Hi - I'm testing out a newly rehabbed 486 machine I acquired with MSDOS 6.2.2 and Win3.1 and having issues getting SBVGM (or SBVGM32, they're acting the same) v1.43 to work. This copy of SBVGM (and the vgz files) is on a USB stick and they work fine on my 8088 Equity I+ and its SAAYM card. I use the ISA USB card on these two machines, which has been working flawlessly, but just in case, I tried copying everything to C: and running from there too with the same issue.
The 486 machine has a Soundblaster 16 with a Serda EWave wavetable daughterboard. When I try playing any file, I get 'Detected hardware can't play VGM!' I've tried using the -opl3330 switch and then (on a separate attempt) the -sbc switch with no change. I am booting to MS-DOS and not starting Win3.1 as its not needed here.
By way of checking the hardware and configuration I then used the Duke Nukem 3D setup program with "General Midi" for the music and the SB16 for the sound effects, and that works just fine.
On startup of MS-DOS the installed Soundblaster package runs a few different programs and sets a few different configuration parameters: In autoexec.bat, that includes:
SET SOUND=C:\SB16
SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 H5 P330 T6
SET MIDI=SYNTH:1 MAP:E
SET CTCM=C:\CTCM
C:\SB16\DIAGNOSE /S
C:\SB16\MIXERSET /P /Q
C:\CTCM\CTCU /S
CONFIG.SYS adds:
DEVICE=C:\CTCM\CTCM.EXE
I tried restarting with an autoexec.bat and config.sys that didn't have these settings and that only led to a 'no hardware' message, then attempts and using the flags when running it returned me to the "Hardware can't play VGM" issue.
Can anyone suggest things I can do to try diagnosing this issue, please? Or is the Soundblaster 16 incapable of playing VGMs for some reason, even on its wavetable header?
Thanks!