Getting sound blaster 16 to work in DOS on 98SE box.

[yetiamchosen 0]

Hey all, my first post here.

Down to business. I've installed my ct4740 pci sound blaster 16 in my windows 98 machine, installed the drivers, and it works perfectly under the 98 interface. However, I'll be playing a bunch of games in dos, and I need to figure out how to get sound working.

I suspect I need to load dos drivers for the soundcard, since thusfar, no sound at all is coming out of the speakers in dos.

I've played around with autoexec.bat extensively, but I can't seem to find any resources or people that are intimate with its workings. Nothing I've tried so far has gotten any sound to come out at all. I've tried many set blaster= settings.

I need a page that covers autoexec.bat *thoroughly*, and I need to figure out how to edit autoexec.bat and config.sys properly to get sound playing. "http://www.computerhope.com/ac.htm" is not a thorough resource, and leaves a lot of commands and parameters out.

Upon further inspection, it would appear that my cd drive isn't loading in dos either. I suspect config.sys and autoexec.bat are completely screwed.

All help is greatly appreciated.

-Yeti

Edited April 14, 2008 by yetiamchosen

[idisjunction 0]

You might need to configure your BLASTER variable. Boot from a plain DOS disk with a diagnostic program on it, and find out what IRQ and DMA your card uses. Then edit AUTOEXEC.BAT to say something like

SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D3 T6

"A" is the address range, almost always 220. "I" is the IRQ. "D" is the DMA channel. "T" is the type of card, usually at least 3 or higher should work. I would suggest configuring the BIOS so that your card doesn't use an interrupt higher than 5. Otherwise, some games might not sound right.

Edited April 14, 2008 by idisjunction

[yetiamchosen 0]

You might need to configure your BLASTER variable. Boot from a plain DOS disk with a diagnostic program on it, and find out what IRQ and DMA your card uses. Then edit AUTOEXEC.BAT to say something like

SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D3 T6

Port is 220, IRQ is 7, DMA is 1. The code I'm currently using is SET BLASTER=A220 I7 D1 H7 P330 T6, though I've tried it without the H7 and P330 as well. Just going off sample autoexec.bat codes. I can't find anything really informative that tells me what it SHOULD be, just a lot of examples.

And I still need to tell it where to find the dos drivers. Help?

Also: How do I configure the BIOS so that the interrupt is 5 rather than 7? I took a quick look through, but I didn't see a place to change that.

Edited April 14, 2008 by yetiamchosen

[idisjunction 0]

Port is 220, IRQ is 7, DMA is 1. The code I'm currently using is SET BLASTER=A220 I7 D1 H7 P330 T6, though I've tried it without the H7 and P330 as well. Just going off sample autoexec.bat codes. I can't find anything really informative that tells me what it SHOULD be, just a lot of examples.

Try configuring it so that it uses a lower IRQ, like 5. Some games don't like such high IRQs. The setting SHOULD be whatever your card follows.

And I still need to tell it where to find the dos drivers. Help?

A true Sound Blaster doesn't need drivers, unless it is a PCI card.

[idisjunction 0]

Also: How do I configure the BIOS so that the interrupt is 5 rather than 7? I took a quick look through, but I didn't see a place to change that.

It should be under something "IRQ reservation." The exact settings vary from computer to computer. Just reserve IRQ 7, so that nothing can claim it. The card should then claim IRQ 5.

[yetiamchosen 0]

A true Sound Blaster doesn't need drivers, unless it is a PCI card.

I said that it was a pci card in my first post.

It should be under something "IRQ reservation." The exact settings vary from computer to computer. Just reserve IRQ 7, so that nothing can claim it. The card should then claim IRQ 5.

I just finished looking through every setting in the bios, nothing about IRQ reservation.

I've seen bits and pieces of info around the net about needing to enable dos drivers. Perhaps that's misinformation. Still trying to get this thing to put sound out of the speakers...

Btw, thanks for your help, idisjunction, I appreciate it.

Edited April 14, 2008 by yetiamchosen

[idisjunction 0]

A true Sound Blaster doesn't need drivers, unless it is a PCI card.

I said that it was a pci card in my first post.

Sorry, I missed that. This driver should work, if I am not mistaken:

Driver - Site doesn't allow hotlinking.

More info can be found here:

http://easymamecab.mameworld.net/html/snddosdr.htm

Edited April 14, 2008 by idisjunction

[yetiamchosen 0]

Looking into it... Thanks again for all your excellent help. Watch this spot.

-Yeti

[yetiamchosen 0]

Ok, I've installed the driver, and now (thank god) the card is recognized in dos. I'm using a sound utility that comes with TIE Fighter to test the sound. When I tell it to detect sound, it detects the SB16, detects port 220, irq 5, and dma 1, but when it tries to play sound, it goes through the motions, but nothing comes out of the speakers. Before, it wouldn't detect anything at all, so we're definitely making progress. When I tell windows to detect the sound card, it goes to irq 7. I don't know why windows is picking 7 and dos is picking 5, but I'm assuming dos is running off of the SET BLASTER= I5 variable and windows is going off of something else entirely.

So now the card is recognizing, everything is running smoothly, the only thing left is... actually making the speakers do something?

Thanks for the help so far!

Also: Important to note, the readme file for the drivers says that your sound blaster pci card cannot use irq 5. At the same time, it gives you a new autoexec.bat file with the irq set to 5. Odd? Hit me back.

Edited April 14, 2008 by yetiamchosen

[idisjunction 0]

Windows detects IRQ 7 because that is what the card actually runs at. The driver for DOS emulates a Sound Blaster at IRQ 5. Thats why there was a discrepancy.

I don't know why the sound isn't playing properly. I had a similar problem when exiting from Windows into DOS: sound would play, but it would be just random noise. I think Windows may be doing a TSR that is interfering. If you can, see if you can start DOS without launching Windows first.

[yetiamchosen 0]

I've been running DOS upon initial boot, without windows, from the beginning.

Any idea why it says that the card can't run at irq 5, yet supplies an autoexec.bat with i5 as the given variable?

Hit me up.

Edited April 14, 2008 by yetiamchosen

[Glenn9999 8]

FWIW, I don't have SB16 config lines, but I have the SB64 Awe's lines still in my DOS CD...might be worth it to check against - most of the card initialization remained the same:

CONFIG.SYS

DEVICE=A:\CTSB16.SYS /UNIT=0 /BLASTER=A:220 I:5 D:1 H:5
DEVICE=A:\CTMMSYS.SYS

AUTOEXEC.BAT

SET BLASTER=A220 I7 D1 H5 P330 T6
SET SOUND=C:\SB16
SET MIDI=SYNTH:1 MAP:E
CTCM
AWEUTIL /S
MIXERSET /P /Q
SBRESET

Don't get too hung up on SET BLASTER, since it is primarily there for backwards compatibility from the ISA days.

[BenoitRen 0]

I had an adventure getting sound to work 100% properly in DOS about a year ago. I used to have the configuration panel program that detects the settings. I looked for it on the web, and uploaded it.

The SoundBlaster having an IRQ of 7 is not much of a problem for 95% of games. However, there are some that have the IRQ of 5 hardcoded in their program. Changing the IRQ through the Configuration Panel of Windows doesn't work too well, especially if you have devices like a printer and network card also installed. In my case the network card was hogging IRQ 5, and I found that the best solution was to just put it in a different PCI slot.

You haven't got the drivers with the SoundBlaster card? There are drivers for Windows and DOS, even though Windows has drivers for such cards itself. On exit to DOS, Creative's Plug & Play Manager should kick in. If you boot directly to DOS, you have to activate it manually. This is usually ctcm.exe, and its settings are stored in ctpnp.cfg. Both are in the Windows directory.

[willperk 0]

- - - - - - -

I've played around with autoexec.bat extensively, but I can't seem to find any resources or people that are intimate with its workings. Nothing I've tried so far has gotten any sound to come out at all. I've tried many set blaster= settings.

I need a page that covers autoexec.bat *thoroughly*, and I need to figure out how to edit autoexec.bat and config.sys properly to get sound playing. "http://www.computerhope.com/ac.htm" is not a thorough resource, and leaves a lot of commands and parameters out.

Upon further inspection, it would appear that my cd drive isn't loading in dos either. I suspect config.sys and autoexec.bat are completely screwed.

All help is greatly appreciated.

-Yeti

==================

Yeti -

Do you have the Creative "Readne.txt" file that came with your application CD?

There are a number of instructions of operations to perform in order to get sound and the CD working in DOS mode.

If you don't have the 'Reademe' file, I can post it here ...... it might be of some help.

I, too, have a Creative 16 (Vibra 16C) audio card, but I'm not a gamer and have never had any need to have sound in the dos mode.

-- willperk

Edited April 14, 2008 by willperk

[yetiamchosen 0]

BenoitRen -- Thanks for your help. I've got the drivers, they just don't seem to be working properly. As far as getting it activated from dos, unfortunately ctcm.exe in the windows directory. It looks like one of my usb ports was hogging IRQ 5, though I've disabled it now, and as far as I know that shouldn't even be active in dos anyway.

Oddly, I've discovered that the sound seems to work (though I'm not yet sure how well) when I select 'exit to ms dos', just not when I boot to dos natively (which is what I need it to do).

willperk, thanks for your suggestions. Unfortunately, both the readme file and the pdf file that came on the driver cd had no instructions at all on how to get the card working in dos. My best progress so far has been using the sound blaster 16 pci drivers for dos in sbpci.zip linked by idisjunction here: http://www.msfn.org/board/ipb_seo.php?url=...les%2FSBPCI.zip

The card recognizes and activates in natively booted dos, though it seems to claim an irq of 3 (oddly). When detection tools are run, they detect it running at irq 5, but no sound actually comes out of the speakers.

All help is appreciated.

Edited April 14, 2008 by yetiamchosen