Using two sound cards at once on DOS and Windows 98? \ VOGONS

Using two sound cards at once on DOS and Windows 98?

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First post, by andreja6

Posted on 2017-11-08, 05:26

andreja6 Offline

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I recently received an ESS AudioDrive 1868f which i bought off of eBay for a good price, and it works flawlessly, however it doesn't have any midi stuff built in. Before that, i had a Sound Blaster Live! Value card, which in all honesty was a disappointment, but it was amazing at Midi. I want to know if there is any way to link the two sound cards together, to use the AudioDrive as a main DOS sound card while using the SB Live Value for Midi and some windows 98 stuff. I know they have line in but i'm not sure if that works as a passthrough

Reply 1 of 4, by jheronimus

Posted on 2017-11-08, 10:30

jheronimus Offline

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Yes, you can route one card's output into another one's line-in. Just check the cards' mixers to see if line-in is not muted. However, I don't think you can use SB Live's MIDI in pure DOS — only in Windows.

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Reply 2 of 4, by andreja6

Posted on 2017-11-08, 16:46

andreja6 Offline

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Yea that's one of the issues I've had with the card. I might just get a midi daughterboard or something

Reply 3 of 4, by Kamerat

Posted on 2017-11-09, 05:06

Kamerat Offline

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jheronimus wrote:
Yes, you can route one card's output into another one's line-in. Just check the cards' mixers to see if line-in is not muted. However, I don't think you can use SB Live's MIDI in pure DOS — only in Windows.

You can use the Live for MIDI in DOS but it only uses the same .ECW sound banks as the Ensoniq AudioPCI, so no high quality Sound Font support. The first three versions of this Doom E1M1 comparison are the different .ECW banks.

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Reply 4 of 4, by andreja6

Posted on 2017-11-09, 08:38

andreja6 Offline

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Ive been trying for a while to make it work in windows, but it had so many IRQ conflicts and DMA conflicts even after disabling the sound blaster emulation in the live. When i FINALLY finished moving all the IRQs around, the SB Live, even if it played wave, wouldn't play MIDI (at least through DOS games). I'd call this project a dud.

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