SBlaster Emulation under W98

[Chozo4]

Not sure if it were best to put this here or the hardware hangout. However, it seemed more OS oriented.

Is there anyone who own a YMF-724F (or close?) that have experienced this issue (mentioned below) and know how to deal with it? I've scoured the net and found nothing regarding this issue and am at a loss here. I'm sure this post sounds a bit unorganized but I've been fiddling with this issue for the last 12 hours nonstop and am very tired and well.. generally aggrivated over the whole thing. This is an issue regarding the play of soundeffects in DOS games and even getting any sound to work in DOS as well. The card otherwise functions normally with non-dos games.

On to the issue:

Just earlier today, I had wanted to play a couple old-ish games "MechWarrior 2" & "Heretic" and had installed them. However, during the setup.. I had been reminded of something that had aggrivated me for much of the time I've had this sound card (Yamaha YMF-724F).

Before I moved it into this system, my old computer used to have 2 sound cards due to my YMF-724 not supporting any 'soundblaster' settings. Midi playback was always perfect and the other card did the Sound Effects.

I moved it into this current system (listed in sig) a while ago and thought nothing of it as I'd completely forgotten about the 'problem' with soundblaster emulation. This new pc also doesn't have any ISA slots either so I can't transfer the other card into this one. Now the lack of blaster emulation comes back to haunt me...

I tried and tried. Hand modified the resource settings, put the card in different pci slots, even attempted to use yamaha's own DOS drivers. I get nothing with it as it even reports no 'soundblaster' found at address 0x220. Being as that is the only address I have my blaster environment set to for it, I considered it odd. So now, back in windows, I had a couple other DOS games that could autodetect the hardware. Midi was always found flawlessly, no hitches whatsoever. Attempting to hand configure or have it autodetect the sound effect card (the yamaha) always produced "No digital hardware found". If I enabled the build in AC'97 audio, it would still report the same error "No digitial hardware found'. Games that didn't detect the card and just accepted the card settings you entered would load, play the Midi music (which works) but there would be no sound at all other than that.

Alas, I am aware of emulators such as DOS-BOX and the like but there is a game which is DOS and have been meaning to play online on Kali just recently which was 'MechWarrior 2'. However, if I have no sound, there is zero interest in even trying the game again because there is no point in being deaf in the middle of combat. Can't hear what's around you, you'r as good as dead. Can't hear the signal indicating a launched salvo of missiles locked onto you? You're pretty much toast as you don't know and cannot attempt to avoid them.

Edited February 27, 2006 by Chozo4

[Eck]

I suggest searching, and if not finding what you need, posting to vogons.zetafleet.com.

They're the experts at old gaming on old or new systems. I haven't noticed a lot of that kind of stuff here.

[kartel]

I have the 724E its a DS-XG Wave out thingy, it has no blaster usage which I like, theres no "set blaster" stuff and it can do multiple tasks.

http://www.yamaha.co.jp/english/product/ls.../downloads.html

DONT GET THIS DRIVER !!

GET THIS DRIVER

This is my card

[Chozo4]

Thanks for the info. I am actually using those very drivers Kertel. The WDM ones I never used as they wouldn't work to begin with (and I try to avoid WDM drivers whenever possible). Only tried them once as a last-ditch effort to get blaster-support.

It's a pity the blaster functions don't work on yamaha cards. Especially since my laptop has full blaster support despite no resources set for the such. That really burned me some.

Would you happen to know of any pci sound cards for win98 that do support blaster configs with dos alongside other soundcards? My integrated sound (Realtek 885) sound doesn't work with any dos at all so I can't use the built in sound as a secondary.

Additionally, thank you Eck for the direction to that site. I'll try checking and\or posting there as well.

Edited February 28, 2006 by Chozo4

[Eck]

Yep, that forum has a wealth of info for this kind of thing.

For a long time I used Creative SBLive 5.1 for both dos gaming within Windows Dos Box's and MS-DOS Mode. These are not the new versions with 24-bit audio, but the older one's.

More recently I've been using better quality, newer sound solutions. My dos gaming fix is pretty much satisfied by the ongoing improvments in the Dosbox program. To get the latest improvements you'd need to install Dosbox 0.63, then the latest CVS. I use the precompiled official CVS. You'll find links to that in the Dosbox Development forum at VOGONS. I also use the D-Fend GUI for Dosbox so I don't need to fuss with commands. Easier is better! This works on 9x as well as XP.

I recently experimented with a SBLive 5.1 Platinum using the old VXD's so I would get that native Windows Soundblaster support. Unlike my old Abit KT7A (go figure, that's the board the SBLive caused problems with but with a few Bios adjustments works perfectly), my newer boards had problems with Windows no longer booting, except in safe mode, with an Error Loading Device IOS, Real Mode Memory Allocation Failed.

I think these newer motherboards usurp too much memory for all their features. Even if it would work for awhile, eventually I would get that error.

But if you have an older motherboard, the SBLive dos sound is pretty good. Get the EAPCI8M.ECW and put it in your system folder. Rename default.ecw to EAPCI2M.ECW and rename EAPCI8M.ECW to default.ecw to get better Ms-Dos mode midi. Dos within Windows uses SoundFonts, I think.

Another soundcard that works nearly perfectly within Windows dos box is the HP Riptide Audio/Modem combo card. The MS-DOS Mode sound is not dependable with this card (crashes, distortion), but within Windows it's great. You need more than just the card. You also need a seperate riser card for the mike, line-in, line-out ports. The card has an amplified line-out on the card itself (quite nice for headphones), but you need the riser for the others. The older card with the HCF modem is better than the newer HSF version. XPSP1 and higher has the driver. But it stinks on XP as the sound skips while on the net and the Midi Synth is not installed. Nice Wavetable synth with additional Yamaha OPL2/3 for older stuff. No EAX or bass/treble controls (use QSound QMaxII and, on XP, either WinGroove or Yamaha S-YXG50 4.0.) http://www.allensmith.net/HP/Riptide.htm has all the driver info for 9x.

I think ebay would be one of the few sources for either of these at this point.

Really, the best these days is a modern card and using Dosbox. Too much fuss to get the old stuff working on original hardware. And new soundcards are, well, better for everything else.

[kartel]

Set Blaster stuff is ISA league, be thankful its gone.

[MDGx]

Actually "SET BLASTER" are DOS mode set variables, not related to ISA bus, PCI, AGP, PCIx etc.

All Creative Labs SB cards use them, and most audio cards which provide SB compatibility in DOS and for old games which require "SET ..." SB-like variables to work properly.

Most audio cards [i have no experience wth Yamaha cards] provide SB support thru emulation drivers, either in Windows GUI mode and/or DOS modes [either native MS-DOS outside Windows or DOS box within Windows].

For example, this is my guide for SB Live! cards to make them work in native DOS with Win9x installed:

http://www.mdgx.com/newtip18.htm#DGSBL

SB Live! series [PCI cards] SET variables in AUTOEXEC.BAT [example]:

SET MIDI=SYNTH:1 MAP:E MODE:0

SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 H5 P330 T6

SET CTSYN=C:\WINDOWS

C:\PROGRA~1\CREATIVE\SBLIVE\DOSDRV\SBEINIT.COM

C:\PROGRA~1\CREATIVE\SBLIVE\DOSDRV\SBESET.EXE -d0 -j1 -w0 -A220 -I5 -D1 -H5 -J200 -P330

SB AWE64/AWE64 Gold [iSA cards] SET variables in AUTOEXEC.BAT [example]:

C:\AWE64\CTCM.EXE /B

C:\AWE64\AWEUTIL.COM /S /EM:GM /R:0 /C:0

C:\AWE64\MIXERSET.EXE /P /Q

SET CTCM=C:\AWE64

SET SOUND=C:\AWE64

SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 H5 P330 E620 T6

SET MIDI=SYNTH:1 MAP:E MODE:0

Hope this helps.