Windows 98 - The optimal sound card setup: drivers, settings and sound quality

Videos, music files, exciting games and the Windows soundscape - without the sound card and speakers, the atmosphere when working and relaxing would suffer greatly. The following text deals with setting up the sound card and basic tips and tricks.

The manufacturers of sound cards make it very easy for the user in almost all cases and provide an installation program that sets up the drivers completely in just a few steps and with simple queries. As with graphics cards, you can find a comprehensive list of many sound card manufacturers and their driver addresses here.

However, if the files are saved in ZIP format, which is rare, you will have to take the cumbersome route here too:

1. Download the manufacturer's drivers for your sound card model and right-click on the relevant file. Now select Extract and follow the instructions.

2. After all files have been extracted to any folder, you must right-click on My Computer and select Properties from the context menu that pops up.

3. Now open the Device Manager tab and double-click on an entry under Other components that has to do with sound or multimedia.

4. A new window opens before your eyes in which you click on Reinstall driver and enter the driver position in the next window.

5. After you have confirmed with Next, click on Specify a location and then on Browse. Now navigate to the folder with the sound card drivers that you unzipped above and select it.

6. Confirm with OK. The drivers will now be installed and you will be prompted to restart after you have used the Finish button, which you will then do.

7. After a restart, you should already hear the welcome sound.

A driver is not optimally configured from the factory and often some well-hidden commands can still be used to improve the sound quality:

1. Now double-click on your sound card entry in the Device Manager and switch to the Settings tab, Settings or other tabs that have something to do with settings to some extent.

2. If you now find settings such as Synth or WaveTable, I recommend that you always change these to the maximum values so that you can also enjoy your little sound master.

Even with the help of conventional Windows 98 on-board tools, the quality can be improved even further.

1. Click Start > Settings > Control Panel and double-click Multimedia in the window that appears.

2. Now go to Advanced properties under Audio in both sections and set all sliders to the maximum.

3. After you have finished with this under Advanced properties under Playback, you should select your speakers here.

4. Now close all windows and restart your computer.

So that you can make good use of your sound card, I have created a list of different programs, all of which work with all common file formats:

Windows Media Player 7.1
The current version of the popular player, which can also be found in an earlier version in Windows 98. Download!

WinAmp 2.80
A good alternative to the resource-wasting Windows Media Player. There are numerous design modification options (so-called skins) for this all-purpose player. Download!

Skins for the Media Player 7
You can find a number of good skins for MP 7 on Deviantart. Skins for MP 7!

Skins for WinAmp
Hundreds of high quality skins for WinAmp can be found here: Skins for WinAmp!

The series of instructions now continues with the most important programs that a computer should have.

NOTE FOR NEW PUBLICATION: This article was produced by Sandro Villinger and comes from the Windows Tweaks archive, which has been built up since the late 1990s.