News to me. A drive with an audio out connector that doesn't support audio out is pretty stupid. I have never seen one like that so the chances of it happening again are pretty remote.

Well when looking up the problem I read a post from Phil that says it happens so I'm not sure if it's that rare.

the problem is that wdm driver model alows digital audio over the ribbon, there is usually a tickbox in the device manager in the drive properties. then there is CD audio in in the volume control panel that you need to tick box that, just like you would tickbox wave or midi. if your sound card supports that and it uses the cd cable as analog audio input jack basically. Unless you tick that it wont work.

the issue is older games epsecially dos games that want to get audio in from the sound card and don't support digital audio through the drive cable.

it could be that your drive doesn't support it, or it could be that I have educated some and you can learn from this and get it to work.

pS not all the audio cables are the same. they are supposed to be standard but you should verify the pin outs on the soundcard internal audio jack and correspond those to the cd player, cuz i have had cables that are like 4 wires not work but when i use a 3 wire it works. 🤣

Oh yeah I guess I could try using WDM drivers, but I have a Yamaha YMF744 card, and the post about it on here states that the WDM drivers aren't that good so I've been using vxd. Is it really buggy or does it work as well as analog audio (except for DOS)? I don't think the performance hit should be an issue since I have an overpowered socket 775 build.

edit: I remember now that I had issues with the WDM drivers so nevermind.

there are DOS binaries that cause the CD drive to play audio tracks - try dropping to dos mode and using one of those, it should drive audio out of the analog port

maxtherabbit wrote:

there are DOS binaries that cause the CD drive to play audio tracks - try dropping to dos mode and using one of those, it should drive audio out of the analog port

Well the manual states that the connector doesn't work.

Xenphor wrote:

maxtherabbit wrote:

there are DOS binaries that cause the CD drive to play audio tracks - try dropping to dos mode and using one of those, it should drive audio out of the analog port

Well the manual states that the connector doesn't work.

seriously? that's really bizarre, can you show me a link?

maxtherabbit wrote:

Xenphor wrote:

maxtherabbit wrote:

there are DOS binaries that cause the CD drive to play audio tracks - try dropping to dos mode and using one of those, it should drive audio out of the analog port

Well the manual states that the connector doesn't work.

seriously? that's really bizarre, can you show me a link?

http://gscs-b2c.lge.com/downloadFile?fileId=K … WM000313461.pdf

wow that's really lame

I use fairly generic LG dvd drives and they work....they might be dvd-rom/cdwr though .... so maybe when dvd writers came out they stop supporting audio.

I would think that digital over IDE should be possible.

Do you have the motherboard chipset drivers installed?

Do you have the Windows updates installed? The Microsoft 2004 update CD can be gotten from vogonsdrivers.
http://vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?fileid=873&menustate=0

What exactly is the drive hooked up to? Are you using a 40-wire or an 80-wire cable?

What are the specs for the rest of your system?

cyclone3d wrote:

I would think that digital over IDE should be possible. […]
Show full quote

I would think that digital over IDE should be possible.

Do you have the motherboard chipset drivers installed?

Do you have the Windows updates installed? The Microsoft 2004 update CD can be gotten from vogonsdrivers.
http://vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?fileid=873&menustate=0

What exactly is the drive hooked up to? Are you using a 40-wire or an 80-wire cable?

What are the specs for the rest of your system?

Possible with VXD drivers?
Yes I have motherboard chipset drivers installed (asrock 775i65g 3.0).
I just have Windows 98 SE with the unofficial service pack main updates installed
The drive is hooked up to Secondary IDE Master with 80 wire cable

Specs:
Asrock 775i65g
Pentium e5800
Geforce 4 ti 4800se
512mb ram

Xenphor wrote:

how can I be absolutely sure a drive will support cd audio without being able to test it beforehand?

I'd say look it up in the manual.
There is no certain date or manufacturer. It really depends on the specific model.

I also have some LG drives that don't support audio output even though they have the connector... It did puzzle me as well when I found about it... And yeah it's pretty lame.

Interesting information. I have a GH22 drive, but I use it in Windows XP, so I guess it just does CD audio over IDE. It's a real surprise and annoyance to know that they cannot do CD audio in retro systems.

Are some drives better than others at handling cd audio or if they support it it should just work? Does the quality of their DAC matter?

I'll have to double check with a YMF744 card and VXD drivers.. but I don't see why it wouldn't work. I don't see how a drive would not support digital audio over IDE, especially if it doesn't support the wired analog or digital connections.

That just wouldn't make sense.

Oh, we designed and sold an optical drive that doesn't support CD audio at all? Tough luck! 😕

cyclone3d wrote:

I'll have to double check with a YMF744 card and VXD drivers.. but I don't see why it wouldn't work. I don't see how a drive would not support digital audio over IDE, especially if it doesn't support the wired analog or digital connections.

That just wouldn't make sense.

Oh, we designed and sold an optical drive that doesn't support CD audio at all? Tough luck! 😕

That would be nice if it worked with VXD since they are more compatible than WDM. I'm using 4.07.1040 VXD right now. I guess I could try it with WDM to see if it even works at all. Is there a certain WDM driver version that works better than others? I only have 2228.

edit: I've also read that it's possible to use two sound cards and have one dedicated for doing analog audio with Daemon Tools. I have multiple YMF744 and Sound Blaster Live cards if that could work. The problem with analog audio in Deamon Tools right now is that it doesn't always work and the cd audio is mixed in with the sound effects.

edit2: Alright just tried using the WDM 2228 drivers. I can now select digital audio over IDE and am able to hear audio using the CD Player in Windows. I will have to try various games to see if it actually works properly and if other issues come up.

edit3: Tried Sega Rally 2 and House of the Dead because neither would have cd audio with WDM+Daemon Tools, and everything seems okay. It's also good to have for games that don't let you adjust sound effects and bgm independently because having both in one audio stream can result in messed up volume levels. Still would be nice to use with VXD though.

Xenphor wrote:

Are some drives better than others at handling cd audio or if they support it it should just work? Does the quality of their DAC matter?

Normally it should just work. The DACs are all good enough. There is so much noise added to the analog signal inside the case that DAC quality shouldn't matter.