you need to test the stick in dos
if you dont own any dos games that use a stick i'm sure someone can post a link for a demo of a suitable game (like a flight/space or racing game)

I have some DOS games, but I'm not sure where they are at at this moment.

I DO have the original floppies that came with the FLCS, as well as a quick setup card. The floppies are the "F-16 Command and Control Center" and the "TMScope". I installed the floppies from Windows. In the "TMS" folder is a program called "Gameport.EXE". According to the Readme file it is supposed to test to see if there is a gameport. When I click on the icon, I get a message that says "Gameport is Enabled - Possible Conflict!".

I've also discovered another issue. The keyboard (PS2) does not work in DOS. It works in Windows and it does work in a DOS window. But if I boot into DOS, the keyboard doesn't work. I hear a click every time I hit a key, but nothing appears on the screen. It also works in the bios and if I boot from a Win98 floppy.

Okay, so I just tried something on a whim to see what would happen. I went into the bios on the TUSL2-C and changed the value for the line "Plug & Play O/S" from no to yes. When I did that, during the bootup process I received an error message just before Windows loaded that read "Error #8: BIOS PnP hasn't configured sound chip. Set PnP OS to no in BIOS setup". I went ahead and let Windows load, then rebooted into DOS mode. This time the keyboard worked. Still no joystick, but at least the keyboard worked in DOS. Oh...and I was able to load the gameport.exe program from within DOS, and it said that the gameport was disabled.

The challenge you are having is that you are using two operating systems really. Windows 98, which is quite easy to configure, but now you want to use MS-DOS (7.1), which is not as straight forward. CONFIG.SYS, AUTOEXEC.BAT has to be configured, mouse driver, CD-ROM driver loaded, sound card driver...

The issue with the USB driver is odd, I habe been using the NUSB33 in machines as old as a Pentium.

Anyway, the Vortex drivers should install the necessary MS-DOS mode drivers on their own I believe. So I'm surprised it doesn't work in DOS.

Also, while it's a great card, if your board has ISA slots, you're much better off with an ISA sound card.

Thanks much for the reply. The TUSL2-C doesn't have an ISA slot. I had originally been thinking of getting a motherboard with an ISA slot in it, but tualatin support was important and there aren't any Intel motherboards that support the tualatin chip and have ISA slots. There are a few VIA chipset boards that support the tualatin and have an ISA slot, but they are few and far between and from what I remember the VIA boards have their own issues. That's why I chose the MX300 card. It seems to have the best DOS support of just about any PCI card out there.

It would seem as though there is a configuration issue with the MX300 card. The joystick I'm trying to use is one that I had a looong time ago with a Win98 computer, so I know that it works. I just can't get the gameport to recognize the joystick. And from what I remember, a driver isn't needed for the keyboard (at least a PS2 keyboard) to work in DOS. And I can get the keyboard to work in DOS, I just have to enable Plug & Play O/S in the bios That still doesn't fix the gameport problem though. Without a gameport that is able to recognize a device in Windows to start off with, the computer is pointless.

Somehow or another there is a conflict between the IRQ's that the soundcard is using (at least 2 of them I think, one for the soundcard itself and one for the DOS emulation) that is conflicting with both windows and DOS. It's just above my head right now and there isn't a lot of information on a setup like this out there to give me any direction. I've tried moving the sound card to three different slots, that hasn't helped. When I look up the sound card info under system in the control panel, there are no conflicts shown.

I've got a few video tutorials that might help a little. They don't use a Vortex 2, but explain some of the things that happen in the background and that might help you solve the issue.

I do recommend enabling PnP in BIOS.Then go into device manager, anything that has an exclamation mark, right click > remove and then let Windows detect them again by rebooting.

Try moving the sound card into another PCI slot. For some reason the very last one at the bottom often works especially well when solving conflicts. Disable printer and serial ports in the BIOS to free up resources.

When in device manger, look under SB Pro emulation for the Aureal and check the resources it uses.

Well, thanks to you I have met with some success.

Reading your last reply got me to thinking. I had originally started out with the sound card in slot 1, which I found out was a no-no as it shares resources with the AGP card. So I next moved it to slot 6. That kind a worked, but I had trouble loading the drivers for it. I moved it to slot 4 and loaded the reference drivers from Aureal. That got the card working, but then I had the issues with the gameport. So i just went up and started looking through device manager to see if there were any conflicts. Again, there were no exclamation marks in device manager, but looking at the IRQ list, I saw that IRQ 5 was shared by both the DOS emulation for the sound card and the USB port(s). I moved the sound card to slot 3, and low and behold, the gameport is now working and I have my keyboard in DOS.

Now whether or not the joystick and sound is working in DOS can only be answered once I find one of my DOS games and load it onto the computer. But at least I know that everything looks like it's working like it's supposed to under Windows, which was my first hurdle since many of the games I will be playing are Win95/98 games. Once I find a DOS game and get that loaded, I'm sure I'll be back here asking a ton more questions.

Ugh. Now I remember why I was so excited and in a hurry to build a Windows XP computer back in the day.

Getting there 😀

When you shut down into MS-DOS mode, do see the Areal driver being loaded?

You can type SET and see if the Sound Blaster variable is set.

But if I remember correctly the drivers do also install themselves for MS-DOS mode.

I believe so. I've powered down the computer for now (enough frustration for one day). I will check tomorrow when I turn it on to see what the command line is for the DOS driver and post it here.

Again, thanks for your help!

Here are the lines I get when I boot into DOS;

C:\>LH AU30DOS.COM

VORTEX DOS AUDIO DRIVER (2.007) Copyright (c) 1997-1999 Aureal Semiconductor
PCI AUDIO PRO enabled at Ports 220-22Fh, Interrupt 5, DMA 1, Joystick 201h

tbirdman wrote:

Here are the lines I get when I boot into DOS; […]
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Here are the lines I get when I boot into DOS;

C:\>LH AU30DOS.COM

VORTEX DOS AUDIO DRIVER (2.007) Copyright (c) 1997-1999 Aureal Semiconductor
PCI AUDIO PRO enabled at Ports 220-22Fh, Interrupt 5, DMA 1, Joystick 201h

Well, guess what, these settings are perfect 😀

So when you configure your games, input the same settings. Address 220, Interrupt 5 and DMA 1 😀

Okay. I found some of my old DOS games today. I will see if I can get them working sometime this weekend.

So I went ahead a installed one of the few DOS games I have, Top Gun Fire At Will. It probably isn't a "true" DOS game, as it also has the ability of being run in Windows 95, but it has the option (and is recommended) to be installed and run in DOS. The install was fairly easy. After install you are supposed to set up and configure the sound card and graphics. No issue with the graphics, and the sound card was auto detected (at least the parameters were, port 220, interrupt 5, DMA 1, using sound blaster emulation). When I went to test the sound though, I was supposed to hear "Hondo" say something. Instead I got a loud, droning noise. I went ahead and finished up with the install. Afterwards, I tried to run the game, only to find out that the CD drive was not recognized in DOS. Uggggghhhhhh! Then I remembered about the autoexec.bat and config.sys files and having to have lines in those files for the CD to run. Well, I spent the next two days trying to figure out which lines to use and in which file they go. Finally I was able to get them set up correctly (at least I think so). I then had to spend more time researching and getting to mouse to work. Another headache. After all this was done, I was able to get the game to run. Even the sound came out okay, which surprised me after the failed sound card test when I set up the game initially. I really haven't gotten into playing it to see how it works out compatibility wise, but so far all seems good.

The overall experience of tinkering with old computers isn't complete without some problems! (the joy when you finally get the thing working is always worth the trouble) 😀

This site helped me a lot since I forgot on how to set up a config.sys and autoexec.bat properly. You might want to take a look:

http://madsenworld.dk/con_auto/index-uk.htm

They have tips for 7.1 and 6.2/5.x

I have starter packs, ready to go, with lines for mouse, CD-ROM and memory options on my website 😀

Thanks guys for the replies. Yes, this is all bringing back memories from when I had a Windows 98 computer (and I had a Windows 95 computer before that). And it does feel good when I'm able to figure something out, but I'm not sure I have enough hair left.

Davros, I actually did find that site when I was researching the CD and mouse issues, but I found this Microsoft knowledge base article which was a little more straightforward to help me with getting the CD drive working...

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/190303

And I used this site for help with mouse driver...

http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000007.htm

After using these two sites, my config.sys and autoexec.bat look like this...

config.sys
device=c:\rmcd\himem.sys /testmem:off
device=c:\rmcd\oakcdrom.sys /D:mscd001
device=c:\rmcd\btdosm.sys
device=c:\rmcd\flashpt.sys
device=c:\rmcd\btcdrom.sys /D:mscd001
device=c:\rmcd\aspi2dos.sys
device=c:\rmcd\aspi4dos.sys
device=c:\rmcd\aspi8dos.sys
device=c:\rmcd\aspi8u2.sys
device=c:\rmcd\aspicd.sys /D:mscd001
device=c:\rmcd\flashpt.sys
files=20
buffers=20
dos=hugh,umb
stacks=9,256
lastdrive=z

autoexec.bat
LH C:\WINDOWS\AU30DOS.COM
PATH=C:\TM
SET BLASTER = A220 I5 D1 T4
lh c:\rmcd\mscdex.exe /d:mscd001
lh c:\windows\mouse.com

To edit my autoexec.bat and config.sys files, I click on "start" then "run" and then type in "sysedit". Is this not the way I should be doing it? Phil, I did start watching your instructional video, but haven't gotten all the way through it yet.

I'd do the following

1. download CTMOUSE and VIDE-CDD.SYS (they are easy to find). I prefer CTMOUSE 1.9 because 2.0 and 2.1 gave me trouble on some machines. You can put them on the RMCD folder
2. CONFIG.SYS:
   Copy code to clipboard

   1device=c:\WINDOWS\himem.sys /testmem:off
   2device=C:\WINDOWS\emm386.exe RAM
   3devicehigh=c:\rmcd\vide-cdd.sys /D:mscd001
   4files=20
   5buffers=20
   6dos=hugh,umb
   7stacks=9,256
   8lastdrive=z
   

3. AUTOEXEC.BAT:
   Copy code to clipboard

   1LH C:\WINDOWS\AU30DOS.COM
   2PATH=C:\TM;C:\RMCD;%PATH%
   3SET BLASTER = A220 I5 D1 T4
   4lh mscdex.exe /d:mscd001 /e
   5lh CTMOUSE
   

4. Look at your original AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS. There should be a bunch of "MODE" lines and a "KEYB" line in autoexec.bat, add them back. Also, there should be a DISPLAY.SYS and COUNTRY line in config.sys, add them back and change DEVICE to DEVICEHIGH.

How is the TUSL2-C and MX300 working for you? I have one of these, too. Bought it on ebay and it came with a Diamond Monster sound, as well. It was a popular combo back in the day apparently. I got my TUSL2-C board because it was the most easily-obtained second hand board that could record audio at low latencies, 10 ms with a Tualatin 1.4ghz. I know that 10ms doesn't sound too impressive today, but it was at the time. I was using it for music. It's a great board, it's lack of ISA slots being the only downside. However, I had other machines for my ISA slot needs, namely my Abit Bx6 which uses the 440bx chipset. Nowadays I record with a 17-inch Macbook pro. It's funny how things have changed. Back then, stable boards capable of recording at low latencies without clicks and pops were few and far between and expensive. You have to appreciate the engineering that went into this board. I had such a great experience with this board in fact that I have kept it until today even though I don't technically need it. Setting it up was not without its challenges. I remember having to move cards from one PCI slot to another to get the IRQs to work out right, but once I did it was trouble free audio for hours and hours, whenever I wanted it.