22 replies to this topic

[Andrea C.]

I had forgotten about occlusion. This spurred me to looking further into it and it looks like the occlusion effects from EAX were only available with VxD drivers (basically, the drivers for Windows 98). WDM drivers (for Windows XP) did away with occlusion. It looks like Microsoft really gradually destroyed good audio in games as it went along.

Now Im toying with the idea of building a Windows 98 machine to play BG the way it was meant to be.

[skellytz]

it looks like the occlusion effects from EAX were only available with VxD drivers (basically, the drivers for Windows 98). WDM drivers (for Windows XP) did away with occlusion.

If you mean that VOGONS thread, I think it's clarified further on occlusion worked even with WDM drivers back when the game was more popular after its release. I'm pretty sure it worked for me even years later on my sound card; but then again, it wasn't an Audigy. Apparently, Creative changed something in their drivers at some point. To be fair, sound card drivers randomly caused me quite a few issues in other games too; it wasn't all sunshine and rainbows 

 

In any case, I'll try to restore these effects when possible!

[Andrea C.]

Ive just re-read the entire VOGONS thread and they do insist occlusion is only available on Win98 all the way through. They mention something about the game being hardcoded to use VxD drivers for those effects.

Ive got my eyes on a retro PC with an Audigy 2 ZS sound card. Should I eventually pull the trigger, Ill probably run Win98 on it just for the sake of safety.