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First post, by Quickbeam

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There's an old DOS game I've been playing lately called Bloodwych, and although it plays, I can't get the sound to work correctly. I'm running WinMe with a Soundblaster Live! (Value) card.

The sound options upon loading are Roland, Adlib, Tandy and Internal Bleeper. I don't get any sound from Adlib or Tandy, but when I select 'Roland' sound the music can be heard, but not the sound effects.

If understand rightly, Creative has dropped the legacy driver support for SB16/Adlib in recent cards live SBLive!. Is there any way to get proper Adlib sound, given that VDMSound doesn't work in WinMe?

Reply 1 of 47, by Snover

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That's really strange. I'm certain you can find old versions of the SBEINIT.COM and CTLOAD.COM and other associated files (these are/were the DOS loaders for getting sound in DOS with the SBLive! cards). Under WinME, you shouldn't need to do or load anything in the shell, IIRC. Just make sure you have a SET BLASTER line.

Yes, it’s my fault.

Reply 2 of 47, by Quickbeam

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Weird. I found the following information at one DOS help site I looked at:

Originally posted in The WinDowS Tricks - Part 18 To check whether you have already got your dos drivers set up for your SB-Live […]
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Originally posted in The WinDowS Tricks - Part 18
To check whether you have already got your dos drivers set up for your SB-Live, right click My Computer, choose Properties, go to the Device Manager tab, expand the Creative Miscellaneous Devices entry and look for Creative SB16 Emulation. If this is here, then double-click it and check Device Status to make sure that it’s working properly.

If your DOS drivers have not been installed then put in your original installation disk, this time choosing a custom install and only selecting DOS drivers from the selection list.



I don't have an original Creative CD, but I do have a utility CD supplied by my PC manufacturer with the SB Live! drivers on it. There's no mention of SB16 anywhere during the installation process - and I already tried reinstalling it. 🙁

I wonder why SB16 emulation isn't available in the installation CD when it appears to be a feature of SB Live! cards? Maybe downloading a new set of drivers from Creative might help...

EDIT: Downloaded a new set of drivers from Creative, but didn't have any installation options, and didn't get SB16 emulation, alas. I'm completely flummoxed and confused 😀.

Last edited by Quickbeam on 2002-09-01, 19:51. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 3 of 47, by Snover

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You need the CD to get the DOS drivers, IIRC.
In any case, if you installed to the default directory, they SHOULD be in C:\Program Files\Creative\SBLive\DOSDRV -- not that they are.

Yes, it’s my fault.

Reply 4 of 47, by Quickbeam

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Snover wrote:

You need the CD to get the DOS drivers, IIRC.
In any case, if you installed to the default directory, they SHOULD be in C:\Program Files\Creative\SBLive\DOSDRV -- not that they are.

In that case, I am screwed.😀

Reply 5 of 47, by Nicht Sehr Gut

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Quickbeam wrote:

In that case, I am ...

The SB-Live drivers are about 30Megs in size so not a whole lot of places want to host them. You could always order the CD from Creative, but of course, you'd have to pay for it. The DOS drivers are, of course, very small. But they're buried within the Installer.

BTW, have you patched your WinME for DOS access?

Reply 6 of 47, by Snover

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I can't believe the downloaded drivers wouldn't include it. All I have is a 'programs' CD from an old SBLive card. I believe upstairs somewhere is a three-disc set from the SBLive! Platinum in the upstairs box (my father's box -- my old one 😜). Anyway, I'll dig around his office and see if I can find them.

Yes, it’s my fault.

Reply 7 of 47, by Nicht Sehr Gut

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Snover wrote:

I can't believe the downloaded drivers wouldn't include it.

There hasn't been a "Full" set of drivers at Creative's site for the Live card for quite some time now. Just updates.

Even on the last "full" set I managed to download, I had to edit the install script or it won't install the DOS files needed and I never found a way to "manually" extract them.

Since that time, I no longer have the card and the only DOS file left is SBEINIT.COM.

Reply 8 of 47, by Snover

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Yeah, InstallShield is cool, isn't it? With its iKernel.exe errors and propietary CAB format and...*cough*

Anyway. Yeah. I wasn't able to find the CDs. Fuck if I know where they are.

Yes, it’s my fault.

Reply 10 of 47, by Nicht Sehr Gut

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Stiletto wrote:

Used to have a good download link for them. I'll go try to dig it up.

I guess I wasn't clear earlier. I _have_ the full set. It's just that it's 30Megs and you have to edit a file before installing to get the DOS drivers.

I just figured there's not too many people that want to host a 30Meg file that is (was) downloaded a _lot_.

Reply 12 of 47, by Nicht Sehr Gut

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Snover wrote:

Simple, right?

Well, no. Since I no longer have card, the installer will abort long before it finishes. I've tried jumping to C:\W\TEMP before the installer purged the temps, but I've yet to beat it.

Reply 14 of 47, by Snover

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Nicht Sehr Gut wrote:

Well, no. Since I no longer have card, the installer will abort long before it finishes. I've tried jumping to C:\W\TEMP before the installer purged the temps, but I've yet to beat it.

Type in command "copy c:\w\temp\... c:\w\temp\somewhereelse" and switch to the installer, then when it starts extracting, hit it quickly.

Yes, it’s my fault.

Reply 16 of 47, by Stiletto

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This wasn't the page I was thinking of, but here you go.
http://proasm.totalconversions.com/sblive.html

Here's another distribution. Not sure what the differences are.
http://www.fh-wilhelmshaven.de/~pekelerh/SBLIVE2SB16.zip

I'm betting either of these should work.

"I see a little silhouette-o of a man, Scaramouche, Scaramouche, will you
do the Fandango!" - Queen

Stiletto

Reply 17 of 47, by Quickbeam

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Thank you for the links. Actually, I think I downloaded those drivers a few months ago: they're drivers for pure DOS rather than the Windows environment. Anyway here's the problem, as stated in the readme of one of them:

NB... DOS drivers will NOT work with WindowsME or Windows2000.

So... what I still need to get SB16 emulation support on this OS is the complete driver pack. Is that called Liveware? I hope so, since I'm downloading a 23.54MB Liveware 3.0 pack right now which I found on Google. Hopefully this will sort things.

What I still don't understand at all is why my utility CD contains a 200MB SBLive! folder, but it doesn't install SB16 support. Very strange. I seriously hope the same doesn't happen with the new download. 😀

Reply 19 of 47, by Quickbeam

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I've done a bit more research and it seems my original post about legacy support being removed from newer drivers was actually correct. The WDM drivers for SBLive don't have SB16 emulation support; only the older VXD drivers have it.