VDMSound is NOT an EMS memory manager. It enables EMS in Windows NT/2000/XP's Virtual DOS Machine, nothing more, and nothing in Win9x.

DEVICEHIGH=C:\WINDOWS\EMM386.EXE RAM I=B000-B7FF
(B000-B7FF is for monochrome video cards.)

I always found this to work,

device=c:\windows\himem.sys
dos=high,umb
device=c:\windows\emm386.exe RAM FRAME=E000 i=b000-b7ff

You could always load the DOS drivers for the SBLive and skip windows altogether,
attrib -r -h -s c:\msdos.sys
edit MSDOS.SYS and change BOOTGUI from 1 to 0
attrib +r +h +s c:\msdos.sys

^I'll have to try your EMM386 suggestion, but for now I just re-enabled EMS using D000-DFFF now that I know that VDMS for win 9x does nothing to help there.

Before VDMS and with EMS the game would run fine in Windows by itself, but it wouldn't play music, just voices and sound effects. When I tried it with VDMS it would play the music just fine, but now the voices were gone and the sound effects were crude and simplistic, almost like a different set of sound effects for a different sound card. The game was also less stable. In DOS mode before VDMS, with EMS, and the Sound Blaster Live! Value DOS drivers, the game would work perfectly.

Any ideas?

The SBLive Dos emulation emulates the SB16 midi for music, so you shouldn't have had that problem when you were playing ST:25th Ann. before installing VDMSound. If you can get emm386.exe to run, using the SBLive emulation is preferable to VDMSound on a 9x system. The game should run the FM emulation if the music is set to SoundBlaster at port 220 7 1, or you should be able to set it to General Midi at port 330 if you want the superior music that offers. I found that 25th Ann.'s General Midi sounded a little weird so I left that on FM, but the General Midi on Star Trek:Judgment Rites is awesome, nearly like the TV show! I actually won't keep a sound card on my machine that won't play these old games with decent sound. I found that anything works on Windows XP, as VDMSound takes care of it, but only the Live card, or, believe it or not, the much maligned HP Riptide Audio/Modem combo card would run DOS sound nearly perfectly on 9x. In fact, the Riptide doesn't require anything to exist in the Autoexec.bat or Config.sys files to run DOS games within Windows. That would be my solution if I had a system that wouldn't run emm386.exe, but then again I've got access to my Riptide! I actually went to HP Parts Direct and purchased a new Ripide card a couple of years ago as a backup. This little bugger gave me perfect dialup connections (for all the complaining about the card I've noticed on the internet), cleaner audio than the SBLive, better MIDI than the 8mb Soundfont the SBLive has (though not as good as UtopiaLive or Yamaha YSG-50), and no need to have an autoexec.bat or config.sys file just to play dos games. (I did need to set them up for mscdex for games that require cd detection, though.) With the SBLive, you also don't need the files loaded if you're just playing within Window dosbox. You can even avoid installing the SBLive Dos drivers for MS-DOS Mode if you install the files manually to a folder and make the proper references to them in the Dos Properties of the games. (Select Use a new Dos configuration and enter the needed lines for autoexec & config, including a dos mouse driver and a dos cdrom driver, emm386, etc.) With XP, I switch between SBLive, Acoustic Edge, or Santa Cruz depending on whim when I'm formatting and reinstalling. If you ever get XP, Star Trek TNG-A Final Unity wound up running okay for me after much hoping and trying different things. It installs with a later installer released for OS/2 systems that just tells the installer to ignore requirements and install anyway, and runs with clear sound if you set the game audio to SoundBlaster 8 at 220 7 1. In VDMSound, turn off expanded (EMS) memory emulation, Windows shortcuts, and fast pasting, and it will crash less too! (Though it will still crash:Save Often!)

Good Luck,
Dennis

Thank you very much, Dennis! Have you ever thought about joining the TrekBBS (http://www.trekbbs.com)? The "Trek Gaming" forum there is one of the largest gathering of Trek gamers on the web. We are always in need of capable game troubleshooters like yourself to help the frequent posters there with technical problems.

As for my internet PC, I don't know why the music doesn't work through SB Live!'s own emulation. Are the "BLASTER=" and "DOS_SBE=" environment variables supposed to agree with each other, by chance?

BTW, I have heard about the troubles with AFU and XP as well as 25th, JR, and Star Trek Deep Space Nine Harbinger on XP, but VDMS can get all four to work on that OS. Another poster on the TrekBBS under the name of "Haggis and Tatties" runs all four on XP. He also is a friend of mine and a fellow staff member on the Gaming Section of TrekPulse.com.

I only have music when playing ST:25th (Enhanced CD), although the game seems to load the VOC files from CD. The disk version works with sound fx. I bought the CD version because of the voices, but it doesn't seem to work 🙁

The game works fine in a WinME DOS box, except for the FX and voices. Same for Judgment Rites. Never heard any of the VOCs in game.

I have a SB Audigy. I wonder how you can get speech, but no music. Very strange. I also tried the DosDrv from the SB driver CD, in Real-DOS, but it doesn't work because it needs EMM386. But EMM386 crashes during boot.

I'm now going to try VDMS Win9x.

^Can you better describe how EMM386 crashes during startup (ex. error messages, computer behavior, ect.)? What is the exact line you use to load EMM386 in your config.sys file?

DEVICE=HIMEM.SYS
DEVICE=EMM386.EXE

This was tested under DOS 6.22 in Bochs 2.1 and works. On my real system, I get an error message (from HIMEM.SYS?) during boot, saying that there's already a memory manager installed. EMM386 then just hangs and does nothing. I have to boot from an emergency-disk to remove these lines from my CONFIG.SYS then...

If I remove only HIMEM.SYS, EMM386 tells me that it needs it to be loaded. *argh*

I also tested VDMS now, and it works with Settlers II, but there's not enough Conventional memory for Star Trek. This is where EMM should come in...

Star Trek works in Bochs, with full sound! Unfortunately, the controls go crazy, message windows close themselves without waiting for speech to finish, the mouse movement is very slow. It's really impossible to win a space fight.

I just need 1kB (ONE KB!) more conventional memory. ST25th needs 560kB, I only have 559kB after loading VDMS9x. Already tried LOADHIGH in DosDrv.bat, but doesn't help.

Without VDMS, it works. Well, without SFX 🙁

DOSMAN,

I'm sorry it's taken so long to reply but this is the first time I've visited this board since I posted to you! Yes, the sblive's dosdrv settings must match what's in the device mgr's sblive dos settings. I first make sure to check the "share LPT interupt" box in device mgr. This is unchecked by default. Then I go into sysedit and change the set blaster IRQ setting from 5 to 7. The ctsyn file in C:\Windows\System file also needs to show an IRQ of 7. So, all of it has 220 7 1 5 330 388. I was never able to get it working in Windows Me's real dos, only a dosbox within Windows. I got the same error about HiMem already being loaded. But, I haven't had any trouble with it working with full sound effects and music within Windows. Unless the problem is your not having all the setblaster's matching, I don't understand your not getting both music and sound effects. I'm going to check those links you gave to see what I can learn, or perhaps contribute.

Dennis

You don't have to worry about me anymore, Dennis. I just remembered that I didn't install my Sound Blaster Live! correctly (for unknown reasons) during the last reformat and OS reinstall. Before that these games worked just fine. Maybe my computer is just, physically, starting to fail.

It would be great if you could help Olsen, however. The only thing I can think of is that he does have another memory manager being loaded by the system files, but surely he would have noticed that and removed it. 😕

-Peter

Well, the problem is really WinME. Although with a Real-DOS patch, it fails to load EMM386.EXE on some systems (it worked on mine some time ago, but doesn't now). This is a known problem, just google for "WinME Emm386" and you'll see.

As I said before, I can't load the official DOS driver for the Audigy because of no EMM386. SBEINIT fails.

Well, HIMEM.SYS is automatically loaded by WinME's IO.SYS, so you can force most stuff in CONFIG.SYS to highmem. This is also the reason for the "already loaded" error message at boot-time.
EMM386 is a different story. It either works and you're lucky, or it doesn't and you're lost. It fails to work for me, so I currently have to use VDMS9x.

I'm going to try QEMM 9 (earlier versions don't work with WinME!) and see if it can replace the need for EMM386.

As a last note, I finally managed to run ST25th with VDMS9x from a DOS box in WinME, but it shows the same problem as my attempt with Bochs. The text boxes in the game close themselves without waiting for a click, and without waiting for speech to finish.

This seems to be a sound issue, the emulated driver says "I'm finished", although it's still working in another thread. VDMS9x and Bochs' SB16 emulation have the same problem and seem to be based off the same (buggy?) emulation code.

Well, I've asked Interplay some weeks ago if they would license the source code of 25th and JR to me, but I got no reply so far. I wasn't kidding and I'll try again. Which Trek forum would like to start a petition?

Heh... STJR25 works just fine under NT/2k, and Bochs and VDMSound are not based on the same code (i.e. not based on each other). I would have said "disable joystick emulation", but I don't think Bochs has that, so I don't think that's your problem. Perhaps your copy of STJR25 is badly configured/installed. But definitely not the meulation.

V.

Sorry, I didn't want to flame on your code 😉

Both games are properly configured and music works even without SB emulation. Joystick is turned off in their setup. Strange that the disk version of 25th works perfectly. The talky CD version doesn't.

I tried QEMM 97 yesterday, but it just shuts down my system when it's loaded. Evil.

I also tried using "Turbo" to slow down the CPU, without success. It still breaks all samples after 1-2 seconds and closes the text messages automatically. What the ...

The intro works perfectly ("Space, the final frontier...").

I would like to find out what's happening there and why. It's very strange that it happens in both Bochs (DOS 6.22) and under WinME's DOS box. So it doesn't seem to be related to my Windows version, but to the game (or SB emulation?).

As I mentioned earlier, VDMS9x works perfectly for "Settlers II" and several other DOS games. That Star Trek problem's driving me mad.

It's very likely the game itself... somehow. Yeah, sorry, was referring to the floppy version (works perfectly over here), dunno about the CD version. You can try configuring both STJR and VDMSound to use a different IRQ (5 or 7), though that would still not explain the failure with Bochs.

V.

I'll try again some day, when I'm reinstalling Windows. I'm not in the mood right now, already spent too much time with testing and juggling parameters. Until then, Star Trek will "boldy go where all the other games have gone before" - deep into my CD collection... 🙁

All I can offer is that I know Creative changed the way they emulate a SB16 in the newer versions of their drivers, both vxd and wdm. I've got two SBLive's, an X-Gamer which is now called "Value," CT4760, and a plain Live 5.1, SB00100 (which came in a retail box marked SB0060, go figure). The vxd drivers on both cd's have the older implementation, which worked great. I've noticed when fiddling around with Audigy drivers that they now use the same crappy emulation that came with the wdm driver on the 5.1 cd. Sometimes sound, or music, or nothing will work and it's often scratchy and skippy. In fact, they actually install the wdm's by default on a 98 2nd edition or Me install. What I do is copy the whole cd to a folder C:\Sb_install and edit the Audio.ini in the Audio/Setup folder to change it from (from memory) installwdm982nded 1 and installwdmwinme 1 to 0 for each, then run setup from the hard drive. This wont help with the Audigy, unfortunately, as I guess they just use the new way of implementing the emulation and that's why your game sound is frustrating you. I'm talking just about the Dos within Windows dosbox emulator, not whatever they offer on an Audigy disc for the MS-DOS Mode, as I'm unaware how they might have screwed up a perfectly good thing there! If your card is an Audigy 1, and you like Dos games, you might just chuck it for a Live card as I don't remember reading about any huge advance of the Audigy over a Live card until the Audigy 2. I'm dual booting 98 2nd and XP now with my Live 5.1 and the official 252 drivers on XP (had to install Recorder, PlayCenter, Mini-Disc, and Wave Studio from my Compaq CD before the Unidriver applications would allow themselves to update themselves though-a bad trick by Creative for those that didn't make that cd-they've gotta call Creative and order a cd-or do without that stuff). Anyway, everything sounds great and between 98/SBLive SB16 emulation, and XP with VDMSound, I'm in DOS heaven for whatever games I've still got from the days of yore. I don't think reformatting will help you with the newer SB16 Creative destructo driver. Sorry.

Dennis

Well Olsen, I've done some experimenting. New 98 install using the ordered cd from Creative from about a year ago. This yields the 244 wdm drivers with the new versions of the Creative applications. I then ctzapp'd the drivers off and ctzapp'd in the 402 driver set that I had downloaded some time ago from a Mr. "Evil." He frequents the driverheaven.net audio forum so his posts are still there, but his driver set which was the audigy 2 ZS 402 from the cd but with some mods for the Live/Audigy1 is no longer posted where he used to have it. I suppose one could just ctzap the official Creative driver over the previously installed 244's. His were handy as they let you install them clean, as I don't believe all functions are enabled without the specific files from the "official" sblive wdm driver. So, you could still do it without his driver if you have the audigy or sblive disc with the full wdm driver version, then you just ctzapp the new 402 (or, even the newer 441's though I think they just add EAX 4 support to the Audigy 2 cards) over the original install. Then, what I did was update the applications with the one's in the Sblive Uni-Pack downloads from the Creative website. Anyway (and I hope you kept reading!), I've discovered how to get your Star Trek game to get the music with the sound effects with these (similar to your) sets of drivers. You have wdm's which don't use any extra sb dos emulation when running games within Windows. They simply use the Windows wdm dos support which is actually an sb pro emulator. Set the games sound effects to soundblaster or soundblaster pro at 220/5/1. But, set the music to mpu401, or general midi at port 330. I too got no music when trying the wdm driver with the music set to the same setting as the sound effects. So, I reinstalled the game (for some reason it wouldn't run setup so I had to delete the game and reinstall it) and set it up for general midi (mpu401) and, eureka!, the music and sound effects both played. However, sometimes the sound effects (which also do the voices) cut off and I needed to restart the game to get them back, and a lot of times the speech parts would static up to clarity. Like "mumble, mumble, try the shields Captain!" This stuff wasn't acceptable to me so I copied the dosdrv folder I had burned to a cd to C:\SBLIVE\DOSDRV. Then I copied the ctsyn.ini file to C:\Windows, and changed it to reflect IRQ 5 instead of the 7 I had been using with the vxd drivers. I also copied EAPCI8M.ECW from my old Ensoniq card's cd to C:\Windows\System and renamed DEFAULT.ECW to EAPCI2M.ECW, and renamed EAPCI8M.ECW to DEFAULT.ECW. Now, I right clicked the game's shortcut and set it to run in MS-DOS mode with a custom configuration. I made sure I had a copy of OakCdRom.SYS in a C:\Cdrom folder and my imouse driver in a C:\IMOUSE folder and made the appropriate references in the custom Autoexec and Config files. Don't forget MSCDEX and to load emm386 with the RAM switch. All Right! The game restarts in MSDOS and runs with perfect sound. Games with the choice of different SB cards need to be set to either soundblaster or sb16 (not sb pro) to work right in dos mode with the sb16 Live emulation driver. But, to play the game in a dosbox within Windows, don't choose sb16 as that had hi and lo DMA settings that confuse the wdm emulator. (It's designed for regular sb or sb pro.) I could step by step in mor detail, but this post is darned long as it is. I hope you can find the sblive msdos mode drivers, as they should work on an Audigy 1 (but not 2). alive.signet.com.sg used to have a link to an older version of them. The last version Creative made fixed some bugs that let more games run, but older is better than none! Good luck.

Dennis

P.S.
I forgot to mention to include the call to the SBLive Dos Mode emulator:

SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 H5 P330 T6
SET CTSYN=C:\WINDOWS
C:\SBLIVE\DOSDRV\SBEINIT.COM

Make these near the top of your custom Autoexec.bat. The emulator uses a lot of memory to initialize (but not much in use), so put it first or it might not load. You'll find the sound so superior to whatever wdm offers within Windows that you'll use it for all your DOS games.

I just wanted to report that although I need to reboot to MS-DOS Mode and use the DOS SBLive emulation for most DOS games, like Star Trek 25th Ann., Judgment Rites, and TNG Final Unity, I was pleasantly surprised that the few DOS games that I needed to use my Sidewinder Precision Pro with sound perfect within Windows with the wdm Creative driver 402. Whiplash, Descent, etc. sound great. A relief, since I like the old Descent especially for that awesome cd general midi music! The Sierra Larry series needs the reboot though. Funny and lucky it was that what I needed to work within Windows (the stuff with joysticks) actually did.

Although Olsen probably hasn't replied, I thought I'd offer this stuff up for him and others to see that it is possible to use relatively modern sound cards and drivers and still retain Dos game compatability. I do think better results are attained on a 9x system by setting things up this way, rather than using the vdmsound alpha 9x. I also understand the problem: The SBLive Dos emulator doesn't work with the Audigy 2, or I believe any cards besides the Live and Audigy 1. But Olsen did say he was running the Audigy 1, so this stuff would probably get his games working if he gets his hands on the files and can work through setting it up. Okay. I'm done with this unless there is an enquiry for more detail.

Dennis

Sorry I'm late. Eck, thanks for your work! I'll copy your posts and read them offline again next weekend. I got myself a DVD burner and will now backup my HDs to setup a new clean system. I'm thinking about a multiboot with WinME and DOS6.22. Before formatting, I have the chance to completely mess up the Audigy drivers 😉 Let's see what happens. I'll keep you informed.