oh, and I would like to add I downloaded the DOS PCI drivers from here, but there was a page that explained the setup. It is over a page long and seems way over my head. I can't really believe I have to go into the C drive and rename a bunch of files. Hopefully not anyway. I didn't even bother trying to install those in fear of messing something up.

My Live! CD installer gives me a tick box option for DOS drivers, but anyway both of those games should work fine when run from within Windows 98, and the '98 drivers will emulate a sound blaster for you. You'll only need to install the DOS drivers for those games that refuse to work from within Windows.

I think you need EMM386 loaded if your gonna use the live! at the dos prompt.

You can also try the sblive DOS drivers from this page:
https://web.archive.org/web/20081208130458/ht … ml/snddosdr.htm

Ok, finally got to install these drivers. In duke setup I am now getting error " soubdblaster not responding on selected port" I think I just don't know how to set this up manually in duke setup. The mame page says don't use IRQ 5 so I didn't. But so many options in sound fx. First is choose sound card, did soundblaster, then type. I'm actually not sure if this is 2.0, pro, pro New, 16 or AWE, or soundblaster or compatible. I'm thinking since none say live its the last option. Then I have no idea about address, interrupt, and change 8 or 16 bit DMA channel. No idea what any of these are 🙁 right now I'm on channel 0x220, interrupt 7, 8-bit =1 and 16 bit = 5. How do I learn how to set this up? Yeah, I would like to get it working, but right now I would just be happy at least knowing what these options mean and do. And if they are conflicting with other things.

I would also like to add when I test music card it is saying could not detect FM chip.

jforrest1980 wrote:

Ok, finally got to install these drivers. In duke setup I am now getting error " soubdblaster not responding on selected port" I think I just don't know how to set this up manually in duke setup. The mame page says don't use IRQ 5 so I didn't. But so many options in sound fx. First is choose sound card, did soundblaster, then type. I'm actually not sure if this is 2.0, pro, pro New, 16 or AWE, or soundblaster or compatible. I'm thinking since none say live its the last option. Then I have no idea about address, interrupt, and change 8 or 16 bit DMA channel. No idea what any of these are 🙁 right now I'm on channel 0x220, interrupt 7, 8-bit =1 and 16 bit = 5. How do I learn how to set this up? Yeah, I would like to get it working, but right now I would just be happy at least knowing what these options mean and do. And if they are conflicting with other things.

I had the same problem, when I did not have any ISA system. Now I have, and it is no problem anymore.
I am not running SB-Live now, it is a SB16 Pro PNP and a GUS-ACE. They work good together.

Anyway.... To you'r problem.
I investigated the problem, reading all sort of posts regarding ISA and non ISA systems, and the SB-Live card.
It turn's out, that the problem is in the chipset, while trying to load SB16 stuff in pure dos.
The chipset must support non masked dma, serr and such.

For intel chipsets, the latest that support these things, are the 865 series chipsets.
While my board did not have ISA slot's, I could get some SB16 emulation out of it.
The bad thing was, that after a while, the system would drop the emulation.
It turn's out, that chipset's this late, are not fully functioning in pure dos.

If you could retrieve a board with ISA slots, then you'r problem would be solved I guess.
To some extend, as the emulation does need emm386, and some games do not like that at all.

Better yet, get a ISA system, and get an old Sound Blaster card.
The only hassle I have, is that my system need some extra software, as the SB is an pnp edition.
I don't ever recall having to load that ammount of software in config.sys, back when I had an SB16 Value.
Well... I have to hunt down that board, as my wave-table is in the form of my Gravis card.

all I will say is, good luck getting a SB Live to work in DOS... what a pain in the ass that was back when it first came out

I cant see which board/chipset is being used. but I've only tried SBLive on BX motherboards so cant really offer much help.
I have gotten an Audigy 2 ZS working in dos with a PCI only Intel 845 chipset board just to see if I could. (Think they were really Audigy 1 drivers)
Maybe a newer card may work better in a PCI only system? I'm still under brostenen's 865 limit so you still may be stuck

It all depends on how well the chipset can do non masked DMA and SERR plus handling IRQ.
Some chipsets can handle ISA legacy stuff on the PCI and others can not.
Even if the chipset is correct, the manufactor of the board have screwed up.

Thanks for the info everyone. I don't know what I would do without you all. I am pretty much giving up on installing anything dos related on this PC. It's just too much of a hassle. I think I am going to just use this for windows 95/98 gaming for now and hopefully pick up a decent used pc with a ISA slot to play DOS stuff. So Now I will have 4 PC's lying around the house. Which isn't a big deal I guess since I already have like 20 game consoles. It is frustrating getting these games to work, but I don't expect windows 98 games to work in windows 7 without a huge hassle to dig up a tool to get them to install, so I'm not going to expect old DOS games to work perfectly in windows 98.

The guy at the computer store says he has an old PC with an ISA slot for $30.00, but it has a Celeron processor. Which I'm not to stoked about. But I think it is a socket 370. I'm going to investigate later and hopefully I can put a Pentium II in, and hopefully it has a few PCI slots for a couple Voodoo 2's.

I'll get the specs later and post a new thread, and get some advice before committing to a purchase. But at least with all this trial and error I am learning a lot.

jforrest1980 wrote:

oh, and I would like to add I downloaded the DOS PCI drivers from here, but there was a page that explained the setup. It is over a page long and seems way over my head.

Why don't you provide a link to this page that you find so baffling?

If you provide the contents of your autoexec.bat and config.sys , it may be possible to find where the problem is.

brostenen wrote:

I investigated the problem, reading all sort of posts regarding ISA and non ISA systems, and the SB-Live card. It turn's out, th […]
Show full quote

I investigated the problem, reading all sort of posts regarding ISA and non ISA systems, and the SB-Live card.
It turn's out, that the problem is in the chipset, while trying to load SB16 stuff in pure dos.
The chipset must support non masked dma, serr and such.

For intel chipsets, the latest that support these things, are the 865 series chipsets.

Did you read about that somewhere specifically? There have been threads about this issue in the past, and it's all been very mysterious as to exactly when the features were removed from the chipsets. If there is definitive information out there somewhere, it would be most interesting.

Also, it so happens that in this other thread, the board in question was revealed to be 865-based.

jforrest1980 wrote:

Thanks for the info everyone. I don't know what I would do without you all. I am pretty much giving up on installing anything dos related on this PC. It's just too much of a hassle. I think I am going to just use this for windows 95/98 gaming for now and hopefully pick up a decent used pc with a ISA slot to play DOS stuff. So Now I will have 4 PC's lying around the house. Which isn't a big deal I guess since I already have like 20 game consoles.

Yes, this sort of thing is definitely a hassle! So why don't you just use DOSBox?

Jorpho wrote:

Yes, this sort of thing is definitely a hassle! So why don't you just use DOSBox?

Because I don't really like emulators. I'm obviously not a expert on retro pc's. But when it comes to consoles I know quite a bit. And I know emulators never feel the same. And it's not even about not using a old keyboard, mouse, and monitor. They just never look, sound or feel right if you have ever played on real hardware.

Also, I am a computer science major, although very early in school I only have minimal Java and c# knowledge at this point. But I am very interested in everything computers and actually enjoy building pc's. It's just retro PC's are new to me because when I was in high school in the 90's there were whole summers we went without electricity, let alone owning an actual PC. So it's one of those things growing up I never had and always wanted. Now I can have one.

Jorpho wrote:

Why don't you provide a link to this page that you find so baffling?

Actually I was reading too much into it. It was explaining manual install. I just ran the specified file and installed it.

Jorpho wrote:

If you provide the contents of your autoexec.bat and config.sys , it may be possible to find where the problem is.

Will do, as soon as I find a way to get it off this PC and onto my windows 7 pc. I have been unable to locate a USB drive that works, and this thing doesn't have a CD burner to save the file. I must have some way to get it off. I will try some other things after work, or maybe try and take a picture.

Get a SB16. That will always work in DOS. 😀

jforrest1980 wrote:

Because I don't really like emulators. I'm obviously not a expert on retro pc's. But when it comes to consoles I know quite a bit. And I know emulators never feel the same. And it's not even about not using a old keyboard, mouse, and monitor. They just never look, sound or feel right if you have ever played on real hardware.

This logic does not apply to PCs. Generally a game console comes in exactly one configuration which an emulator can only approximate. But there are nearly uncountable different PC configurations, none of which can generally be defined as the one true hardware for any particular software title (which is why getting things to run can often be so difficult). In this regard DOSBox is just as good as anything else, and in many regards is substantially better.

Also, I am a computer science major, although very early in school I only have minimal Java and c# knowledge at this point.

You looked at something that was "over a page long" and quickly decided that it "seems way over my head" and subsequently were "pretty much giving up on installing anything dos related on this PC". This bodes very, very poorly for the future of this endeavor. It's not going to get much better, you know.

Jorpho wrote:

You looked at something that was "over a page long" and quickly decided that it "seems way over my head" and subsequently were "pretty much giving up on installing anything dos related on this PC". This bodes very, very poorly for the future of this endeavor. It's not going to get much better, you know.

Well, I do know from what I read it was above my technological know-how. Which is why I decided to come to the forums and search for other alternatives. Like I said before I have 1 c# and one Java and JavaScript class under my belt. I'm not ready to be digging in C drive and changing Windows files. Certainly after I get some more school done, like my operating systems class I will feel more confident that I can go in and at least fix things I break until I can get working what I need to work. Unfortunately I was not born with all the knowledge of legacy Windows operating systems and configuration and manipulation of windows files like some lucky people. But like I said in the previous post it was all unnecessary because I read too much into the tutorial and was reading the manual setup. There was a file I just had to run that I missed after reading the first few times.

I only decided to give up because I was told before that sound is hard, or impossible to get to work in DOS without a sound card mounted on a ISA slot. So it seemed pointless to continue bumping the thread for something that wasn't going to happen. Which is why I am thinking of keeping this current PC, until I can get an older machine with an ISA slot and be sure it does what I want it to do.

At least I read, research, thread search, and try and do as much as I can before posting. I could just not read anything and post everyday asking for a complete walkthrough of everything I need help with, like I see many people do on various forums. I have spent over the last 3 weeks at least 4 full days doing all the things mentioned plus more setting up this PC, trying to figure things out on my own. And I have learned a lot on my own and with the help of the other nice and helpful members here. Because believe it or not I am capable of learning, and grinding through some things I feel confident I can figure out if I persist. Yeah I have posted 3 threads in that time, but I cold have posted many more if I decided to give up every time.

Jorpho wrote:

Did you read about that somewhere specifically? There have been threads about this issue in the past, and it's all been very mysterious as to exactly when the features were removed from the chipsets. If there is definitive information out there somewhere, it would be most interesting.

Also, it so happens that in this other thread, the board in question was revealed to be 865-based.

Please check this post PCI sound cards and Chipsets from various manufacturers..., it has some quite interesting information.
With the post from -LSS10999- regarding Intel's document about legacy ISA stuff, and some snooping around other tech info.
I am almost certain that 865 chipsets, are probably the last that supports ISA to an extend.
Yes... Snooping around the net, reading stuff about ISA technology and chipsets for like two weeks or so.
My good this was tough reading and finding the right concrete and clear info. Made my head spin for a long time. 🙁

My old HP/Compaq d530 sff is 865 chipset, and it has a "Generate SERR" setting in the bios menu.
Then if we look at earlier motherboards, some of the last mass produced boards, that have real ISA slots.
Are probably the boards with 815 chipsets or something like that.
Yet, some 865 boards do have serr option to enable or disable.
If I try and do some Dos with a live card on a G965 Express chipset, then I can not even get general midi to work.
The Live card is just 100% silent, if I try to load the drivers in autoexec.bat
The drivers report back, that it can not see any Live card.

My problem with this d530sff board, is not to get Sb16 emulation running on a live card.
The problem is to get it running for more than 15 minutes or so, it simply drops out and need a cold boot.
The only thing I can get to work on all boards prior to 865 chipsets, are General midi.
(I am talking about boards without ISA slots, because I do have ISA boards and 3 ISA sound card's)
And that is actually the greatest asset of this card, if you ask me.

Even the Creative Ensonic AudioPCI (CT4810), are worse than the Live card, doing SB-Emulation in dos.
It stops to function completely after 10 minutes, and I need to cut the power and let the machine rest for 20 minutes.

This is why I think that 865 chipsets are the last intel, we can do some of this stuff with.
This is only intel, I am speaking of. Because I have not really dealt with other chipset makers and SB-Live card's

Came to think of it. That it might also have something to do with wait-states.
On ISA systems, you could set a number of wait states, in order to get the system more stable.
You know, when trying to get data from a slow periferal, and loading it into a fast periferal.

If the number was too low, then the system crashed for shure.
If the number was too high, then you would have a slow machine.
It all came down to how well you could tune in the system by setting wait states.

Intel has said/written (somewere), that they wanted to get rid of those wait states, and thereby having a faster system.
And because no-one bought ISA at that point in time, then, well... You get my drift?!

brostenen wrote:

Please check this post PCI sound cards and Chipsets from various manufacturers..., it has some quite interesting information.

Yes, I am very familiar with that post. It makes no mention of the 865 chipset, which is why it seems odd that you have decided the cut-off is specifically there.