# The 5-25-00 Win9x/DOS7 Original ©Trick in MYTIPS95.TXT, part of W95-11D.EXE:


PLAY DOS GAMES WITH SOUND BLASTER LIVE!


Do you use Windows 95 or 98?
Do you own a Creative Labs Sound Blaster Live! PCI card?
Do you still play DOS based games that require native MS-DOS mode?
If you answered YES to all these questions, you're in for a treat. :)
First, to learn how to boot directly to native MS-DOS to play your favorite games, see "2 DOS OR NOT 2 DOS", also in MYTIPS95.TXT [part of W95-11D.EXE].

These are the necessary steps to successfully play your old DOS games that require native/true/real MS-DOS mode (and canNOT be run from a Win9x DOS box/session!) with sound enabled:

It is known that the SB Live! cards (ANY flavor: Full, Value, OEM/1024, X-Gamer, MP3, Platinum etc) provide only SB16 FM synthesis emulation support in all DOS modes. This means you won't be able to play any fancy Wavetable or Extended MIDI sequences, only basic sounds, and eventually CD audio, if your software can emulate it. :(

      If you're a DOS die-hard fan [like I am :)], there is an alternative solution to this problem: get a Creative Labs Sound Blaster AWE64 Gold ISA card [that is if your motherboard has any ISA slots available :)], the best audio board for DOS apps/games, featuring full MIDI and Wavetable support in native MS-DOS.
      You can find this card for really cheap at popular internet vendor sites.
      If you do get one, and if this is your only ISA device in your computer, make sure you enable the "Passive Release" and "Delayed Transaction", and increase the "8-bit I/O Recovery" setting to maximum (usually 8) in your BIOS "Advanced Chipset Features" (or similar) Setup screen, to have your ISA card(s) perform without a hitch together with all your PCI devices.
      This is necessary because the PCI clock frequency is much faster (33 MHz) than the ISA counterpart (16 MHz), and it has to be forced to wait longer (more clock cycles) for the ISA device(s) to "catch up". Otherwise you may experience sudden machine lockups. If enabled, these settings will slow down the overall system speed a bit, but your PC will run more reliably.
      The BIOS configuration above applies to Abit BE6-II mobos. If you have an Abit BH6 mainboard, these settings are found under the "Chipset Features Setup" BIOS menu. On all Abit mobos press the Del key to access BIOS Setup when the AWARD POST (Power On Self Test) display appears.
      If you do NOT have any ISA devices installed in your computer (all your mobo's ISA slots are empty or your mainboard does not have any ISA slots), it is highly recommended to disable/decrease to minimum these BIOS settings, to gain maximum performance on all PCI/AGP based PCs!
If you'd like to avoid "messing" with your BIOS Setup altogether, you can do this the "easy" way. :) Get TweakBIOS for DOS [freeware and $20 registered versions available], the ultimate BIOS configuration tool, which fine tunes most hidden settings not available in BIOS Setup (use with CAUTION!) without rebooting.

Back to SB Live!:
By default, when you first install the Win9x Live! drivers from your CD, you will be asked to setup the "Creative SB16 emulation" for DOS programs. Answer "Yes" to let Setup enable DOS support. Then edit (using Notepad in Windows or EDIT in DOS) your Autoexec.bat file (found in C:\ root), or create one if it is not present, though this should not be necessary, because the SB Live! installation routine will create one for you, and will add these lines at the top (your paths may differ):

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

in this EXACT order. The "SET <variable>" lines MUST appear BEFORE the SBEINIT line, because SBEINIT.COM uses these environment values to determine your SB Live! DOS hardware settings.
Note that drive letter/directory name and/or hardware assignments [memory address: A220, interrupt line: I5, low/high DMA channel: D1/H5 etc] may be different on your computer, depending on your custom setup.
This should get you started in some cases, but [there's always a "but" :)] there are a couple of things you need to do first, to ensure that SBEINIT initializes the card correctly upon boot.
Edit (using Notepad in Windows or EDIT in DOS) your Config.sys file (found also in C:\ root), or create one if not present, to include these lines at the top:

DOS=HIGH,UMB
DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\HIMEM.SYS /TESTMEM:OFF /Q
DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\EMM386.EXE I=B000-B7FF RAM D=256 AUTO

Note that SBEINIT will NOT load without expanded memory (EMS) enabled by EMM386.EXE's "RAM" parameter! And make sure your EMM386.EXE command does NOT contain the "NOEMS" switch, because this disables EMS, and SBEINIT will abort!
See this MSKB article for more details.
Do NOT try to use another 3rd party enhanced/expanded memory manager like QEMM, NetRoom, 386MAX etc. SBEINIT works ONLY with Microsoft's EMM386.EXE! :(
Also, you need to load SBEINIT at the beginning of your Autoexec.bat, BEFORE ANY OTHER drivers/TSRs (especially SMARTDRV or RAM disks), because it uses a huge amount of free upper memory to initialize.
SBEINIT takes about 5 KB of low (conventional) RAM after loading.
SBEINIT canNOT load in upper memory (UMA), therefore you may NOT use the "LOADHIGH" ("LH" for short) command. If you do, your machine will freeze, and you will have to press the Reset button to reboot. :(

      UPDATES:

          o "I load SBEINIT high without problems on my machine (Asus P2L97-S mobo, Win98 OS), but as long as the SB Live! Windows drivers change these AUTOEXEC.BAT lines (typical examples):
            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
            to force the emulation driver to load into low memory, we need a workaround.
            There are 2 ways of loading SBEINIT into upper memory:
               1. Place all AUTOEXEC.BAT lines above in your CONFIG.SYS, and load SBEINIT using "INSTALLHIGH=" in your CONFIG.SYS (example):
                  INSTALLHIGH=C:\PROGRA~1\CREATIVE\SBLIVE\DOSDRV\SBEINIT.COM
                  Then skip the (now useless) AUTOEXEC.BAT lines this way (starting with the 1st line at the top, which is usually "@ECHO OFF"):
                  @ECHO OFF
                  GOTO SKIPSBL
                  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
                  :SKIPSBL
                  etc...
                  This is necessary because if using the "REM" or "::" commands to comment them out, the SB Live routine removes the comments every time when the Windows GUI loads, reenabling these lines. :(
               2. If loading SBEINIT (as explained above) from CONFIG.SYS fails, try to use 4DOS (shareware COMMAND.COM replacement) and load SBEINIT from 4START.BAT, or create a separate batch file which loads SBEINIT, and call this BATch from your AUTOEXEC.BAT (example):
                  CALL C:\SBLIVE.BAT
            Both methods work on my system, and I get about 622 KB of free conventional RAM after booting, and before loading Windows, using the HIMEM.SYS and EMM386.EXE releases shipped with Windows 98 (build 4.10.1998)."
            [Thank you ACiD StOUt (ACiDStOUt@Thunderdome.zzn.com)!]

          o "I haven't had any trouble loading SBEINIT.EXE in upper memory with EMS disabled (NOEMS). I had trouble running it with SmartDrive, though. :( I'm using Win95C OSR 2.5 with HIMEM.SYS + EMM386.EXE in Config.sys.
            IMPORTANT: You can stop AUTOEXEC.BAT and DOSSTART.BAT from being edited by SB Live! every time you boot by moving CTSYN16.DRV from C:\Windows\System or by renaming it.
            The sound card works fine in Windows, but I haven't tried in DOS yet."
[Thank you Martin (spiny@lost.fsnet.co.uk)!]

To tweak your SB16 emulation hardware settings to your liking (but make sure to avoid a hardware conflict if another device in your computer uses the same interrupt or DMA channel!), you can use SBESET.EXE, a DOS based configuration tool, also located in the same \DOSDRV subfolder. Run:

SBESET /?

from native MS-DOS to display all available parameters.
To see all your free hardware resources (IRQ, DMA, Base Address etc) that can be safely used by SBESET, run (with Windows GUI started!): Control Panel -> System -> Device Manager tab -> double-click on Computer -> scroll through the IRQ, DMA, I/O and Memory resources lists -> write down the ones that appear NOT to be used by ANY hardware device -> exit Windows 9x to native MS-DOS [see "DOS NOW!", also in MYTIPS95.TXT (part of W95-11D.EXE)] -> run SBESET with the appropriate switches to reflect one of your free Device Manager resources for each setting -> reboot into Windows -> reopen the resources lists -> check for ANY question or exclamation marks. If you find any, try different settings for SBESET until all conflicts are resolved. Then reboot one more time.
You can also add a line for SBESET in your Autoexec.bat to keep these settings "alive" at all times. But BEWARE: if you later add new hardware to your machine that needs an IRQ, DMA channel, I/O and/or memory address to function, or for some reason you or your OS change(s) ANY hardware resources, you need to repeat ALL above steps afterwards, to ensure "smooth" operation. :)
If using SBESET from Autoexec.bat, make sure the SBEINIT line appears AFTER the SBESET command, and BEFORE the SMARTDRV.EXE and/or RAM Disk (i.e. XMSDSK.EXE/EMSDSK.EXE) lines, if any!
This is my Autoexec.bat SBESET line (example) which enables SB FM emulation and the use of joystick/flight-stick (connected to the SB Live! 16 pin joystick/MIDI port) in native MS-DOS mode for all my DOS based games:

E:\LIVE\DOSDRV\SBESET.EXE -d0 -j1 -w0 -A220 -I5 -D1 -H5 -J200 -P330

All SBESET command line parameters are case sensitive.
Any hardware assignments altered by SBESET require a reboot to take effect.
If everything goes well, you should be able to enable sound and music in your favorite DOS games from now on, by choosing the appropriate sound card (try first Sound Blaster, Sound Blaster 16, SB16, AWE32 or similar) in your game's Setup/Options menu. Wrong sound board selection may lockup your game and most likely your computer too. :(

BTW: If you'd like to have more than one boot choices, for example one for running Win9x GUI without EMM386.EXE, or with EMM386.EXE but without EMS enabled (only upper and extended memory support: add "NOEMS"), and another for playing native MS-DOS games (and eventually include the SB Live! lines detailed above), you can create multi-boot Config.sys and Autoexec.bat files. Take a look at mine [both included with W95-11D.EXE] to learn how to do this.

Have fun!

****************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
Subject: SB Live in DOS

Original Message
Name: Burbble
Date: July 05, 2002 at 17:18:32 Pacific
Subject: SB Live in DOS
Comment:
(Quick note: I'm going to post this in both the Windows ME and the DOS forums.)

Hello,

A while back, I posted asking how to get sound in DOS with an SB Live! sound card. I have Windows ME, and I had tried using a boot disk to get into DOS. EMM386 would not load for some reason, and QEMM would restart the computer without warning when SBEINIT.COM was loaded. I looked through tons of previous posts here on Computing.net, and found people with a similar problem, but never found a single solution.

Then, today, I was using Partition Magic and it reported some errors on my hard drives. So, I used the (First) Partition Magic Boot Disk to get into DOS. I dealt with that problem, but then remembered that sound problem. I examined the files on the boot disk, and realized that it was loading HIMEM.SYS. The Windows ME boot disk doesn't load it, because it gives an error when it does (I'd tried to add DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\HIMEM.SYS to the Config.sys on the Windows ME boot disk, but it said it was already loaded, even though there wasn't any other reference to it). There was no error when the Partition Magic boot disk loaded.

So, I started to mess around with the Config.sys on this boot disk. The original file began with this:

DEVICE=HIMEM.SYS
REM DEVICE=EMM386.EXE
DOS=HIGH,UMB
LASTDRIVE=Z

The disk has the HIMEM.SYS file on it. I figured that if HIMEM.SYS would load, perhaps EMM386.EXE would? So, I changed those lines to this:

DEVICE=HIMEM.SYS
DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\EMM386.EXE
DOS=HIGH,UMB
LASTDRIVE=Z

I restarted, and it successfully loaded everything. Now, I made a batch file to load some stuff for DOS.

Here's how I got the SB Live! Dos Driver:

When you install the SB Live! software onto Windows ME, it doesn't give you the option of installing the DOS driver. What I had to do to get the DOS driver was uninstall the SB Live! software, and install the Windows 98 version. Then I copied the DOSDrv folder to a temporary location, and uninstalled the SB Live! software again. After that, I reinstalled the Windows ME version, and copied the DOSDrv folder back to the SBLive folder.

This is what the batch file I made looks like:

C:\WINDOWS\mouse.com
SET CTSYN=C:\WINDOWS
SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 H5 P330 T6
C:\PROGRA~1\CREATIVE\SBLIVE\DOSDRV\SBEINIT.COM

First, it loads a mouse driver. You may not have Mouse.com on your computer. I'm sorry, but I don't have a link to download it.
Then, it sets the necessary variables for the Sound Blaster driver. Finally, it loads the initialization utility.

I watched wearily as it loaded the SBEINIT.COM program. Alas, it said something like "Initialization complete!". I was doubtful, so I ran a DOS game. There was sound! It had worked! After weeks of trial and error, there was finally sound in DOS.

Now, some quick notes:

The boot disk set was made on a computer with Windows 98 using Partition Magic 6. It copied the Windows 98 version of COMMAND.COM to the disk, which is most likely why this works.

On the boot disk, nothing is being loaded in the AUTOEXEC.BAT file, and only that mentioned above is being loaded in CONFIG.SYS. COMMAND.COM is on the disk, as is HIMEM.SYS (all Windows 98 versions).

I hope you can benefit from this information.

Thanks for reading. :)

-Burbble

****************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************

Question:

I encountered the error message "Creative SB16 Emulation Driver NOT Loading" while loading the SBLive DOS driver, which also caused my system not able to play sound under DOS mode!
Answer: If you encountered the error message "Creative SB16 Emulation Driver NOT Loading" while loading the SBLive DOS driver (Fig.1), then please follow the steps below:

Figure 1.

   1. Check your SBLive IRQ setting from the following device table (Fig.2) during the system start up.

Figure 2.

   2. Restart your system and enter the BIOS Setup Menu to change the following IRQ setting manually (Fig.3):

PNP/PCI Configuration -> Resource Controlled by: Manual

IRQ-X* assigned to: Legacy ISA

X* denotes the IRQ value obtained from the Step 1 above.

Figure 3.

   3.

      Save above BIOS settings and restart your system.
   4.

      The following message (Fig.4) should appear once the SBLive DOS driver is successfully loaded. 

Figure 4.

Note 1.

Please make sure you have the latest SBLive DOS driver for a trouble free installation.

Note 2.

The steps above are valid only if the DOS driver installation procedures were followed correctly according to SBLive DOS driver installation procedures.
BIOS Update: Driver Update: N/A MUST use the Latest DOS driver for Creative SBLive

****************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************

 Title: Getting Soundblaster Live Card To Work in DOS 6.22 (Which Is In Its Own Partition)
From: DOSDino
Date: 03/27/2002 11:39AM PST
Answer Grade: A Points: 6
I have an Athlon 900mhz, 384MB RAM, VIA 133 chipset, ASUS A7 Pro motherboard, and SoundBlaster Live Value Soundcard.  I am using System Commander 7 to partition my hard drive.  In one partition I have Windows 98SE/DOS 7.0.  In a separate partition I have DOS 6.22.

My problem is that when I boot directly into DOS 6.22 using System Commander, my SoundBlaster Live Value Sound Card is not recognized and initialized.

Within Windows 98SE my SoundBlaster Live Value card is set up on IRQ 10, port 400.  My DOS Emulation mode from within Windows 98SE shows the card being set up at IRQ 5, Port 220, DMA 1.

When my machine boots up into Windows 98SE the lines below are what is used in the autoexec.bat file to initialize the SB Live Value Sound Card for both Windows
98SE applications and Legacy support:

SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 H5 P330 T6
SET CTSYN=C:\WINDOWS
LH C:\PROGRA~1\CREATIVE\SBLIVE\DOSDRV\SBEINIT.COM

When I boot into the native DOS 6.22 mode using System Commander 7, the computer does not "see" anything having to do with Windows 98 SE.  Since I boot directly into a DOS 6.22 partition, and there is no Windows 98SE within that partition, it is as if windows "does not exist" on the computer.  Here is the Autoexec.bat I was trying to use when I boot directly into the DOS 6.22 partition:

SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 H5 P330 T6
SET CTSYN=C:\DOS
C:\SBLIVE\SBEINIT.COM

THE PROBLEM IS THAT WHEN I BOOT DIRECTLY INTO DOSS 6.22 THE SOUNDBLASTER LIVE VALUE CARD does not initialize with the above autoexec.bat command.  I am sure there is just one simple thing I am not doing in order to get the sound card to work.  Creative Labs says that the SoundBlaster Live Value Card will not work if I boot directly into DOS 6.22 because it needs Windows 98SE to initialize the card.  Is this correct?  Is there any way around this?

What is CTSYN?  Since when I boot to native DOS it does not "see" a Windows 98SE sub directory, is there something I need to move from the Windows 98SE subdirectory to my DOS 6.22 partition that addresses the CTSYN call line?

Like I said above, my SoundBlaster Live Value Card is physically set up within Windows 98 SE for IRQ 10, and has DOS emulation mode configured for IRQ 5.  When I am booting into true DOS 6.22 does DOS 6.22 not "see" the sound card because it is physically set up on IRQ 10 and emulation for DOS is not activated because that function is done from within Windows 98SE?  

Does the card have to be set for IRQ 5 for it to be recognized and work in a native DOS boot up mode?  If I move the card to IRQ 5 will it still work in Windows 98SE when I boot directly into the partition that contains Windows 98SE?

I know many people have DOS 6.22 on their computers in a separate partition from Windows 98SE and the DOS 7.0 that goes with Windows 98SE.  I also know they have sound working correctly.  If it is true that there is no way for the SoundBlaster Live Value card to work within a true DOS 6.22 boot up environment, what is the solution for what I am trying to do: to have sound work in both Windows 98SE/DOS 7.0 and have sound also work in DOS 6.22?

I have an old SoundBlaster 16 card.  Should I install it instead of my SoundBlaster Live Value card?  Would that solve the problem?  If it won't solve the problem, just how are other people overcoming this problem in order to have sound in both Windows 98SE and DOS 6.22?

Thank you very much in advance for your help.

Jim Bailey
Sacramento, CA

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Question History
Accepted Answer from Wakeup 03/27/2002 12:53PM PST
Jim,  

According to Creative Labs you will not be able to get it to run in Dos.  The minimum requirement is Windows 95.
It won't even run in Win 3.11.

Intel Pentium® 133 or higher, or AMD K5® or higher processor
Intel or 100% compatible motherboard chipset
16 MB system RAM (32 MB recommended)
Windows® 95, Windows® 98, or Windows® NT 4.0
Open half-length PCI 2.1 compliant slot
Powered speakers or headphones
CD-ROM drive for software installation
Requires a 166 MHz or faster processor, microphone and 32MB of RAM for speech recognition software

Also according to Creative your SB16 if it is ISA will work.  If it is PCI it will not.
ISA:
IBM® PC 386 or higher, or 100% compatibles
VGA
5 MB of hard disk space for SB software
MS-DOS® 5.0 or higher, Windows® 3.1 or higher, Windows NT® 3.5 or higher, Windows® 95, or OS/2 Warp
Available 16-bit ISA slot
Speakers or headphones

PCI:
Intel® Pentium® 90 or higher, or AMD K5® or higher processor
16 MB system RAM (32 MB recommended)
Windows® 95, Windows® 98, or Windows NT® 4.0
Open half-length PCI 2.1 compliant slot
Speakers or headphones
CD-ROM drive for software installation

What I am guessing here is that Creative has stopped implementing support for Dos Mode drivers as well as Win3.x drivers.
Comment from Jason_S 03/28/2002 07:57AM PST
You may have some luck using an old generic Sound Blaster 16 DOS based driver with the card.
Comment from DOSDino 03/29/2002 09:22AM PST
Thanks for responding.

1) If I decide to take out the SB Live Value Card and replace it with my old SB16 card, I would assume I'd have to install it on IRQ 5 DMA 1 Port 220 instead of the IRQ 10 Port 400 that it defaults to upon installation into Win98SE.  I have never forced Windows to set up a certain device on a specified IRQ rather than letting it chose through plug and play which IRQ to use.  Do you know how to do this?

2) Also, above you thought I might be able to get away using the SB Live Value Card if I loaded SB16 drivers in the Autoexec.bat file instead of SB Live Value Emulator drivers.  Again my question is, if I try this route, do I have to physically set up the SB Live Value Card for IRQ 5 DMA 1 Port 220 on my machine?  And if I change it to this IRQ/DMA/Port configuration, will Windows 98SE still "see"  the card since it wants to set it up on IRQ 10, Port 400 and use IRQ 5, DMA 1, Port 220 for "DOS Emulation".

3) Finally, if the above doesn't work, do you know how other people are accomplishing having a pure DOS 6.22 partition on their computer to boot into and run (with sound) DOS games?  I know I am not the only one wanting to do this.  There has to be an easy answer / step-by-step solution for this out there somewhere.

Thanks again.  Appreciate yours and others comments so I can figure out what to do.

Jim Bailey
Sacramento, CA


Comment from Jason_S 03/29/2002 09:36AM PST
1)  It depends on the card, and sometimes the BIOS.  The card may have software, or physical jumpers to configure these.  The BIOS can sometimes reserve certain resources for hardware.

2)  Most likely Yes.  You would probably need to configure Windows to use the new resources as well.

3)  Maybe these will help.
http://support.euro.dell.com/docs/acc/9624P/En/msdos.htm
http://atlas.hemmet.chalmers.se/livecenter/showpage.php?id=39
Comment from Wakeup 03/29/2002 10:57AM PST
Jason S hmmmm....Interesting sites.  I am listening...I still fail to see how it is going to work in Dos...But that is me.  Everything is possible I suppose.  Good luck and I do hope it works!  I just dont see it yet.
Comment from Longbow 03/31/2002 10:26AM PST
It seems your Windows 98 partition is FAT 32.
It must be a FAT 16 to have access to this partition from Dos 6.22.

Copy all the SB Live! needed files to the Dos 6.22 partition.
Update the autoexec.bat and/or config.sys with the new path.
Reboot.
Try again.
Comment from DOSDino 04/03/2002 08:30PM PST
Longbow,

Thanks.  I did already copy all the SBive drivers to the DOS directory and changed the autoexec.bat call line and that doesn't work.  Someone else has emailed me saying it is IMPOSSIBLE to get a SBLive card to work in DOS 6.22 becaues it looks to Windows 98 for other initialize info.  I am not technical enough to know whether this person is right or not.

Maybe I need to write Computer Gaming World Magazine.  Maybe they know what the trick is.  All I know is that I am not the only person trying to run DOS games in a DOS 6.22 partition with sound that works.  Others are doing it on a machine that also has Windows 95 or 98 in a separate partition.  Hopefully somebody that has their system set up like this will see my post and tell  me how they did it.

Thanks to you and everybody else that has tried to help with this perplexing problem.

Jim B.
Comment from Jason_S 04/04/2002 07:10AM PST
Do you actually need to run what you want under DOS 6.22, or can you run it at the DOS command prompt after exiting the Windows 98 GUI?

Did you try the links above with no results?
Comment from Longbow 04/08/2002 01:22AM PST
I have tried under DOS 6.22
It works.
If sbinit works without errors your configuration is correct and all the files are present on your FAT 16.

The SBLive! have 2 connectors for two speaker each.
What you have to do is to remove the cable from the first speakers and place the cable in the second connector.
****************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************

Sound Problems

A lot of people are experiencing sound problems in DOS. Usually the reason is either that the sound card is not properly installed, or that the actual settings of the sound card are not adopted by DOS the way they are supposed to.

First of all many emulators do not work with sound by default. It is therefore necessary to switch to sound on. Refer to the readme text to find the appropriate command. If this is not the case, verify the following;

1) Making sure that your sound card is properly installed: in your Windows directory (c:\windows) you will find a file called: autoexec.bat. By right clicking on this file and choosing edit you can view the content of this file. It should contain a line which looks something like this: SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 H5 P330 E620 T6 (this particular line is for the Sound Blaster)

This indicates that your sound card has been installed. If this line is missing, use the software that came with your card to install it properly.

2) If you do find this line, or a similar one, but you still cannot hear any sound when playing your emulators in DOS the problem might be, that DOS is not properly applying the settings it should. In your Windows directory (c:\windows) there should be a file called ctcm.exe. You can run this from DOS by changing to the Windows directory, typing ctcm and pressing enter. This should make DOS use the appropriate settings for your sound card.

This command should be run automatically every time you start DOS. You can achieve this by editing your autoexec.bat. Just insert a line like this: c:\windows\ctcm.exe and saving before exiting.

PCI Card probs in DOS

Many people are experiencing sound problems with PCI cards in DOS. This is because PCI cards do not use memory addresses anymore like the ISA cards used to. Your emulator, however, will look for the use of these memory addresses and therefore refuse to initiate sound if it cannot find these. The way to prevent this, is to fake the use of a memory address, by assigning a virtual address to your sound card. If your sound card is properly installed there should be line referring to it in your autoexec file. Check the section on autoexec in this page in order to find out how to verify this.

If you do not find this line, insert the following line into your autoexec.bat file: SET BLASTER=A220 I7 D1 T2, or try a different IRQ with this line: SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 T2 These are both correct lines for a Sound Blaster PCI. Your emulator should now recognise your sound card in DOS.

If you're still having troubles you can also do the following(works for SB Live!, hopefully also for the rest of Creative's PCI cards):

1) Run the program sbeset.exe in the creative/sblive/dosdrv directory where your sblive files were installed and configure your sb16 emulation port to 220, irq to 5, low dma to 1, and high dma to 1 (read sbeset.txt for docs).

2) Restart your system and voila! Sound emulation should run in real DOS mode


This assumes you have sbeinit.com somewhere in your autoexec.bat (check above and below for details on how to use your autoexecbat) . It's also a good idea to confirm that your BLASTER variable is set from your autoexec.bat by typing 'set' in the dos prompt. You should see something that says 'BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 H1 P330 T6' somewhere depending on what sbeset.exe settings you set in real dos mode. If you're in a windows dos box, it should be your original pci irq, dma, etc which should be different from the sb emulation settings.

An alternative scenario was worked out by Shifty for those who are still having difficulties even with the previous procedure:

You'll need the sbeset command that should come with the dos drivers, I'm assuming it's in your c:\sblive\dosdrv directory. At the command line, type:

c:\sblive\dosdrv\sbeset -I10 -w0

That's an *upper case* letter "I" followed by a one and zero to set the IRQ to ten, then a lower case "w" followed by a zero to tell it to ignore your Windows configuration. Sbeset should also automatically set your blaster environment variable. Now all you need to do is make sure you have the line

c:\sblive\dosdrv\sbeinit

in your autoexec.bat, reboot into "pure" DOS and give it a go. Changing the IRQ to 10 did wonders for me, I have no idea why because there's nothing on the default of 5 that should be conflicting with it. Don't be scared of experimenting with different values under DOS, you're unlikely to be using other devices that would normal conflict under Windows.

One limitation other than the settings can also be your motherboard configuration and compatibility. You will need to check with the motherboard manufacturer and ask them does their motherboard fully support NMI (Non Maskable Interrupts) and if it does how to enable them. Some manufacturers of motherboards state that they do support NMI but when tested and used (like with the SB128/Live) they don't work. If you have a ALI/ASUS chipset/motherboard an updated BIOS is now available which supports NMI, check out www.asus.com.tw for this patch. Until the motherboard fully supports NMI then the software emulation simply cannot operate. Check with the respective motherboard supplier for NMI compatibility. (Tip from FRK)

DOS Sound in a Windoze DOS box works fine as long as your card is properly installed and doesn't require change to the sb16 emulation settings. (Thanks to dodo for the latter procedure)

If you still cannot get any sound after al this the best solution is ot get a cheapo SB16 and stick it in there with your PCI card as explained just below. Check here for more details on the reasons for DOS incompatibility and limitations of PCI cards in DOS.

How to get 2 soundcards to work in one system

If you can't get your PCI card to do what you want in DOS, you can always disable the legacy emulation from the SB128, SB LIVE! etc. in the setup panel and then to put your old ISA SB16 card back into your system. In order to be backwards compatible the PCI card emulates an ols ISA card, a feature which does not always work or sound like the original. You can however make both cards work in your system so that the old SB16 kicks in with your emus.

Install the SB16 exactly as lined out in your manual with the proper drivers from CL. Make sure that there are no lines relating to the PCI card in you Autoexec.bat and everything should go smoothly. The best settings in your Autoexe.bat are the default settings: IRQ5 Low DMA 1 High DMA 5. (Check below if you don't know how to edit your autoexec.bat file) You can match these for both your Windoze and DOS settings and everything should work fine.

Set up your windows multimedia properties so that the SB128 is the preferred device for direct X and that the SB16 only kicks in when a program looks for a soundblaster.


You need to join the outputs from the two cards or have two sets of speakers (please note that if you join the amplified outputs i.e. for speakers/ headphones that are not externally amplified then you will get feedback interferrance which will distort the sound.) Two sets of seakers, or switching the speakers from one card to the other are the better solution.You will also have to balance the volume settings.


Once set up you will have the best of both worlds. PCI direct X acceleration and good old ISA sb16 compatability. (Thanks to Looker for the advice)