VOGONS


First post, by aaron158

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Ok i been trying to get A3D sound working in st voyager EF. now i have both a diamond mx300 and an aureal 2500 that both support a3d 2 i guess

i can't use the diamond drivers at all since i have an intel 815 chipset and they though an error about the pci bus not being primary there is some string u edit in an inf file to disable the check but the diamond driver don't seem to have the string.

if i use version 2041 of the drivers witch people seem to say is the best version to use everything sounds like crap crackly sounds and what not.

if i go to 2048 the sounds are better however if ur firing the hand phaser for more then a couple seconds then the phaser sound just stops. if u stop firing and start again its fine again for a couple seconds then stops .not sure if there is any other sound issues but that seems to be the only one i found in the 5-10 mins i played

if i try to upgrade to 2050 witch seems to be the last version it totally breaks windows and it won't boot up u have to boot in safe mode and pruge everything to do with aureal vortex to get windows to boot normally again

i've tired version 2030, 2031, 2035 ,2040 and none of them work any better. i was going to try 2016 and 2010 but they have the same issue as the diamond driver they don't have the string in the inf to disable the pci bus check and i tired manually adding the string to the same spot were it is in the newer driver but it didn't help

the other thing i noticed is the game shuts off a3d every time time u shut the game off and restart it it don't stay on

game is just the base game with patch 1.2 no exp packs i read some people saying the ep breaks a3d so i didn't install that.

the sound is the same weather on the diamond card or the aureal card. this is under windows 98.

anyone have any suggestion how to get a3d working properly does a3d just not work good in this game. i see sites saying it also support eax but there is no eax setting in any of the menus.

Last edited by aaron158 on 2021-07-30, 00:15. Edited 2 times in total.

Reply 1 of 19, by swaaye

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I think your problems are caused by the 815 chipset and the Aureal drivers as you suspect.

The 2041 drivers work well with this game in my experience. 2048 has a problem with reversed stereo.

There is a download with INF tweaks on VogonsDrivers. I would use the INF to disable bus detection and All Sound Blaster emulation (if you don't plan to use it).
http://www.vogonsdrivers.com/index.php?catid= … menustate=40,38

Uninstall the current drivers first from Add/Remove programs.

If you have problems with the system freezing after playing the game it can be caused by DirectX being beyond 7.0a. You can either try downgrading to 7.0a (DirectX Buster can uninstall). Or use Aureal driver 2015, though I don't know if it has the bus detection tweak option.

Reply 2 of 19, by aaron158

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swaaye wrote on 2021-07-30, 02:45:
I think your problems are caused by the 815 chipset and the Aureal drivers as you suspect. […]
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I think your problems are caused by the 815 chipset and the Aureal drivers as you suspect.

The 2041 drivers work well with this game in my experience. 2048 has a problem with reversed stereo.

There is a download with INF tweaks on VogonsDrivers. I would use the INF to disable bus detection and All Sound Blaster emulation (if you don't plan to use it).
http://www.vogonsdrivers.com/index.php?catid= … menustate=40,38

Uninstall the current drivers first from Add/Remove programs.

If you have problems with the system freezing after playing the game it can be caused by DirectX being beyond 7.0a. You can either try downgrading to 7.0a (DirectX Buster can uninstall). Or use Aureal driver 2015, though I don't know if it has the bus detection tweak option.

if inf tweaks is just taking ; out from disable bus detection i already did that witch makes 2041 or 48 install just fine but nither one works 100% in the game with a3d on 48 is working other then the issue with the phaser 41 was all crackley. 50 was no go from the get go. game never crashes as far as i can see using directx 9.0c. everything does sound fine if i shut off a3d.

def need sound blaster stuff on for other games.

Reply 3 of 19, by swaaye

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Unfortunately I don't have an 815 motherboard (or any other Intel 8xx chipset) to play with right now so I can't try to reproduce the problem. You are right that Elite Force does behave a little strangely with A3D, and I have seen the A3D setting disable itself as you said. But I also know the game's A3D works pretty well with the 2041 drivers when all the hardware is happy.

Can you list all the hardware you are using?
Are any cards sharing IRQs?
Is the motherboard BIOS at default settings for the most part?
Are you using Windows98 or 98SE? What kinds of updates did you install?
Do you have problems with A3D or DirectSound3D in any other games?

The reason I suggest DirectX 7.0a is the Aureal drivers were built for DirectX 5/6/7 and they are VXD drivers. DirectX 7.1 and later seem to sometimes have problems with VXD drivers (WDM drivers were replacing VXD). So if you want to use an Aureal card and the game will work with DirectX 7.0a, it's a safe bet. Elite Force lists DirectX 7.0a as a requirement so that is the version the game was built for.

Reply 4 of 19, by aaron158

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video card is gforce 6800gt. there is a usb 2.0 card the vortex card and a promise sata 150 card. running 98 se i did ie 6 and dx 9c

i also installed this update cd http://www.vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?file … &menustate=50,0

i guess i don't really need dx9 but i would need at least 8 i was planning on trying red faction since it don't seem to run properly on my xp machine with the gtx 9800+ it has messed up graphics but red faction needs dx8 at least.

before building this machine i tired ef on my xp system with a xfi card and i used i think was this http://www.vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?file … &menustate=38,0 to let me turn a3d it sounded like crap on there to.

in the bios only things i did was shut off the serial and printer ports and i locked in irq5 for the sound card it was swapping between 5 and 7 witch was messing up doom had to get switching the settings.

Reply 5 of 19, by aaron158

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i also just tired to install driver 1 http://members.optusnet.com.au/kirben/3dsoftware.html this site says it supports both eax and a3d however the settings menu only seems to have a eax option as far as i can tell. also when turn on the music option it it just shuts off again.

Reply 6 of 19, by aaron158

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i installed st ds 9 the fallen. if i try a3d 2.0 game gets choppy as heck and there is no sfx but the music works. yet if u set eax 2.0 it runs perfectly fine. starting to think this a3d stuff isn't worth the effort. why are people paying $100 on ebay for these vortex cards?

Reply 7 of 19, by RetroGamer4Ever

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There are a few games in which A3D works wonderfully and is sublime. That is why people pay big bucks for the last of the premium A3D cards, where the hardware and software was at it's finest. There are many basic/OEM A3D cards with spotty software that isn't as good as it should be. I don't recall ever using The Fallen with A3D, but I never had any problems with EAX on my SoundBlaster at the time and the game came out when EAX had peaked and A3D was on it's way out of the market, so the support might not have been great with that particular title. Jedi Knight was a game in A3D was pretty nice, so people should give that a try if they can.

Reply 8 of 19, by aaron158

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ok so i tired removing dx9 and going back to 7a ds9 worked perfectly after then but voyager still had messed up sounds. so i wiped windows totally and started from scratch windows install with nothing but drivers and the game and dx7a still no dice the phaser sound cuts out i also tired the weapons cheat to see what other weapons do and that dreadnought weapon witch is similar has a constant fire sound it fires at first then goes silent weapons that fire single shots are fine couldn't test all the weapons since it seems to drop me back in the main menu since i guess i'm using stuff that i shouldn't have in the first level.

the sfx work perfectly without a3d on with it on its seems to sound fine other then those weirdness with the weapons sfx. kinda out of ideas i've tired with and witch out patch made no dif i know elite force 2 on my xp machine hated the 1.1 patch when u would fire it would get stuck as if u were holding the button down even though u weren't without 1.1 patch it worked perfect.

Reply 9 of 19, by swaaye

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DS9 The Fallen's A3D support doesn't work well as you saw. I tried it too. All those options are there because the game uses Miles Sound System. I know the game normally only has "Miles Fast 2D" available and you need to copy some Miles files around to get access to the rest. The readme says the 3D audio options can cause problems. Other games that use Miles Sound System might also show A3D support. 2004's Painkiller even has it.
https://web.archive.org/web/20040216201732/ht … .com/msssdk.htm

The best A3D 2.0 game I've heard is Half Life. So try that one if you can and see if it works. I think you should patch it to at least 1.0.0.9 but some later versions remove EAX and A3D support.

Jedi Knight is an A3D 1.x game and sounds good but it doesn't use the fancy A3D 2.0 wavetracing and such. A3D 1.x still adds a lot to the experience though.

Reply 10 of 19, by aaron158

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swaaye wrote on 2021-07-31, 06:33:
DS9 The Fallen's A3D support doesn't work well as you saw. I tried it too. All those options are there because the game uses […]
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DS9 The Fallen's A3D support doesn't work well as you saw. I tried it too. All those options are there because the game uses Miles Sound System. I know the game normally only has "Miles Fast 2D" available and you need to copy some Miles files around to get access to the rest. The readme says the 3D audio options can cause problems. Other games that use Miles Sound System might also show A3D support. 2004's Painkiller even has it.
https://web.archive.org/web/20040216201732/ht … .com/msssdk.htm

The best A3D 2.0 game I've heard is Half Life. So try that one if you can and see if it works. I think you should patch it to at least 1.0.0.9 but some later versions remove EAX and A3D support.

Jedi Knight is an A3D 1.x game and sounds good but it doesn't use the fancy A3D 2.0 wavetracing and such. A3D 1.x still adds a lot to the experience though.

ds9 works pretty good after the dx downgrade to 7a still has the odd frame drop but its playable.

kinda thinking the voyager game they don't want u to even us a3d since they seem to shut it off each time u start the game.

2 things i dont get several sites claim the voyager game support eax 2 but there is no eax setting in the menu how do u turn on eax or is eax the default that is on if a3d is off or are the sites saying it works with eax just full of it.

similar with the game driver they say it support a3d but the settings menu only has an option to turn on eax

Reply 11 of 19, by betamax80

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I do seem to recall the 2050 drivers are VERY buggy and were mainly an alpha for never-realised A3D 3.0 support. I did find 2048 stable but yes, the reversed stereo.... I seem to recall it was the "proper" drivers for the 4-speaker output of the SQ2500 thought. Voyager Elite Force... I do seem to recall it sounding a bit "muddy" with A3D sadly.

Reply 12 of 19, by aaron158

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betamax80 wrote on 2021-07-31, 17:46:

I do seem to recall the 2050 drivers are VERY buggy and were mainly an alpha for never-realised A3D 3.0 support. I did find 2048 stable but yes, the reversed stereo.... I seem to recall it was the "proper" drivers for the 4-speaker output of the SQ2500 thought. Voyager Elite Force... I do seem to recall it sounding a bit "muddy" with A3D sadly.

ya i can see that the 2050 drives they install but the break windows it won't boot after u install them u have to do safe mode and then when u try to reinstall an older version afterwards the a3d tray icon with the settings in it is broken from there on it don't matter if go in and uninstall everything delete the folder clean anything areal and vortex out of the registry its just broken from there on.

my only guess is a3d in the voyager game just was never meant to be usable it works but only sort of works. witch is my guess why they set it up to keep turning it off when u restart the game they don't want u to use it.

Reply 13 of 19, by aaron158

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well update on this. i was thinking the intel 815 chipset may have been the issue since the sound card wouldn't install on that chipset without modding the inf.

so i got an asus pb3-f v1.04 lastest bios with the intel 440bx chipset. 700mhz p3 100fsb. installed 2x256mb pc100 sicks brandnew memtested perfect. put the promise sata150 card in the bottom pci slot the areal in pci slot 2 since asus says its not shared.

gpu ati radeon 9700 pro 128mb.

so windows installs no issue install all drivers no issue install dx7a and it bluescreens vxd vchace error. windows boots up fine but game crashes with in 2-30 seconds of game play starting

go though hours and hours of trouble shooting dif slots dif drivers no dice. i tired the ati card in the 815 board and the same error happens on there so i guess i can assume the ati card is bad even though it has no artfacting and its fine either wise.

so i get a brandnew asus v7700 pro 32mb geforce 2pro. do clean install of 98 all drivers so i use version Version 8.05 of the geforce drivers from 2001 just a bit newer then the game vs going for the least drives witch are much beyond any of the games id be playing.

game runs now no crashes. but u turn on a3d and its even worst now then it was on the other system there is more sfx missing even like the sounds of running the mouse of the menu buttons gone but it sounds perfect and runs perfect without a3d on.

so i am at a loss here people say they can get a3d working on this game but anything and everything i've tired comes up with messed up sound effects once a3d is turned on.

is there anyone who has gotten a3d working with this game who can give me a suggestion for what needs to be done do u need a patch do u need to mod something in the game files to make it work properly.

the other thing i don't get is several websites claim this game has eax 2.0 support there is no eax settings in the menus that i can see and i have not found anyone anywhere who has said they have played this with eax are those sites just wrong that say this game has eax 2.0 support or is there something u have to mod to get eax support turned on?

Reply 14 of 19, by swaaye

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Install the base game (no expansion pack) and patch 1.2 (eliteforcepatch1_2.exe). You may also need to install the Aureal A3D API update (a3ddrivers312.exe).

This is the game that I noticed the flipped stereo problem with Aureal driver 2048 so use 2041 or older.

If A3D.dll or a3dapi.dll exist in the game's root directory, try deleting them too. I don't think it comes with them though.

And if you still have problems, try some other A3D game to see if it's actually caused by Elite Force.

I don't know if the game has EAX 2.0 support. I don't think so.

Reply 15 of 19, by aaron158

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swaaye wrote on 2021-08-22, 00:10:
Install the base game (no expansion pack) and patch 1.2 (eliteforcepatch1_2.exe). You may also need to install the Aureal A3D AP […]
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Install the base game (no expansion pack) and patch 1.2 (eliteforcepatch1_2.exe). You may also need to install the Aureal A3D API update (a3ddrivers312.exe).

This is the game that I noticed the flipped stereo problem with Aureal driver 2048 so use 2041 or older.

If A3D.dll or a3dapi.dll exist in the game's root directory, try deleting them too. I don't think it comes with them though.

And if you still have problems, try some other A3D game to see if it's actually caused by Elite Force.

I don't know if the game has EAX 2.0 support. I don't think so.

ok so i have base game and 1.2 patch 2041 driver and dx7a. i did not have the api update but installing that did not help. there is no a3d.dll or a3dapi.dll in the main folder.

i did just find out though that the extra missing sounds seem to be due to me switching from analog out to the optical port that seem causes more sounds to be missing apparently i tired 32 44.1 and 48khz and it didn't matter.

after switching back to analog now its back to messed up weapon sounds and just an over all muddy sounding game. also that issue were it keeps shutting the a3d off when u restart game is still a thing.

i doubt its a bad sound card i've tried with both an aureal sq2500 and a diamond mx300. one other thing i did try is with the diamond card i used the official diamond driver just to try out since on the new board that pci bus error isn't a thing and with the diamond driver the game don't even detect that a3d hardware in available.

i know on the other system i did get a3d working on that st ds9 game with minor frame dropping. i guess i should try downloading that star wars game people say has one of the better a3d sounds and see if that one works. i know i also tried the game driver witch claims to support both a3d and eax but the only setting in the sound menu was for eax so kinda sounds like these game lists that are out there with list of what supports what alot of them don't know what there talking about.

Reply 16 of 19, by Warlord

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It's a lot for me to read through. Do you have IRQ sharing problems? And have you tried the fixed drivers that don't require it to be on main PCI bus? Also you shouldn't install any updates at all.. You got a vcache error? How much ram do you have./

Reply 17 of 19, by aaron158

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Warlord wrote on 2021-08-22, 04:34:

It's a lot for me to read through. Do you have IRQ sharing problems? And have you tried the fixed drivers that don't require it to be on main PCI bus? Also you shouldn't install any updates at all.. You got a vcache error? How much ram do you have./

nope card is in slot 2 asus manual claims its not shared i even tired reserving the irq in the bios made 0 dif. yes tired them but that was only an issue with the first board id assume since 815 the pci slots aren't main bus after switching to a 440bx that shouldn't be a problem driver don't complain anyway. no updates installed other the dx7a witch the game requires and drivers.

512mb

Reply 19 of 19, by swaaye

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aaron158 wrote on 2021-08-22, 00:58:

these game lists that are out there with list of what supports what alot of them don't know what there talking about.

Yeah they are quite incorrect. We had some thread on here discussing that years ago. There aren't very many games with a quality A3D implementation, and some games removed support after Aureal folded.