MX300 in W2K: Which drivers?

[DaveMan 0]

Um, when I tried to install the MX300 drivers on W2K Pro final, I end up getting an error that occurs when I click OK on the little bitmap logo window (anyone who's installed Aureal ref drivers knows that I'm not insane ). Error: "Unable to load driver. Check PnP OS settings in the BIOS setup and make sure your sound card is plugged in." I've done this with PnP OS both on and off, and the sound card IS plugged in. (I get normal sound with the W2K native drivers...I still want A3D though.) One note, before I post my system specs: I know that SMP doesn't work with the MX300 as of NT4 (found that out the hard way...), but I'm still going to try it with W2K. Also on that note, the W2K native Vortex 2 drivers handle SMP just fine, but with no A3D.

System:

2x P3 500mhz

128MB ultra-generic RAM

ASUS P2B-D

Diamond V770u (working)

Diamond MX300 (PCI #2)

USR Modem (ISA #2)

W2K Pro final (*cough* Santa Claus left it in my downloads folder *cough*)

 

-DaveMan

[DaveMan 0]

Ack, almost forgot... I'm using Aureal reference drivers v2.05.05 for NT4. I'm going to download the other 2 releases they have listed and try those, and also try Diamond's drivers if those don't work.

[Seldzar 0]

Win2k has built in support for the mX300 the other drivers won't work, don't bother.

[Jehova 0]

Yeah, Mx300 works fine with the inbuild drivers. But the drivers from diamond (which have been beta since february last year!!!) still doesnt give you all the fancy stuff like equalizer (same situation as NT here). Again in total contrast to the propaganda on the box.

[Dbl Tap 0]

I am getting really fed up with Diamond. Their excuses for not up[censored] the drivers at first was that Aureal's drivers were still beta. Now it's their merger with S3 taking up their time. I am sick of them and have gotten rid of every thing Diamond except my MX300 and that will be next believe me. Creative seems to be the only ones whom release drivers more than once every 2 years.

 

I did a clean quick install of Win98 using the latest drivers from Aureal. THen installed W2k. The control panel no longer works but the drivers do. I know this isn't much help but thought you'd like to know out there.

[DaveMan 0]

Hrm, any tips on getting A3D to work with HL then? When I start an HL game with A3D on, I get the 'Initializing A3D... Failed' message in the console. Is there a special version of a3dapi.dll I should snag? I should install Q3A later...only other game I have with A3D... At least then I will know whether its an A3D problem or an HL problem. (Remember HL v1.0.1.0, and how they broke A3D in NT? Valve sucks like that.)

[Streak 0]

I just wanted to say that I have the MX300 and chose to just leave the drivers which were installed with build 2195 alone, so far the sound is great. I cannot verify whether A3D is working as I have not honestly checked. I will however say that I would recommend against installing any NT4 or Win98 reference drivers because they are not for Win2k (duh). I don't want to annoy anyone by saying this but a little patience is necessary. You will simply have to wait until the Win2k drivers are ready if you want them to work on Win2k, you can't expect drivers for a different OS to work, even if it is similar. I mean, look at all the squabble over trying to get the Liveware 3 drivers to work for the SBLive. I have 3 computers, 2 of them with an SBLive and 1 with the MX300 and so far Win2K installs on them all however I have not cried or complained about any Win98 or NT4 drivers not working as they obviously do not and the ones installed by the OS originally are fine until official drivers are released. As far as waiting for drivers from Diamond is concerned I gave up on that a long time ago and have been very content with using Aureals reference drivers.

 

So, please just be patient and wait until Win2K is "officially" released and the drivers for the hardware is too.

I expect that everything will be solved in due and correct time.

 

Have a nice day everyone.

[Syncope 0]

Don't bother waiting for Diamond drivers for the MX300. Diamond/S3 shipped the MX400 today, and I'm sure that the MX300 will now become a 'legacy' product--meaning "fuhgettaboudit."

[DaveMan 0]

Well, FYI: NT4 drivers usually work fairly well in W2K. NVidia Detonator 3.06 drivers worked fine (the exe install didn't work, but the inf install did), and the fairly accepted practice for W2K is installing NT4 drivers. I'm not angry at Diamond/Aureal for not having working W2K drivers, obviously its not their fault. All of my hostility to Diamond/Aureal is based on the fact that the Vortex2 doesn't work on a SMP system. This would suggest sloppy programming in the drivers themselves. (If I had to guess as to what the problem is, I'd say its an issue with multithreading; they probably assumed that only one thread would be processing at any one time, and created some form of deadlock or race condition...) The true flaw here, however, is the fact that nowhere on the MX300 box, or in any online FAQ from Diamond/S3 or Aureal does it say ANYTHING about a problem with this. I had to learn that this was a known issue from 2cpu.com, of all places. That is very unacceptable, and I don't believe that I will be buying any more Diamond/S3 or Aureal products at any time in the future.

[[ypress 0]

I have an MX300 installed using whatever the default driver is. I can't seem to find a way to adjust bass and treble. Is there an EQ available and I just can't find it? or do I need to install something else?