You still haven't answered the imgmount question...

But regardless, for audio track CDs you have to use a bin/cue image. The iso image format only allows data, not audio tracks. For you being able to listen to the audio off the iso is puzzling to me... So definitely use a bin/cue image. AND use imgmount in Dosbox...

Dominus wrote:

For you being able to listen to the audio off the iso is puzzling to me...

I think that is the source of the "farting noise" he meant, maybe MagicISO converted the CD audio stream in a data stream, which, when played back, is making these strange noises. Just like playing a C64 game cassette in a regular stereo cassette player. 😀

However, like Dominus said: Make a cue/bin set of your desired CD, mount that using the imgmount command: https://www.dosbox.com/wiki/IMGMOUNT

About mounting a game with compressed audio: https://www.dosbox.com/wiki/Cuesheet
You need a DOSBox build that supports that feature, though, not every build does.

But still, any idea why it lags and makes DOSBox freeze if I try using the actual CD in the drive ? It actually kills the ability to change CD while I'm playing like I do on the real DOS PC...

There's no audio cable that goes in the sound card with SATA DVD drives though, still figuring out how audio CDs work with these...

Elia1995 wrote:

But still, any idea why it lags and makes DOSBox freeze if I try using the actual CD in the drive ? It actually kills the ability to change CD while I'm playing like I do on the real DOS PC...

No. Maybe a faulty drive?

Elia1995 wrote:

There's no audio cable that goes in the sound card with SATA DVD drives though, still figuring out how audio CDs work with these...

Under Windows 98 you could enable digital playback in the properties of the drive, but since Windows ME, CD audio is always played back digitally, while before it was played back analogue (using the CD audio cables).

Ok, I just tried making it a cue/bin, mounted it with imgmount, yet it still farts and makes such unpleasant noise over the music !!!

probably not going to change it but it should be "-t iso"

I tried again from the actual CD drive and now it doesn't crash DOSBox anymore, but the game lags and freezes when the track changes (is not normal: on my "real" DOS PC it doesn't freeze like that when it changes track, it does stutter perhaps a second, but it doesn't freeze for 5 minutes between the tracks)

something is not right with your machine it seems

Perhaps I could try with an USB CD-ROM drive, but I dunno if CD music would play off external drives…

There is no reason to expect a USB CD-ROM drive to behave any differently. The problem is happening even using imgmount in DOSBox and accordingly is completely independent of your CD-ROM hardware. As Dominus suggested, "something is not right with your machine it seems".

Like I said before, you might want to consider booting Linux on your system – strictly as a test. You can download a "live" distribution that will boot from a USB drive or from a DVD-ROM without affecting your Windows installation or anything else on your hard drive - even something like the Linux Mint installation disc will do. Generally it will autodetect all your hardware and network settings and you can install DOSBox just by typing "sudo apt-get install dosbox" at a command prompt. (The only catch is that you'll have to do that every time you start your computer from the USB drive or DVD-ROM, unless you set up persistent storage, which is probably more trouble than it is worth.)

If CD music sounds normal in Linux, then you can be sure that neither DOSBox nor your CDs are the problem – and you can start looking for what might be wrong with your Windows installation.

Easiest way to set up Linux on a USB stick: http://www.pendrivelinux.com/universal-usb-in … -easy-as-1-2-3/

Dominus wrote:

something is not right with your machine it seems

Btw, I try to not use this sentence lightly because when I did it often became clear it is not a problem with the sole user's machine. But I can't think of anything else now...

Maybe you could upload a video of it to YouTube so we could hear.

I will make a video with the difference with the actual CD and the cue/bin.