VOGONS


First post, by SpectreVR

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I've been having trouble with my Creative AudioPCI, as it has no OPL sound capability: Ensoniq / Creative AudioPCI

Does anyone have previous experience building a DOS + Win98 (or 95) machine that allowed both eras of games to be played? Or am I just better off getting separate machines? Thus far, rebooting in DOS mode appears to work well (sans the sound errors when booting and lack of anything but PC speaker sound in DOS games). Windows 98 games (NFS III, etc) make sound just fine.

Thoughts?

Reply 1 of 8, by schmatzler

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I have an an Opti 89C929 based soundcard - a Mad16 Pro.

It has Windows 95 drivers that also work on Windows 98SE and comes with official DOS drivers that work in almost every game. JKnipperts has also made additional DOS drivers to enhance the compatibility (for stereo in Descent 2 for example).

https://github.com/JKnipperts/OPTi82c929_Driver

All in all, it's a pretty good soundcard for both DOS and Windows. It will NOT do EAX and A3D though. For that purpose, I got myself an Audigy 2 ZS. In my opinion, there's not a single sound card that can handle everything from both worlds to the full potential.

"Windows 98's natural state is locked up"

Reply 2 of 8, by shiva2004

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With an ISA slot available I'll put a SB16 and be done, it's not the best option quality wise but the combination of compatibility, good enough sound and availability is very hard to beat.

Reply 3 of 8, by appiah4

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There are literally dozens of options if you have an ISA slot.

Retronautics: A digital gallery of my retro computers, hardware and projects.

Reply 5 of 8, by dr_st

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SpectreVR wrote:

Does anyone have previous experience building a DOS + Win98 (or 95) machine that allowed both eras of games to be played?

It's actually a pretty common thing. Win9x up to 98SE is built on top of a DOS system and has a pure DOS mode which is compatible with pretty much everything.

The first system mentioned in this thread is the one I've been using for this purpose, for nearly two decades.

shiva2004 wrote:

With an ISA slot available I'll put a SB16 and be done, it's not the best option quality wise but the combination of compatibility, good enough sound and availability is very hard to beat.

For a single card in a combined DOS/Win9x setup, I'd actually recommend an AWE card unless one is specifically looking for a Yamaha OPL SB16. AWE32/64 support wavetable music in many DOS games (partial list), and General MIDI for DOS games in Windows. AWE64 has slightly better SNR and fewer DSP bugs than earlier SB16/AWE32, but lack genuine Yamaha OPL. "The best of both worlds" can be achieved with an Yamaha OPL (Creative CT1747)-equipped AWE32, but these are rare, and will probably be very expensive.

SpectreVR wrote:

Thoughts?

I'd say - first you should decide whether you want a single sound card for all games or two separate cards (ISA for DOS, PCI for Windows).

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Reply 6 of 8, by kolderman

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Pure DOS is for nostalgia mostly. Not a bad thing, but if you just want to play games win98 has you covered for almost everything. I mainly separate them to give myself even more ISA slots and sound and graphic and cpu options. And nostalgia 🤣

Reply 8 of 8, by appiah4

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SpectreVR wrote:

Should I retain my AudioPCI, or should I remove it prior to installing the ISA SB16?

The AudioPCI has a software wavetable that is half decent, you may want to retain it for use in Windows 98. Just disable its shitty SB16 Emulation driver.

Retronautics: A digital gallery of my retro computers, hardware and projects.