will have geometric reverb calculated automatically by the new A3DAPI.DLL file. Only Vortex 2-based sound cards will be able to take advantage of this. (When the Vortex Advantage drivers are updated with the reverb engine, they will benefit as well.) These games will still render reflections and occlusions as well.

Games that use the A3D 3.0 interface will just need to specify whether or not reverb is desired.

If you do not want to hear reverb in your A3D 2.0 game, then you can simply disable the Vortex's reverb engine in the Vortex 2 Control Panel. Be sure to re-enable it afterwards.

So all this brings me to this conclusion(s):
1) to enjoy A3D fully, you need to have 2048 drivers since the A3D 3.0 support was added in that version.
2) even if your game does not support A3D, it's better to have 2048 drivers installed since you're getting proper reverb anyway even in A3D 2.0 titles.
3) That 2048 version is extremely buggy and unfinished.
4) There MUST be a way to fix that anomaly in EF with voices, because it seems to be tied in with those reversed channels in Headphone mode.
5) I'm gonna dig deep!
😁

Edit: this page mentions some 2050 version of drivers. Links are dead though.
http://release.narod.ru/2048.htm#w9x

http://wayback.archive.org/web/*/http://lep.l … 050_upgrade.exe

Just managed to download it okay.

EDIT: http://radeon.ru/files/new/2050_full_nodemos.rar

Let me know if you find a reverb setup that isn't awful with EF. I had it working but it was not working correctly. What's also unclear with EF is just how much effort Raven put into A3D. It may be a incomplete implementation.

I tried 2050 and it is no better than 2048 for Elite Force. Still reversed sounds.

BTW this FTP is a nice collection of files.
ftp://ftp.nchu.edu.tw/Hardware/multimedia/Aureal/

Hm, this host wasn't working for me yesterday. Downloaded them and yeah - same problem with reverted voices. I think the main feature of those 2050 is PCI bus detection, that is its absence. There's no message about primary PCI bus now and those emulated devices for real-time dos are now installed properly. It seems there are no other changes.

Oh well...