Maybe that helps.
Try using at least DirectX 6.1 as it introduced DirectMusic.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DirectMusic

Loopy wrote on 2024-01-29, 19:58:

Hello all, […]
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Hello all,

I tried looking up an answer to my question in historic topics, unfortunately i didn't find a specific answer. Apologies if i missed something.

I'm currently in the process of building a retro/nostalgia rig. Hardware:

• K7M board
• Creative AWE64 sound card
• ATI Rage 3D video

For starters, i'm running a fresh Win98 system just to get things started. The idea is to dualboot with DOS/Win 3.11 but i'm not there yet.

Anyways, i'm having no issues with sound in vast majority of DOS and Windows games. I can easily recognize the Creative card as SB16 and DMA/IRQ addressing and mapping works just fine. The issue i'm having is with DirectX and its audio drivers. Whenever i install a game that requires DirectX, it complains that it cannot detect audio hardware. As a result, i end up having no audio in those games which is obviously a big issue.

I tried reinstalling DirectX 6 a million times with no luck. I tried manually changing addressing, nothing. If i run dxdiag and go under Music tab, selecting Creative Music Synth port plays music without any issues. I'm also having no devices showing errors under Device Manager. But if i run dxsetup, it's showing Audio Driver - No Hardware Support.

Any ideas on how i can remedy this issue or at least what's causing it?

Hi, you need to disable hardware acceleration in dxdiags

But if you want very good directx audio compatibility, try WDM drivers

Sound Blaster 16 WDM Drivers (attached). Incompatible with DOS games. Please help.

Of course you will lost msdos sound support, but directsound works great with this drivers

Thanks for the suggestions!

So, prior to installing the AWE64 card i was using the onboard AC97 sound card with its OEM drivers. I'm suspecting that after swapping cards, DirectX was still detecting the old card's drivers and thinking it's the primary card.

I didn't want to tinker around with brain surgery by removing all the individual drivers of the old card, so i just did a nice format c: and did a fresh install. After installing the native AWE64 drivers, DirectX had no issues detecting the card. Everything is working now 😀.