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SBLive 5.1, SB16 TSR Emulation and Windows 3.1

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First post, by TheDosPlace

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Hi everyone,

TL:DR; I have no ISA slots and emulate a SB16 with a PCI SBLive 5.1 TSR. Works in DOS, but not in Win3.1. Any ideas?

So here's the back story: I wanted to make a classic rig with the original intention of supporting as many generations of OS as possible: DOS, Win 3.1, 98SE and 2000 and during my research, found this board (MSI 694d).

Not having ever had a dual processor board, and hoping to load it up with the fastest PIIIs I could find, coupled with the fact that I wasn't too perturbed about very anchient DOS games, which depend on the fixed slow speed of the processor, I snapped up the board, with only minutes left on the eBay auction.

msi-big.jpg

Back in the day, in my mind, I remember buying a Sound Blaster AWE64 (PCI) card and it being amazing. Unfortunately, after a frantic search, I discovered that they were almost all ISA cards and the only ones that were ever PCI were OEM, very rare, and depended on SB-Link headers and weren't very good. I was mildy annoyed but, after a bit of reading, then decided to get an SB-Live 5.1 card (SB0100, EMU10K1) as it had DOS ISA emulation drivers. The pages I found said that the quality would be average, and that the TSR to emulate a SB16 ISA-Card required EMM386 to be loaded, but that it generally works.

So everything arrived, I built it all up and the DOS TSR I found (http://www.vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?file … =52&menustate=0) loads fine and everything I want working works as expected IN DOS: The emulation driver works, it has reasonable IRQ/base address settings (220/IRQ5), but it all grinds to a halt when I try Windows 3.1(1): it won't detect the card and won't accept any SB16 driver I have thrown at it.

So my questions are; am I missing anything? Yes, I know I'm an idiot for not getting a motherboard with ISA slots, and you're more than welcome to let me know this in your reply, but short of buying a completely new setup, is there ANYTHING I can do to try and get this thing working in 3.1? If not, can anyone recommend any PCI sound card that I can convince to get working in DOS/3.1?

--

Being the sceptic I am, I like to prepare for any the quick-fire "I've just googled that for you" answers that I might get. Please take my attitude and bitterness with a pinch of salt.

1) "Just select a SB2 or SBPRO driver."
- Been there. Read that forum post. Done that. According to http://www.flaterco.com/kb/audio/PCI/#t-audiopci, the DOS emulation varies between cards: T2 (Sbpro), T4 (SbPro2), or T6 (SB16). The one I use emulates a 16, and says so when I load the driver. Windows still can't find the card.
However, if there is another way to force this driver to load, please let me know!

2) "EMU10K1 never had any windows 3.1 drivers".
- I know. Read. Don't skim. I'm using a SB16 emulation driver. I want to get that working and not the SBLive itself.

3) "EMU10K1 has an open source driver project. Maybe you can compile a driver."
- This isn't an option to me as I don't have those kind of programming skills. If anyone has done it before, which I doubt, please send me a zip! 😉

4) "SB16 Emulation works in Bochs/Virtual Box! Just use this original SB16 driver <link> and select the Windows drivers during installation."
- Tried that. Doesn't work.

5) "Just get one of these: <link to isa card>".
- Read my post again.

Thank you for your help! I hope I can find someone, anyone out there with a suggestion!

^Dave from TheDosPlace
http://www.facebook.com/TheDosPlace

Reply 1 of 8, by gdjacobs

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I don't know the initialization performed by the SB16 Windows 3.1 vxd driver, but I would bet money it's more tightly tied to the hardware than any DOS program. Also, have you confirmed that SB16 support is working using something that can take advantage of native 16 bit support (such as MPXPLAY)?

All hail the Great Capacitor Brand Finder

Reply 2 of 8, by mrau

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what does not work without that driver? why do you need one? i don't remember having installed any windows 3.1 driver for my vibra16 for example; i would not expect any hardware driver to work with a software emulated device - hardware drivers touch hardware, they usually don't just call other software;

ps you did disable that onboard audio, right?

Reply 3 of 8, by NJRoadfan

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Try the Sound Blaster Pro drivers.

Otherwise the ESS Solo-1 PCI cards have native Windows 3.1x drivers and has native ESFM support for OPL3 music. The ESS Maestro series DOS TSR DOES work with the Windows 3.1x Sound Blaster Pro drivers, but the OPL emulation is beyond pathetic.

Reply 4 of 8, by Kamerat

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Tried the onboard sound? Should at least be MS-DOS compatible. The ESS Solo-1 is a nice card not requiring a TSR when running in DDMA mode.

DOS Sound Blaster compatibility: PCI sound cards vs. PCI chipsets
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Reply 5 of 8, by TheDosPlace

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Hello everyone. Sorry for the late response. Thank you for all the suggestions.

gdjacobs wrote:

..Also, have you confirmed that SB16 support is working using something that can take advantage of native 16 bit support (such as MPXPLAY)?

Unfortunately, it is. The SB16 emulation comes with SBEGO.EXE, which plays 8bit, 16bit and FM without problems. But just to make sure, I played some MC Hammer with MPXPLAY too.

mrau wrote:

what does not work without that driver? why do you need one? you did disable that onboard audio, right?

Nothing works without a driver. No WAVs. No MIDs. Nothing. In fact, every 'play' button I can find on any audio player is greyed out. The motherboard has no onboard sound, but still has a BIOS option, which is disabled.
As far as I can tell, Windows 3.1 had some inbuilt drivers (including SB1 and SB1.5), which may be why your Vibra worked out of the box, but for almost all other cards, drivers seem to be necessary.

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Windows 3.1 audio drivers
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Fair use/fair dealing exception
TheDosPlace wrote:
Being the sceptic I am, I like to prepare for any quick-fire "I've just googled that for you" answers that I might get. Please t […]
Show full quote

Being the sceptic I am, I like to prepare for any quick-fire "I've just googled that for you" answers that I might get. Please take my attitude and bitterness with a pinch of salt.

1) "Just select a SB2 or SBPRO driver."
- Been there. Read that forum post. Done that.

NJRoadfan wrote:

Try the Sound Blaster Pro drivers.

Thanks for the suggestion. In the likely event that I was being stupid, I've just tested this again. It still doesn't work. For completeness, here is the error:

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Sound Blaster Pro Divide by Zero or Overflow error
File license
Fair use/fair dealing exception
NJRoadfan wrote:

Otherwise the ESS Solo-1 PCI cards have native Windows 3.1x drivers and has native ESFM support for OPL3 music.

This sounds like it would be my only viable option if I can't get this damn thing working, although I can't be the only one in the world who has tried to get an emulated SoundBlaster working in 3.1, can I? I really feel like I'm on the edge of figuring this out if I can just get a nudge in the right direction.

----

In my original post I neglected to detail specifically which error messages appear when using the official SB16 driver from Creative:

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Cannot load the Creative SB16 Wave/Aux/Mixer/MidiPort driver. The driver file may be missing.
File license
Fair use/fair dealing exception
sb16b.jpg
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sb16b.jpg
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Cannot load the Creative Stereo Music Synthesizer driver. The driver file may be missing.
File license
Fair use/fair dealing exception

As you can see, Windows seems to list the SB16 drivers, but can't use them. I've tried selecting Adlib and SB1 + SB1.5 (these just lock up the system for a bit and cause a similar error).

Can anyone point me in the right direction? Is there not some sort of setting I can fiddle with in the system.ini or win.ini files to convince them to load properly?

Thank you again for your help and suggestions.

Dave

^Dave from TheDosPlace
http://www.facebook.com/TheDosPlace

Reply 6 of 8, by chinny22

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Following post lists PCI cards with 3.x drivers
Any PCI sound cards that work on Win-OS/2?
But don't give up, I like this idea!
Win3x definitely needs drivers. Maybe if you install Windows in dosbox which also emulates SB16, then copy the windows folder to this PC you may get round whatever the installer is getting hung up on?

Reply 7 of 8, by TheDosPlace

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chinny22 wrote:

Maybe if you install Windows in dosbox which also emulates SB16, then copy the windows folder to this PC you may get round whatever the installer is getting hung up on?

Now THAT, my fine sir, is a good idea! I'll have a go an post back!

Thank you!

^Dave from TheDosPlace
http://www.facebook.com/TheDosPlace

Reply 8 of 8, by TheDosPlace

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Hello,

Thanks again to everyone who made suggestions on this. I solved the problem by completely replacing the motherboard and buying a SB16 😀 Now it works!

To anyone wanting to play with SB16 emulation and Windows 3.11 in the future.... I advise that you don't! 😘

Cheers

Dave

^Dave from TheDosPlace
http://www.facebook.com/TheDosPlace

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