j'ordos wrote:

Problem is however that I can't get sound working properly for some DOS games. Notably commander keen, aladdin&stunts. Tyrian & doom (and windows games) work ok.

So what games don't work, exactly?

Some games may very well require manual configuration of the IRQ and DMA settings in whatever setup program is included with them.

Commander keen 4, aladdin and stunts don't work. Commander keen doesn't have a setup utility, it relies on the SET BLASTER line I read somewhere. Aladdin does have one and I configure it correctly but no sound or music. The config utility does tell me there's not enough memory to play enhanced music so I understand that won't work but there's no sound either.

Oops. I misread that.

"A220 I5 D1 T2" is a really weird BLASTER line. See for instance http://www.oldskool.org/guides/oldonnew/sound . Did you come up with that yourself?

Try changing T2 to T4 or T5. Or change D1 to D0.

the set blaster line is fine for older (pre sb16) cards
T1 = older soundblaster
T2 = soundbalster pro
T3 = newer soundblaster pro
T4 = newer soundblaster

I beleive apogee games really need D=1
and would try T1 rather than T4 or T5

ps: capture DMA 1 & playback DMA 0.
can you try swapping them round ? i'm not sure what the correct setting is but wouldnt the D=1 in set blaster refer to playback ?

AFAIK Commander Keen 4 and Stunts use the FM chip only, so they might as well completely ignore the BLASTER variable.
Take a look at the mixer (C:\ESSUTIL\ESSVOL.EXE /?): What do the /M and /A switches stand for?

BTW, here are the correct SB types for the BLASTER variable:
1 Sound Blaster 1.0/1.5
2 Sound Blaster Pro 1.0
3 Sound Blaster 2.0
4 Sound Blaster Pro 2.0
5 Sound Blaster Pro MCV
6 Sound Blaster 16 and newer

I'd say type 4 would be the best bet for an ES1869.

/m = mic volume
although another source says its mpu401 volume

Yes, I also found the DMA settings in the BIOS confusing, but for example the tyrian setup program sets the soundblaster to DMA1 and sound works fine there. It also uses FM Sound for music which works too. I tried swapping the DMA values in the BIOS before, didn't solve any problems.
I wrote the blaster line myself (proud 😊 ) I did try a few different T numbers though can't remember which ones. I'll try again and let you know.
Any thoughts on why keen works when the windows driver for the soundcard is uninstalled?
Are these games that need the IRQ set to 7? I'll try changing that too, don't need the printer port anyway.
There's also an option for P&P OS yes/no in the BIOS. Tried changing it to no already, didn't make a difference but I didn't reset the configuration data. (option in the BIOS)
Looking at the docs for ESSVOL.EXE M stands for mic and A for AUXB. These are default values from when I installed the DOS driver. I added the parameters to ESSCFG myself (default cfg is after the REM line) but on startup it just tells me these are ignored because of presence of a P&P OS.

Thanks for all the help so far!

Setting the IRQ to 7 in the BIOS had no effect. Neither did switching playback & capture DMA. When I set both to the same value (DMA 1) sound didn't work anymore in windows (device manager showed a conflict) but it did in the DOS games (commander keen 4, tyrian, stunts, ...) - same as when I had no windows driver installed. Rem'ing the DOS driver lines from autoexec.bat (ESSVOL & ESSCFG) made no difference whatsoever here. As long as there was no windows driver installed or working for the soundcard music&sfx worked fine in these DOS games.

Device manager shows the following devices under sound&game controllers:
ES1869 Control Interface
ES1869 Plug and Play AudioDrive
Gameport Joystick

I meant to link to a utility called SETSOUND.EXE which people sometimes find useful for determining the BLASTER environment variable, but couldn't find a copy.

I REM'd the set blaster line, commander keen & such still work with sound & music after restarting if no windows driver is present. But I'd like to have sound in windows games too. I'll try to find other drivers.

are you restarting in msdos mode to play these games ?

No, I'm trying to get them working from within the win98 environment. Is that impossible? 😊

j'ordos wrote:

No, I'm trying to get them working from within the win98 environment.

ARGH! You would have saved us a lot of guesswork if you told that little detail right away. 🙄

I suspect you're using the newer WDM drivers for your ES1869. I've sometimes had problems with DOS games when using WDM drivers in Windows. Try the older VxD drivers.

This download has a Sound Blaster Pro test utility. Try that.

Ow, terribly sorry about that. Rereading my post it isn't indeed obvious that I was trying to run them from within windows 98se...

I read that about the WDM drivers too, the first drivers that windows 98 automatically installed for the soundcard had WDM written in the name in the device manager. I downloaded a bunch of other drivers, some didn't say WDM. Does this mean it's a VxD driver? It made no difference so far. Sorry, don't really know what WDM or VxD means. When searching for my problem I stumbled on the same answer, but trying to google VxD drivers for this soundcard I so far only found windows 95 drivers which the windows 98 hardware manager refused to 'see'. I'll keep looking.
I'll try the test utility, not sure what the point is though? To see if my card is soundblaster compatible?

If the card works in the test utility, then it's not a sound card or driver issue. Something else must be causing the problem.

Do any of the games use EMS? If not, add NOEMS to your emm386 line in config.sys.

Also try adding DOS=HIGH,UMB after your himem.sys and emm386 lines in your config.sys.

A lack of available conventional memory may cause the sound to not work in DOS games, even if it works fine in Windows.

I thought Windows 98SE had both WDM and Vxd drivers?

The utility worked fine when I ran it from within windows without active soundcard drivers (no dos drivers, no windows drivers, no set blaster var). It detected the card at I/O 220, IRQ 7 and DMA 1. I could hear all sound & music samples.
Then I installed soundcard drivers in windows (ones that didn't say WDM) and restarted. Windows startup sound played fine but the utility no longer detected the soundcard, failing while searching for an IRQ. Windows device manager shows no conflicts.

Windows 98se comes with two different drivers for the ES1869 yes, one says WDM, and the other doesn't. I tried both of them. Don't think any driver I downloaded has been a different one than those two.

I'll try the conventional memory tricks too, the game aladdin needs it anyway 😀

edit: I reset the IRQ to 5 in the BIOS and added noems and DOS HIGH UMB to config.sys. The test utility now recognized the soundcard again, playing all music&sound samples correctly. However, keen4 and stunts still don't work...

What sound configuration do you have those games at?

Both these games have in common that they don't have any options to setup the soundcard. You just select soundblaster. There is no dialog to enter IO, IRQ & DMA. I reinstated the SET BLASTER var: it now reads SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 T4
I have 557k of conventional memory. Edit: upped it to 596k, still no luck