Failed To initialize audio hardware

[Mr Flibble]

(Sorry if this isn't worthy of being posted; I checked around and such, but my PC is too old to conform with some tutorials or fixes)

Hmm. Whenever I start my game, whether there be music or not, I get this error message.

AGS failed to intilialize your audio hardware
Problem: Digital sound drivers not detected

Thats the gist of the problem line, I kinda forgot the exact wording.
This only affects digital music ie mp3.

This has happened before. A while ago, before I reformatted my computer, I had the same problem. I switched to the waveplayer option for digi sound, but whilst this worked at first, later it just produced static noise. I did something (I can't remember what, I may have installed a new game with a higher directX than my current 1) and all of a sudden, default directSound worked!

I read back as far as 11 pages, and I found nothing, apart from 1 person who resolved a similar problem by adjusting his directX settings. My DX settings don't have a slider like he suggested.

I have a windows95, and a soundblaster sound card.
If its relevant, I recently reformatted, so I only have directX 6.01.

If downloading a newer DX would help, I need a new suggestion, as Microsoft no longer have it on their site. There is a page, but the dl is broken. Rather, could someone maybe suggest a game I might have lying around that has a more recent version of directX?
I have LEC games mainly, but loads others.
The DX I have now is from Indy and the Infernal Machine!

Thanks in advance. If theres anything I have been unclear on, let and know and I'll elaborate.

[Mr Jake]

This happens to me sometimes. If you have a program open that is already using the digital sound thingy-ma-gig it will happen

[Mr Flibble]

What, like an mp3 file or a game of some description?
Also, is that a permanent fix?

[Hinders]

this also happened to me when i used a sound blaster card, maybe it's too old for ags?

[Mr Flibble]

No, you see thats the thing. I did something before I reformatted my PC which fixed it, but I can't for the life of me remember what it was.

[Barbarian]

Not sure if this will help, but below is a snippet I got from the AGS Beginner's FAQ at: http://bfaq.terran-x.com/

...

When I test my game (which has NO sound or music yet), OR when I play someone else's game, I get an error that says, “Unable to initialize your audio hardware (problem: Failed to init digital sound driver)”. What is the problem?
Well, so far two things have helped some people. Go into your DirectX settings program (usually "dxdiag.exe", sometimes in a "386" folder). Click on the sounds tab and move the slider to "Full Acceleration" first. If "Full Acceleration" doesn't fix it, try moving the slider down a little bit at a time and see if the results imrove . Try it now.

Also, a much quicker way is to open up the Game Setup window in AGS and change the digital sound setting from "Default Direct Sound" to "Default WaveOut Device".

PS: Here's a link to MicroSoft's DirectX version 9.0b page (see the Download button towards the right side of that page):

DirectX 9.0c

[Mr Flibble]

I'll check out the directx download, but unfortunately that snippet is of no use. Firstly, my dxdiag has no slider thingy, and the second fix was submitted by me.