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American McGee Alice(2000) A3D 2 Not working

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First post, by Stretch

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I am unable to get A3d 2 working in American McGee's Alice.

I select A3D2 in the Audio configuration menu, but if I access the console in the game, it shows I'm using the software driver.

I even manually changed the config file and put A3D2, but it reverts to software after I launch the game.

I'm using Win98SE with a Vortex2 sound card and the 2041 drivers.

I even tried replacing the mssa3d2.m3d in the sndrivers folder, from a new file from GTA III, but that didn't help.

Win 11 - Intel i7-1360p - 32 GB - Intel Iris Xe - Sound Blaster G8

Reply 1 of 21, by Gamecollector

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As I can see the game uses mss32 6.0b. So the last fully compatible version is 6.0m.
GTAIII uses the 6.1a version.
Maybe this is the reason.
P.S. Is the a3d1 driver works ok?

Asus P4P800 SE/Pentium4 3.2E/2 Gb DDR400B,
Radeon HD3850 Agp (Sapphire), Catalyst 14.4 (XpProSp3).
Voodoo2 12 MB SLI, Win2k drivers 1.02.00 (XpProSp3).

Reply 2 of 21, by Stretch

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Yes, a3d1 works.

Do you know which game has mss32 6.0m? Maybe I have it and can try the newer mss32 dll and m3d files.

Win 11 - Intel i7-1360p - 32 GB - Intel Iris Xe - Sound Blaster G8

Reply 3 of 21, by Gamecollector

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RAD Game Tools: Bink/Miles/Smacker Windows .dll's.

Asus P4P800 SE/Pentium4 3.2E/2 Gb DDR400B,
Radeon HD3850 Agp (Sapphire), Catalyst 14.4 (XpProSp3).
Voodoo2 12 MB SLI, Win2k drivers 1.02.00 (XpProSp3).

Reply 4 of 21, by Stretch

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It still doesn't pickup A3D2, even after using the updated DLL.

The console says there is no A3D2 provider.

Win 11 - Intel i7-1360p - 32 GB - Intel Iris Xe - Sound Blaster G8

Reply 5 of 21, by mirh

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Gamecollector wrote:

As I can see the game uses mss32 6.0b. So the last fully compatible version is 6.0m.

Could you elaborate?
I thought miles dropped A3D in 7.0b

pcgamingwiki.com

Reply 6 of 21, by ZanQuance

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Sorry I didn't see this earlier, I actually patched my version of Alice to work with A3D 2.0.
Search for this in a Hex editor, provided long hex to nab correct offset area:
B000520053E87095070083C40885C0751A @0006F1F5 (byte 75)
Change to
B000520053E87095070083C40885C0741A @0006F1F5 (to byte 74)

This will bypass the card detection bug and let A3D 2.0 be enabled.

Reply 7 of 21, by Stretch

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Thanks ZanQuance. Does the a3d 2 sound any better than a3d 1 in this game? I swapped out my Vortex2 for an SBLive so I can't test a3d 2 right now.

Win 11 - Intel i7-1360p - 32 GB - Intel Iris Xe - Sound Blaster G8

Reply 8 of 21, by ZanQuance

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Since the game lacks WaveTracing I hear no difference on my SQ2500, as A3D 2.0 only introduced WaveTracing reverb and some general improvements over 1.0 in their HRTF (and a few other things).
However a Vortex2 automatically gives all improvements to A3D 1.0 games. Alice offers A3D2 for EAX reverb support under Win98 with the 2048 drivers. I tested under XP so there is no reverb and thus no difference to my case.

On any non-Vortex2 cards that have A3D 1.0 emulation there would be a difference between those cards A3D 1.0 quality and a real Vortex2.

Reply 10 of 21, by ZanQuance

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Currently the only way to play Alice with 3D audio on Vista and higher is with Alchemy in EAX2 mode.

Hira should update that section, A3D-Live! isn't A2D. A2D is A3DAPI's internal fallback renderer when no acceleration is detected on the system. Since Vista and higher have DS3D available as software buffers the game will fail with the message "No Hardware 3D voices available".

A3D-Live!'s job only fakes the hardware buffers, but doesn't process nor emulate anything. A3D demos will work but have no real 3D positioning.

I recommend getting Alchemy universal, drop the dsound.dll and dsound.ini into the games dir, and use EAX2 to play seeing as it at least works and gives 3D audio.

Reply 11 of 21, by mirh

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vogamer wrote:

Hi, anyone know if A2D works with Alice on Windows 10 x64? Thx!

http://pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Glossary:Sound_card#A3D

🤣
This remember me it's actually a year and half I should update that with the really precious informations I got here..
Though I never find time.. and with a hopefully definitive solution in the foreseeable future, I honestly don't see worth the effort to word it there accurately anymore.

ZanQuance wrote:

Hira

Mirh 😘
ps: Aureal universal (the really old version) sucks, better to use newer ones.

pcgamingwiki.com

Reply 12 of 21, by ZanQuance

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ZanQuance wrote:

Hira

Mirh 😘

Sorry about that Freudian typo, Hira is my recording friend on youtube :p

Aureal universal (the really old version) sucks, better to use newer ones.

Alchemy Universal isn't that bad, the new ones require a license key file to use. There are cracked versions for sure, but Alchemy Universal is good enough and I am hard pressed to hear any difference in the new versions with Alice.

This remember me it's actually a year and half I should update that with the really precious informations I got here..

I mentioned in that thread that the X-FI should have hardware HRTF, it appears that was false information and all HRTF is processed in software via CMSS-3D 🙁 so that leaves only the Vortex2 with hardware HRTF.

Reply 13 of 21, by vogamer

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Hi, can ALchemy Universal be used with A2D (not A3D-Live) to enable A3D 2.0 in Alice on W10 x64? Thx!

Reply 14 of 21, by ZanQuance

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The only way to get A3D2 working is under Win98 or XP at the moment. A2D has some features such as occlusions and light-HRTF but the sound from EAX2 and Alchemy is better in this case under Vista and higher.
No one should prefer A2D in this game, it isn't a full emulation of the Vortex2.

Reply 15 of 21, by vogamer

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ZanQuance wrote:

The only way to get A3D2 working is under Win98 or XP at the moment. A2D has some features such as occlusions and light-HRTF but the sound from EAX2 and Alchemy is better in this case under Vista and higher.
No one should prefer A2D in this game, it isn't a full emulation of the Vortex2.

Hi Zan, thanks for the info and helping, is A3D(1/2) generally preferred for Alice?

Also, (in your opinion) which sounds better on Win98?
A3D1 vs. EAX2
and
A3D2 vs. EAX2

Reply 16 of 21, by ZanQuance

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Win98/XP: A3D2 via a Vortex2 or Sensaura supported card.
Vista,7,8, and 10: EAX2 via Alchemy on any supported card because A3D1 and 2 will not enable properly.

A3D1 = HRTF and Occlusions with no reverb support.
A3D2/3 = Better HRTF and Occlusions with realtime WaveTracing Reverb support + lots of effect filters like Doppler and Atmospheric dampening, Volumetric and NearField sounds, along with many other nice things.

Reply 17 of 21, by Gamecollector

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ZanQuance wrote:

or Sensaura

Not sure. I have ASUS P4P800 SE with the SoundMAX audio (Analog Devices AD1895, Sensaura support). And almost all a3d games work with heavy glitches. The best test is Heretic II (unpatched) - no sounds at all.

Asus P4P800 SE/Pentium4 3.2E/2 Gb DDR400B,
Radeon HD3850 Agp (Sapphire), Catalyst 14.4 (XpProSp3).
Voodoo2 12 MB SLI, Win2k drivers 1.02.00 (XpProSp3).

Reply 18 of 21, by ZanQuance

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Hmm not sure about the quality of that chips drivers, or perhaps it's using old Sensaura dll's. Either way I was thinking more along the lines of the Turtle Beach Santa Cruz, or Hercules GameTheater XP type of Sensaura support. The game sounds really good with my Turtle Beach seeing as Sensaura works off the provided A3D2 settings and EAX2.

Reply 19 of 21, by DAFFYDAFFY

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Someone posted a fix for some soundcards on Moddb .(check the Alice downloads section)

Just posting this case some one ends up here while looking for fixes.