I am looking very intently at getting a SoundBlaster Pro v2.0 sound card. Thoughts?

Mau1wurf1977

I am planning to use one of my ECS P5GX-M boards with a Geode 200-MHz CPU to cut costs (Underclocked to 150-MHz and disable L2 Cache in BIOS). Life happens sometimes and I have been away for a while. I never did get you one of those boards to test/play with. Contact me and I will get one sent soon.

squareguy wrote:

I am looking very intently at getting a SoundBlaster Pro v2.0 sound card. Thoughts?

No MPU-401, No MIDI daughterboards header... OPL3 only or you will need to add an another sound card for better MIDI restitution...

Geode-200mhz build? that's a rare choice, I wonder how well it performs
SBPro2.0 will give you nice SB sounds but you do need something for midi as darksheer mentions, unless you don't care about that...

My main DOS pc is a classic 200mhz p1 build with a MVP-3 mobo, riva128zx vga, a SB16, a MPU card and now a GUS , it's the classic Mau1wurf1977 build with some user preference customizations 🤣

keropi wrote:

some user preference customizations 🤣

That is important! That is also why I approve of a Geode 200-MHz CPU 😀

keropi wrote:

Geode-200mhz build? that's a rare choice, I wonder how well it performs
SBPro2.0 will give you nice SB sounds but you do need something for midi as darksheer mentions, unless you don't care about that...

My main DOS pc is a classic 200mhz p1 build with a MVP-3 mobo, riva128zx vga, a SB16, a MPU card and now a GUS , it's the classic Mau1wurf1977 build with some user preference customizations 🤣

Don't you have any Turbo Pascal issues with a 200 mhz cpu under DOS ? Or can it be avoided by desactivating cache ? Because having to fix EXE files is just annoying 😒

^ very few and there are a couple of tsr programs that fix that, not really a problem... the problem is more serious after 200mhz AFAIK
I find it more of a problem games that are speed-sensitive. But ICACHE.EXE works wonders disabling caches from the command line.
I wouldn't trade the flexibility of a ss7 machine , I have made several 286/386/486 builds in the past but nothing stuck so far as the ~8+ years p1 build I use

ICACHE seems to be very useful.
The first computer I used for dos games was a K6 233 u/c @ 133 with a pci cirrus logic card and a SB16.
Games were running fine on it but I enjoy them better on my 386 and 486's 😁

keropi wrote:

I wouldn't trade the flexibility of a ss7 machine , I have made several 286/386/486 builds in the past but nothing stuck so far as the ~8+ years p1 build I use

I agree. Like you my main DOS PC is a Pentium 200mhz. W/ ATI Mach64vt, 16MB SIMM, epox ep-5bvpxa, and an OPL3 chip sound card. I absolutely love the sound of Midi!!

Anything DOS gaming related I throw at it, it eats up. As much as it is nice to use era specific hardware, sometimes it is nicer to have a machine that is capable of all the games one has; that aren't tied to CPU clock rates anyway. 😈

Well, I am leaning heavily on a SoundBlaster Pro v2.0 for the main reason of 100% SoundBlaster/AdLib compatibility, which should cover just about anything. I can then build on top of that when/if I ever choose, or am I wrong?

Trying to decide on operating system now. MS-DOS 6.22, Windows 95B, or Windows 98SE with it's GUI replaced with Windows 95B files (VIA 98lite). I will not use that integrated Internet Explorer garbage desktop. I even considered Free-DOS but I am not sure of its compatibility. I have no love of WDM drivers and the hardware will be pretty old anyways. It is nice to have a GUI though to configure things and move files around.

I might possibly use a Gateway 2000 TX Motherboard with a Pentium 200MMX underclocked to 120-MHz. Putting the board on the bench soon to check it out. It has more PCI and ISA slots.

SB Pro 2 is an awesome card! But no MIDI options for MT-32 or General MIDI. So it always depends on what games you actually want to play.

MS-DOS 6.22 > 4 x 2 GB partitions
MS-DOS 7.1 (comes with Windows 98 SE) > large partition support such as 32 GB or 64 GB

When it comes to configuring CD-ROM, mouse and memory you might find my tutorial handy: http://www.philscomputerlab.com/cd-rom-mouse- … t-up-files.html

Personally I like using MS-DOS 6.22 but you quickly run out of storage space with later games that have speech.

Just bought a Sound Blaster Pro v2.0 (CT1600), even has the manual. I think the plan for sound is this card and possibly adding a Roland SCC-1 or external MIDI later on.

Mau1wurf1977

I think I have decided to use Windows 98 SE, replace GUI files with Windows 95b VIA 98lite and have it set to always boot to pure DOS 7.1. Then fire up Windows as needed. Have you ever done that? It makes Windows 98 about as fast as 95 by swapping the GUI out to the pre-integrated Internet Explorer crap. Just don't use files from Windows 95C as it already has the integrated Internet Explorer.

I will grab a modern IDE hard drive (Plenty of NOS Western Digitals available here) and set it up with a single 32GB partition. Keep it simple 😉

EDIT: Then again years ago I ran DOS 7.1 and for some reason I remember having to use DosVer from here http://ansis.lv/dosver/index.en.php to get certain things to work. Cannot remember why I had to use it but I do not think it was for any games. I think if I remember right I installed DOS 7.1 by building a batch file to extract all needed files from the cab files and building an installer CD. Seems like I superimposed the missing programs and utilities from DOS 6.22 and that's where the DosVer utility came into play to make it all work correctly. Cannot why I did it other than for giggles.

CT1600 SBPRO2 is a good dos card.
Easy to combine it with other cards just need its mixer set or its to dang quiet.
I have one currently combined with a CT3670 on a machine I'm currently messing with, works great gives the AWE midi out-put an somewhat of a lowpass filter when ran through the pro.

No GUI with 9x? don't think you need 98lite for that tho...
GUI=0 in MSDOS.SYS
Its perfectly safe to do that, 9x boots like a 6.22\3.11 machine.
Can make your own boot menu's then.

I probably wasn't clear. Swapping the GUI files for those occasions when I am in Windows, otherwise I will be in DOS.

squareguy wrote:

EDIT: Then again years ago I ran DOS 7.1 and for some reason I remember having to use DosVer from here http://ansis.lv/dosver/index.en.php to get certain things to work. Cannot remember why I had to use it but I do not think it was for any games. I think if I remember right I installed DOS 7.1 by building a batch file to extract all needed files from the cab files and building an installer CD. Seems like I superimposed the missing programs and utilities from DOS 6.22 and that's where the DosVer utility came into play to make it all work correctly. Cannot why I did it other than for giggles.

The Creative cards pickup that it isn't MS-DOS. But only if you installed Windows 98 from the CD, not if you manually installed it by formatting the drive and copying all required DOS files. I made a guide about this and the video is on YT but it's an early video, a bit boring and long.

So for this case Creative has a MS-DOS mode driver that does run fine on a Windows 98 machine in MS-DOS mode.

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

The Creative cards pickup that it isn't MS-DOS. But only if you installed Windows 98 from the CD, not if you manually installed it by formatting the drive and copying all required DOS files. I made a guide about this and the video is on YT but it's an early video, a bit boring and long.

So for this case Creative has a MS-DOS mode driver that does run fine on a Windows 98 machine in MS-DOS mode.

Interesting... Its not an issue for NON PNP cards like the pro2, but I've been wondering how to get around that for PNP cards that use CTCM
Now the reason why does this work? where is the creative utility looking to find the dos version?

AlphaWing wrote:

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

The Creative cards pickup that it isn't MS-DOS. But only if you installed Windows 98 from the CD, not if you manually installed it by formatting the drive and copying all required DOS files. I made a guide about this and the video is on YT but it's an early video, a bit boring and long.

So for this case Creative has a MS-DOS mode driver that does run fine on a Windows 98 machine in MS-DOS mode.

Interesting... Its not an issue for NON PNP cards like the pro2, but I've been wondering how to get around that for PNP cards that use CTCM
Now the reason why does this work? where is the creative utility looking to find the dos version?

There is a MS-DOS mode compatible version of CTCM. My Internet is being silly so I can't check it out but it was under downloads for the AWE64. I'm planning on covering this again, as a follow up to my latest MS-DOS mode tutorial.

Creative support site?
Or Vogons driver library?
Creative's site it seems to be down for me too.

is the update with it CTCMBBS.EXE??
Could be CTCMAPI.EXE too?? this lists itself as a TSR to install CTCM.
That is on the Awemans Soundblaster compilation CD under MISC.

Hmm you're right, CTCM might cause issues. It's been a while since I've tried this out. I might give it a go this evening 😀

EDIT: Ok quickly tested them, all good. Confirmed working with an AWE64 Gold under Windows 98SE shutting down into MS-DOS mode as well as cold booting > F8 > DOS