Half-Saint wrote:

2) when dual booting DOS and Windows98SE, do they have to be on separate partitions?

Dual booting? What is the difference between DOS and Windows 4.x? Isn't the first one part of the second one? 😀

Half-Saint wrote:

3) if yes, how does this work?

Edit MSDOS.SYS, add BootGUI=0, and start Windows the traditional way by entering "win" when you need it.

Half-Saint wrote:

4) would I benefit from using FreeDOS and is it compatible with DOS 6.22?

It is particularly useful for preparing FAT32 partitions.

I think the problem with sound in X-Wing CD is due to DOS 7. I originally installed Windows 98SE from scratch, so didn't come with DOS 6.22.

Half-Saint wrote:

I think the problem with sound in X-Wing CD is due to DOS 7. I originally installed Windows 98SE from scratch, so didn't come with DOS 6.22.

For this reason I told you to not start Windows.

Most people do not realize that when they use BootGUI=1 (the default) and exit from Windows to DOS, a small portion of Windows stays resident. Which causes all kinds of issues, that you do not have if you do not start Windows in the first place.

retardware wrote:

Half-Saint wrote:

I think the problem with sound in X-Wing CD is due to DOS 7. I originally installed Windows 98SE from scratch, so didn't come with DOS 6.22.

For this reason I told you to not start Windows.

Most people do not realize that when they use BootGUI=1 (the default) and exit from Windows to DOS, a small portion of Windows stays resident. Which causes all kinds of issues, that you do not have if you do not start Windows in the first place.

I started DOS by bashing F8 during startup. Though that would do the trick.

I'm now starting to get pissed off. To test my hypothesis, I booted off a compact flash card which only contains DOS 6.22. Now I can't even run the installer off the CD because I constantly get "CDR101: Not ready reading drive D" error. Mind you, I can do a "dir" on D: just fine. I'm using the OAKCDROM.SYS driver and MSCDEX.

EDIT: replaced OAKCDROM with TRICD.SYS and at least the CD is now readable. However, I still can't get music to work in X-Wing. All I get it sound effects. I did run CTCM and have the SET BLASTER set.

Half-Saint wrote:

"CDR101: Not ready reading drive D"

Looks like you have set a different driver name than "CDR101" in the DOS 6.2 startup files.

retardware wrote:

Half-Saint wrote:

"CDR101: Not ready reading drive D"

Looks like you have set a different driver name than "CDR101" in the DOS 6.2 startup files.

Yeah, fixed that ( see above). Now struggling with music in X-Wing CD again 😀

Tricd? Never heard of.
Why don't you just edit the oakcdrom and mscdex entries in the startup utilities instead of using an exotic driver of unknown compatibility?

retardware wrote:

Tricd? Never heard of.
Why don't you just edit the oakcdrom and mscdex entries in the startup utilities instead of using an exotic driver of unknown compatibility?

For some reason OAKCDROM.SYS that I got off an OPTI930 floppy defaults to 12345678 instead of MSCD000. At least TRICD.SYS defaults to MSCD000 and works fine 😀 It was supplied with a bunch of other drivers on a drivers floppy for Intel FX/HX/VX motherboards. It works so for the moment I'm fine. I'd like to sort out my sound card issues first.

I downloaded AWE64 Value DOS drivers from creative website and still no luck. I have CTSB16.SYS and CTMMSYS.SYS in CONFIG.SYS. Nothing works!!!

AWEUTIL also fails to initialize for some reason.

EDIT: completed another piece of the puzzle. Added CTCM in AUTOEXEC.BAT and now at least AWEUTIL /s works. Can't do AWEUTIL /EM:GM because it fails to load SYNTHGM.SBK which appears to be missing. Music in X-Wing still doesn't work....

Does the game use CD audio for music? Maybe you need a cable to connect the CD drive to the sound card.

Use VIDE-CDD.SYS and SHSUCDX.EXE for CD drivers.
Use CTCM in AUTOEXEC.BAT (not CONFIG.SYS) and then AWEUTIL to initialize the AWE64. Edit: note that you can do this cleanly without anything getting installed into memory; i.e. a straight initialization with no TSRs, unless you want GM support that is. But the AWE64 GM emulation in DOS has always been straight incompatible, unstable trash.

Have DOS on a separate partition. You can use either MS-DOS 6.22 or the modified 9x DOS, i.e. "MS-DOS 7.1", which will get you FAT32 support and is modified to work as a standalone DOS (works the same as 6.22 in all cases except with FAT32 support). You can get it from the "China DOS Union" boot disk.

Use a boot manager that loads itself into the MBR. I've attached a zip file with the one that I use, which works great and is spartan and lightweight.

Note that having DOS on a separate partition is especially powerful because it separates your concerns with regard to Win9x vs DOS; you can have all your DOS boot menu settings on the DOS partition without having to worry about them on the 9x side, and 9x can screw around with all of its DOS stuff all it wants and never mess anything up with your main DOS setup.

Basically 9x and DOS are so integrated with each other, that if you want to use pure DOS it's much cleaner and neater to have a separate partition for that, and you can be absolutely, positively certain that nothing Windows 98 does will ever mess up your DOS setup (which is the biggest thing for me). Plus you can install Windows 3.1 on that partition if you want.

Half-Saint wrote:

EDIT: completed another piece of the puzzle. Added CTCM in AUTOEXEC.BAT and now at least AWEUTIL /s works. Can't do AWEUTIL /EM:GM because it fails to load SYNTHGM.SBK which appears to be missing. Music in X-Wing still doesn't work....

So download the AWE64 CD off of vogonsdrivers and get the needed file from there. It would also probably be a good idea to just install all of the AWE64 stuff from the install CD and then update the Windows drivers with the updated drivers from Creative Labs. that should give you everything you need.

keenmaster486 wrote:

Have DOS on a separate partition. You can use either MS-DOS 6.22 or the modified 9x DOS, i.e. "MS-DOS 7.1", which will get you FAT32 support and is modified to work as a standalone DOS (works the same as 6.22 in all cases except with FAT32 support). You can get it from the "China DOS Union" boot disk.

Meh. I see no need for it. Once you have Win9x and its pure DOS mode, there is nothing useful in 6.22 anymore.

keenmaster486 wrote:

Note that having DOS on a separate partition is especially powerful because it separates your concerns with regard to Win9x vs DOS; you can have all your DOS boot menu settings on the DOS partition without having to worry about them on the 9x side, and 9x can screw around with all of its DOS stuff all it wants and never mess anything up with your main DOS setup.

Indeed as you said, the only way to achieve that is to use a third-party boot manager. Otherwise you still need the Win9x boot files on the same partition. So you save some possible hassle down the road by having a more complicated setup to begin with.

keenmaster486 wrote:

Basically 9x and DOS are so integrated with each other, that if you want to use pure DOS it's much cleaner and neater to have a separate partition for that, and you can be absolutely, positively certain that nothing Windows 98 does will ever mess up your DOS setup (which is the biggest thing for me). Plus you can install Windows 3.1 on that partition if you want.

Dunno whats "much cleaner and neater" than just having Win9x boot into pure DOS mode, and you can type WIN to run Windows. Win9x rarely touches DOS startup files unless you tell it,or unless you install some Win9x app/driver that has a DOS module (usually audio drivers). Besides these are just plain text files anyways that you can just re-edit or backup and restore.

I've been running nothing but Win98 SE on my DOS setup for years, and never missed DOS 6.22, never wished that I had any dual-boot at all.