VOGONS


First post, by someperson42

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I've been trying to figure out if there's a way to mount bin/cue images such that DOS programs can play the audio tracks. The machine in question is running Windows 98SE, and I've tried various programs like Daemon Tools, but while Windows programs can play the audio tracks just fine when mounted this way, DOS programs at best can see the number of tracks, and produce errors when trying to play anything. Can anyone think of a solution? I'd like to be able to play these games without having to deal with physical discs.

Reply 1 of 19, by Dominus

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It should work fine when you use the imgmount command of dosbox (you mount the cue).
Unless it's a mac/iso hybrid. Then you probably need a SVN built of Dosbox

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Reply 2 of 19, by someperson42

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Dominus wrote:

It should work fine when you use the imgmount command of dosbox (you mount the cue).
Unless it's a mac/iso hybrid. Then you probably need a SVN built of Dosbox

Except I'm not using DOSBox. I'm using an actual old machine.

Reply 3 of 19, by elianda

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I guess you use two sound cards? One for analog audio of daemon tools from the virtual cd within windows and another one for the dos game with no windows driver for it installed.
If not it's just normal that it will not work, since you would have one sound card and daemon tools and the dos game try to use it at the same time -> *poof*

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Reply 4 of 19, by someperson42

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elianda wrote:

I guess you use two sound cards? One for analog audio of daemon tools from the virtual cd within windows and another one for the dos game with no windows driver for it installed.
If not it's just normal that it will not work, since you would have one sound card and daemon tools and the dos game try to use it at the same time -> *poof*

This wouldn't explain why simple DOS CD players wouldn't work though. They should have no need to access the sound card.

Reply 5 of 19, by Dominus

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Sorry, I misunderstood 😉

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Reply 6 of 19, by Malik

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You said you are running in an actual machine. What program are you using for the CD-ROM emulator in Dos?

If not, are you running from within Win98's Dos box, and not pure Dos? Or from booting into pure MS-DOS mode?

What is (or are) the soundcard(s) installed?

And how is the Dos utilizing the Dos drivers for the sound card?

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Reply 7 of 19, by someperson42

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Malik wrote:

You said you are running in an actual machine. What program are you using for the CD-ROM emulator in Dos?

If not, are you running from within Win98's Dos box, and not pure Dos? Or from booting into pure MS-DOS mode?

I'm running the DOS programs in Windows 98. A pure DOS solution would be even nicer, but I'm only aware of one program that can even mount images in pure DOS, and it only supports the ISO format, so no CD audio. DOS programs are clearly able to access drives emulated in Windows to some extent, as files can be accessed, sometimes the eject function works, and the number of tracks can sometimes be detected, but I have yet to find a way to make the audio tracks playable.

Malik wrote:

What is (or are) the soundcard(s) installed?

And how is the Dos utilizing the Dos drivers for the sound card?

The sound card is an Aztech Sound Galaxy Washington 16.

EDIT: I have now realized that the DOS CD player I've been using to test it is buggy. The music does indeed work in DOS programs when the image is mounted in Daemon Tools, and my problems with games appears to be caused by two things both trying to access the sound card. If anyone has an idea for a solution to this, I'd love to hear it, but I doubt there's much that can be done.

Reply 9 of 19, by someperson42

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Malik wrote:

Perhaps, try with a different soundcard?

I tried several different sound cards earlier, and none of them resolved the conflict. However, I have found that I can make it work with two sound cards installed, per elianda's suggestion above.

I have the Aztech card set to A220 I5 D1, with FM music and MIDI enabled. The game port is disabled. Driver for Windows is installed.
The other card is a Sound Blaster 16, set to A240 I5 D0, with FM music disabled. Windows doesn't know about it because I haven't installed the driver.

With this configuration, I can have the DOS game output the sound effects to the SB16, while Daemon Tools plays the CD audio through the Aztech.

Unfortunately, playing the music degrades performance significantly on my hardware because of my relatively slow CPU. This brings me to my next thread.

Reply 12 of 19, by RoberMC

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Sorry to resurrect such an old thread, i had the same issue, i found this thread, and i think i have the definitive answer, so Riiiise from the grave!

I managed to have DOS games with Audio CD tracks working under Windows 98 using Daemon Tools and a single sound card.

After trying lots of ISA soundcards and drivers for each (VXD and WDM), none of them was able to acomplish that, Creatives, ESS, YMFs etc. Then i tried some PCI cards, and "Eureka!"

The Yamaha YMF724 and 744 with VXD drivers v.1040 under Windows 98 SE are able to play Audio CD tracks invoked by Dos games while still playing sounds effects. No special configuration needed.

This soundcards have authentic Yamaha Opl3, and have excelent pure Dos compatibility if you happen to have a compatible motherboard that does not need the nasty dsdma TSR from yamaha drivers to make it work. It also have neat Win98 Dos Box features like the XG synt, and 3D enhancements.

Tonight i will try the ESS PCI family of cards to see if they can accomplish the same.

Reply 13 of 19, by SirNickity

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I haven't looked into this issue much, since it was just an accepted fact of life that audio applications had exclusive use of the sound card under 9x. Your solution sounds about right though. Windows didn't implement an audio framework with built-in mixer until ... was it XP? I'm not sure 2K had that feature yet. However, some audio drivers would allow multiple open streams, particularly if there was support for mixing in hardware. SB Live! might support this, will have to try it at some point -- I have one in my ME box, which AFAIK doesn't mix in software.

Reply 14 of 19, by RoberMC

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I discarded completely the SB Live! and newer Creative cards because they sound awful in pure DOS games, and this is about running DOS games using virtual CD drives. It will be nice to know if it works or not anyway, but i would prefer using two sound cards than suffering the Live! OPL3 emulation in all non CD audio games 😉

Reply 15 of 19, by henryVK

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RoberMC wrote on 2020-02-26, 17:47:
Sorry to resurrect such an old thread, i had the same issue, i found this thread, and i think i have the definitive answer, so R […]
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Sorry to resurrect such an old thread, i had the same issue, i found this thread, and i think i have the definitive answer, so Riiiise from the grave!

I managed to have DOS games with Audio CD tracks working under Windows 98 using Daemon Tools and a single sound card.

After trying lots of ISA soundcards and drivers for each (VXD and WDM), none of them was able to acomplish that, Creatives, ESS, YMFs etc. Then i tried some PCI cards, and "Eureka!"

The Yamaha YMF724 and 744 with VXD drivers v.1040 under Windows 98 SE are able to play Audio CD tracks invoked by Dos games while still playing sounds effects. No special configuration needed.

This soundcards have authentic Yamaha Opl3, and have excelent pure Dos compatibility if you happen to have a compatible motherboard that does not need the nasty dsdma TSR from yamaha drivers to make it work. It also have neat Win98 Dos Box features like the XG synt, and 3D enhancements.

Tonight i will try the ESS PCI family of cards to see if they can accomplish the same.

Pretty sure I ran CD-Audio and soundeffects off Daemon Tools on a Toshiba Tecra 510CDT laptop. That's a Crystal 4232 with a YMF262 running the WDM drivers. The VxD drivers definitely did not work!

I kept coming back to this issue but I never saw any reference anywhere that this could be solved using VxD drivers. That's really cool! I'll be looking for a PCI card with one of those chipsets.

Reply 16 of 19, by RoberMC

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Finally I tried the ESS Solo-1 (PCI ESS1938s), and it cannot do it.

@henryVK The Crystal CS4232 is an ISA card, and if it is able to do this, that would be highly unexpected. Are you talking about DOS games with Audio CD Tracks played using Daemon Tools under Windows 98, or just Windows 98 games with Audio CD tracks?.

Reply 17 of 19, by SirNickity

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I've just found out about the CS4232, as it's on an OEM system motherboard that I got. From what (little) I have seen so far, I think it has wavetable support, so it might have a wave engine capable of playing multiple streams.

Reply 18 of 19, by gdjacobs

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SirNickity wrote on 2020-02-29, 02:07:

I've just found out about the CS4232, as it's on an OEM system motherboard that I got. From what (little) I have seen so far, I think it has wavetable support, so it might have a wave engine capable of playing multiple streams.

CS4232 doesn't have wavetable onboard. It would have to be included with another chip.

All hail the Great Capacitor Brand Finder

Reply 19 of 19, by henryVK

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RoberMC wrote on 2020-02-27, 18:19:

Finally I tried the ESS Solo-1 (PCI ESS1938s), and it cannot do it.

@henryVK The Crystal CS4232 is an ISA card, and if it is able to do this, that would be highly unexpected. Are you talking about DOS games with Audio CD Tracks played using Daemon Tools under Windows 98, or just Windows 98 games with Audio CD tracks?.

Yeah, it was the CD version of Alone In The Dark 1. I've sold the laptop since, so I can't reconfirm this now.