W2K and Soundblaster PCI128 troubles

[Alec]

The PCI128 (ES1370) driver that comes with Win2K doesn´t have any hardware acceleration nor MIDI wavesets... (the board sounds noticeably better in W2K that in WME, though ). I tried dxdiag.exe and the hardware tests are bypassed...

The drivers that came with the board don´t have them too, and gave me a few freezing problems as well... so I reverted to the native W2K drivers.

Isn´t sound hardware acceleration important for gaming, or is it only when you use 3D sound?



Celeron 433@468 Mhz
Intel Atlanta 440LX @72Mhz FSB
192Mb Hyundai PC100 SDRAM
Soundblaster PCI 128 (ES 1370)
Matrox G400 16Mb SGRAM AGP@144Mhz
Maxtor 10Gb EIDE 7200 RPM
WD Caviar 4.3 Gb EIDE 5400 RPM
Creative 24X CDROM
Sony Spressa USB 4x2x6 CD-RW
Iomega internal IDE ZIP100
Sony HMD-A200 17" Trinitron monitor
Microsoft Intellimouse Optical (USB)
Microsoft Freestyle Pro (USB)
Epson Stylus Color 200
Genius desktop speakers w/ subwoofer
3"5 generic floppy drive

Win2K + SP2
DirectX 8a
Powerdesk 5.52

[Alec]

Hello? Is anybody there? Can anybody answer me?

[EchoWars]

Sorry Alec...I would have thought that the native W2k drivers would have allowed for at least some hardware acceleration. Stick with the native drivers, and if it doesn't crash, consider yourself fortunate...

[cbman]

Its been a long long while.. but back when I had W2K on my system it worked kinda... I never did get around to doing anything requiring DX sound though before junking 2K and going back to 98SE. (Two years ago almost)

Best I could tell... if you have sound... then you are doing better than some people...

[Alec]

I have sound, and a very good one, actually. I´ve been playing some games and the sound is crisper... the computer doesn´t freeze with native W2K drivers, so I guess they´re OK. But gaming is a tad slower in W2K... maybe some new drivers from Matrox will improve speed???

[Jammrock]

Try moving you SB up to PCI slot 2. Make sure ACPI is enabled in the BIOS and Win2k is using it. With ACPI the SB cards usually don't cause troubles.

I the only troubles I have with my SB Live! (a beefed up PCI128) is when I have 4 channel enabled. There are also a driver only version of Lieware on the web. They smaller to download, but there is no AudioHQ so setup the wavetables and so forth. Assuming LiveWare! even works with the PCI128.

[Alec]

ACPI is enabled. SB is arleady on slot nr. 2.

I´m not having problems with sound... the only thing that puzzles me is that in DirectX diagnostics, sound tab, the sound tests are from software buffers only. It says that my card does not support hardware buffers. In Windows 98 and Millennium it used to do. That´s my main doubt. Will this take a toll in gaming speed?

[Jammrock]

ah...the native drivers don't have the hardware acceleration in them. They are generic driver designed to give you sound. You haft to install the Creative drivers to get hardware acceleration...assuming the PCI128 has true hardware acceleration. I've never used one.

As for gaming...it won't make too much of a difference. The only time hardware acceleration will make a difference is when a game utilizes EAX, A3D or runs massive amounts of high quality WAV's at once (like 4+ high quality WAV's). Usually you have control over the quality and 3D spacialization of the game, so if the game starts freezing when certain sounds/music is played, drop down the quality and that should fix it.

Jammrock

[Alec]

Thanks. My computer is slow enough, don´t need no damn soundcard slowing it even more...

[Jorden]

www.creative.com

Ever went to www.creative.com?

Here's something I found for the 128PCI Soundblaster within 4 minutes:

Description:
This is a new driver release for users running Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows NT4, Windows 2000 and Windows Millennium Edition.
This update supports Sound Blaster PCI128 (Model No. CT4750 & CT4751)

Note: This release requires one of the following files to be downloaded for complete installation in your particular operating system:
*Windows 2000 drivers/Windows ME drivers
p128w2k.lib (2,476,013 btyes)

And

Description:
This is a new applications release for users running Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows NT4, Windows 2000 and Windows Millennium Edition.

This update supports the following products:

-Sound Blaster PCI128
(Model No. CT4700, CT4750 & CT4751)

This release requires the following files to be downloaded and placed into the same directory before installing the Creative Audio Card Setup:

-Sound Blaster PCI128
(Model No. CT4700, CT4750 & CT4751)
-SB 16 PCI
(CT4740)
-Creative Ensoniq AudioPCI
(CT4810, CT4811, CT4812, CT4815 & CT4816)
-Vibra 128
(CT4810, CT4811, CT4812, CT4815 & CT4816)
-1370 and 1371-based card models

This release requires the following files to be downloaded and placed into the same directory before installing the Creative Audio Card Setup:

Creative Mixer 6.04.00 (906,973 bytes)
Creative Recorder 1.04.03 (2,614,085 bytes)
Creative Playcenter 1.55.06 and Creative News 2.50.10 (3,774,332 bytes)
Creative Installer 1.00.06 and setup files (6,371,790 bytes)

Jord.

[Alec]

Thanks, Jord, but I´ve already installed those and DX Diagnostics still reports no hardware acceleration. I tried those BEFORE posting this, actually (grin) . Thanx anyway.

[Jorden]

Tried reinstalling DirectX?

[Alec]

No, and that´s a good idea. Gonna try it tonight and tomorrow post results.

[Jorden]

Aargh, post 13 again

Try reinstalling an older DirectX (like 5) first, then 6, then 7, then 8

[cbman]

Hey Now...

Hey...

Just some input from me.

There are two versions of the PCI 128

The 3XXX and the 4XXX

They are different and are not equal...

You may have the 3XXX version like me and need to use an older set of W2K drivers to make it work...

Search the Driver Archives at creative and try to find an older one that does not say for 4XXX version Creative cards.



Hope that helps.