No, don't use PCI sound cards for old DOS computers.

Unfortunately he's right. There's no easy way to get PCI audio in DOS. Search the forum for "SB-Link" and "Distributed DMA". If your computer doesn't support these things then there's nothing you can do. And even if it does, I understand there are memory/configuration/emulation issues that are a headache to sort out. So either use DOSBox or get a computer with an ISA slot.

Yup. For DOS you definitely want an ISA sound card. For early Windows games ISA sound card are also fine, for all other Windows games I recommend going with a PCI card.

If you want both then it will be a compromise one way or another. E.g. great for DOS with an ISA card but not the latest EAX or A3D under Windows. And with a PCI card Windows games will work great bot DOS compatibility can be challenging.

Do you know more about the specific hardware specs for these machines? That would be very helpful in determining what kinds of upgrades they may or may not need, and what operating systems are ideal.

2fort5r wrote:

Unfortunately he's right. There's no easy way to get PCI audio in DOS. Search the forum for "SB-Link" and "Distributed DMA". If your computer doesn't support these things then there's nothing you can do. And even if it does, I understand there are memory/configuration/emulation issues that are a headache to sort out. So either use DOSBox or get a computer with an ISA slot.

windows 98 can play dos games. my laptop has an EMU 408 compatible card that lets play dos games with sound. just not awesome sound like the cards such as awe32and 64 etc etc.

hi guys, sorry for the slow reply. I am going to get the pc's today or tomorrow. I'll find out the specs soon.

How exciting, can't wait to see what goodies you come up with! Is there such a term as retro-pr0n?

Well, I got there and I was dissapointed, even more so when I got home. They were just 2 old crt monitors, and they let them sit out in the rain for the night. When I got them home, neither worked. Oh well. I'll have to keep looking.

ahendricks18 wrote:

Well, I got there and I was dissapointed, even more so when I got home. They were just 2 old crt monitors, and they let them sit out in the rain for the night. When I got them home, neither worked. Oh well. I'll have to keep looking.

That was mildly amusing. But hope you can find a box to do what you want.

What are you looking for? 386, 486, P1, P2?

The PCI creative ensoniq card you have will work in strait dos, I have one and used the audiopci.zip driver package from Vogons. It worked in most games but wasn't the same as an ISA card. I ended up buying a SB 16 Vibra because I wanted sound in Windows 3.11 and the audiopci drivers only worked in DOS.

Good luck.

You can make the equivalent of a DOS era machine by getting a 95/98 era system, installing DOS and using icache.exe to shut off the cache which will slow it way down. My K6-2-500 slow down to 486 speeds with the cache disabled according to speedsys and WinTune2.0