Some driver sets include dummy EAX and A3D DLLs to wrap their own compatibility layer, breaking the functionality of the native card. For example, installing Creative's drivers after Aureal will overwrite the A3D.DLL, which has to be backed up and restored.

Unlike later versions of Windows NT, installers on 9x will happily clobber each other's files. This is one example of DLL hell.

I've been happily using the Sound Blaster LIVE Audigy driver install guide on an Audigy 1 and never realized that there was an actual Audigy install guide. Next install I'll have to use this guide.

Does anyone know if you replace an Audigy 1 SB0090 in a working system with an Audigy 2 SB0240 will it work straight away or will I have to reinstall the drivers?

Nice guide! Followed it to the letter and everything worked out just fine.
Only feedback - perhaps you could remind that in pure dos section that proper environment variables should be set. Everyone knows about BLASTER but in this case CTSYN is important as well.

Sry about double post, but my C:\WINDOWS\CTSYN.INI gets overwritten by windows each time I boot to dos via custom .pif file.
My workaround was to rename 8mb .ecw to default.ecw but maybe there is more elegant solution out there. Any hints?

vutt wrote on 2024-06-30, 09:41:

Sry about double post, but my C:\WINDOWS\CTSYN.INI gets overwritten by windows each time I boot to dos via custom .pif file.
My workaround was to rename 8mb .ecw to default.ecw but maybe there is more elegant solution out there. Any hints?

I haven't encountered this issue myself, but there's no harm in overwriting DEFAULT.ECW with EAPCI8M.ECW.

You may have to do this by booting into "Safe Mode Command Prompt Only" since the file might be loaded by the drivers under normal circumstances, which will prevent it from being overwritten.

Hi !
Thanks for this driver project it works great with my Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS.

Althought i encounter one issue it overwrited my french language in the Volume control application as shown in theses screenshots in attachments.

It's a partial language replacement, so i guess it's linked a to DLL who has been rewriten ?
The exe itself of sndvol32.exe not seems to have changed.
I'm on Windows 98 Second Edition (French).

Would be great if you can help me restore my language.
Best Regards.

TgamesFR wrote on 2024-07-07, 09:46:

Hi !
Thanks for this driver project it works great with my Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS.

Althought i encounter one issue it overwrited my french language in the Volume control application as shown in theses screenshots in attachments.

Interesting. I'm guessing the original Audigy 2 ZS ISO image that I based my driver pack on was from the United States, which is why it defaults to English. I don't know what exactly the driver pack overwrote, so I can't offer any help there.

However, since you have an Audigy 2 ZS card, you might be able to download a French localized driver CD image and install that using the official method (WDM drivers first, then switch to VxD using Creative's Driver Utility). After that, try installing the DOS drivers from my custom image and see how that works out. If this still overwrites your volume controls, you'll have to search for a French localized image of the Audigy 1 driver CD and install the DOS component from there.

For what it's worth, I've added a warning to the original post that this guide and the driver pack that it uses are tailored to the US English versions of Win98SE or WinME.

vutt wrote on 2024-06-30, 09:41:

Sry about double post, but my C:\WINDOWS\CTSYN.INI gets overwritten by windows each time I boot to dos via custom .pif file.
My workaround was to rename 8mb .ecw to default.ecw but maybe there is more elegant solution out there. Any hints?

Does it still overwrite the file if you set it to read-only?

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-07-07, 09:59:

Interesting. I'm guessing the original Audigy 2 ZS ISO image that I based my driver pack on was from the United States, which is why it defaults to English. I don't know what exactly the driver pack overwrote, so I can't offer any help there.

However, since you have an Audigy 2 ZS card, you might be able to download a French localized driver CD image and install that using the official method (WDM drivers first, then switch to VxD using Creative's Driver Utility). After that, try installing the DOS drivers from my custom image and see how that works out. If this still overwrites your volume controls, you'll have to search for a French localized image of the Audigy 1 driver CD and install the DOS component from there.

For what it's worth, I've added a warning to the original post that this guide and the driver pack that it uses are tailored to the US English versions of Win98SE or WinME.

After checking the problem is related to theses 3 files :

- CTDLANG.DAT
- CTDCRES.DLL
- INRES.DLL

They exist in multilangual in your OLD_VXD.CAB package in the folder "LANG".
Their names are :

- CTFRN.DAT
- CTDCRFRN.dll
- INRESFRN.dll

FRN = French, there is also German, Italian, Spanish, Japanese, Korean, Dutch... languages.

But strangely the installer always force the english version. Copying them over restore the language but it break something else cause i guess it also need set somewhere in registry.

Probably if you fix the ini file the setup will allow install in the good language because your drivers are multilangual in reality.

TgamesFR wrote on 2024-07-07, 13:32:

Probably if you fix the ini file the setup will allow install in the good language because your drivers are multilangual in reality.

That might be a bit outside of my skill set, I'm not DanielK. 😁

But as noted before, if the problem is with the Windows drivers for the Audigy 2 ZS, you can install them normally from a localized driver CD, then swap over to VxD using the official method, and afterwards just proceed to the DOS portion of my guide from there.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-07-07, 13:43:

TgamesFR wrote on 2024-07-07, 13:32:

Probably if you fix the ini file the setup will allow install in the good language because your drivers are multilangual in reality.

That might be a bit outside of my skill set, I'm not DanielK. 😁

But as noted before, if the problem is with the Windows drivers for the Audigy 2 ZS, you can install them normally from a localized driver CD, then swap over to VxD using the official method, and afterwards just proceed to the DOS portion of my guide from there.

I've managed to fix all languages issues and have no bugs so far (tested all since 3h).

Here the method :

1) Go to \AUDIO\DRIVERS\VXD\ in the CDrom
2) Extract OLD_VXD_CAB with 7zip (it should open it like a zip)
3) In the extracted folder go to LANG
4) Search CT*.DAT (replace * by your language code in 3 letters, exemple CTFRN.DAT for FRN = French).
5) Rename that file to CTDLANG.DAT
6) *IMPORTANT*: Backup your original \WINDOWS\SYSTEM\CTDLANG.DAT from your WIndows 98 SE.
7) Replace it with this translated CTDLANG.DAT file in \WINDOWS\SYSTEM. It will ask to replace original one.
😎 Reboot

Now after reboot, the Windows SoundVolume program is back to your original language.

I've noticed on some DOS game under Windows 98, i have perfectly fine the MIDI musics from the Audigy but i don't have sound effects.
Like Jungle Book or Asterix & Obelix.

In most DOS games i have both sounds effects and musics like Duke Nukem, Rayman, Tomb Raider.

The only other weird issue i've encountered is having no sounds during cutscenes of Rayman 1. The game itself have musics and sounds effects working during gameplay but when a cutscene start sound is cutted.

Creative's SB16 emulation on Live and Audigy cards isn't perfect. There are bound to be issues with certain DOS games. And that goes for SB emulation on any other PCI sound card as well.

As for some older Win9x titles having problems, that's not surprising either. The Audigy 2 ZS shipped in late 2003. By that time, Creative was all about EAX and using it in the latest games that were coming out on WinXP. Their Win9x driver support is more of a courtesy to legacy systems. And while we retro enthusiasts appreciate the Audigy 2 ZS as the last generation of Creative's products that still works under Win9x, it's not always going to be smooth sailing.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-07-10, 18:48:

Creative's SB16 emulation on Live and Audigy cards isn't perfect. There are bound to be issues with certain DOS games. And that goes for SB emulation on any other PCI sound card as well.

As for some older Win9x titles having problems, that's not surprising either. The Audigy 2 ZS shipped in late 2003. By that time, Creative was all about EAX and using it in the latest games that were coming out on WinXP. Their Win9x driver support is more of a courtesy to legacy systems. And while we retro enthusiasts appreciate the Audigy 2 ZS as the last generation of Creative's products that still works under Win9x, it's not always going to be smooth sailing.

Ye it's true but i had a Sound Blaster Live 5.1 before i remember at least Jungle Book had SFX while musics were playing. So maybe it's just a driver issue for Audigy.
Or the game search for something it not find.

TgamesFR wrote on 2024-07-10, 22:00:

Ye it's true but i had a Sound Blaster Live 5.1 before i remember at least Jungle Book had SFX while musics were playing. So maybe it's just a driver issue for Audigy.
Or the game search for something it not find.

There are small compatibility differences between various versions of Creative's drivers as well, even when using the exact same sound card. For example, the original SBLive CT4620 (from 1998) would behave a bit differently if one were to install Creative's LiveWare 3.0 driver update (released in 2000) compared to using its stock drivers from the installation CD that shipped with the card. Basically, the newer the driver, the bigger the chance that some old game might have problems with it. To their credit, Creative did fix a few bugs like the FM synth emulation slowdown with their latest DOS drivers, but they also introduced some new issues.

Additionally, Creative only supported DOS compatibility up to the Audigy 1. There are no official DOS drivers for Audigy 2 and ZS cards. In retro gaming circles, we can unofficially force those cards to use the Audigy 1 DOS driver pack, but that may not always work properly, as Creative never intended for the drivers to be used in that manner.

Just had a "stupid!" moment - sbeinit was saying "Creative SB16 Emulation Drive NOT loading" emulation not loaded, and I had an absolute one thinking the drivers were stuffed, so I've been running around removing, reinstalling.
Remember to check C:\WINDOWS\CTSYN.INI. For some bizarre reason the drivers had decided to throw "SBENABLE=FALSE" in there. Flip that to TRUE and job's a goodun: "Initialization Complete."

As many have said already: thank you for putting together such an amazing guide and accompanying edited ISO.

I've encountered a weird problem that I don't think has been mentioned (or I completely missed it). I did manage to install everything, had no errors, and all is working perfectly find in Windows (98SE), for both Windows and DOS games. I have one "issue" however; I can't get any output from the headphone port in pure DOS mode. The regular output on the back of the card works fine, but I have the front panel that goes with the Audigy card and for accessibility I find it more convenient to use the headphone port on that for when I prefer gaming on headphones. Is there any way to force the card to output through the headphone port.

The headphone jack on the card itself also does not output anything in pure DOS mode, which I expect is the same issue.

Any tips or help would be greatly appreciated!

nikemare wrote on 2024-07-28, 21:04:

As many have said already: thank you for putting together such an amazing guide and accompanying edited ISO.

You're welcome!

I've encountered a weird problem that I don't think has been mentioned (or I completely missed it). I did manage to install everything, had no errors, and all is working perfectly find in Windows (98SE), for both Windows and DOS games. I have one "issue" however; I can't get any output from the headphone port in pure DOS mode.

Which Audigy model are you using, specifically? On Audigy 2 and ZS cards, it's necessary to run AUDIGY12.EXE to get any audio in pure DOS.

Hey, you! Yes, you!
Are you somewhat irked by the noisy splash screen the creative drivers add to Windows? Would you like to disable them?
Yes! Good, then read on!

Having become mildly offended by the audio collision of the Microsoft Sound and the EAX splash screen, I made an educated guess that since there wasn't a setting I could find to turn it off in anything Creative had installed with the drivers, it was probably being done by an app, which meant there were only certain places it could be fired off from. To the Registry!
In this case, it's found in a key in HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run called "CTStartup" "c:\program files\creative\splash screen\cteaxspl.exe /run"

At this point, we can do two things:
The Easy option, is to fire up msconfig and just untick that entry. No more splash screen, no effect on system functionality.

The other option is to do something silly.
After some prodding around the contents of that program's folder, it's pretty obvious that all it really does is play an AVI from the same folder whose name is specified in cteaxspl.ini. There's some basic sanity checking. You can't just slap a file into that folder and replace an entry inside that ini with your file, it'll just ignore it.
HoweverIf we (backup and then) replace Eax_hd.avi with e.g. a 5 second clip from The Princess Bride (no particular reason, I had it handy) that's the right format (cinepak video and PCM audio), the attached now happens when your system boots.

I don't know if there's a limit to how long something played this way could be, but I suspect it's only limited by whatever technical limits cinepak has and the filesize limits of fat32 i.e. none practically speaking. Some guy here's crunched a 15 minute movie into it for a starter: https://www.andrews-corner.org/cinepak.html
Needless to say, I'm not responsible for any shenanigans that happen with this knowledge.

Here's the MPC-BE properties for the original:
General
Complete name : F:\EAX_HD.AVI
Format : AVI
Format/Info : Audio Video Interleave
Format settings : BitmapInfoHeader / PcmWaveformat
File size : 1.93 MiB
Duration : 4 s 238 ms
Overall bit rate : 3 824 kb/s
Frame rate : 29.970 FPS

Video
ID : 0
Format : Cinepak
Codec ID : cvid
Duration : 4 s 238 ms
Bit rate : 2 399 kb/s
Width : 320 pixels
Height : 240 pixels

Audio
ID : 1
Format : PCM
Format settings : Little / Signed
Codec ID : 1
Duration : 4 s 237 ms
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 1 411.2 kb/s
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 44.1 kHz
Bit depth : 16 bits

For those who might want it, here's the command line for ffmpeg. Replace filenames as appropriate:

1ffmpeg.exe -i "TPB 5s.m4v" -s 320x240 -c:a pcm_s16le -c:v cinepak "d:\video\TPB5s.avi"