[bizzybody]

The 98SE WDM driver for Yamaha OPL3-SAx audio doesn't work correctly with 98SE2ME. It'll install and appear in Device Manager and the audio devices list in the sound control panel, but not on the tabs where you select the Preferred Devices.

The only thing that can then access the audio devices is DXDIAG in DirectX 9.0c.

I had to go back to the VXD driver, which causes a constant low level noise in the speakers unless the volume is turned down and doesn't play nicely with hot swapping CardBus cards for some reason even though there are no conflicting resources. (The VXD driver worked fine in pure 98SE.)

Would it be possible to rip the WinMe WDM drivers into an installer for use with 98SE2ME? I'm willing to test it on my Toshiba Tecra 8000 laptop.

[Eck]

I've been kind of out of things here, busy with Linux and all, but I'd like to suggest that with that kind of soundchip a VXD driver would generally be preferred on a 9x operating system. Could the audio hum be solved by turning down or muting the cd, auxiliary, or microphone levels? The wave and system volume sliders then could be turned up to comfortable levels without the hum in most cases.

VXD drivers, at least installed from manufacturer updated and complete versions, were more feature complete for the older sound chips. WDM drivers for older chips like that were mostly Microsoft basic drivers made to limit complaints when folks upgraded to XP and found their sound no longer worked. Fancier WDM sets that were fully developed and included matching software were made by Creative and M-Audio with 9x compatibility that was actually pretty good.

Those older audio chips had already been discontinued by the time XP came out and so Microsoft worked with what they had and got some sound out of them, but really not as good as what you can get by using the older VXD versions on 9x.

Yeah, they did get noise from the various inputs. Mute them unless you're going to use them. Once there's audio passing through (from the cd or dvd drive for example) the noise is replaced by the glorious signal coming from the cd that's playing, replacing the noise that exists from the audio system trying to make sense out of the electronic gibberish coming from the unmuted cd, aux, or mike lines. Mute the crap, then turn it up when you actually are giving the system a signal to work with and it won't be noisy.

Also, try to eliminate cables and things touching each other within the PC case by tying them together or taping them to the case. Replacing old, worn out wiring can be helpful as well as blowing out the dust bunnies with some canned air.