fsmith2003 wrote on 2020-05-05, 01:07:

I have a Pentium 4 build that I have placed XP and 98 on. I also have a FreeDoOS HDD that I have been experimenting with. The only issue I have yet to overcome is the fact that whenever I try playing a game that has CD audio, with the CD in the drive, it does not detect it and will not play the cd audio. I have tried with Blood and Quake. It is weird because it sees the CD just find within the command prompt and I am able to access it any other way as usual. Is there some sort of FreeDOS limitation that is causing this to happen? And yes my CD Audio cable is plugged in to the back of the drive.

IIRC and correct me if I'm wrong but the stock freedos cd driver isn't fully compatible with cdaudio in games and can cause either detection errors or other issues(games not seeing the CDROM at all) maybe try out some different cdrom drivers, see if that helps, also make sure your CD Audio is not muted via your sound card mixer.

I am using an Audigy 2 ZS with the patched Audigy 1 Dos drivers. Everything thing else works as it should sound wise. I have been trying out alternative cd drivers but so far no luck. I have also confirmed that the cd volume is up on the mixer. This one has stumped me.

Phils Computer Lab has a starter pack with a diffrent CD driver to fix that issue. The pack will also change the boot menu options unless you modify the install though.
https://www.philscomputerlab.com/ms-dos-starter-pack.html
Look for the FreeDOS version at the bottom.
I should note I think the version of UDVD2 that comes with FreeDOS 1.3RC2 fixes that issue as well.

Well I tried a different CD drive that had a headphone jack in front. And it does play the cd audio from the headphone jack! So if that is the case why is it not playing it through the cd audio cable running from the drive to the Audigy 2 ZS sound card in DOS but it does work in Windows? I was always under the impression that cd audio was analog and as long as the connections were made there was no reason it wouldn't work?

RetroGamer02, I am now using 1.3RC2. My setup files are similar to Phil's and still no go on the above situation.

About the sound card: it is possible that the cd-audio is muted by default and you need a DOS utility to enable cd-audio in DOS. Not all analog inputs are on by default on all cards as it increases the background noise level. Especially if you hear the cd-audio through the headphone port, it is more likely a problem with the sound card mixer than the cd-rom driver.

fsmith2003 wrote on 2020-05-05, 20:12:

Well I tried a different CD drive that had a headphone jack in front. And it does play the cd audio from the headphone jack! So if that is the case why is it not playing it through the cd audio cable running from the drive to the Audigy 2 ZS sound card in DOS but it does work in Windows? I was always under the impression that cd audio was analog and as long as the connections were made there was no reason it wouldn't work?

RetroGamer02, I am now using 1.3RC2. My setup files are similar to Phil's and still no go on the above situation.

Do you have any way of showing what your fdconfig.sys and autoexec.bat look like? Even a decent picture with a camera would suffice.

fsmith2003 wrote on 2020-05-05, 04:38:

I am using an Audigy 2 ZS with the patched Audigy 1 Dos drivers. Everything thing else works as it should sound wise. I have been trying out alternative cd drivers but so far no luck. I have also confirmed that the cd volume is up on the mixer. This one has stumped me.

Do the Audigy DOS drivers your using include a mixer application or are you referring to the Windows mixer ? It could just be that DOS drivers do not initialize/enable anything but the wave out .

I just checked and the DOS Audigy 1 driver set I have has a an executable named SBEMIXER.EXE which is presumably a DOS mixer application . Did you try using that ? I enclosed a set of those drivers in case your patched driver set does not include it . I do not know if will work on an Audigy 2 without patching .

darry wrote on 2020-05-05, 22:35:

Do the Audigy DOS drivers your using include a mixer application or are you referring to the Windows mixer ? It could just be that DOS drivers do not initialize/enable anything but the wave out .

Yes it includes a mixer called SBEMIXER. It has an option for CD Audio in there and it is all the way turned up. I have tried to even take a cable from the front headphone jack of the cd drive and plug that into the Line In jack of the Audigy 2 ZS. Still no go. There is no Line In option in the mixer program.

fsmith2003 wrote on 2020-05-05, 22:48:

darry wrote on 2020-05-05, 22:35:

Do the Audigy DOS drivers your using include a mixer application or are you referring to the Windows mixer ? It could just be that DOS drivers do not initialize/enable anything but the wave out .

Yes it includes a mixer called SBEMIXER. It has an option for CD Audio in there and it is all the way turned up. I have tried to even take a cable from the front headphone jack of the cd drive and plug that into the Line In jack of the Audigy 2 ZS. Still no go. There is no Line In option in the mixer program.

Well, you do have an Audigy 2 ZS and the mixer is part of the Audigy driver set, so there might be enough differences between the cards that the mixer does not work as expected . That said, have you tried all the inputs in the mixer app ? Maybe the CD audio in is mapped to something other than CD Audio .

EDIT : In the README of the patch it says routing/mixer are different between Audigy 1 and 2 , so thats what the patch addresses but probably not enough to make CD Audio in work .

How does it work?
- sets a new routing/mixer configuration in the DSP of Audigy 2
- sets some Audigy 2 specific output settings

Do you have any way of showing what your fdconfig.sys and autoexec.bat look like? Even a decent picture with a camera would suffice.

fsmith2003 wrote on 2020-05-06, 00:00:

Do you have any way of showing what your fdconfig.sys and autoexec.bat look like? Even a decent picture with a camera would suffice.

Screen Shot 2020-05-05 at 6.56.59 PM.png

I don't see a CDRom driver being loaded there in FDConfig at all also one is freedos auto bat I would like to see the normal one as it uses both.

See the VIDCDD.SYS specifically.

Have a look at mine here:

He is using DEVLOAD which allows you to load devices drivers in a batch file. He also said iirc that the drive does appear in DOS which it wouldn’t without a driver.

digistorm wrote on 2020-05-06, 07:01:

He is using DEVLOAD which allows you to load devices drivers in a batch file. He also said iirc that the drive does appear in DOS which it wouldn’t without a driver.

Correct. It would seem my issue is the fact that an Audigy 2 has to use a patched version of the Audigy 1 drivers to work at all in DOS. This patch does something beyond my knowledge that, from what I believe at least, changes the way signals are read to and from the card. This patch however either breaks or fails to implement a way to use CD Audio and Line In features within DOS. Knowing this, I would assume that there should be a way to make this work considering everything works fine and well from within Windows?

Also, I can now confirm that this is not just a FreeDOS issue but any form of DOS with this particular hardware setup.