Hello everyone... I've been searching endlessly for the HDA audio driver for Windows 3.1X. If anyone knows anything about it, please help me find and configure it. Thanks!
The Windows 3.1 HD Audio driver you're probably looking for was created by Watler's World (archive link because the author's original site is down now). The driver is still available Here at Win3x.org but this is version 9.K while the latest version seems to be 9.L. I would attach the latest version here but there is no license statement at all included with the files, so I don't know if it's OK to redistribute.
onethirdxcubed wrote on 2025-05-30, 00:59:The Windows 3.1 HD Audio driver you're probably looking for was created by Watler's World (archive link because the author's original site is down now). The driver is still available Here at Win3x.org but this is version 9.K while the latest version seems to be 9.L. I would attach the latest version here but there is no license statement at all included with the files, so I don't know if it's OK to redistribute.
Hello ! I was looking for the driver on the page you mentioned, I found it, but I had no luck getting it to work. Apparently it plays the sound, but I have a problem with the volume, I can't hear anything
There is a thread on MSFN where deomsh helps people with this driver. Try the different HDAICOUT.HDA files he posts in that thread and see if one of them will work with your particular audio codec. If not, you might need to get the datasheet for your codec and see what specific set of commands is needed to initialize everything, route the audio to your speakers and set all the volume controls. You might also see if SBEMU or VSBHDA work with your sound hardware in DOS.
I wish there was a proper Win9x audio driver that just worked without all this fiddling around but wishing won't make it happen.
onethirdxcubed wrote on 2025-06-12, 22:57:There is a thread on MSFN where deomsh helps people with this driver. Try the different HDAICOUT.HDA files he posts in that thread and see if one of them will work with your particular audio codec. If not, you might need to get the datasheet for your codec and see what specific set of commands is needed to initialize everything, route the audio to your speakers and set all the volume controls. You might also see if SBEMU or VSBHDA work with your sound hardware in DOS.
I wish there was a proper Win9x audio driver that just worked without all this fiddling around but wishing won't make it happen.
Exactly, it's just what I'm looking for, configure the correct values in the HDAICOUT.HDA file, so that it can play sounds in Windows 3.1x in protected mode (WIN/3).
As for VsbHDA, I didn't have any problems with the driver, and I also have audio in DOS and Windows, although in Windows 3.1x it works but only in standard mode (WIN/S), and sometimes the system becomes unstable or limited, wishing it could run in protected mode (WIN/3).
Hi, that HDA driver is new to me. 🙂
Does it emulate an Sound Blaster for DOS boxes, too, by any chance?
I'm asking, because the LPTDAC Windows driver for Covox Speech Thing had this ability.
Covox speech thingy!!!
"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel
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Jo22 wrote on 2025-06-13, 01:54:Hi, that HDA driver is new to me. 🙂 Does it emulate an Sound Blaster for DOS boxes, too, by any chance? I'm asking, because the […]
Hi, that HDA driver is new to me. 🙂
Does it emulate an Sound Blaster for DOS boxes, too, by any chance?
I'm asking, because the LPTDAC Windows driver for Covox Speech Thing had this ability.
Covox speech thingy!!!
Hello!... First of all, I would like to provide information about the HDA driver for Windows 3.1x and, 9x? . This driver is designed to work with Windows, in my case I tested it with Windows 3.11, but I have seen that some people had success when experimenting with Windows 98se and it works! . I can't say yet if I could emulate Sound blaster in a DOS window, since I'm still trying to get it to work on my machine, but hopefully I can do it soon hehehe
Maybe @onethirdxcubed can guide you better
I was able to get this driver to work with 98SE in VirtualBox (same install instructions as 3.1, just change the wave=hda2.dll line to waveHDA=hda2.dll) but with choppy/crunchy sound, MIDI only working in some programs, and freezes with a page fault when opening a DOS prompt.
On both real systems I tried it on (Atom and VIA based thin clients) I got three pops then the startup sound then a 16 bit Windows error dialog and a hard lockup.
For Windows 98 I would really recommend adding a PCI or USB Audio Class 1.0 sound card instead, much more reliable than this driver. Any WDM sound driver will provide SB Pro digital sound and general MIDI emulation through sbemul.sys (but not AdLib).
I am currently doing research into writing a new proper HD Audio driver that works natively on Windows 98. It seems like it should be possible but no one has done it for 20 years. I'm not sure my C++ skills are up to the task though. There are some WDM driver examples in the ReactOS source code.
