Are CTSB16.SYS and CTMMSYS.SYS ever needed for DOS gaming? \ VOGONS

Are CTSB16.SYS and CTMMSYS.SYS ever needed for DOS gaming?

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First post, by Joseph_Joestar

Posted on 2021-09-09, 18:53

Joseph_Joestar Offline

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I'm currently playing around with my AWE64 Gold (CT4390) on a DOS 6.22 + Win3.11 system. On a whim, I chose "Custom Install" from the driver CD and, among other things, it offered to install CTSB16.SYS and CTMMSYS.SYS. This made me curious, so I looked up these drivers in the manual and here's what it said:

AWE64 Gold manual wrote:
CTSB16.SYS and CTMMSYS.SYS are low-level device drivers that provide wave playback and recording for DOS applications. These applications include third-party DOS applications developed with Creative Labs’ Sound Blaster Developer Kit. The applications work with the drivers (such as CTWDSK.DRV, CTWMEM.DRV, CTVDSK.DRV, and CT-VOICE.DRV) that require the low-level drivers. The drivers are found in the DRV subdirectory of your audio software directory.

From this, I gather that these drivers might be used by certain DOS sound recording apps. But is there a chance that some game needs them as well? I doubt it, since they seem to be an optional component, but I was curious if anyone else had any experience with this.

PC#1: Pentium MMX 166 / Soyo SY-5BT / S3 Trio64V+ / Voodoo1 / YMF719 / AWE64 Gold / SC-155
PC#2: AthlonXP 2100+ / ECS K7VTA3 / Voodoo3 / Audigy2 / Vortex2
PC#3: Athlon64 3400+ / Asus K8V-MX / 5900XT / Audigy2
PC#4: i5-3570K / MSI Z77A-G43 / GTX 970 / X-Fi

Reply 1 of 4, by Gmlb256

Posted on 2021-09-09, 19:26

Gmlb256 Offline

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These files aren't really necessary for DOS gaming, they are just for some Creative software that you'll likely never use except the mixer software and CT-VOICE.DRV (several games requires this).

For CT-VOICE.DRV and the mixer software you can find versions that doesn't require these two files to be loaded on CONFIG.SYS, but the address, DMA and IRQ can be hardcoded on certain versions of CT-VOICE.DRV and must be hex-edited.

Reply 2 of 4, by Joseph_Joestar

Posted on 2021-09-10, 00:35

Joseph_Joestar Offline

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Gmlb256 wrote on 2021-09-09, 19:26:

These files aren't really necessary for DOS gaming, they are just for some Creative software that you'll likely never use except the mixer software and CT-VOICE.DRV (several games requires this).

Interesting. Is there a list of games which use CT-VOICE.DRV somewhere?
EDIT - I think I found it: Sound Driver Pack

I could test a few of those with low level drivers loaded/not loaded to see if there's any difference.

Reply 3 of 4, by Gmlb256

Posted on 2021-09-10, 00:43

Gmlb256 Offline

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Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2021-09-10, 00:35:

Interesting. Is there a list of games which use CT-VOICE.DRV somewhere?

I could test a few of those with low level drivers loaded/not loaded to see if there's any difference.

You can find a decent list and different versions of CT-VOICE.DRV (and other files) on the following thread: Sound Driver Pack.

The list lacks some obscure games such as Galaga '94 (which also requires CT-VOICE.DRV) but you will get the idea.

Reply 4 of 4, by Joseph_Joestar

Posted on 2021-09-10, 11:34

Joseph_Joestar Offline

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Gmlb256 wrote on 2021-09-10, 00:43:

You can find a decent list and different versions of CT-VOICE.DRV (and other files) on the following thread: Sound Driver Pack.

The list lacks some obscure games such as Galaga '94 (which also requires CT-VOICE.DRV) but you will get the idea.

Cheers! I glanced over that thread and I don't currently have any games that are listed there.

I'll grab Prehistorik from GOG the next time it's on sale, so I might be able to look into this then.

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