A:

Some 3D-capable hardware doesn't have very good balance between their 3D samples and 2D samples. There isn't a good way to automatically deal with this, because it's a sound card-specific problem. One solution is to give the user a slider in your normal volume-setting options screen and let them balance the two types of audio themselves. The other solution, which we recommend for most applications that encounter trouble with this issue, is to avoid using DirectSound3D and EAX altogether in favor of a software-based option when you call AIL_open_digital_driver.