OS2 World Community Forum

OS/2, eCS & ArcaOS - Technical => Hardware => Topic started by: Jochen Schäfer on August 22, 2025, 10:28:57 am

Title: Soundblaster Live 1024 drivers
Post by: Jochen Schäfer on August 22, 2025, 10:28:57 am
I'm building a test rig on base of a AM3 board. OS/2 is running fine.

Now, I want to use a sound card. I have access to a Sound Blaster Live 1024 (CT4830) card, so I installed that one.
I downloaded some driver from the Hobbes archive, but it doesn't work. Does someone have some suggestions, how to make the card work, or which driver I should use.
Also, I have a Terratec DMX Xfire 1024. Is there an drivers for that?
Or wóuld a USB sound card a better option?
Title: Re: Soundblaster Live 1024 drivers
Post by: Lars on August 22, 2025, 11:06:51 am
What I can say is that the USB audio drivers naturally support a very broad range of devices and support many more sample rates than the devices actually support in HW because they do under/oversampling in SW (right in the driver). The later was necessary to support DART as far as possible. On the other hand they obviously occupy a USB port for the device.
Title: Re: Soundblaster Live 1024 drivers
Post by: Paul Smedley on August 22, 2025, 11:07:22 am
looks like the emu10k1 driver in uniaud should support the ct4830 chipset
cs46xx driver in uniaud looks like it might support the Terratec
Title: Re: Soundblaster Live 1024 drivers
Post by: Jochen Schäfer on August 22, 2025, 11:35:48 am
I wanted to avoid UNIAUD, because I have big problems with my development machine.
I don't know, if it the driver or the HW in my T480, but I wanted to try "native" drivers.
Title: Re: Soundblaster Live 1024 drivers
Post by: Lars on August 22, 2025, 12:12:45 pm
forgot: USB isochronous data transfer (that is: audio and video data streaming) might not properly work with USB 3.0.
That is at least the latest status that I know of.
Title: Re: Soundblaster Live 1024 drivers
Post by: Andi B. on August 22, 2025, 02:38:11 pm
I wanted to avoid UNIAUD, because I have big problems with my development machine.
I don't know, if it the driver or the HW in my T480, but I wanted to try "native" drivers.

IIRC I once had a Terratec DMX Xfire 1024 but no driver. Terratec announced a Win31 driver but never delivered it. So I gave it back and bought a Turtle Beach Pinnacle instead. This one never had OS/2 drivers too. It uses some CS4xx chip too. But it worked (and still will when I set the IRQs in BIOS correct and boot up this ancient machine) in WinOS2.
Title: Re: Soundblaster Live 1024 drivers
Post by: Martin Iturbide on August 22, 2025, 03:34:32 pm
Hello

I checked the "Terratec Promedia DMX Xfire 1024 " here:
https://theretroweb.com/expansioncards/s/terratec-promedia-dmx-xfire-1024#chips
It says it uses the "Crystal CS4294" chipset. On Hobbes we have reference to Crystal chipset driver, but I haven't found any reference to the "CS4294" one.

FYI: Sound Blaster Live 1024 (CT4830) specs are here:
https://theretroweb.com/expansioncards/s/creative-sound-blaster-live-ct4830
To give it a try I would start with this one:
- https://hobbesarchive.com/Home/Download?path=/Hobbes/pub/os2/system/drivers/sound/Sound_Blaster_Live_0-8-1b.zip

Regards
Title: Re: Soundblaster Live 1024 drivers
Post by: Paul Smedley on August 22, 2025, 11:38:29 pm
I wanted to avoid UNIAUD, because I have big problems with my development machine.
I don't know, if it the driver or the HW in my T480, but I wanted to try "native" drivers.
OK..... but SBLive driver would be ok cos that's "native"....
Title: Re: Soundblaster Live 1024 drivers
Post by: Roderick Klein on August 23, 2025, 04:31:18 pm
I wanted to avoid UNIAUD, because I have big problems with my development machine.
I don't know, if it the driver or the HW in my T480, but I wanted to try "native" drivers.

Well describe what the issue is. We are not people with remote viewing skills that can read your mind or your computer.
So perhaps try to describe what the issue is.

Is UNIAUD perfect, perhaps its not. But so far its the only audio driver we have on ArcaOS/OS/2 and its the best debugged one.

The old SB live driver has different bugs and I would strongly recommend to NOT use it.

Roderick
Title: Re: Soundblaster Live 1024 drivers
Post by: Jochen Schäfer on August 25, 2025, 09:38:22 am
We discussed the issue already: The sound hangs or goes away after some time. Prime example for me is my PrDoom port.
Title: Re: Soundblaster Live 1024 drivers
Post by: Doug Bissett on August 26, 2025, 01:27:20 am
Years ago, I had 4 SBLIVE cards. 2 of them worked with UNIAUD, and not with Sanders' driver. The other two worked with Sanders' driver, and not UNIAUD (then one of them quit working). Even windows found something different with them. I don't remember the details, but if one driver doesn't work, try the other.