Soundblaster on DOS 6.22 needs EMS ... ? \ VOGONS

Soundblaster on DOS 6.22 needs EMS ... ?

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First post, by jspyder

Posted on 2013-05-11, 08:04

jspyder Offline

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Hi folks. I set up a DOSBox (0.74) to boot to DOS and it works perfectly ... with one exception.

A game I really love isn't playing the sounds quite right. The music comes through fine, but the sound effects are using the PC Speaker emulation.

When I attempt to activate the SoundBlaster in the game, it keeps telling me that I need at least 100K of EMS memory.

I tried adding the Himem.sys and emm386.exe lines to the config.sys, but the game still doesn't recognize it. (DOS 6.22 reports that they load just fine.)

Once upon a time (back when I had a real Win95 system) the sound effects played just fine. I haven't been able to reproduce that. I've also had similar problems with other games, so it's not just this one game.

Has anyone else run into this? Is there a workaround or even maybe a real solution?

Reply 1 of 8, by ripsaw8080

Posted on 2013-05-11, 08:30

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Does the game's SB sound work in DOSBox without booting DOS? If so, then your setup in real DOS is suspect. Does MEM.EXE report available EMS memory? Are you setting the BLASTER environment variable? If you post the CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT you're using, it might be easier to spot if something is wrong or missing.

Reply 2 of 8, by fillosaurus

Posted on 2013-05-11, 08:31

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Name the game.

Y2K box: AMD Athlon K75 (second generation slot A)@700, ASUS K7M motherboard, 256 MB SDRAM, ATI Radeon 7500+2xVoodoo2 in SLI, SB Live! 5.1, VIA USB 2.0 PCI card, 40 GB Seagate HDD.
WIP: external midi module based on NEC wavetable (Yamaha clone)

Reply 3 of 8, by Calvero

Posted on 2013-05-11, 19:12

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I guess Monster Bash is the game.

Reply 4 of 8, by jspyder

Posted on 2013-05-12, 05:36

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I'm not sure how to test the sound in DOSBox without booting either DOS or Windows (I've got a working Windows 95 configuration, but am not using it at present - sound works fine in that without any jerry-rigging).

The autoexec.bat is:
@echo off
MSCDEX.EXE /D:tomato /L:R

The config.sys is:
device=himem.sys
device=emm386.exe 150 ram

(Before I added these two lines on the game's recommendation, there WAS no config.sys.)

Yes, Monster Bash is the game.

Reply 5 of 8, by jspyder

Posted on 2013-05-12, 05:43

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Oh, and Mem.exe does report the memory as being available.

Reply 6 of 8, by Dominus

Posted on 2013-05-12, 07:10

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You can use dosbox mostly better by NOT using a boot image. Follow the 60 seconds guide to install the game without using a boot image.

You could make your existing boot image work by installing the SB drivers found in my Windows 3.11 guide (see my sig) which will install the correct dos drivers and environment settings.

You need a boot image for Windows 95, though 😉

Windows 3.1x guide for DOSBox
60 seconds guide to DOSBox
DOSBox SVN snapshot for macOS (10.4-11.x ppc/intel 32/64bit) notarized for gatekeeper

Reply 7 of 8, by jspyder

Posted on 2013-05-12, 21:52

jspyder Offline

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Once again, I stand corrected. It works fine with all full sounds if I just run it from DOSBox. From now on, I read the manual *first* before asking for help ... arrogance of a former tech guru, I guess ...

However, I would still like to know (if someone can answer) how it worked fine originally in a true DOS environment, but I haven't been able to get it to work in real DOS since. Is it maybe the memory issue the game reported?

Reply 8 of 8, by Dominus

Posted on 2013-05-12, 22:03

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you could try adding the Sound Blaster settings in Autoexec.bat
SET BLASTER=A220 I7 D1 H5 T6
(and examine the "device=emm386.exe 150 ram" if that is correct - I don't remember if that didn't need to point at the path of emm386 or whether 150 ram is correct....)
(or as I mentioned install the SB drivers which will fix that line as well and install some other stuff, I think)
Error messages by games are not always pointing at the correct issue 😀

Windows 3.1x guide for DOSBox
60 seconds guide to DOSBox
DOSBox SVN snapshot for macOS (10.4-11.x ppc/intel 32/64bit) notarized for gatekeeper

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