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Sound Blaster 16 issues

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First post, by fractal5

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It seems I really have to struggle every step of the way with everything I do with this system.

How do I get the Sound Blaster 16 card to work in DOS 6.2? What is a minimal working configuration, with regards to config.sys and autoexec.bat?

I still have the original floppy disks that came with the system, I've executed this install utility, which plays the test sounds (and music) without any issues.

There are no errors when the system starts, it states that the card is configured correctly using the settings specified in config.sys. This is what it states when DOS starts:

Creative DOS Multimedia Architecture (v1.00)
CTSOUND Physical-Level driver (v3.02) for 16-bit Audio Card.
Copyright (C) Creative Technology Ltd., 1993-96. All rights reserved.
    Driver Unit Number = 0
    Base I/O Addx = 220 hex
    IRQ = 5
    Low DMA Channel = 1
    High DMA Channel = 5

My config.sys (only showing sound blaster related lines):

DEVICE=C:\CTCM\CTCM.EXE
DEVICE=C:\SB16\DRV\CTSB16.SYS /UNIT=0 /BLASTER=A:220 I:5 D:1 H:5
DEVICE=C:\SB16\DRV\CTMMSYS.SYS

My autoexec.bat (only showing sound blaster related lines):

SET CTCM=C:\CTCM
SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 T3 P330 H5
SET MIDI=SYNTH:1 MAP:E MODE:0
SET SOUND=C:\SB16

Please note again that the installation program can play the test sounds and music perfectly fine. I also got one game to work, but only with music, no sound effects. No other game works (neither with music nor sound effects), this includes games that auto detect the settings (I assume they simply read the "BLASTER" variable) and games where you have to manually enter the parameters.

I've compared by hand my configuration on this system with an AWE32 based system (also running DOS, obviously), and I can't find the mistake.

Reply 3 of 11, by alexanrs

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Not at all, games communicate with the SoundBlaster's hardware directly. These drivers are only used by the software that comes with the sound card (test utilities, etc.)

EDIT:
You'll still want the BLASTER line. And if it is a PnP model, be sure to tell the bios you're not using a PnP aware OS, so it will initialize everything.

Reply 4 of 11, by bristlehog

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Working with SB16 in DOS really depends on whether the card is PnP or not. What is the exact model number (CTxxxx) of your card?

Hardware comparisons and game system requirements: https://technical.city

Reply 6 of 11, by alexanrs

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DOS games communicate directly with the soundcard, therefore not needing any drivers. My guess would be that the drivers were actually keeping the card "busy" and not allowing some games to use it... perhaps a newer version of the driver wouldn't cause this behavior? Anyway, just leave the "SET BLASTER" line (because some programs use it to get the SB's IRQ/Port/DMA channel) and be happy.

EDIT: Correction: PnP versions of the card might need an utility to turn the sound blaster on and set its port/DMA/IRQ... but that's not truly a driver, just a startup utility.

Reply 7 of 11, by fractal5

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alexanrs wrote:

DOS games communicate directly with the soundcard, therefore not needing any drivers. My guess would be that the drivers were actually keeping the card "busy" and not allowing some games to use it... perhaps a newer version of the driver wouldn't cause this behavior? Anyway, just leave the "SET BLASTER" line (because some programs use it to get the SB's IRQ/Port/DMA channel) and be happy.

EDIT: Correction: PnP versions of the card might need an utility to turn the sound blaster on and set its port/DMA/IRQ... but that's not truly a driver, just a startup utility.

I'm confused. I feel this is really something I should know, but how does the sound card get configured when it doesn't use drivers at all?

I understand that communication with the card can be made directly using just port I/O and memory mapped I/O without needing any driver. But how does the card select which interrupt it wants to use? I have simply picked interrupt 5 more or less at random, because it seems like a common value.

Reply 8 of 11, by alexanrs

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If it's not PnP, these parameters are adjusted through jumpers. If it's PnP then either the BIOS, a PnP-aware OS (like Win9x) or some startup utility will assign values somewhat automatically (and might need to set a few things manually to solve conflicts).
Most sound cards that need drivers to work in DOS are actually using these to emulate native SoundBlaster hardware.

Reply 10 of 11, by fractal5

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Actually this doesn't work well at all. It works for certain games, but not for others. E.g. for Doom 1 only the music works. For Doom 2, there is no sound at all. For other games though, the sound works great. I find this very strange. I know for a fact I am entering the correct values, i.e. the same ones set in my BLASTER variable.

E.g. Tyrian will give me "ERROR 253: Sound effects disabled.", the music works though. It also states "You probably do not have a SoundBlaster-compatible card."

Reply 11 of 11, by PhilsComputerLab

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I would start from scratch.

Remove all entries from the start-up files. Delete all folders.

Then grab the SBBASIC executable from the Creative site. Run to extract and run SETUP. It will install it the proper way.

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