Trying to get ISA sound cards working, need some advice (which game(s) support Sound Blaster Pro?) \ VOGONS

Trying to get ISA sound cards working, need some advice (which game(s) support Sound Blaster Pro?)

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First post, by VioletGiraffe

Posted on 2019-10-04, 10:54

VioletGiraffe Offline

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Just received an order of two ISA sound cards the other day (second-hand, ofc), and I have a trouble setting them up. I'm starting to think I'm doing something wrong. I'm using The Secret Of Monkey Island for testing, and when I run it with "monkey a" command, I get no sound out of the card's line/speaker out. I have an amp and a pair of speakers connected so it's not an issue of trying to drive an ampless speaker from line out.

The "a" switch is said to select Sound Blaster mode, but my card is claimed to support Sound Blaster Pro and WSS mode (not sure what that is), not just Sound Blaster. Is there a different switch for the Pro mode? I have failed to find a list of command line options for monkey.exe.
My card is exactly the same as this one: http://www.vcfed.org/forum/showthread.php?394 … ound-Card-Cheap!
I have downloaded and tried these drivers: http://www.vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?file … &menustate=36,0

The setup.exe there is for Windows only ("Cannot be run in DOS mode"), but Sndtune.exe works and shows something like: "82C931 detected... Configuration OK!". oddly, though, readme says that sndtune also supports "/?" switch to display command line options, and on first launch it should bring up a configuration utility, but no. Whatever command line switch I try, it always prints "OK!" and quits.

So, I guess, my questions are:
1) Do I need different drivers?
2) Do I need a different mokey.exe command line option(s) for it to select my card?
3) Do I need a different, more reliable game to test the card with?
4) Is this version of the game even supposed to have sound, apart from the internal speaker which does work? Screenshot attached. I got it from one of the popular abandonware websites.

My AUTOEXEC.BAT:

1LH /L:0;1,45456 /S C:\DOS\SMARTDRV.EXE /X
2@ECHO OFF
3PROMPT $p$g
4PATH C:\DOS
5SET TEMP=C:\DOS
6C:\NC\NC.exe

CONFIG.SYS:

1DEVICE=C:\DOS\HIMEM.SYS
2DEVICE=C:\DOS\EMM386.EXE RAM
3BUFFERS=15,0
4FILES=30
5DOS=UMB
6LASTDRIVE=E
7FCBS=4,0
8DEVICEHIGH /L:1,12048 =C:\DOS\SETVER.EXE
9DOS=HIGH

Any advice will be highly appreciated.
Almost forgot: I set the PnP jumper to Enable and IDE jumper to Disable on the card, is it correct? And I inserted it into the long slot as it fits, not in a shorter ISA slot. (I don't know the right names for these two types of slots and what is different between them, going to google it now).

Reply 1 of 22, by Baoran

Posted on 2019-10-04, 12:57

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I dont know if it makes a difference because I always have it there, but I see you dont have the blaster variable set in autoexec.bat
https://retronn.de/imports/soundblaster_config_guide.html

Reply 2 of 22, by VioletGiraffe

Posted on 2019-10-04, 13:06

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Thanks! Is your card a true SB, or just compatible? That guide says to use CTCM.EXE for configuring fully PnP cards (which mine is), but obviously I don't have that executable as it's not a real SB card.

Reply 3 of 22, by Baoran

Posted on 2019-10-04, 13:18

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VioletGiraffe wrote:
Thanks! Is your card a true SB, or just compatible? That guide says to use CTCM.EXE for configuring fully PnP cards (which mine is), but obviously I don't have that executable as it's not a real SB card.

I don't know which card you have so I don't know how it is configured exactly. The blaster variable is for the software that you run if it has been programmed to check blaster variable for which address, irq and dma it needs to use to find sound blaster compatible card.

Reply 4 of 22, by VioletGiraffe

Posted on 2019-10-04, 13:22

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Baoran wrote:
The blaster variable is for the software that you run if it has been programmed to check blaster variable for which address, irq and dma it needs to use to find sound blaster compatible card.

That I understand, but the variable is not supposed to be set by hand if the card is fully PnP-compatible, if I'm reading it right. My exact card is linked in the question, by the way (http://www.vcfed.org/forum/showthread.php?394 … ound-Card-Cheap).

Reply 5 of 22, by Baoran

Posted on 2019-10-04, 14:09

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I haven't had that exact opti model but I remember having to use software to switch between sound blaster and WSS modes in one opti card I had.

Reply 6 of 22, by cyclone3d

Posted on 2019-10-04, 14:13

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You must run the DOS configuration utility for that OPTi931 based card before it will work.

See here for info:
https://flaterco.com/kb/audio/ISA/index.html#OPTi931

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Reply 7 of 22, by Grzyb

Posted on 2019-10-04, 14:23

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You need to run that SETUP.EXE under Windows 3.1 to properly install the software.
It should install SNDINIT.EXE, which needs to be added to AUTOEXEC.BAT to initialize the card on boot.

Żywotwór planetarny, jego gnijące błoto, jest świtem egzystencji, fazą wstępną, i wyłoni się z krwawych ciastomózgowych miedź miłująca...

Reply 8 of 22, by VioletGiraffe

Posted on 2019-10-04, 16:30

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Grzyb wrote:
You need to run that SETUP.EXE under Windows 3.1 to properly install the software.

Thanks, but I don't have Win 3.1 to install the software from! Is it not possible to get it working in MS-DOS 6.22?
I tried running SNDINIT.EXE manually and it says "OK", but as you know that's not enough.

Reply 9 of 22, by cyclone3d

Posted on 2019-10-04, 16:43

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VioletGiraffe wrote:
Grzyb wrote:
You need to run that SETUP.EXE under Windows 3.1 to properly install the software.

Thanks, but I don't have Win 3.1 to install the software from! Is it not possible to get it working in MS-DOS 6.22?
I tried running SNDINIT.EXE manually and it says "OK", but as you know that's not enough.

I'll look and see if I can find an already extracted version of the driver and if not, I'll extract it since you really don't need the installer at all as long as you have the files.

A bunch of companies used to do that back in the day... make you run an installer in Win3.x to extract the DOS drivers.. so dumb and angered me even back then.

I have at least one OPTi931 based card so I can test it as well.

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Reply 10 of 22, by VioletGiraffe

Posted on 2019-10-04, 17:20

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cyclone3d wrote:

I'll look and see if I can find an already extracted version of the driver and if not, I'll extract it since you really don't need the installer at all as long as you have the files.

Thank you, I will very highly appreciate that and toast to your health! And we could upload the drivers to Vogons archive, I presume?
I would install Windows 3.1 if the solution is a s simple as that, but I can't at the point since I don't have the disk space. I have IDE to flash adapters on the way, but still ways off.

Last edited by VioletGiraffe on 2019-10-04, 17:41. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 11 of 22, by cyclone3d

Posted on 2019-10-04, 17:29

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Ok, try this DOS driver installer:

Filename: opti_82c931_msdos.zip
File size: 303.52 KiB
Downloads: 55 downloads
File license: Fair use/fair dealing exception

1. Extract files to floppy disk
2. Boot to DOS or Windows 9x.
3. If in DOS, just go to drive A: and then type install.bat. If in Win9x, open up a DOS command prompt and go to drive A: and type install.bat.

This should set up everything for you and hopefully it will just work.

If not, I'll do testing on my end.

Yamaha modified setupds and drivers
Yamaha XG repository
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Aopen AW744L II SB-LINK

Reply 12 of 22, by VioletGiraffe

Posted on 2019-10-04, 17:48

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What did you set SOUND16 variable to?
P. S. According to this, it should be set to the root of the drivers dir, but then sndinit complains: "No language file found, setup aborted."

Reply 13 of 22, by cyclone3d

Posted on 2019-10-04, 21:22

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I didn't make that install. The batch file should set it to the drivers folder I think.

I'll test on my end here. Maybe that driver package isn't complete. Looked to me like it may have been a user made install.

Yamaha modified setupds and drivers
Yamaha XG repository
YMF7x4 Guide
Aopen AW744L II SB-LINK

Reply 14 of 22, by VioletGiraffe

Posted on 2019-10-04, 21:33

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It sure wants that language file!

Reply 15 of 22, by VioletGiraffe

Posted on 2019-10-05, 18:21

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I think the version of The Secret of Monkey Island I have is severely trimmed down and isn't supposed to have sound besides the internal speaker. Which game or application would you recommend for testing if a sound card works? Specifically, an SB Pro compatible card and an OPL3 sound card?

Reply 16 of 22, by cyclone3d

Posted on 2019-10-05, 19:30

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I went through my collection last night. I have 6 different OPTi931 based cards. 3 without onboard wavetable and 3 with onboard wavetable.

I'll test with that DOS driver install. If that doesn't work, I'll swap out the drive and install Win3.1 and then do the regular install from there. That way I should be able to get the default config that the regular installer makes.

There really should also be a DOS configuration program that let's you change the configuration.. but that is based on my experience with the OPTi930.

Yamaha modified setupds and drivers
Yamaha XG repository
YMF7x4 Guide
Aopen AW744L II SB-LINK

Reply 17 of 22, by VioletGiraffe

Posted on 2019-10-05, 19:41

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cyclone3d wrote:

I'll test with that DOS driver install. If that doesn't work, I'll swap out the drive and install Win3.1 and then do the regular install from there. That way I should be able to get the default config that the regular installer makes.

Thanks, I would very much appreciate that. I can't even run Win 3.1 or 95/98 on a virtual machine because my main PC has virtualization problems (or, rather, Oracle Virtual Box and VMware have problems with Windows hypervisor which I need for other things to work here).

Reply 18 of 22, by cyclone3d

Posted on 2019-10-05, 19:51

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Ok, so it worked right away for me... but I did comment out the CDROM driver line in config.sys that it put in there.

What does your config.sys and autoexec.bat files look like now?

I think we may just need to edit them a bit to make it work.

Also, if you run sndinit it will bring up the configuration program.

Yamaha modified setupds and drivers
Yamaha XG repository
YMF7x4 Guide
Aopen AW744L II SB-LINK

Reply 19 of 22, by VioletGiraffe

Posted on 2019-10-05, 20:07

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cyclone3d wrote:
Ok, so it worked right away for me... but I did comment out the CDROM driver line in config.sys that it put in there. […]
Show full quote
Ok, so it worked right away for me... but I did comment out the CDROM driver line in config.sys that it put in there.

What does your config.sys and autoexec.bat files look like now?

I think we may just need to edit them a bit to make it work.

Also, if you run sndinit it will bring up the configuration program.

My config and autoexec files look the same as posted in the opening post except I added the SOUND16 variable that is set to the folder where I placed the contents of the driver package you gave me yesterday.
sndinit doesn't bring up anything - as I explained, it just says: "Language file not found. Program aborted." and quits. I assume there are necessary bits which you have but which were not included in that package.

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