StickByDos wrote:Do you mean CTCM, It's for all SB PnP and it doesn't eat memory. It just sets it up.
No, it is not CTCM for sure. I think it's "pre-CTCM" of some sort. I don't kinda remember, but IIRC the name of the file is something like DWCFGMG.SYS or such (sorry, I don't remember the exact wording, I left that one legacy system in my hometown 🙁 ). However, it seems that it reads the ESCD file on my hard drive.
It needs to be loaded to the memory, and even with EMM386, it still eats up a lot of conventional RAM --let alone without EMM386. Thus, to play Ultima VII with sound, I always disable my CD ROM drive (not loading the CD ROM driver) in order to free up sufficient RAM.
I get the impression that it is not made by Creative at all, since during the first time installation, the name displayed is 'ISA Configuration Utility' or such. However, when it's not being loaded to the memory, no sound can be heard.
EDIT: Confirmed. The name is indeed DWCFGMG.SYS. I googled a little, and found the reference here. Yes, it is not CTCM. In fact, I ain't using CTCM at all; only DWCFGMG, and boy, it eats a lot of RAM.
EDIT (again): I googled again out of curiousity. See, this thread makes me wonder why my particular Vibra16 uses DWCFGMG instead of CTCM, and found something interesting here
The normal Creative installation process should have provided a DOS Configuration Manager called CTCM.EXE, which will have been inserted into your CONFIG.SYS or AUTOEXEC.BAT file. (DWCFGMG.SYS is an alternate PnP manager that may be used in CONFIG.SYS, but it uses 1700 bytes of low DOS memory whereas CTCM does not, and doesn't set the BLASTER string in the DOS environment.)
If you have a Windows 9x system, it should be in your C:\WINDOWS\DOSSTART.BAT file. This is the file that is supposed to perform tasks similar to AUTOEXEC.BAT when you select 'Start ... Shut Down ... Restart in MS-DOS Mode'.
I hope this will be (somewhat) useful for anyone considering Vibra16 as their legacy sound card.
Well the good news is that DWCFGMG doesn't need EMM386. Nope. It can be perfectly loaded to conventional RAM (DEVICE=C:\DWCFGMG.SYS), so it can run Ultima VII perfectly (unlike, for instance, Sound Blaster Live! driver that needs EMM386). However, do mind that it devours conventional RAM, so you may need to disable your CD ROM drive or other devices.