No, it wouldn't make sense, except perhaps hooking up a CRT.
Dosbox emulates everything and uses the existing modern OS for that. I do remember that there was a patch for OPL passthrough to an existing SB *for Linux* but I haven't seen that mentioned in years. Probably because not many people have a strong enough machine for Dobox while still having ISA slots

Roger Wilco wrote:

one guy even wrote about the "reverb" of the PC speaker in the computer housing 😀

That's pretty cool. Can you link that thread?

Roger Wilco wrote:

Does Dosbox have access to the PC speaker, or would it be emulated thru the soundcard?

Also been wondering about this. Let me know if you find anything. DOSBox emulates PC speaker very well but there's nothing like the real thing.

Roger Wilco wrote:

I am thinking of building a dedicated PC, strong enough to handle Dosbox, but old enough to fit in old hardware.

Would it make sense to create a bootable partition as an authentic DOS gaming machine which runs the games natively? I run DOSBox on every computer and device I have, but when it comes to some of the authentic touches like PC speaker and OPL sound cards, it's nice to use something that's (close to) period-accurate.
It seems a lot of people on this forum have a few machines for different eras, I'm guilty of the same. I keep a P4-based celery rig with just an SB16 soundcard, it covers most games of the period that I like, approximately '93 to '97 range, and the sound is fine for the most part. Boots up in under 30 seconds, and it covers most of my needs.
If that's just not cutting it for me at the time, I'll wait the extra few seconds of boot time and fire up my favorite pentium MMX-based machine with an ISA cirrus which I absolutely love. I find the tones to be richer and have more bass than the SB16. This one also has a beefier PC speaker, those old games like Monkey Island, Mel-Odius, Zeliard ring out and reverberate through my PC case and skull like they used to back in the day when I was a kid. PC speaker is also good for guaranteeing some alone time. 🤣

Dosbox emulates PC Speaker and plays back through the soundcard. If the pc speaker were to be hooked up to that you could maybe get frankenstein sound off it. Probably not good sound (afaik, todays pc speaker are not the same quality as yesterdays')

Dominus wrote:

I do remember that there was a patch for OPL passthrough to an existing SB *for Linux* but I haven't seen that mentioned in years. Probably because not many people have a strong enough machine for Dobox while still having ISA slots

Hal's patch? I've tried it years ago and it works on Windows 98 at least. I used it to inch a bit more speed for a Pentium system with the onboard WSS providing native OPL3 😀

Could be 😉

@Dominus

Thanks for the answer, I was expecting this a bit, at least with graphic cards, as they for sure can't handle the
needs of a new OS. I realized it right after posting...
I will still try to install a SB16, I think there exist adapters for ISA/PCI.
Even if its emulated, I guess you can't get closer to the original experience.
And I am having one gathering dust, so....

Connecting the PC Speaker to the soundcard - I am using Linux, only since half a year,
but what I found out so far, is, there are solutions for almost everything out there.
Maybe I can find something like the old speaker.drv, and switch between SB16/Speaker
(connected to onboard sound) with a hotkey.
May be possible with QJackCTL. Will take some time to set up for sure.
Frankly, my programming skills are very sub standard - at least in this forum. 😀

btw. cheers to VIenna, I got a flat there, too 😀

@beastlike

It was somewhere in the DosBox feature request thread, I think.
+1

I am building this machine for a private gaming room, where I allready have an original
Arcade cabinet with CRT that runs MAME in Dos 7.0...also gathered some old hardware for this
to make it work. It was quite of a task.
So the machine should be very uncomplicated to use, without any rebooting for different games,
and DosBox is best for that. My friends should be able to turn it on and just play, without too much
extra knowledge.

Allthough I am thinking about setting it up Dual boot, with a menu flashing for a second or so,
to boot it into ...... maybe Freedos, if that solves the problems with EMM386 / CWSDPMI and
all the different memory managers. I remember that I had SOME issues with that in the 90s.
Will check it out.

ISA Cirrus? Never heard of that one! I am a quite experienced sound tech and I will
compare the differences between the emulation / original SB sound, when the PC is up,
I am curious about that.
Will read about Cirrus, maybe I can get some.

PC speaker is also good for guaranteeing some alone time. 🤣

Not where I live 😁

Dominus wrote:

No, it wouldn't make sense, except perhaps hooking up a CRT. [...]

Done. Honestly, this blew me away right now.
How could I play this games on my new monitor?
The difference is ... "difference" doesn't describe it.

I had the same issue, on my Arcade machine, tried all
sorts of graphic cards, scanline emulators...and ended up
building an old TV into it.

I tried a couple of games right now, its an amazing experience.
All of them worked subito.

Great!
Don't bother with trying out an original SB card *unless* you find a build with this passthrough patch or you can build it yourself *AND* manage to make it work on modern Windows.
Otherwise using the original SB is just a waste of time as it will just output the emulated digital music/sfx and not using the OPL at all.

Ok, I get it, the card wouldnt use the synth at all but would play the music as a sample.
So the only difference you might hear between sound cards is the D/A converter.

Nonetheless I am going to use it, so I can use it with the FreeDos boot option.

Just read about the raw midi capture option in DosBox. Never tried it, but if it does, what
I think, it would be very cool to connect it to this device:
http://www.ucapps.de/midibox_fm.html

thanks!

Dominus wrote:

Dosbox emulates PC Speaker and plays back through the soundcard. If the pc speaker were to be hooked up to that you could maybe get frankenstein sound off it. Probably not good sound (afaik, todays pc speaker are not the same quality as yesterdays')

Back in 1986 or so, the PC Speaker was an actual 3" cone tweeter. Around 1996, with the switch to ATX motherboards, the motherboards integrate a piezo tweeter. What has largely replaced the "pc speaker connector" on sound cards is the "front headphone connector"

PC speakers have always been super-cheap, but those original PC speakers in PC/XT/AT systems were barely any worse than the amplified Labtec speakers that were distributed with cheap multimedia kits. Many cheap computers came with 2" non-amplified speakers. The fun thing was that I've never seen a single computer where the pc-speaker or cd-rom audio connector was connected to the sound card, because people didn't use their computer to play CD's through sound card, they used the front 3.5mm connector built into the drive.

Roger Wilco wrote:

Done. Honestly, this blew me away right now. How could I play this games on my new monitor? The difference is ... "difference" d […]
Show full quote

Dominus wrote:

No, it wouldn't make sense, except perhaps hooking up a CRT. [...]

Done. Honestly, this blew me away right now.
How could I play this games on my new monitor?
The difference is ... "difference" doesn't describe it.

I had the same issue, on my Arcade machine, tried all
sorts of graphic cards, scanline emulators...and ended up
building an old TV into it.

I tried a couple of games right now, its an amazing experience.
All of them worked subito.

DOSBox + CRT = WIN.

I include custom resolutions in NVIDIA control panel to run 640x400@70 and 640x480@60 as games intended, and set DOSBox fullscreen resolution to Original and Scaler=Double.
While playing in 720x400@70 or 640x480@60 resolutions check your monitor info screen to see if you actually play at the correct refresh rates.
This will give you DOS perfect experience without stuttering or tearing on a modern machine.

PC speakers have always been super-cheap, but those original PC speakers in PC/XT/AT systems were barely any worse than the amplified Labtec speakers that were distributed with cheap multimedia kits. Many cheap computers came with 2" non-amplified speakers. The fun thing was that I've never seen a single computer where the pc-speaker or cd-rom audio connector was connected to the sound card, because people didn't use their computer to play CD's through sound card, they used the front 3.5mm connector built into the drive.

Guilty. I saw the pins on the sound blaster for CDROM the first time YEARS after I was using it ... but I used to listen CDs
on the stereo back then, CDROM was for data only 😀 The PC wasn'T that kind of multimedia device for me, as it is nowadays.

DOSBox + CRT = WIN. […]
Show full quote

DOSBox + CRT = WIN.

I include custom resolutions in NVIDIA control panel to run 640x400@70 and 640x480@60 as games intended, and set DOSBox fullscreen resolution to Original and Scaler=Double.
While playing in 720x400@70 or 640x480@60 resolutions check your monitor info screen to see if you actually play at the correct refresh rates.
This will give you DOS perfect experience without stuttering or tearing on a modern machine.

Cool! Thanks for the advice!!

Roger Wilco wrote:

I guess, connecting an old CRT and running DosBox in fullscreen would deliver original
aspect ratios, maybe out of the box?

Yes. You may set surface mode, doubling and 640x400 screen. So VGA games will look 100% accurately. The serious problem may be with sound after reducing input delay (it's meh to play action games with default), but this issue may relate to concrete OS/sound chips/drivers.
Also check my YMF guide.

beastlike wrote:

DOSBox emulates PC speaker very well

It does not. You'll hear bad difference in some games. But most people will not care about those bip-blop authenticity.

Yes. You may set surface mode, doubling and 640x400 screen. So VGA games will look 100% accurately. The serious problem may be with sound after reducing input delay (it's meh to play action games with default), but this issue may relate to concrete OS/sound chips/drivers.
Also check my YMF guide.

Thanks for the advice.
What do you mean with input delay, is the sound played back with a delay?
Didn't realize it, but I was more into graphic issues.
Will check out your guide!