>, if I just run the game file, the game starts, but a black screen with "unable to initialize sound drivers" pops up first, then the game runs, but with no sound<
You didn't mention your Windows version.
Since I've seen the "unable to initialize" warning many times either under Win9x or WinXP, while the 'treatment' is going to be much different, you should state what O.S. is running.
No doubt among the various dos games I have been struggling to keep playing as each Windows generation pops up Sam'n'max hit the road is in my experience one of the hardest to arrange.
Generally, if it's Win9x it has to be a matter of properly initializing the soundcard drivers. Just having the drivers (if they exist 🙁 ) installed some way or another doesn't mean it's enough to get started.
Under WinXP even a good sb-emulator like Sound FX 2000 will fail here.
Try VDMSound or ScummVM with or without Quick and Easy.
VDMsound requires you to accomplish a filemix between some files from the cdrom and the floppy disks versions of the game first.
Imho ScummVM is real far from satisfactory as fas as Sam'n'max sound quality and management are concerned.
VDMSound has far lesser problems, in fact I can only think of two :
the memory management message, no big deal in itself, plus the (probably related) strange behavior of Conroy Bumpus singing a mute song in Bumpusville.