@ssshake

Great research and finally a sufficiently detailed explanation. Since I am the one who suggested to run CTCM from AUTOEXEC, I must have contributed to the confusion.

I think you are correct that CTCM, when run from AUTOEXEC will autoconfigure the card, based on some PnP configuration, maybe from BIOS. This may be the configuration you want, or not. If it is the one you want - then all is good, otherwise you will have problems. I think I never had problems with running CTCM straight from AUTOEXEC, because the existing configuration it would apply was what I wanted.

Is it worth using the Creative drivers anymore? I have similar possibly the same model Vibra in my 486 I've been tinkering with over the past few months. Unisound works like magic, you just run a SET BLASTER with the settings you want and then execute Unisound and the PNP settings are configured on the card, and the program exits without leaving anything resident in memory.

It also has command line switches you can use to set the different mixer volume levels.

dr_st wrote on 2020-12-08, 18:04:

@ssshake

Great research and finally a sufficiently detailed explanation. Since I am the one who suggested to run CTCM from AUTOEXEC, I must have contributed to the confusion.

I think you are correct that CTCM, when run from AUTOEXEC will autoconfigure the card, based on some PnP configuration, maybe from BIOS. This may be the configuration you want, or not. If it is the one you want - then all is good, otherwise you will have problems. I think I never had problems with running CTCM straight from AUTOEXEC, because the existing configuration it would apply was what I wanted.

I think this is probably true. I tried this card in a different p166 yesterday and it automatically got assign 220 irq 5. On my preferred motherboard it gets 240 irq 9.

SScorpio wrote on 2020-12-08, 18:19:

Is it worth using the Creative drivers anymore? I have similar possibly the same model Vibra in my 486 I've been tinkering with over the past few months. Unisound works like magic, you just run a SET BLASTER with the settings you want and then execute Unisound and the PNP settings are configured on the card, and the program exits without leaving anything resident in memory.

It also has command line switches you can use to set the different mixer volume levels.

I don't think I've ever used unisound. I'll get it a shot.

ssshake wrote on 2020-12-08, 18:36:

dr_st wrote on 2020-12-08, 18:04:

@ssshake

Great research and finally a sufficiently detailed explanation. Since I am the one who suggested to run CTCM from AUTOEXEC, I must have contributed to the confusion.

I think you are correct that CTCM, when run from AUTOEXEC will autoconfigure the card, based on some PnP configuration, maybe from BIOS. This may be the configuration you want, or not. If it is the one you want - then all is good, otherwise you will have problems. I think I never had problems with running CTCM straight from AUTOEXEC, because the existing configuration it would apply was what I wanted.

I think this is probably true. I tried this card in a different p166 yesterday and it automatically got assign 220 irq 5. On my preferred motherboard it gets 240 irq 9.

The related questions I would ask here are:
1. If CTCM's default configuration is wrong and you need to run CTCU instead of CTCM from AUTOEXEC - do you still need to "load" CTCM from CONFIG.SYS to initialize the card? What happens if you don't?
2. If loaded from CONFIG.SYS - does CTCM stay resident and consume memory or does it initialize and exit?

Thank you, ssshake, you figured out what I had been struggling with for weeks.

One other issue that I have been experiencing is that CTCU will make changes to my config.sys where I have a very specific setting for my CD-ROM. As a result, if I run CTCU from autoexec, my CD-ROM driver doesn't load properly.

Sooo... now I'm not running CTCM or CTCU from autoexec at all. CTCM is still in config.sys of course, and at startup I get all the configuration messages and my pnp card works with the settings I want as well as my CD-ROM.

I would be curious to see if your card works without CTCU in autoexec; I think it's redundant.

Thanks to ssshake, your input puts a light into my tunnel.

It seems to me that the line that actually reads the config file (CTPNP.cfg) is DIAGNOSE.EXE/S
I had been scratching my head to get my CT2760 card working under pure DOS mode by forcing the software to read the config file. Problem is, which file do I use to read it? CTCM, CTCU, or DIAGNOSE?
I read a manual put together by Gerwin (http://vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?fileid=630) and saw the autoexec line DIAGNOSE.exe/S and gave it a go. And voila, it works like a charm. No more tinkering with CTCM or CTCU anymore. Just DIAGNOSE will do the job for me.

I tried to include CTCU.exe /S /W=C:\WINDOWS in my AUTOEXEC.BAT, only to be greeted with a complaint that it cannot be run under Win95 (I'm using Win98, btw). Well, I think I will remove this line for now.

I think CT2760 is non-PnP, so CTCM/CTCU are irrelevant to it, and indeed DIAGNOSE /S is what is required, as you've discovered.