Audio

Go into the Options menu & select the Audio tab.

Sound Quality. Setting this to Low can improve performance (particularly with older soundcards, generally ISA), although will result in reduced audio quality. I’d highly recommend leaving this set to High for improved audio quality & very little performance difference on newer soundcards.

Sound Volume. Use this to set the volume level for audio. Adjust the slider bar for volume as required, slide the bar right to increase volume & vice versa. I’d recommend setting this to the maximum & independently adjust the volume levels for music & such.

Use Hardware 3D Sound. Tick this to enable EAX/A3D support. With A3D2/3 capable cards there can be quite a performance hit when enabled (compared to EAX that is). This will yield improved audio quality however. See the advanced options/console commands further below for how to disable unneeded components of A3D audio to speed things up (Make sure to download the latest A3D driver). Untick this especially if you intend to play online with an A3D2 card or need the extra performance in single player. For optimal performance Untick the box.

The 3d sound implementation with A3D is superior to that of EAX though.

Use Surround Sound. If you have a Dolby Surround sound receiver e.g. Dolby Pro Logic, then tick this, so you may take advantage of 360-degree Dolby sound panning. Otherwise, it Untick it.