You really need to give us the tech data on your computer system.

announcement.php?forumid=7

I'm guessing that you're running this on DOS or Win9x, but need your specs to help.

or member.php?action=editprofile. Either will work.

DONE! Now I supposedly await a reply.

/me sits while smiling at computer 😀

Shadow wrote:

DONE! Now I supposedly await a reply.
/me sits while smiling at computer

Then I hope you have a lot of free time on your hands.

Now, your specs:
Motherboard and Chipset Dont know
Sound Card I have no idea but most prolly Sound Blaster

Not good as those are often directly related to game problems.

BTW, if you had no idea what your soundcard is, why did you choose the AWE?

Operating System Windows ME

Ugh.
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One thing you might seriously consider is going to Axcel216's site:
http://members.aol.com/axcel216/

Scroll down to "Windows ME + DOS 8" and click on "FIXes: ME Updates"

Search the new page for "Unofficial Windows ME Real DOS Mode".
You'll find links to 3 patches. Any one of the should restore full DOS capacity in WindowsME.
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Now. It looks like the classic "granular errors" I got way back when. Go find your soundcard settings in your "Control Panel". Click on "System", then click on the Device Manager" tab and look for your soundcard settings. Write them down if you need to...

Most critically important: IRQ #, and the two DMA #'s (Usually, this something like IRQ 5, DMA 1 , then DMA 5).

Presuming you have a SoundBlaster or compatible...

Go back into your game's SETUP and choose "SoundBlaster or compatible", then match up the settings with your soundcard.

The idea is to try for the most "basic sound", then move up to the best possible settings.

I chose AWE32 coz it works in the "test sound card" thing

thax for the links

SB16 and the AWE series of cards have the same DAC, which is why "AWE32" for digital audio works. (Also, most programs have it as "Sound Blaster 16/AWE32" -- BUILD games don't, which is weird, but whatever. 😜) AWE music, on the other hand, won't work because, unless you've got a pure-bred AWE card, you don't have the required chipset for it. That said, General MIDI should sound just as good, if not better, as long as you've got a wavetable sound card. (Selecting SB16 will just make the software emulate the crappy SB MIDI audio.)

Shadow wrote:

I chose AWE32 coz it works in the "test sound card" thing

I meant why did you choose it in the setup before "it worked". I presumed it didn't work before you actually chose it.

It's quite possible (like Snover indicated) that the choosing AWE32 musicbank is what's causing it to crash.

Also, be aware that some games simply aren't "stable" in the Windows "Dosbox" environment (IE: Redneck Rampage will detect windows and warn you at each startup), so you might have to drop to "True DOS".

Nicht Sehr Gut wrote:

...(IE: Redneck Rampage will detect windows and warn you at each startup), so you might have to drop to "True DOS".

That's one of the things I hate the most about Windows NT/2K/XP: There is no option to prevent MS-DOS programs from detecting Windows. I have a game that runs FINE under a DOS box, except that it REFUSES to run if it detects that it's running in one. The inability to prevent MS-DOS programs from detecting Windows in NT/2K/XP is one of the most annoying removal of features I've ever dealt with.

Nicht Sehr Gut wrote:

I meant why did you choose it in the setup before "it worked".

Oh coz Awe32 worked with other true dos proggies.

except tyrian

Oh yeah.. i tried the real dos converters.

One actually made me unable to startup my fail due to some system error. now that i discovered "sys c:" i finally got my PC back

Originally posted by Shadow Awe32 worked with other true dos proggies. except tyrian

AWE32 and SoundBlaster16 are identical on the Digital Audio portion of your card. The AWE32 has a soundbank that provides for enhanced music output.

Your OS should identify your card as a "SoundBlaster16 or AWE32". An AWE32 might have entry for it's custom soundbank.

To play it safe, choose a generic SoundBlaster audio card for your dos games, them work your way up. Some will only have "SoundBlaster", others will go all the way up to the AWE32 or AWE64. The more generic your settings are, the better your chances for success.

Also, if you still can't get it work while in Windows; try running it while in DOS. WinME is generally known as the least stable version of Windows. While DOS has it's own quirks, it's considered to be almost "bulletproof".

Thinking back to when I had my AWE64 (which was just a half length AWE32 minus the SIMM slots for memory expansion. In order to activate the extra 32 channels, you had to run the software wavetable synth that came with it which wouldn't install on non-Intel CPUs including the Cyrix I had at the time...), you selected SB16/AWE32 in the Sound Effects section and either AWE32 (this routed it directly through the Wavetable Synthesiser of port 620) or failing that, General MIDI in the music section. I miss the MIDI synth in that card sometimes...

With a good soundfont, General MIDI should sound just as good, if not better, than the AWE cards.

Whether you selected General MIDI or AWE32 the information was routed through the same wavetable synth the GM options were there for games that didn't support the AWE out of the box (and quite a few didn't).

The fact that my SBLive's MIDI synth doesn't sound as good as the AWE probably has a lot to do with the fact that I'm only using Windows default drivers for it since Creatives caused me no end of grief. I did manage to get it to sound better than the AWE once, under .NET Server of all things (and using Creatives drivers, the ones MS provided with .NET sucked balls), but I can't for the life of me remember how. It doesn't really matter, since hardly any new games use MIDI these days but since I still play a few old DOS games (but not as many as I used to since ditching Win9x) it's still good to have around.

Get Fluid SoundFont, SB Dyn!, and the latest Creative Drivers. Go into Control Panel > Sounds & Multimedia > Audio and choose "SB Dyn!" as your preferred MIDI card. Run the SB Dyn! program and load into it the FluidR3 GM.sb2 and FluidR3 GS.sb2. Turn on a light reverb in your EAX Control Panel. Now it'll sound beauuutiful. (Note: SB Dyn! causes occasional BSODs, so be sure that you don't have any unsaved documents in the background. BSOD does not happen under normal use, however. (Only when you touch a lot of things at once.)) Since NTVDM runs at 100% usage, you'll want SB Dyn! to be set to "High" priority so that it can actually load the samples from the soundfont.

The reason SB Dyn! is needed is because of, well, Creative's shitty drivers. You need it so that you can actually LOAD the soundfont into memory. (You get an unknown error if you try to do it with the SoundFont CPL.) Enjoy!

I'll be sure to try that, thanks!

I've struck a problem... I'm trying to install the SBDyn driver and I tell it to use the OEMSetup.inf provided with SBDyn and it keeps telling me that "The specified location does not contain information about your hardware"

wtf?

Don't do that. It will automatically detect and install it when you reboot.

Alright, after a bit more wrangling with the Add Hardware Wizard I finally got the SBDyn! driver installed but now I have another problem: I can't load the the Fluid soundfont into SPDyn! because they have the extension SfArk and SBDyn is looking for files with the extension SF2. I even tried renaming them but still no dice. What now?