Good! Now if only the Sound Blaster 16 and OPL3 emulation code in VirtualBox would receive some more love. Why not just take the best open source sound card emulatoin code that's out there (probably from DOSBox) and port that over to VirtualBox? I've been looking into developing a third-party open source VirtualBox extension for increased sound card emulation quality, but the extension API of VirtualBox is poorly documented and you apparently need the entire VirtualBox code base checked out just to build a compatible extension. 😒

QEMU, not being in the clutches of Oracle, is a more welcoming developer community to work with, but QEMU clearly isn't optimized for desktop virtualization as VMware and VirtualBox are. It would be nice to see some improvements in that department.

Wasn't sure where to start a new thread about this, but maybe adding a post here won't hurt, either.

So, I don't know if it was already working before the September update, but this caught my attention:

Shortcomings in PCM/Wave Playback and Recording

While possibly limited, I confirm that the last version of VMware Player supports audio recording from the host to an emulated SB16 under (Free)DOS.

Unfortunately, it was somewhat difficult for me to locate a program which lets me confirm this.
- First of all, I could at least see the reported volumes, using Cthugha: http://www.afn.org/~cthugha/archives.html
- Secondly, I looked into the Apogee Sound System sources, which include the sound playback program PS.C, and modified it into a RAW PCM sound recorder (a feature which is supported by the sound system).

Links to source and binary are given in this Duke4.net post of mine, which I'm also quoting here: https://forums.duke4.net/topic/1360-the-supre … post__p__335413

So, a little-known fact about the Apogee Sound System (the audio library used in ROTT and differing Build Engine games), is that […]
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So, a little-known fact about the Apogee Sound System (the audio library used in ROTT and differing Build Engine games), is that it has audio recording capabilities.

These appear to be used for voice chat in multiplayer ROTT LAN sessions. If you see any DemandFeed-related code in the audio library (e.g., FX_StartDemandFeedPlayback), it seems to be used on the receiving side as follows: First, audio arrives from the network and is added to an internal playback buffer. The DemandFeed code is then used in order to play back the sound data from this buffer. This differs from playing a premade audio segment, say a WAV or VOC file.

The opposite is essentially done for sound which is recorded and then sent over LAN.

Now, as it turns out, the last version of VMware's desktop VM software has improved SB16 support. There might still be enough which is missing, but audio recording is, in fact, covered, at least partially. (I actually don't recall checking if this worked before the update, but it's still been a good chance.)

Other than VMware, and possibly also NTVDM for Windows XP, only other environments which I know to have working audio recording for SB-compatible DOS programs are actual DOS/Win9x setups with compatible sound cards.

As the following step, locating DOS software which supports audio recording with the SB *and* can do so under VMware turned out to be less than "simple".

While not letting me hear the recording as-is, I could at least see the reported volumes, using Cthugha: http://www.afn.org/~...a/archives.html

As for actually hearing whatever is recorded with a microphone: Eventually, I looked at the Apogee Sound System sources, which include the sound playback utility PS, and modified it into RAW PCM sound recorder, shortly named RS.

Source on GitLab: https://gitlab.com/NY00123/audiolib-rs
Last binary and source are currently available from my Duke4.net-hosted site: https://ny.duke4.net/files.html

I'm using VMWare Fusion latest version on macOS and I can confirm, SB16 does work well now. I've been using it for more than a week and so far so good.

Thanks for sharing that information! ^^
I've noticed a few comments of the VMWare programmer on that virtuallyfun page a (longer) while ago.
From what I remember, the whole FM support thing was made possible thanks to the courage of the programmer,
ie. he was neither paid nor instructed to add this support in first glance. That's why I'm even more glad that things have improved since.

PS: I assume there are more such indepth things out there that most of us don't fully know yet.
For example, NTVDM in Windows XP got upgraded to SB2 emulation support once (wasn't available in NT4/2k).
Or, that Connectix Virtual PC originally was intended to support SB Pro I (Dual OPL2 ?) emulation,
but was upgraded to SB16 support in the progress, without concerning FM. Thus, ending up with terrible OPL"3" support.

Nice!

Setting

sound.opl3.enabled = "TRUE"
sound.virtualDev = "sb16"

in the .vmx file gives you a "SB16 / AWE 32 compatible" sound card on a new Windows 98 installation.

Although the sound is quite "choppy" (not tested DOS mode yet)

This improvement is for Dos only, for Win98 - there are other possibilities.. Vmware and Virtualbox probably wouldnt getter better, because nobody developing these old drivers for lots of years, i not choppy only because of insufficiency CPU power on host machine (im not sure about it - im using Vmware 15.5 for games like Diablo and sound is good enough)..

Options:
1) PCem emulator, i would really like to see some sound quality review / comparasion with Vmware, im not sound guy at all.
2) Real HW.. its proven than Windows 98 sound is running fine on X58,X79,X99,Z170 and other HW which still PCI slots you dont need some special MB sound support for that, i just need PCI slot and PCI sound card and support for PCI-E gen1 videocards.
3) QEMU is big mess but maybe, maybe sound for WIndows 98 is better, its HW emulation should be more low level.

New updated version for download:
https://virtuallyfun.com/wordpress/2014/06/06 … #comment-240578

Last time I tried VMware Fusion to host Win 95, it was clear nobody had lived there in years. AFAICT, there are zero driver packs available for whatever hardware it is that VMware is presenting to the OS. I assumed VMware cares ONLY about business software, and businesses don't care about Win9x at all anymore, so that was a lost cause. Am I wrong?

Well, I successfully did a Win 98SE VM once, but I probably used third party drivers and unofficial service packs.

Hmm, I haven't tried '95 but I have '98, '98SE, ME and 2000 running nicely in VMware Fusion. Granted I don't do much with them except the occasional test with snapshots of programs but these run fine. But nothing heavy duty like full directx games.

I never tested Win95, because of its flaws, but Win98 is running fine in Vmware for very long time, because host drivers arent in development for years, i thing 2010. But Win98 was OS, which was actual, when Vmware started, so support is quite good..
Its good enough for 2D DirectX Gaming - like Diablo and other 2D games, there is not 3D support of course, for it you need PCem. First 3D drivers for Vmware are XP plus. Im not sure if now for Windows too, or only Linux, but even Virtualbox is now using Vmware SVGA driver too.

There is not really too much to setup in Win98 - sound and network drivers are working, addition installation is working and there is specific Vmware SVGA and PS/2 mouse driver for drag and drop for files.. Network folder sharing drivers arent supported.

Virtualbox loses to Vmware in respect to how much ram you can allocate to your virtual gpu. This is where they lost me (along with their inability to make a SB16 emulation that works with windows 3.1 when the host is a mac)

VMware at least for modern OS (Win7+) care at least a bit about gamming, but there is gaming mode in vm settings and there pushing which version of OpenGL are Direct3D are supported by their drivers - that is main problem of games compatibility.. I tried to play games like Skyrim in virtual machine which need just Direct3D 9 and they were playble.. main usage for me was, make 1 computer - usefull for 2 parallel players..

Of course they will not upgrade video drivers for old OSes, because is not business case for it.. they is only chance make some 3rd party drivers, or maybe, maybe they can open source them in the future (no business lost), i there would be some petition for it, or something like that.

Moved from Marvin -> Sound to PC Emulation.

Just tried Parallels Desktop latest version, and they still do not have SB emulation. That’s the reason why I stick with VMware for my Win 3.x and 2000 VMs. I haven’t checked latest VirtualBox yet, but I am pretty sure they still have SB emulation broken for macOS hosts and limited video ram & no direct3d.

Definitely PCem should be the best option - but I still haven’t found a v15 port that can run on Catalina.

ruthan wrote on 2020-01-25, 03:03:

VMware at least for modern OS (Win7+) care at least a bit about gamming, but there is gaming mode in vm settings and there pushing which version of
OpenGL are Direct3D are supported by their drivers - that is main problem of games compatibility.. I tried to play games like Skyrim in virtual machine
which need just Direct3D 9 and they were playble.. main usage for me was, make 1 computer - usefull for 2 parallel players..

That's exactly as to why I loved Virtualbox so much. They used WineD3D to make an experimental 3D driver for Windows XP.
Since it was essentially an Direct3D to OpenGL wrapper, it worked on about any host. Also, they had sepparate 2D acceleration.
Most, if not all, of my 2D games using DirectDraw and GDI ran just fine. Same for PowerDVD 6 Deluxe on WIndows XP.
It ran fine from within the Virtualbox VM, with pass-through to a dedicated RC0 USB DVD-ROM drive..

Jo22 wrote on 2020-02-23, 07:39:

That's exactly as to why I loved Virtualbox so much. They used WineD3D to make an experimental 3D driver for Windows XP.
Since it was essentially an Direct3D to OpenGL wrapper, it worked on about any host. Also, they had separate 2D acceleration.
Most, if not all, of my 2D games using DirectDraw and GDI ran just fine.

Hmm, i never heard about that.. or see such options in Virtualbox. 2D was probably good enough anyway, but XP whole gaming era is about 3D, 2d gaming died with Win98.

Regardless you are speaking about this a about some feature of the past, its no more available? I only tried official VirtualBox 3D drivers, they were bad - much worse that old Vmware driver.. lots of DirectX or OpenGl calls were missing, or they were implemented with lots of bugs. most of games had heavy glitches.
If would be Vmware XP driver same quality - features set as Win 7 one, we would be fine.. but it would probably never happen, because its development stopped in 2012 or something like that and only Win7+ driver is development.. and with end of Win7 support, it possible that they will even stop to support it. So any chance is really some community development or porting of some existing drivers as Wine ones.. if someone did it once, it can be done again.
I never read details about it, but its strange that even Virtualbox switched to using Vmware SVGA II videocards driver..

ruthan wrote on 2020-02-23, 16:20:

Jo22 wrote on 2020-02-23, 07:39:

That's exactly as to why I loved Virtualbox so much. They used WineD3D to make an experimental 3D driver for Windows XP.
Since it was essentially an Direct3D to OpenGL wrapper, it worked on about any host. Also, they had separate 2D acceleration.
Most, if not all, of my 2D games using DirectDraw and GDI ran just fine.

Hmm, i never heard about that.. or see such options in Virtualbox. 2D was probably good enough anyway, but XP whole gaming era is about 3D, 2d gaming died with Win98.

Well, when I moved from 98SE to XP in early 2000s, I had lots of fun playing the recent 2D games you'd find at caiman.us.
To name a few, mainly adventures made by little studios: Guardian of Paradise, The Breakdown, The White Chamber and Out of Order.
A few years later, say ~2004-2008, popular 2D games like Cave Story or Undertale appeared also on the scene.
Flash Games also existed, which ran better on XP due to be able to use a more recent Flash/Shockwave.
Re: Last PC games supporting Windows 9x?
Re: Could anyone recommend some pc games for girls?

The 3D driver for Win2k/XP I meant was the "experimental" one, which required installation in safe mode.
http://underpop.online.fr/v/virtualbox/hardwa … virtualbox.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiZyigv_aRc

Yeah im sure that 2D games existed, but it wasnt gamers mainstream, same as Flash games.

So its "experimental" driver is what i used.. and described above, maybe someone had better experience.. these details are very old 2008, so something happened meanwhile - because if not, we would have now nice mature great 3D driver which would be updated with newer Wine releases..

Maybe someone has better experience with it, but Serious Sam and GLQuake arent most complicated games to be emulated, i thing that i tried a bit newer games like Far Cry and others, results forced me to switch to Vmware Workstation.. which was better, but still not good enough (not from performance point of view -it would be good enough today, but from compatibility point of view.)
So for now only good XP 3D is provided only real machine or Linux KVM with videocards pass through.

Otherwise because of lack of Steam and Gog compatibility (bad idea), XP games is crippled and make sense really use for games which running really bad on not at all on Win7.. I recently didnt check if exists some XP Steam / Gog hacks.. We i look at Gog games migration to DOS / Win9x its usually lots of work.