Q: Any video card we touts “DirectX 9 Compliance” or “full DirectX 9 support!” But what about sound cards? Many games list a DirectX 8 or 9 compatible sound system as a requirement. How can we calculate whether a card gives us the support we need to? Neither the box nor the product websites or retail sites or to download. Pdf documentation told me nine or affordable tickets from nine different manufacturers meet a specific iteration of DirectX. : Roll:
Can anybody tell me how to find information without having to go via a customer service system that often), the answers to your personal e-mail contact stored and standardized responses, usually ask for information you gave already in your first e-mail, b) require that you already have a card that may or may not offer the support you need, and / or c) never answer you at all?
Also, there is some form of online database of DirectX compliant products that I can filter based on DirectX version, or something similar? Youd think somewhere on this big internet someone would have compiled such a list, lol. Googling shows nothing, though.
Seriously I miss something? Am I the only one who thinks this a major problem? Anyone else with me this?
Thanks.
Re:Yeah, that's what we had hoped, but alas despite having a compatible video card (also cheap, but sufficient) it still wouldn't run her game. We tried updating drivers at gateway, as well as Windows update. No luck. So we finaly emailed the developers of the game and their tech support told us (after reviewing the specifications of her system) that she needed a new sound card.
Re:Is there a particular reason the onboard sound is no good?
I have a PII 450 from gateway I bought in 98 that I am still using to this day. It has run every game that I prefer to play just fine, even those with DX 8/9 sound requirements.(mostly RTS games)
I did have it running XP with 512MB ram, but otherwise just using onboard sound with the drivers automatically installed from disc. It also ran everything fine before it had XP, I just switched it less than a year ago.
edit: as was mentioned above, the compatibility is mostly due to driver support for sound cards. Going to the manufacturers website and getting the latest drivers may be all you need.
Re:Originally posted by: Phil
Ah. If you could get it up to 2000 or XP (with a slight increase in RAM to say, 256Mb+) you'd be in a much better position. I'm afraid I don't know (off the top of my head) a soundcard that definitely supports 98.
Sound Blaster Audigy Gamer (I have one, and it runs on Windows 98)
EDIT: Windows 98, I'm not sure but I think it's not 98SE
EDIT2: Duron 600MHz, and at some times had 128MB RAM (256 at installation time), I don't know what the minimal requirements are
Re:In that case I could just get her this one for ten dollars and it would work?
Sabrent SBT-SP6C (http://www.sabrent.com/products/specs/SBT-SP6C.htm)
It says it's "Fully Sound Blaster, Sound Blaster Pro compatible and
Direct Sound compatible." And the system requirements are only:
Windows 95/98/ME/2000/XP, Windows NT4.0. DOS or Linux
Intel architecture CPU with MMX instruction set
133 MHz CPU or above (recommended)
32MB system memory
100MB available HDD space
which she definitely has (for what it's worth lol).
Re:The one problem with cheap cheap cheap sound cards I found in 98 was that they can sometimes be a right bugger to install.
I would go for one worth a tenner give or take , you can prob get a cheap branded [known] for that
Re:Any SB16 compatible sound card should suffice. No point in buying the brand name for a Win98 machine. You can get a Sweex (http://www.sweex.com/product.asp?pId=104) sound card which has all the benefits of the Soundblaster for a third of the price. The one in the link costs about ￡5 in the UK. Illustrated manual for it here (http://213.239.187.14/manuals/US000020_eng.pdf)
Re:Ok, thanks folks. I wonder why every game's official site lists DirectX (insert version number here) compliant audio hardware as being a requirement. I guess like you said, they just mean a card that can handle atleast 16-bit audio. There seriously needs to be a major marketing push towards educating casual computer users with respect to these things, don't you think? I know alot of people who get ripped off because they buy a Dell or a Gateway that advertises one thing, and actualy means another. Some even bought systems with no AGP slot, only PCI and ISA. And those were supposedly "new" systems!
I should be more knowledgeable about DirectX, but I have an M-Audio 2496 and I only use my system for audio production, so all I ever worried about was whether or not the card had WDM support lol.
Thanks for all the helpful suggestions. The problem with the cards mentioned is that my girlfriend's CPU is only a Pentium II 400MHz, and even the low end SoundBlaster Live! cards need atleast 450MHz. There are two choices I'm looking into.
One is the SoundBlaster 16 PCI (specs here) (http://us.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=1&subcategory=207&product=38&nav=technicalSpecifications) which the website says has "Support for Microsoft? DirectSound? and DirectSound? 3D and derivative audio technology." If that's all she needs, then great!
The other is this AOpen Cobra AW870LP (specs here) (http://usa.aopen.com/products/sound/CobraAW870LP.htm) which is the only card I've seen that mentions DirectX at all in it's documentation. It says "Windows XP / 2000 / Me / 98SE (Microsoft DirectX 9.0 or above is requried in ME for 7.1CH support)" I know she has Windows 98 (yes – it's definitely second edition) but the fact that it mentions DX 9 even with respect to ME suggests to me it's compliant – even if, as you said, that's not really the thing I should be worrying about. The problem is that they don't list system requirements for the AOpen card.
Both are highly affordable, though the latter seems to offer greater functionality. Thoughts?
Re:There used to be requirements to meet Multimedia specs back in win 3.x/DOS days. Multimedia 1 was like a 1x cdrom (<- still have mine heh) and 8 bit 11 khz mono sound and 256 color, MM 2 was like 2x cdrom and 16 bit 22 khz stereo sound and 16 bit color, something like that.
But the dx spec is probably more a driver issue than hardware, anything that can do 16 bit 44khz stereo sound should be all thats needed to meet dx9 sound reqs.
Re:http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/deta…-4122-8230-69f3e5ecdede&DisplayLang=en (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=4846c891-d45d-4122-8230-69f3e5ecdede&DisplayLang=en)
If you're asking for Directx 8.1, there's a link there. If that link doesn't work, try this one:
http://www.alibre.com/support/directx-81.asp
Re:If it is 98SE then you shouldn't have too much of a prob finding the cheapie soundcard grail.
In fact, the cheaper it is, the more likely it is to work with 98se.
If she just has 98, then there MIGHT be a problem – - — – —
I know, i know, there isn't that much difference, but tell that to the vendors who put a version block in their sw so that you have to pay MS more money for an upgrade.
Re:Originally posted by: guy
Every video card we see touts "DirectX 9 compliance" or "full DirectX 9 support!" But what about sound cards? Loads of games list a DirectX 8 or 9 compliant sound card as a system requirement. How are we to go about figuring out whether or not a card offers us the support we need? Neither the box, nor the product websites, nor retail sites, nor downloadable .pdf documentation have told me whether or not nine different affordable cards from nine different manufacturers are compliant with a specific iteration of DirectX.
Can anyone here tell me how to find this information without having to go through a customer service system that a) usualy replies to your personal email inquiries with memorized and standardized responses, usualy asking for information you already gave in your initial email, b) require you to already own a card that may or not offer the support you need, and/or c) never reply to you at all?
Also, is there any kind of online database of DirectX compliant products that I can filter by DirectX version, or something like that? You'd think somewhere on this vast internet someone would have compiled such a list lol. Googling turns nothing up, though.
Seriously, am I missing something here? Am I the only one who thinks this is a big problem? Anyone else with me on this?
Thanks.
Well, strictly speaking, a "DirectX compatible sound card" is a contradiction in terms because DirectX is a graphics accelerator and silent as a grave. The audio component is called "DirectSound 3D" which is what you'll see referred to most often on sound card sites.
A good gaming soundcard is the Soundblaster Live 24-bit which is a stripped down version of the Audigy series. More info here (http://www.soundblaster.com/products/product.asp?category=1&subcategory=206&product=10315)
A 24-bit card will provide better sound quality and more options than a 16-bit version.
Re:Ah. If you could get it up to 2000 or XP (with a slight increase in RAM to say, 256Mb+) you'd be in a much better position. I'm afraid I don't know (off the top of my head) a soundcard that definitely supports 98.
Re:Well, I assumed as much – but they really should say that somewhere, don't you think? Or am I just a worry wart who's too picky? (entirely possible, lol).
I'm assuming you mean DirectX 9 (or atleast 
and games that require compatibility with those, right?
Thanks for replying.
EDIT: P.S. This is all in regards to my girlfriend's PC. It's pretty old. Windows 98, Pentium II 400MHz. So the card needs to work with those specs. SBLive says 2000/ME/XP only.
Re:As far as I know, as long as the device has up-to-date drivers (and 99% of the sound cards you can buy do), then it'll work with DirectX.
M-Audio Revolution, SBLive, SB Audigy etc would be a good starting point. You should be able to get an SBLive for something like $30, which would be absolutely fine – mine works with DirectX; no problems.
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