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

[willperk]

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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.

Here is the "Readme" file from my 'C > Program Files > Creative > CTSND' folder .....

Perhaps it might be of some help .......

-- willperk

Sound Blaster 16 Readme File

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

This file contains additional information to supplement the manual.

Please read all the sections before you proceed with the installation.

This file contains the following sections:

1. Installation

2. Uninstallation

3. DOS Environment settings

4. DOS Audio Driver Support under Windows 95 DOS Box

5. Using CREATIVE IDE CD-ROM drive in MS-DOS Mode

6. BLASTER settings under MS-DOS Mode

7. Full-Duplex Constraints

8. Online Documentation

9. Acknowledgments

1. INSTALLATION

The full installation option requires about 6 MBytes of hard disk

space for the program files and an additional 2 MBytes for working space.

You might need more if your drive is in compressed form.

2. UNINSTALLATION

Before uninstalling the software package, ensure that all Sound

Blaster 16 applications are closed. Any Sound Blaster 16 application

that is running while uninstallation is in progress will not be deleted

Also, files that are added to the Sound Blaster 16 directory after

the initial software installation will not be deleted by the

uninstallation process. You will have to manually delete these files

after the uninstallation process is completed.

Some of the files in the Windows directory can be shared by other

applications. The uninstallation will prompt you when it tries to

delete these files. You should choose not to delete the files unless

you are very sure that the files are no longer used by Windows.

3. DOS ENVIRONMENT SETTINGS

Some of the existing DOS programs require the presence of MIDI and

SOUND environments in order for them to work. The Setup program will

add the SET MIDI and SET SOUND environment lines at the beginning of

the AUTOEXEC.BAT file.

4. DOS AUDIO DRIVER SUPPORT UNDER WINDOWS 95 DOS BOX

Some of the DOS applications are developed with Creative's Sound

Blaster Developer Kit. These applications require the low-level

DOS audio device drivers to be loaded. To load the DOS audio

drivers, you need to add the following lines to the CONFIG.SYS file:

DEVICE=<C:\dir>\DRV\CTSB16.SYS /UNIT=0 /BLASTER=A:220 I:5 D:1 H:5 /WIN95

DEVICE=<C:\dir>\DRV\CTMMSYS.SYS

Remarks:

a. <C:\dir> is the sound directory where the audio software is located.

b. The /BLASTER parameter specifies the Sound Blaster base I/O port

address (A), interrupt request line (I), low 8-bit DMA channel (D)

and high 16-bit DMA channel (H).

c. The settings in the /BLASTER parameter must tally with the actual

settings allocated by Windows 95. To find out the actual settings,

go into Windows 95 DOS box, and type SET and press <Enter> at the

DOS prompt. You will see one of the lines displayed is:

BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 H5 P330 T6

The values after the A, I, D and H are the actual settings to be

used for the /BLASTER parameter.

To help you set up the DOS audio drivers, we have prepared a text

file CONFIG.TXT in the sound directory. This text file contains

the above lines to specify the DOS audio drivers. The sound

directory in the text file had been updated by the installation

program. You just need to update the /BLASTER parameter and copy

the lines into the CONFIG.SYS file.

5. USING CREATIVE IDE CD-ROM DRIVE UNDER MS-DOS MODE

When you open an MS-DOS Mode session, the system will close all other

active Windows-based or DOS-based programs. You can return to

Windows 95 by typing exit. There are two ways that you can do to open

an MS-DOS Mode session:

- Shutdown the system and choose the "Restart the computer in

MS-DOS Mode" option.

or

- Change your MS-DOS session properties by checking the MS-DOS mode box

under the Advanced Program Settings. You can specify whether you want

to use the current MS-DOS configuration, or specify a new MS-DOS

configuration.

If you connect Creative IDE CD-ROM drive to the IDE interface that comes

with your card, you need to do the following steps to make your CD-ROM

drive work under MS-DOS Mode:

5.1 Shutdown and restart the computer in MS-DOS Mode

You need to add the following lines inside the DOSSTART.BAT :

<C:\dir>\CTLOAD <C:\dir>\DRV\SBIDE.SYS /D:MSCD001 /V /P:1E8,11,3EE

<C:\win95dir>\COMMAND\MSCDEX /D:MSCD001 /V /M:8

NOTES:

a. DOSSTART.BAT is a batch file in the Windows directory.

It is executed each time you restart in MS-DOS Mode.

b. <C:\dir> is the sound directory where the audio software is located.

c. <C:\win95dir> is the Windows 95 directory.

To help you set up the DOS audio drivers, we have prepared a

text file DOSSTART.TXT in the sound directory. This text file

contains the above lines to specify the DOS CD-ROM drivers.

The sound directory in the text file has been updated by the

installation program. You don't need to change any of the parameters.

5.2 Changing MS-DOS session properties and selecting MS-DOS Mode with

current configuration

You need to do the same steps as above.

5.3 Changing MS-DOS session properties and selecting MS-DOS Mode with

new configuration

You need to add the following lines inside the new AUTOEXEC.BAT :

<C:\win95dir>\CTCM

<C:\dir>\CTLOAD <C:\dir>\DRV\SBIDE.SYS /D:MSCD001 /V /P:1E8,11,3EE

<C:\win95dir>\COMMAND\MSCDEX /D:MSCD001 /V /M:8

NOTES:

a. <C:\dir> is the sound directory where the audio software is located.

b. <C:\win95dir> is the Windows 95 directory.

c. Make sure that the settings in the /P parameter tally with the

actual settings allocated by Windows 95.

6. BLASTER settings under MS-DOS Mode

Whenever you change your Audio hardware configuration manually, the

BLASTER environment under MS-DOS Mode will only be valid after you reboot

the system once.

However, if you proceed to MS-DOS Mode without rebooting, you need to run

CTCM.EXE which is in your Windows directory. This program makes the

BLASTER environment tally with the actual hardware settings.

7. FULL-DUPLEX CONSTRAINTS

Your audio card supports full-duplex recording and playback. However, to

make full use of this feature, please make sure you observe the following

constraints:

a. Start only one session of simultaneous playback and recording.

b. Use the same sampling rate for both operations.

c. Preferably play back and record audio files which are in uncompressed

(that is, Pulse Code Modulation or PCM) wave format.

d. Reduce the sampling rate for both operations if your audio playback

and recording session is too slow.

NOTE: The Full-Duplex and DirectSound capabilities are mutually exclusive.

If you activate the full-duplex feature, the DirectSound capability

cannot be enabled. And vice versa.

8. ONLINE DOCUMENTATION

To help you get information on the applications in this package easily,

we have compiled a set of online documentation which can be accessed from

your audio card's program group. Just click the START button on your

Windows 95 taskbar. Select "Programs", followed by "Sound Blaster 16" and

then "User's Guide".

9. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

MS-DOS, Windows 3.x and Windows 95 are trademarks of Microsoft Corporation.

All other products are trademarks or registered trademarks of their

respective owners.

********** E N D O F R E A D M E **********

[BenoitRen]

As far as getting it activated from dos, unfortunately ctcm.exe in the windows directory.

You mean it isn't in there?

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.

USB can be used in DOS. You just need drivers.

I'm not convinced that the drivers offered at the MAME site could work. A lot of unnecesary parameters and several batch programs. It's not that complicated on my end.

All you should need is the ctcm program, its configuration file, and possibly some files associated with it. The settings in autoexec.bat should reflect the settings of your card. There is no need to have extra files loaded via config.sys.

What exactly do you see when the sound card is supposedly being detected by DOS?

[yetiamchosen]

Yes, sorry, I meant that ctcm.exe isn't present. I don't think plug and play managers work for sb16 pci, do they? I think creative's pnp manager is only for their isa cards. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Dos recognizes it with this:

sound blaster pci 128 initialization driver, ver 5.23

copyright bla bla bla

fname: c:\dosdrv\sbpci.ini

SB PCI @ Port df00, IRQ 3

output mode is analog

initiliazation complete.

And then there's imuse, a tool from lucasarts that comes with tie fighter and autodetects the kind of card you have. After using iconjunction's drivers, it recognizes it properly as a sounblaster 16, etc, it just doesn't actually play anything. Without his drivers, it wouldn't recognize anything at all, muchless display the above message.

Thanks for the help, keep working on it!

[ShadeTreeLee]

Once upon a time it helped my nephew to add this line to the [386Enh] section of his system.ini file.

DMABufferSize=64

Strangely Windows doesn't have a DMA buffer natively, one has to manually provide for it with the above line. Yet without the DMA buffer some hard drives use even UDMA just fine - it's only SoundBlaster that chokes without one set aside.

Any Joy?