Wowzers...learned a whole bunch of new stuff on this page! 😁

Dual sound card setups is pretty much the way to go with MS-DOS games. I've currently got 2 computers running a dual sound card setup:

-SoundBlaster Vibra16 CT2260 and Ensoniq Soundscape
-SoundBlaster 16 WavEffects CT4170 and Ensoniq AudioPCI(I will swap out the SoundBlaster 16 WavEffects for my OPTi 82C929A since this dual setup doesn't work properly or purchase a second SoundBlaster Pro 2.0 or SoundBlaster 16 with a discrete YMF262 or the CT1747 combo YMF262/ISA interface chip)

It's actually fun to mess around with a whole bunch of different sound cards with DOS games. They all sound different whereas today's sound cards all seem to sound the same.

Olivil, here is a quick guide of mine for installing the drivers for SB 16 / AWE32 and AWE64.

The drivers for the Sound Blaster 16 can be found on Creative's Support page: http://support.creative.com/welcome.aspx

Click on Sound Blaster > Bottom of page (If your product is not listed above, please click here) > Others > Archived Products > Sound Blaster 16

Bottom left in the Manual Selection Field, select “Drivers” and “DOS” and click on Submit.

Download “Creative PnP Configuration Manager (Rev 4)” and “Sound Blaster 16/SB32/AWE32 Basic Disk for DOS/Windows 3.1 Installation”.

You should now have CTCMBBS.EXE and SBBASIC.EXE. Copy them onto your Retro PC.

I like to organise my drivers into C:\DRIVERS. Go into your drivers directory and create two directories, one named CTCM and one names SBBASIC. Copy CTCMBBS.EXE into CTCM and SBBASIC.EXE into SBBASIC.

Run both executables and they will unpack themselves.

When that's done go into the SBBASIC folder and run INSTALL.EXE.

Newer cards need CTCM and in that case the installation program will ask you to point it to the CTCM files (in my case C:\DRIVERS\CTCM).

Older cards don't need CTCM and therefore won't ask for it.

The installation program will copy a few files and create entries into AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS and ask for a reboot once completed.

The default configuration will be Address: 220, IRQ: 5, Low DMA: 1, High DMA: 5, MIDI: 330

To change your mixer settings go into C:\SB16 and run MIXERSET.EXE.

I'm trying to force my AWE64's MIDI I/O to 300 instead of 330 but in vein.
Where should I do that? I tried editing the autoexec string
SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 H5 P330 E620 T6 to
SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 H5 P300 E620 T6 but that doesn't seem to work.
Where can I change this stuff and what is the best way to test it?

EDIT: Nevermind I got it

Once you installed the drivers (just like in my guide) you should have

C:\SB16 and C:\CTCM

Go into CTCM and run CTCU

This tool allows you to configure the resources. If you have a mouse, it's much easier, otherwise use TAB to navigate around.

It's important that you select configuration and change it to 1 (basically NOT 0). Then you can change IRQ and DMA and things like that.

There should also be a configuration that has no MIDI port at all!

It's hard to explain, but once you are inside CTCU it should be easy to figure out. If not, let me know.

You can test it through DIAGNOSE.EXE which is in C:\SB16

I never read any of your guide and that is exactly what I did haha

You have the RETRO DNA 🤣

Honestly, once you understand the basic MS-DOS structure, it's possibly the easiest OS to maintain.
After like 2 days of tinkering with it and rebuilding it from the ground up, it's fully functional and stable 😀
<3 MS-DOS

Okay as promised here are some recordings of the MI2 intro.
Please ignore any noise/static/hiss as its probably just the crappy onboard sound I'm using to record. Also I they aren't normalized so ignore any changes in volume as that's likely my fault rather than the devices.

Now I believe that MI2 actually has Roland MT32 support as opposed to General MIDI support so it will only sound optimal on Roland MT/CM type devices.

XR385, (DB60XG clone) wavetable daughterboard.
Roland sound Canvas SC55

The SC55 also has an MT32 compatible mode, which is accessed by holding the left instrument button while turning the power on, then pressing ALL to confirm. It still doesn't support Intelligent MIDI mode so its not 100% MT32 compatible. I think it just loads approximately similar sounding patches to the correct channels.
Roland SC55 in MT32 emulation mode

Finally we have a real MT32 first gen, on a Music Quest MPU401 Intelligent mode card.

Personally I think you can't beat the real MT32. But like I said, this isn't really a great comparison if you want to compare the SC55 and the XR385 because they are general MIDI devices which this game isn't specifically designed for.

Here's a song from Rise of the Triad, "Havana Smooth", which should give a better comparison of the GM devices since this game explicitly supports GM.
XR385 Wavetable DB Havana Smooth
Roland SC55 Havana Smooth

So for later games written with GM in mind I find that the XR385 gives a slightly more natural sound than the SC55, particularly on the electric bass guitar and trumpets. The SC55 has a bit of a staccato effect while the XR385 seems to be a bit smoother.

Anyway I expect this is very much down to personal preference so have a listen and pick the one you like best.

here's my thoughts on this sound matter...
to me, there's no point having an AWE64 and SB16 live side by side... they're not really that different architecturally... you can install the wavesynth upgrade drivers (download my driver compilation ISO) which makes your SB16 work the same as those disgusting new CT4170s (as far as the wavetable midi side of things)... you can get far better wavetable with a daughter card (DB50XG or SC55) than with the hardware portion of the AWE64 (which is really the same as AWE32)... if I were to run dual cards, it'll be either awe32 an sb pro 2.0 side by side, or an AWE32 and GUS side by side

also, if you wish to run pure DOS (no Win9x... just DOS/Win3.x combo), then I'd skip this plug and pray madness completely... you're working with memory management issues, and loading CTCM takes away precious resources! an older SB16 or AWE32 with real jumpers can get the job done and your games will have less issues running with it too... but really, given the machine that you got, I rather install 98SE on it and get the ability to play early directx/opengl games and also many of the DOS only games.

if you don't want to deal with any daughter cards and want to stick to a single card solution, ditch the awe64 and find yourself a CT3900 AWE32.. the last non-PnP/best AWE32 made IMO... later production ones have the CT1745A-S mixer chip, which is much quieter and gives audio quality almost as good as the AWE64 Gold (which early ones used the same mixer chip and later used the CT1745A-SCP)... has a real YMF262, a waveblaster connector (in case you get sick of the crappy creative wavetable), ASP chip (useless, but can add qsound if you have the resources to run it), and 2 30pin SIMM slots for cheap memory upgrade (used for soundfonts... which with good sets, can make the wavetable acceptable)... you can make the CT3900 equivalent to the AWE64 with the wavesynth drivers upgrade also.... I think all of the CT3900s have a 4.13 DSP (non-buggy), since it is really a 1995 card.

and since you just got a SB16 ASP, I can show you how to enable QSound with it... no one really cared back in the days but I did and I messed around with the creative drivers till I got it to work both in 98 and NT4. In DOS, there's nothing to do except loading csp.sys. It did make games sound better, and the experience was better in DOOM while running it through 98 too. Many games didn't use the chip and therefore many had no native QSound support, but with the driver hacks I made, I was able to get something better out of them.

to me, there's no point having an AWE64 and SB16 live side by side... they're not really that different architecturally... you can install the wavesynth upgrade drivers (download my driver compilation ISO) which makes your SB16 work the same as those disgusting new CT4170s (as far as the wavetable midi side of things)...

The point was to avoid the 'hanging note bug' that manifests when you use a MIDI device (wavetable daughterboard/external synth) and digital sound at the same time on the same card. By having 2 cards, and playing the MIDI off a seperate card you avoid this issue.

I've never heard of these wavesynth upgrade drivers, do they fix the hanging note bug?

TheMAN wrote:

I think all of the CT3900s have a 4.13 DSP (non-buggy) [...]

DSP v4.13 is buggy.

no it isn't... I have a WB2 on my CT3900 with 4.13 DSP... NO hanging notes at all!!!!
and a linux driver page confirms this too

I've got 2 cards with DSP v4.13 . A ct2800 sb16 and a ct3980 awe32. I've heard that they are buggy, but so far I had no problems. I've not tried the hexen demo though... I also use a nec xr385 db, connected to the ct 2800 in my pentium 1 pc. Up to now I had no problems with that, until 2 days ago, when I tried Larry 6 which has support for GM. It played awful. It just didn't play what it supposed to. Then I tried it on my 386 where I have the awe32, and played ok with the card. Then I connected the nec db to the awe32, and it played great. So I thought, I should have the awe32 on the pentium. I do that, and to my surprise, it plays like crap! So then I thought it has to be something else, and by adjusting some BIOS options related to the ISA BUS totally solved my problem. Now, when I use the nec db and I want to play something in mt-32 mode, I first play a midi file that remaps the instruments to simulate the mt-32, and I think it sounds a little better, but of course it isn't as good as the real mt-32.

I don't have hexen, but I have the heretic shareware that came with my wb2... played fine too

In the Wikipedia page (I know, not the best source for this kind of thing) it states that only DSP V4.11 and 4.12 are buggy. Anyway I'll see. The thing is I don't have memory problems at all... with:
- CD-ROM driver
- Mouse driver
- CTCM + AWEUTIL
- DOSKEY

I still have:
- 613K Free Conventional Memory
- 57K Free Upper Memory
- 0K Free Reserved Memory (I'm kind of new to this mem management, but I don't think that's a problem.)
- 61776K Free XMS Memory (I did upgrade my RAM to 64MB)
- 32768 Free EMS Memory
- Largest executable program size: 613K
- Largest free upper memory block: 23K

I never ran into any problems. But then again I don't know what is important, I know I've had problems with the Largest executable program size being too low (52XK) but all I did was load DOS and the drivers in the upper memory. Oh and I changed mouse driver.

EDIT: Thanks a bunch DonutKing! 😜

Have a look at this topic:
SB16 vs DBs (hanging / stuck / wrong notes in MIDI)

It is a discussion about which dsp versions are buggy with a table on third page.

4.13 does seem to be buggy but only on certain models of card.

TheMAN wrote:

no it isn't... I have a WB2 on my CT3900 with 4.13 DSP... NO hanging notes at all!!!!
and a linux driver page confirms this too

All three of my AWE32 cards (CT3900, CT3980, CT3990) have a v4.13 DSP and the hanging note bug occurs on them. There are several reports from other people as well (search VOGONS).

Anyway, let's not blow this hanging notes problem out of proportion. The bug doesn't show up on all games, and it's easily circumvented by using another sound card for either digital sound or MIDI.

Well I just found the hexen demo, and ran it on my pentium with the v4.13 sb16, and that annoying note appeared... But I have to admit that it is the first time I hear that on a game.

Which graphic card should I get if I wanted Quake and Build engine games to run at 640x480?
Preferably PCI (No AGP, one ISA left but I'd prefer to keep it)
I've user Snooper and my card right now identify as an ATI Mach64GT with 4MB, it's struggling at 640x480 in both Quake and Duke3D.