Ditto. Windows NT 4.0, SP6a and the most recent SoundBlaster Live! updates I can find. Everything else does sound just fine.. Half-Life, etc.
 
In the console upon start up in Wolfenstein, it mentions DirectSound having failed the initialization.

The problem is that NT4 only supports DirectX 3 and since that predates DirectSound no DirectSound compatible drivers were eve made for it. As a result games that use DirectSound will either have laggy sound (I noticed this in Quake 2 when I had it installed under NT4) or as you've described, no sound at all.

I gathered as much; however, seeing as though the documentation acompaning the game notes that it supports 'NT', you'd think it would work with the sound. At the least you'd expect some sort of note in those documents saying it does not work with sound in NT. But I suppose all of that is covered in the 'Requires DirectX 8.0 sound card'

There maybe a switch on console variable somewhere that makes it use the Wave device instead of the DirectSound one but while that *will* get the sound working if it's anything like my experience with Q2 then the sound will more than likely lag the graphics which is annoying.

Well, I hope there's a list of switches released soon, or a fix in the next test version, 'casue playing a game like this without sound is just not right! It's like the silent scenes in Saving Private Ryan... eerily disturbing
 
A bit off topic, but do you guys have any problems with your SBlive under NT4? my beef is: no startup or shutdown sounds, and I can hear static in the background as I scroll up and down windows. Minor issues I know, but just damn annoying. Using the latest Liveware off the creative site, unles there is unofficail drivers released I;ve misses?

IIRC you can actually install DX6 in NT4, it doesn't give you a full directX implementation it only upgrades certain parts of it but it will work. All other DX version ( well once i've got anyway ) version check and refuse to install but 6 will work, give it a try if you can find the Old DX6 installer about somewhere. If not i'll try and dig it out for you shoudl you really want to try it. It may not help the problem though.
 
The sound problems sound similar to ones i had in NT4 with my old PCI 128, no other problems but i could never get the startup and shutdown sounds to work, i gave up trying eventually.

Nope NT4 can only accept DirectX 3a, nothing higher. The DirectX 6 you refer to is DirectX Media 6 which has something to do with Windows Media Encoder: http://www.microsoft.com/directx/homeuser/downloads/default.asp

Yeah i remember playing with the windows emdia encoder on NT but i also clearly remember installing DX6 on NT4 as well. I'll try it later if i remember to boot to NT.

There is a hacked DX5 install for NT4, it kinda helped me get Jedi Knight running once upon a time, but the game play was still really crap Might dig that out and have a play. No unofficial SBlive updates for NT4 then I take it?

If its Wolfenstien 3d (the game) you're talking about, the NT kernel in Windows NT 4 and windows 2000 generally DOES NOT SUPPORT DOS-BASED GAMES or sound in them! Windows XP does, however! Also, you may try NTVDM (sound emulation for win NT/2k), but i couldn't get it to work for the game either. Sound for wolfenstein 3D works GREAT under windows XP!

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If its Wolfenstien 3d (the game) you're talking about, the NT kernel in Windows NT 4 and windows 2000 generally DOES NOT SUPPORT DOS-BASED GAMES or sound in them! Windows XP does, however! Also, you may try NTVDM (sound emulation for win NT/2k), but i couldn't get it to work for the game either. Sound for wolfenstein 3D works GREAT under windows XP!

They were talking about the Return to Castle Wolfenstein multiplayer test Since RTCW is based on the Quake3 engine its supported under NT4 graphics wise due to NTs OpenGL support but the lack of proper DirectSound drivers means that sound is a different story. Also, XPs DOS emulation isn't perfect, while I was able to get Duke Nukem 3D and Rise of the Triad working with full sound, Shadow Warrior (which is based on the same engine Duke3D is) ran with choppy sound and Skyroads ran with no music (although sound effects worked fine).