First post, by p6889k
Hi,
I just started building my first retro PC and am having problems getting Creative AudioPCI (CT4810) working under DOS.
Goal: Setup dual boot PC with Win98SE and WinXP. Play native Windows games. Play DOS games launched from Win98. I’m ok if some DOS games don’t work as long as reasonable number of them do. Nice to have: play DOS games launched from DOS prompt.
For testing I tried: Doom 1.25, Prince of Persia, Wolfenstein 1.4c, Legend of Kyrandia
I tried setup with two separate systems
Asus A7N8X Deluxe revision 2, Athlon 2500+, ATI 9800 PRO
Nforce 2 Ultra chipset
Disabled SATA on board, in BIOS disabled onboard audio, 1394
Under XP:
I let Windows install default Windows driver. Sounds works for WinXP games. DOS games have either no audio or low quality audio (Doom).
Under Win98SE:
I installed Creative Ensoniq driver, which also installs DOS driver. I can see that it modified autoexec.bat and config.sys
Win98 games play sound just fine and two or three of the four DOS games launched from Win98 play sound as well – Kyrandia doesn’t, Doom does, Prince of Persia does, can't remember Wolfenstein.
Games launched from DOS prompt play no sound.
Btw, I also tried using NForce integreated audio and could never get sound working in Win98 native games, drivers installed, device manager showed them, but no sound in Windows.
Asus A7V8X-X revision 1, Athlon 2500+, ATI 9800 PRO
KT400 chipset
Disabled in BIOS onboard audio
Under XP
I let Windows install default Windows driver. Sounds works for WinXP games. DOS games have either no audio or low quality audio (Doom).
Under Win98SE:
I installed Creative Ensoniq driver, which also installs DOS driver. I can see that it modified autoexec.bat and config.sys
Win98 games play sound just fine
DOS games launched from Windows have no sound.
Games launched from DOS prompt play no sound.
Then I tried to install SBPCI DOS drivers that I downloaded here on Vogons, they install into c:\dosdrv. These produce no sound as well.
Also tried every single PCI slot just in case.
Overall it looks like I had more success with the A7N8X setup and getting DOS sound work at least for some DOS games launched from windows. This surprised me as I read somewhere on this forum that NForce2 chipsets don’t work well with DOS drivers for PCI audio. Interestingly it was the KT400 chipset that produced no sound at all under DOS or windowed DOS.
When using the A7V8X board and Creative/Ensoniq DOS driver, when I execute:
SBCFG.exe I get the following:
PCI Hardware:
Port = D800, IRQ=10
Sound Blaster 16 Emulation:
Port=220, IRQ=7, DMA=1, DMA16=7
MPU-401 Emulation:
Port=330, IRQ=7
AdLib Emulation:
Port=388
SBTEST.exe:
Sound Blaster PCI Legacy Test Utility, Ver 4.34D.
Detecting SB…
Error: could not reset SB16
When using the A7V8X board and SBPCI DOS drivers downloaded from Vogons library,when I execute:
SBTEST.exe:
Sound Blaster PCI Legacy Test Utility, Ver 4.34D.
Detecting SB…
Error: could not r^set SB16
Booting directly to DOS Propmt shows that loading finished without errors, I see that it loaded
C:\DOSDRV\SBLOAD
C:\DOSDRV\SBINIT.COM
So at this point I’m quite exhausted trying out different things, but based on what I’ve read I thought I would be able to get the Ensoniq AudioPCI working reasonably well. I only have one more board to try (Pentium4), but it will be a while before I get to it. Right now I think I’ll settle for the Nforce2 Board knowing I can only play DOS games launched from Windows.
Any advice on what else I could try.
Thank you.