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CMS Game Blaster in DosBox .72 - not working?

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First post, by blombardo

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First off - THANKS to any who offer a suggestion.

How do I get DosBox to emulate GameBlaster sound? - All attempts I've made have resulted in zero sound at all from my games.

I'm using

Dfend reloaded 1.2.1

Dosbox 0.74 (newer than the .62 in this post - but seems to have the same issue- aka not working, no sound)

(on a windows 7 64 laptop with crossfire graphics/amd a8)

I've tried changing oplmode=cms in DOSBox.conf (along with sb1 sb2 sbpro and various other settings)

I've manually used the setup of my games to select Game Blaster sound (Quest for glory 1 - Silpheed - any old sierra game basically)

The CMS sound was far superior to adlib in its initial release... (since I played the games that way as a kid, I want to hear them that way as an adult) I've tried using the Roland setting - which provides comparable sound (but every few screens the roland will leave the last note permanently playing under all other tones... and will not go away until I turn off and restart dosbox - in game muting does nothing...)

-Note I'm not asking for troubleshooting of the roland option... I want Game Blaster sound. PLEASE dont make me buy an old 486 machine and play on a dinosaur...

Other links with info about this:
Websites with info:

DOSbox Adlib sound regression?
3 page discussion of how CMS is broken in emulator - and requires specific editing of the DOS config file (that much be manually changed for each game?)

CMS Emulation Removed in DOSBox 0.62
Info that doesnt help - but mentions a problem- CMS Emulation Removed in DOSBox 0.62

http://devtidbits.com/category/dosbox/
"
Creative Music System / Game Blaster

* Motherboard = HP laptop dv6 6135dx
* Processor type and speed a8
* Amount and type of RAM 16gb
* Video board w/ RAM amount and type ATI
* Sound board -na
* Operating system -Win7 64bit
* Game name (and version, if applicable) -All Sierra titles - na
* Description of problem (be detailed: saying "it's jerky" doesn't help, saying "the player sprites seem to be jerky when I'm pressing any of the arrow keys" does) (zero sound when selecting Game Blaster)
* Reproducibility of problem (always, only once, always but only on a specific level, etc.) Always
* Sound mode used --- (tried various sound modes - see abobe)
* Video mode (Software, OpenGL, Direct3D, or Glide, and resolution)
* Version of emulator (for VDMSound, probably 2.0.4 or 2.1.0; for DOSBox, 0.58+) .72
* Steps already attempted to solve the problem - ( yes - Spent 6 hours over the past week searching for an answer all over...)

---------------Edit-------------

In the README - there is some not helpful (to me) info:

"- Creative CMS/Gameblaster
The is the first card released by Creative Labs(R). The default
configuration places it on address 220. It is disabled as default."

It does not tell me how to enable it...

Reply 1 of 5, by ripsaw8080

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Make sure you're using DOSBox 0.74, which is already a few years old. Just use the sbtype=gb setting for GameBlaster, and sbtype=sb1 or maybe sbtype=sb2 for certain games that can use SB + CMS. You can leave all other soundcard related settings at default.

Reply 2 of 5, by blombardo

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Thanks - I thought I just had to change the opl mode - I guess it also needs the sbtype changed. I'm now using the following settings:

sbtype=gb
sbbase=220
irq=7
dma=1
hdma=5
sbmixer=true
oplmode=cms
oplemu=default
oplrate=44100

This is working on the Sierra game Heros quest 1, laura bow, and a few others I've tried - but it is not working on Prince of Persia 1 and more importantly not working on Silpheed. (I never got to finish either of those games as a kid)

Silpheed has working sound effects, but the giant head doesnt speak at all and there is no music. (maybe audio was split into 2 or three systems back then on that old game?) I kind of remember the pc speaker doing the talking head and sound effects, and my game blaster making the cool music...

Any other settings you could suggest I look into?

And thanks a LOT for helping me get it partially working so far... Shame that Microsoft doesn't support you guys and your awesome work. You would think they of all people would want to promote backwards compatibility in their lousy windows 8.1 operating system... (I retch just thinking of it)

----------------------

EDIT:

Prince of Persia has no proper setup file - looked at my original game even... I used Dfend's advanced settings to change the sound from SB16 to GB. This was not a dos box problem.

-Going to try same fix on Silpheed now.

-Edit #2

Directions With Dfend Reloaded -
1 right click the game
2 select EDIT
3 find 'sound' tab on left - click 'soundblaster'
4 modify type to GB and modify OPL mode to CMS
-there are other options for volume control in there as well.

If I was using just DosBox I don't see how I could get it working, but I'm new at this program.

If anyone has anything to add I'll love to learn more.

THANKS a lot; I hope this helps someone else...

Now I don't have to buy a dinosaur machine to replay my childhood games... awesome

-Brian

Reply 3 of 5, by ripsaw8080

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In most cases you can keep the default oplmode=auto setting, where oplmode is automatically selected based on sbtype. It's easier that way because you only have to change the sbtype setting.

Reply 5 of 5, by blombardo

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Hello hal; (nice nick 🤣) = Yes I was still running .72 - I am (now) downloading the newest version as you and ripsaw suggested. I will put it inside my d-fend folder.

Maybe I will see something different then. Thank you for your reply.

(was up till 5am finishing hq1/qfg1... thanks for the help- enjoyed my weekend 🤣)

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