The patches contained on these pages update the AUx0DAL.DLL file to work with Windows XP and 2003, thus allowing the Control Panel and Equalizer to function. They are NOT required for any other operating systems. Windows 2003 support has not been tested by myself since I do not own a copy of this operating system but it should be the same in principle. Please click here for additional Aureal/Windows 2003 information.
Please note that Quantex Zone doesn't have the capacity to handle full driver downloads.
This utility is not available from the developer's web site anymore and so I am offering it for download here. It allows direct control of the AC97 Codec which is present on nearly all modern sound cards. Special support is included for the SigmaTel 9708/11 used on most Vortex 2 based cards (MX300, SQ2500, SonicVortex 2 etc.) and the Aureal SQ1500, among others. Originally this was the only was to get 4 speaker output in Windows XP, but with the XP patch (above) it is no longer required.
For Windows 2000/XP:
For Windows 95/98/Me:
It is recommended that you only download these files if you're having problems with A3D. Windows File Protection may not allow you to update the DLLs in Windows XP. For Windows 95/98/Me you should not have problems with the 3.12 driver, it fixes a couple of issues with the original A3D 3.0 files.
These are EAX 2/3 Wrappers which translate EAX 2 and 3 calls into EAX which can be understood by the 4.06.2048 (or 4.06.2050 for the SQ3500 Turbo) driver ONLY. They WILL NOT add EAX support for the Windows 2000 or XP drivers.
The 4.06.2048/50 drivers include a new option (which can be enabled with a registry change) to load different HRTF profiles into the sound card, which is then used for 3D sound rendering. However, please be aware that the default one is an average, designed to suit all people.
Windows Me WDM
In order to use the WDM drivers in Windows Me, download the appropriate Windows 2000 driver from Vortex of Sound, extract into a directory and then overwrite the INF file with the ones provided here. However, I recommend using the VxD drivers in Windows Me since they provide superior performance, stability and features. These files are only provided here for people who want to play around with WDM drivers, or enable Hibernation. DO NOT use in Windows 98SE, since although this OS supports WDM drivers, you will get terrible latency problems with the Aureal driver.
Windows 95/98 VxD
4.06.2040
4.06.2041
4.06.2048
These are only INF files, you will need to download the full driver packages from Vortex of Sound and then copy these INF files over the top before installing. You only need these in certain problematic configurations. For example, the Disabling Bus Detection is required for Intel 8xx chipsets, and SoundBlaster Pro Emulation should be disabled when you don't have enough spare IRQ and DMA channels (ideally IRQ5 and DMA1 or 3).