Your problem might be a lack of DOS DMA support on the motherboard. I haven't researched the issue on AMD platforms, but Intel last supported DMA in their ICH 5 chipsets (mid-2000's). I seem to recall someone mentioning that AMD dropped support around the same time.

The SB Live might initialize under DOS, but Sounds Blaster drivers in programs need DMA to send sound effects to the card.

Music, oddly, sometimes works on modern platforms with the SB Live because the OPL emulation doesn't need DMA.

If the M2N is NForce based (whatever the version), the chances of getting Sound Blaster compatible audio under DOS are essentially non existent. AFAICR, somebody might have gotten FM music (OPL2 or OPL3 ) to work ( EDIT: can work, but not in all games, not necessarily with all sound cards), but I am not even sure if that. Sound Blaster wave (PCM) audio under DOS with any sound card, regardless of its chipset, has never been made to work, AFAICR .

See also X58/i865/V880 - Yamaha7x4/AurealV1/2 pure Dos7.1- compatibility list/research/ultim. drivers configs, WIP- gurus needed

TLDR: Nforce chipset motherboard are probably the least DOS audio compatible among all their contemporaries and predecessors .

darry wrote on 2022-08-20, 00:07:

If the M2N is NForce based (whatever the version), the chances of getting Sound Blaster compatible audio under DOS are essentially non existent. AFAICR, somebody might have gotten FM music (OPL2 or OPL3 ) to work ( EDIT: can work, but not in all games, not necessarily with all sound cards), but I am not even sure if that. Sound Blaster wave (PCM) audio under DOS with any sound card, regardless of its chipset, has never been made to work, AFAICR .

See also X58/i865/V880 - Yamaha7x4/AurealV1/2 pure Dos7.1- compatibility list/research/ultim. drivers configs, WIP- gurus needed

TLDR: Nforce chipset motherboard are probably the least DOS audio compatible among all their contemporaries and predecessors .

then could it be a last hope... yeah, this mobo should have an nVidia chipbased, can't remember what exactly version (i think is the nForce 2 or 3), and is what i was afraid of.. i'll take a look to that link, thanks for the answers guys for now 😀

Ok i kinda surrend as fosterwj03 correctly said, i think is a DMA error or better, the chip\mobo despite it have a nForce, is not 100% pure DOS compatible.

The last supplement question: if I install Windows 98SE over FreeDOS, so getting it in the partition and installing it, will only the DOS games runs under w98 if I install the SB Live! driver there? I mean i know i'll have to patch it by having 8GB of RAM (pretty easy with the rudolph patches) and i'll not have any video driver with the GTX260 (don't care of D3D games), but only DOS games with the SB16 Emulation by the Sound Blaster Live "shelled" under the OS, would do it the trick or there always be this problem? if not, i'll completely give up and don't care, too bad i hoped for it but whatever 😀

I remember having a SB Live SB100 running some DOS games under 98SE on a Asrock Penryn (nV650+430 soc775) back in mid-late 2000's and those few games did have full audio but cannot recall which games they were other than Duke 3D.
Or maybe am recalling things wrong....Still have the computer but have a Audigy2 and diff vid card in it now so would not be able to recreate the same scenario.

VenomSpark wrote on 2022-08-20, 17:45:

Ok i kinda surrend as fosterwj03 correctly said, i think is a DMA error or better, the chip\mobo despite it have a nForce, is not 100% pure DOS compatible.

The last supplement question: if I install Windows 98SE over FreeDOS, so getting it in the partition and installing it, will only the DOS games runs under w98 if I install the SB Live! driver there? I mean i know i'll have to patch it by having 8GB of RAM (pretty easy with the rudolph patches) and i'll not have any video driver with the GTX260 (don't care of D3D games), but only DOS games with the SB16 Emulation by the Sound Blaster Live "shelled" under the OS, would do it the trick or there always be this problem? if not, i'll completely give up and don't care, too bad i hoped for it but whatever 😀

I don't mess with DOS games within Windows 9x on my modern systems using a SB Live! (I use a Yamaha YMF744-based PCI card for native DOS gaming or a system with ISA slots and SB 16/32 cards).

As I recall, DOS emulation with the SB Live! on a platform without DMA support works on Windows 9x with certain drivers. I just can't remember if it only works with the .VXD or WDM version of the drivers. You could try both to see which work better.

Don´t know, how with nForce 430 MCP, but on nForce3 250 SB emu work with .vxd drivers good.

AFAICR, the VXD drivers offer SB16 compatibility through emulation and Creative's rather crappy FM (OPL3) emulation/simulation and the WDM ones offer SB Pro compatibility through emulation and without FM (OPL3) emulation/simulation .

SB Live and earlier Audigy cards use EMM386 port trapping to emulate the ISA sound blaster interface. FreeDOS EMM386 and JEMM don't use the same interface as the versions from MS-DOS and PC-DOS (DR-DOS compatibility unknown).

MPXPlay supports SB Live hardware natively. If that works, try using a copy of Microsoft EMM386. No guarantees, though, as Nforce boards can really be special.

gdjacobs wrote on 2022-08-22, 02:36:

SB Live and earlier Audigy cards use EMM386 port trapping to emulate the ISA sound blaster interface. FreeDOS EMM386 and JEMM don't use the same interface as the versions from MS-DOS and PC-DOS (DR-DOS compatibility unknown).

MPXPlay supports SB Live hardware natively. If that works, try using a copy of Microsoft EMM386. No guarantees, though, as Nforce boards can really be special.

Great idea! so you suggest to use the original EMM386 from DOS of W98 instead of JEMM386 of FDOS.. i'll try later, do not ask me why but I tried the inverse with the PIII real dos pc: instead using original EMM386, i used JEMMEX, and believe it or not it works almost better, even with SB Live loaded and gives me more kb free of memory (almost 600kb with just sb live tsr and cutemouse loaded), instead of the almost 520/480kb with the original EMM386 (without it, there is NO way to load the sbeinit.com and get NO sound at all. Is always an emulation, despite it is a real SB card, but probably due to being too "modern" from 2000/2001 and on PCI bus, not ISA)

thanks for the heads up, i'll try later and let you know. If not working i could try to install W98 insteas crappyfree, even if just for DOS games with SB Live drivers, no care about vga or D3D. The only thing that i am afraid of is, if i wipe out the partition with FDOS on it, will W98 recognize it? it should, as the other one is NTFS with XP on it (so it should be ignored by 98). But the real problem is, when i boot to this hdd, i have the classic boot menu that XP create, making me choose between XP and FDOS, for this i installed Fdos BEFORE Xp, trust me NEVER ever do the viceversa or whatever OS you have after installing FDOS, even if is into a separate partition, will be forever lost with ntldr problem. So that's why i am afraid of installing it AFTER the XP is there, and I don't want to lose it for no reason. I really doubt that if i wipeout fdos and install 98, later i would still have the boot menu working with 98 and XP selectable and separated.

VenomSpark wrote on 2022-08-22, 02:54:

gdjacobs wrote on 2022-08-22, 02:36:

SB Live and earlier Audigy cards use EMM386 port trapping to emulate the ISA sound blaster interface. FreeDOS EMM386 and JEMM don't use the same interface as the versions from MS-DOS and PC-DOS (DR-DOS compatibility unknown).

MPXPlay supports SB Live hardware natively. If that works, try using a copy of Microsoft EMM386. No guarantees, though, as Nforce boards can really be special.

so you suggest to use the original EMM386 from DOS of W98 instead of JEMM386 of FDOS.. i'll try later, do not ask me why but I tried the inverse with the PIII real dos pc: instead using original EMM386, i used JEMMEX, and believe it or not it works almost better, even with SB Live loaded and gives me more kb free of memory (almost 600kb with just sb live tsr and cutemouse loaded), instead of the almost 520/480kb with the original EMM386 (without it, there is NO way to load the sbeinit.com and get NO sound at all. Is always an emulation, despite it is a real SB card, but probably due to being too "modern" from 2000/2001 and on PCI bus, not ISA)

Pretty much. I believe I used EMM386 from DOS 6.22, but there's not much difference. You might still have issues, though, as I remember Nforce boards having some strange hardware memory mappings in the 16 bit address area.

VenomSpark wrote on 2022-08-22, 02:54:

thanks for the heads up, i'll try later and let you know. If not working i could try to install W98 insteas crappyfree, even if just for DOS games with SB Live drivers, no care about vga or D3D. The only thing that i am afraid of is, if i wipe out the partition with FDOS on it, will W98 recognize it? it should, as the other one is NTFS with XP on it (so it should be ignored by 98). But the real problem is, when i boot to this hdd, i have the classic boot menu that XP create, making me choose between XP and FDOS, for this i installed Fdos BEFORE Xp, trust me NEVER ever do the viceversa or whatever OS you have after installing FDOS, even if is into a separate partition, will be forever lost with ntldr problem. So that's why i am afraid of installing it AFTER the XP is there, and I don't want to lose it for no reason. I really doubt that if i wipeout fdos and install 98, later i would still have the boot menu working with 98 and XP selectable and separated.

Dude, you need a spare drive in the worst way.

"Dude, you need a spare drive in the worst way." yes !
🤣 Is why IF i want to multi boot incompatible OS I install each OS on a separate drive w/o any other drive. Then use the BIOS boot menu OR on my main OS boot drive use a third party boot menu tool.... but that is just me ;p

My philosophy is "One OS per drive physical". If I need more than one OS in a given machine, then I use the BIOS boot menu .

I'm too old for wanting to deal with LILO, Grub, NTLDR, Boot Magic, etc

IMHO, this makes backups/imaging easier and minimizes the chances of one OS corrupting another one .

I decided upon this over 20 years and have had 0 regrets .

In other words, drives are cheap and I would rather spend my time on things I enjoy (retro or otherwise) than setting up boot managers and dealing with the fallout when they (in my experience, inevitably) break .

P.S. Probably TMI, but I also hate drive overlays and any sound blaster emulation TSR that relies on EMM386's port remapping functionality . I have no issues with SoftMPU as software that requires its use usually works fine with EMM386 .

EDIT : Basically, I agree with @Horun 100% on the OS vs physical drive aspect.

original EMM386 doesn't work guys...

it says "EMM386 not installed - incorrect machine type."

then an Invalid Opcode and "cannot terminate permanent FreeCOM instance
System halted ... reboot or power off now"

about the spare drive, yeah I know guys you are all right and can't complain 😜 i did like this for a simple fact of physical hardware space: on this machine i only have one PATA slot, and 4 SATAs with already four SATA hdd on them, and on PATA, which the master and slave of course allow only two drives, there is the dvd drive and the splitted hdd. It means that if i want to test W98, I'll have to remove the hdd splitted with Xp and Fdos inside, and doing it again as W98 (despite workarounds, which i am too old and lazy to try or do) don't install on SATA drives.. that's why i wanted to try a dual boot 🙁 i think i'll have to give up, and let the crappy freedos without audio, which IMHO, is pretty useless. nForce chip as i was afraid is too new...