Will test and get back with you.

Originally posted by Arthur Dent I'm trying to get Steel Panthers: MBT, a derivative of the SSI game Steel Panthers 2, to run with sound. Everything works, but no sound.

Ok, tested. Seems to work fine. All the audio seems to be working properly.

Sounds like you might have something interfering with VDMSound. Have you checked your system to make sure it's clear of GIVEIO.SYS files and files that contain the word "Ke386". If you use Window's "search" tool, you need to make sure that it searches for hidden and system files and directories.

OK, I'll take a look and see what I can find.

Danke! 😎

OK, none of those files exist. I guess I'll have to keep on experimenting and see what I can do to make it work. I'm guessing that it has something to do with being SB Live! in Windows 2000....in other Win versions it has an SB16 emulator, but not in Win2K.

Danke!

The "SB16 emulator" is only for DOS program compatibility. Effectively, VDMSound is your "SB16 emulator".

Originally posted by Arthur Dent I guess I'll have to keep on experimenting and see what I can do to make it work.

Well, let's try the process of elimination.
Try running Ms.Pac-Em from here. Run it with VDMSound. It auto-configures, so it should run with sound effects and music when you start up a game. Note that if you run it without VDMSound, it will configure itself to use the PC Speaker. You can change that in the game menu.

Do you get sound effects and music?

It works just fine! Music and sound effects. Haven't played THAT in about a decade or so.... 😀

Originally posted by Arthur Dent It works just fine! Music and sound effects.

Ok, so it sounds like VDMSound is working OK. The question is, why can't your SPMBT produce audio. Are you running v2.0?

Yes, SPMBT 2.0. I've run the setsound.exe utility via VDMS using all three SoundBlaster selections (SB Compatible, SB Pro, and SB16/AWE 32), and in each case setsound indicates that it has detected the card and configured appropriately. If I run setsound without VDMS, no sound card is detected, of course. In running SPMBT I've tried selecting SB Live! Audio [D000] DirectSound, SB Live! Audio [D000] Wave, and Primary Sound Driver [DirectSound], but agian with no result. I'm going to try this with SPWW2, which uses the executable that precedes the executable used by MBT and see if that one works. If that works, then the problem is in the MBT executable itself.

OK! SPWW2 v 5.6 works with sound! Now I have to try and figure out why SPMBT v2 does not. I can't imagine that there was such a signifigant change in the .exe that it affects sound. I seriously doubt that they made any changes to the sound routines in upgrading the program. Maybe I'll just delete everything set up in MBT and try it from scratch.

OK! After trying a couple of other things (in vain), I completely deleted the SPMBT game directory and reinstalled (Oh, for the simple days of being able to do that with any software) and then ran everything again. It worked! Not sure what the source problem was, but my guess is that the .exe file may have become corrupt. Anyway, it works! Thanks for the assist!

Originally posted by Arthur Dent Not sure what the source problem was, but my guess is that the .exe file may have become corrupt. Anyway, it works! Thanks for the assist!

Well, that's a good thing I guess, since what you described made little sense to me. *heh*

Glad your "kicked it in the treads" solution worked for you.

This doesn't have to do with the sound card....how do I get the game to run? I keep getting DOS error 'Drive not ready error reading drive D'

How do I get around this?

SPMBT and SPWW2 don't require CD's. SP 2 and 3 do, however. Email me offline and I'll help you troubleshoot it, since this isn't the proper forum for that.

Originally posted by Arthur Dent SPMBT and SPWW2 don't require CD's. SP 2 and 3 do, however.

Glad you caught that Arthur, as what he was saying made no sense to me at all. I gather that he wasn't actually trying to run SPMBT?

Email me offline and I'll help you troubleshoot it, since this isn't the proper forum for that.

Actually, it's fine so long as the posts are placed in the proper forums: DOS or Windows as needed.

Thanks! I'll keep that in mind. He solved it by downloading the complete install, rather than just the update.