No, get an Audigy1 or Live.

doaks80 wrote:

No, get an Audigy1 or Live.

I got the Audigy 2 + front panel 5.25 for few bucks.
Is the front panel compatible with a live card? Mine is 4760 ( gold plated one)
I would use this card on bx board + Sb32 or a audician32.

If you want to play DOS games, and have an ISA slot+audician32....go with that option. The XG softsynth in Win98 is actually quite good. Keep/combine the Audigy2 for pure windows games.

Personally I combine an Audigy1+AWE64 on my Win98 rig.

doaks80 wrote:

If you want to play DOS games, and have an ISA slot+audician32....go with that option. The XG softsynth in Win98 is actually quite good. Keep/combine the Audigy2 for pure windows games.

Personally I combine an Audigy1+AWE64 on my Win98 rig.

The Audigy 1 feature the custom soundfont like the live?

MKT_Gundam wrote:

doaks80 wrote:

If you want to play DOS games, and have an ISA slot+audician32....go with that option. The XG softsynth in Win98 is actually quite good. Keep/combine the Audigy2 for pure windows games.

Personally I combine an Audigy1+AWE64 on my Win98 rig.

The Audigy 1 feature the custom soundfont like the live?

The Audigy1 is basically just a better Live, that does everything the Live does including DOS compat. But if you are using the audician for DOS, the Audigy2 makes an excellent Win98 card, if not the best of all.

doaks80 wrote:

No, get an Audigy1 or Live.

Yes. The Windows 98 DOS prompt support is disabled in Audigy 2 driver.

MKT_Gundam wrote:

Is the front panel compatible with a live card? Mine is 4760 ( gold plated one)

No, it is not. Live model doesn't matter, they all (Live+Audigy1) have identical 40-pin pinouts. All Live/Audigy1 front panels are compatible with each other and have a same pinouts. The Audigy2 front panels are different compared to Live/Audigy1 and aren't compatible, have another pinout scheme. By the way X-Fi has identical compatible pinout to Audigy2.

MKT_Gundam wrote:

The Audigy 1 feature the custom soundfont like the live?

Yes. And Audigy2 also.

doaks80 wrote:

The Audigy1 is basically just a better Live, that does everything the Live does including DOS compat.

No, it isn't. Audigy1 is totally newer DSP compared to Live. With hardware EAX3 support. And yes, it does everything the Live does including DOS.

doaks80 wrote:

But if you are using the audician for DOS, the Audigy2 makes an excellent Win98 card, if not the best of all.

For Windows XP - probably, yes. For Windows 98/ME - rather no.

Audigy 1 has hardware EAX3, 5.1 sound, DD decoding, SB16 Emulation
Audigy 2 has hardware EAX3, 6.1 sound, P16V DVD Audio, DD decoding
Audigy 2ZS has hardware EAX3, software EAX4 (via driver), 7.1 sound, P16V DVD Audio, DD decoding, DTS ES decoding, ASIO2

You may use Audigy 2/2ZS advantages in Windows XP but not in Windows 98 😀 In Win98 all three Audigys are the same on practice.

PARUS wrote:

MKT_Gundam wrote:

Is the front panel compatible with a live card? Mine is 4760 ( gold plated one)

No, it is not. Live model doesn't matter, they all (Live+Audigy1) have identical 40-pin pinouts. All Live/Audigy1 front panels are compatible with each other and have a same pinouts. The Audigy2 front panels are different compared to Live/Audigy1 and aren't compatible, have another pinout scheme. By the way X-Fi has identical compatible pinout to Audigy2.

I just cheked a older thread and for pure DOS has a patch to use the Audigy 1 driver: Making Audigy 2 work in DOS
Also this guy use one in pure DOS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=261nKIdJhKw

MKT_Gundam wrote:

PARUS wrote:

MKT_Gundam wrote:

Is the front panel compatible with a live card? Mine is 4760 ( gold plated one)

No, it is not. Live model doesn't matter, they all (Live+Audigy1) have identical 40-pin pinouts. All Live/Audigy1 front panels are compatible with each other and have a same pinouts. The Audigy2 front panels are different compared to Live/Audigy1 and aren't compatible, have another pinout scheme. By the way X-Fi has identical compatible pinout to Audigy2.

I just cheked a older thread and for pure DOS has a patch to use the Audigy 1 driver: Making Audigy 2 work in DOS
Also this guy use one in pure DOS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=261nKIdJhKw

Yeah I use my Audigy 2ZS in DOS and Win98 dos prompt, works fine with the patch. For Win98 Dos prompt you need to do this though:

When using the WDM drivers, Windows itself will emulate a Sound Blaster Pro. Nothing needs to be done and nothing special will s […]
Show full quote

When using the WDM drivers, Windows itself will emulate a Sound Blaster Pro. Nothing needs to be done and nothing special will show up in Device Manager.

SB16 emulation requires the .vxd driver set. Additionally, a change to the registry is needed and the driver needs to be installed twice.

The Creative inf files do not install SB16.inf and can’t correctly install it by any method until you add an entry to the registry.
REGEDIT4

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\CreativeTech\Emu10kx\Emulation]
"EnableSB16Emulation"=dword:00000001

You can either create an SB16.reg with the above lines and double click on it, or manually add the entry to the registry. Once this is done and you reboot, the system will try to install SB16 emulation from the SB16.inf. Typically installation will fail and you will see a yellow ! with Device Manager. Don’t worry, just go to Control panel / Add New Hardware and reinstall the emulation. When using Add New Hardware, make sure to select manually from a list of Sound Devices / Creative Technology LTD the SB16 emulation drive with the most recent date if more than one is present. After a reboot, a second entry will appear in Device Manager for emulation, it will work, and you should ignore the original non-functional entry still present.

I don't remember who wrote that, but it was on Vogons I think. Credits and thanks to whoever wrote it as it works perfectly!

MKT_Gundam, yes, I'd use this Audigy12.exe patch for Audigy2 in 2006. Audigy1 doesn't need this patch.

Justin1091, thank you very much!!! I always knew that Creative have drop DOS support on Audigy2. And I always knew that A1 and A2 DSPs are almost the same expect P16V unit on A2 DSP, I knew about A2 pure DOS patch. But I never knew that easy way exists to enable SB16 in Windows.
Thank you again.

Justin1091 wrote:

When using the WDM drivers, Windows itself will emulate a Sound Blaster Pro. Nothing needs to be done and nothing special will show up in Device Manager.

The MIDI sound will be the windows roland one just like some AC97 onboard cards? Still the loading soundfont working?

MKT_Gundam, WDM driver is not a good choice for Win9X especially if you want to play "hard" quick machine demanding games. Choose VxD and leave WDM for WinXP.

Audigy 2ZS has hardware EAX3, software EAX4

EAX 4.0 is still technically in hardware, because it was released with ZS series. But it's more or less just refined EAX Advanced HD which was limited to ZS/4 Pro due to obvious marketing reasons.

It was released with ZS, yes. But now update for enable EAX Advanced HD exists for both series, A2 and A2ZS. It's the same update for both cards and therefore we can say that hardware availabilities of A2 and A2ZS are identical. About EAX4 (Advanced HD) we don't know strongly if it's hardware or software realization. But in any case as I said in Win98 we can't feel different if use A1, A2 or A2ZS. Just 9X-era games don't utilise A2 features.

I have a problem setting up A2 ZS in windows 98 and using for DOS prompt. I've not used any driver installer - just provided VXD drivers when windows asked for and it was installed fine. Sound in windows works normally, but I cannot set this sound card in any DOS games using prompt (card in device manager had only interrupt - no DMA etc.). I tried to do hack with SB16 emulation but after adding registry entry and restarting - nothing happened.

I was playing with it a little bit - reinstalling drivers, using WDM but I gained nothing but bluescreens and yellow triangle next to audigy device 😒

varrol wrote on 2020-05-16, 21:28:

I was playing with it a little bit - reinstalling drivers, using WDM but I gained nothing but bluescreens and yellow triangle next to audigy device 😒

First, check if you have a Dell version of the card or a standard one from Creative. If there are three white stickers on the back side of the card, and its serial number contains "SB0358" then it's a Dell card. Those cards are harder to set up correctly and may require a specific set of drivers.

However, if you have the Creative version, following these steps should get you full DOS compatibility.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2020-05-17, 04:27:

varrol wrote on 2020-05-16, 21:28:

I was playing with it a little bit - reinstalling drivers, using WDM but I gained nothing but bluescreens and yellow triangle next to audigy device 😒

First, check if you have a Dell version of the card or a standard one from Creative. If there are three white stickers on the back side of the card, and its serial number contains "SB0358" then it's a Dell card. Those cards are harder to set up correctly and may require a specific set of drivers.

However, if you have the Creative version, following these steps should get you full DOS compatibility.

Blah, I got this - but had to remove all drivers and devices, then install from CD and basically rest of the steps are typical - just got blue screen when adding second SB16 Emulation - but worked fine after reboot. Just in case I've removed all other PCI/ISA devices - not sure if it was needed.

Wonder if this would be a good option to replace an "akimbo" setup. I currently have a Audigy 2 setup along side a CT3600, but i'd kiiinddaaaa like to move off the SB32 and use either the audigy alone or with a cleaner sounding card like a Awe64.

Is this emulation or does the Audigy actually have some kind of CQM inside it? Joestar's linked post actually sounded kinda decent for CQM.

SodaSuccubus wrote on 2020-05-18, 02:58:

Wonder if this would be a good option to replace an "akimbo" setup. I currently have a Audigy 2 setup along side a CT3600, but i'd kiiinddaaaa like to move off the SB32 and use either the audigy alone or with a cleaner sounding card like a Awe64.

Is this emulation or does the Audigy actually have some kind of CQM inside it? Joestar's linked post actually sounded kinda decent for CQM.

There is no OPL3 or CQM chip on any PCI Creative Labs sound card ( except possibly the rare AWE64 PCI and AWE64D) . The OPL3 emulation on Creative PCI cards that do have it is done entirely in software and is reputedly really bad (I have never tried it).

EDIT : Some people seem to actually like the sound of that emulated OPL3 on Creative cards . At any rate, it sounds different from CQM or a real OPL3 .

SodaSuccubus wrote on 2020-05-18, 02:58:

Is this emulation or does the Audigy actually have some kind of CQM inside it? Joestar's linked post actually sounded kinda decent for CQM.

I honestly have no idea what the Audigy2 ZS uses for FM synth, but it does an ok job most of the time.

However, if you have an ISA sound card as well, you can use that for SB16 + FM synth and just have the Audigy2 ZS do General MIDI using sound fonts. This is doubly useful as the Audigy's SB16 emulation isn't 100% compatible with some older games.

But if you're looking for something with digital output and genuine OPL3, try to track down one of the Yamaha YMF 7x4 cards with SPDIF. Their DOS compatibility is pretty good if your motherboard supports either DDMA or SB-Link.