Morning! Wow that's awesome!

I got a live! 5.1 underway as we speak and maybe getting a second one as well just to be sure...

Do you have the original driver CD? I found most drivers on the Creative website, but nothing about DOS. There is a W95 and W98 driver pack but I have no idea of these will include the DOS drivers.

Good to know you have a solution up and running, worst case I can ask you for some help!

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

I got a live! 5.1 underway as we speak and maybe getting a second one as well just to be sure...

Cool! Always happy to bring someone over to the "dark side" <LOL>! 😀

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

Do you have the original driver CD? I found most drivers on the Creative website, but nothing about DOS. There is a W95 and W98 driver pack but I have no idea of these will include the DOS drivers.

Sorry, all of the drivers that I have I obtained from CLI's web site... I don't have any of the SBLive's driver CDs.

In actuality, a friend of mine sent me a copy about a year and a half ago (CD circa 1999 or so), but unfortunately most of the data/files on that copy were corrupt. It wouldn't have done me any good though, as the SBLive that I had bought went straight into a WXP machine.

Some of the files that were not cobbled up on that CD were some of the applications; the Prody Parrot, Creative Keytar, and Creative Rhytmania... but they won't start up or run under WXP.

As far as the W9x drivers on CLI's site including the DOS drivers, I dunno. The DOS drivers that I downloaded a while back where from a link somehwere here in the forums... don't remember the message post though, or who posted it. Nevertheless, if you have problems locating the DOS drivers, gimme a holler at richnagel@earthlink.net , and I'll ZIP 'em up and send them to you (minus the ECW wavesets... my miserable dialup connection would choke on them due to their file size(s) <grin>). I can also provide example INI/CFG entries, as well as what you need in your DOS bootup AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS files.

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

Good to know you have a solution up and running, worst case I can ask you for some help!

BTW, if you run your Live(s) under W9x/WXP (shameless plug follows <grin>), -> Weeds General MIDI SoundFont v3.0 , and of general soundfont/AWE/Live/utility interest -> http://www.cmoo.com/snor/weeds/SoundFonts/ 😀

I have an original SBLive! / Live! Value Win9x CD. Liveware 3. Believe it or not but I paid $20 for this CD. Alternatively you could just download the drivers, but this CD has a lot of extra stuff.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=NJQKTCF0

.

BTW, almost forgot, in the afore mentioned http://www.cmoo.com/snor/weeds/SoundFonts/ directory; the "AWE32R_C.zip" file _also_ pertains to the SBLive (NRPN MIDI controllerss and such), as well as the file "Sound_Blaster_Live_MIDI_Controllers.txt" (of course).

swaaye wrote:

I have an original SBLive! / Live! Value Win9x CD. Liveware 3. Alternatively you could just download the drivers, but this CD has a lot of extra stuff.

Hard to tell by the pic (can't hardly see the (C) date on the CD in the pic), but I'm thinking that's the CD that my buddy sent me a copy of last year.

swaaye wrote:

Believe it or not but I paid $20 for this CD.

Hehe, two tidbits of interest:

I bought E-mu's General MIDI CD-ROM back in the day, and had preordered it before it was released. This CD included the (now freely downloadable; from CLI's and E-mu's web sites) soundfont "8MBGM.SF2". Heh, IIRC I paid US$40 bucks for the CD 🤣!

After buying my SBLive laste year, I had heard talk on the Internet of a 28 meg Creative Labs GM Release 1.0 soundfont ("28MBGM.sf2") that shipped on the X-Fi Vista drivers CD from Creative Labs. Curiosity got the cat, and I bought that X-Fi Vista CD (although I had no use for X-Fi or Vista drivers 🤣!) from CLI just to get the soundfont.

Heh, I wasn't all that impressed with that soundfont, and they even SCREWED UP when creating it and burning it to the CD master... that soundfont on that CD was completely missing the "Electric Bass (Picked)" preset (GM preset #34) DUH!

(edit) Sorry Swaaye, I though I was replying to Mau1wurf1977 (although the above is still pertinent)... the 'ole brain needs some caffeine 🤣!

Now available in biggernesses.

I didn't know there was a 28MB soundfont connected with X-Fi. I have an X-Fi Elite around here..... I wonder if that's on one of the CDs that I've barely looked at.

swaaye wrote:

Now available in biggernesses.

Hehe, had to let that one load a while on my miserable dialup connecyion <grin>.

Yep, that appears to be the CD that my buddy sent me a copy of (judging by the CLI part Number).

swaaye wrote:

I didn't know there was a 28MB soundfont connected with X-Fi. I have an X-Fi Elite around here..... I wonder if that's on one of the CDs that I've barely looked at.

AFAIK all of the X-Fi CDs included that soundfont. The only reason that I mentioned the Vista drivers CD was simply that was the one that had I stumbled upon that was offered for sale over at Creative Labs' web site.

Anyhoo, the original file on the CD (the one on my hard drive has been modified to add the "Picked Bass" preset):

05/04/2006 01:07AM 29,705,938 28MBGM.SF2

...and in the comments/copyright section of the soundfont (as viewed in Vienna Studio):

Name: 28MB General MIDI
Author: Seok-Kwee Chew, Tim Swartz, & Janis Chaffin
Copyright: (c) Creative Technology 2006

Heh... good 'ole Dr. Chew 😀

Like I replied earlier, I wasn't too impressed with it. What first caught my interest with it (after reading about it elsewhere on the Internet, and that it was included on the X-Fi Vista drivers CD), was that I was thinking that it just _might_ be a larger/better/more realistic sounding version of the old "8MBGM.SF2" soundfont (which I had previously used for years in my AWE32s), but it doesn't appear (or rather, sound like) to be.

(edit) P.S. IIRC, the X-Fi Vista drivers CD also inlcudes the afore-mentioned 8MBGM.SF2 soundfont, as well as the other soundfonts previously included on E-mu's "General MIDI CD-ROM" that I mentioned earlier (2MBGMGS.SF2/4MBGM.SF2/4MBGMSFX.SF2/8MBGMSFX.SF2).

The X-Fi iso should be on various torrent sites!

Found quite a few: http://thepiratebay.org/search/soundblaster/0/7/0

Also do these cards support SPDIF? Because the SBPCI.INI file has a line for that. And the DOS driver also tells me the card is in analogue mode when it boots up.

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

Also do these cards support SPDIF? Because the SBPCI.INI file has a line for that. And the DOS driver also tells me the card is in analogue mode when it boots up.

For the SBLive cards in DOS mode, I don't think so. But supported within Windows, the SBLive cards have digital out jack on the back (either white or yellow, depending on the specific model of the card), as well as a CD SPDIF input connector on the card itself (see doc here for the CT4780 -> http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/acc/962 … /En/connect.htm ).

I was looking for help about my sound blaster pci 128 and I found this interesting thread: I succesfully enabled this card in a real dos environment on a legacy machine using "sbpci64.zip" drivers I found on the web, 2 other driver types (including those mentioned on the first post) didn't work, not recognized hardware error.

Is it me or is not possible to hear audio tracks from cdroms using the card audio output?

The cdrom drive is already connected to the audio card with the audio cable. For now I can only hear soundcard audio from my speakers but to hear the cd audio tracks I have to connect a pair of headphones to the cdrom drive headphone output. This is annoying. Some help is required. 😀

Hello!

Do you have a image of your card? Does it look similar to the AudioPCI?

Could you upload your driver here so I can take a look?

My driver has a mixer utility where you can change the CD volume. You can also change it in the SBPCI.INI file!

And you already have the audio cable from the CD-Rom into the sound card, so that's good just need to get the mixer going 😀

sure. here are the drivers:

http://easymamecab.mameworld.info/html/snddosdr.htm

(the one that worked for me is the sbpci64.zip one)

Unluckily I can't take a photo of the soundcard now but I have the original package and it's a sound blaster pci 128.

Nice find! Thanks

Some interesting infos on that page:

Note, the Audigy is the last PCI sound card from Creative Labs to fully support DOS.

Hehe looks like I will be looking for an Audigy as well 😁

EDIT the drivers for your card are the same I'm using for my AudioPCI.

For the mixer settings just edit SBPCI.INI and change these lines:

; Mixer Settings - Wave, Synth, and CD volumes MasterVol=115 WaveVol=127 SynthVol=127 CDVol=100 […]
Show full quote

; Mixer Settings - Wave, Synth, and CD volumes
MasterVol=115
WaveVol=127
SynthVol=127
CDVol=100

Make sure CDVol isn't 0.

retro games 100 wrote:

Sound Blaster live! recommendation: CT4620 model. It's a minor update on the original model. Gold contacts, that kind of thing. It's got a "pure DOS SB16 emulation" driver.

Hey RG100, thanks for the heads up on this one. Sounds liek what I have been looking for. Does the gameport midi out work under DOS?

buckrogers wrote:

Does the gameport midi out work under DOS?

I'd like to know that as well!

I will test all of this when my live! 5.1 arrives. On the AudioPCI however it was a no go...

I don't think anything besides the softsynth that runs the .ecw files works for MIDI output. The DOS driver isn't much different than it was with the AudioPCI aside from supporting SB16.

And I'm pretty sure that it supports SB16 on all Creative products. They dropped 16-bit Soundscape support and added 16-bit SB16 support.

AudioPCI had perfect support for SB16 in all the games I tried so far! See the list on page 1...

I will also source a Audigy Value and see if this card work on a modern Phenom II machine 🤣

Now I just need to work out how to make a W98SE boot USB stick with all drivers and some games on it!

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

Now I just need to work out how to make a W98SE boot USB stick with all drivers and some games on it!

I can't for the life of me remember which one I originally used: the "HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool" or another utility called "FlashBoot"... been so long I can't remember. But, I *think* it just might been the HP one (HP "Soft Pack" SP27608, Google for "SP27608.exe").

Note that on my flash drive I also have the usual compliment of (W98SE) DOS drivers and utilities:

104/23/1999 10:22 PM   9,719 ANSI.SYS
204/23/1999 10:22 PM  15,252 ATTRIB.EXE
301/01/2001 12:00 AM     198 AUTOEXEC.BAT
404/23/1999 10:22 PM  28,096 CHKDSK.EXE
504/23/1999 10:22 PM   5,239 CHOICE.COM
604/23/1999 10:22 PM  93,890 COMMAND.COM
701/01/2001 12:00 AM     178 CONFIG.SYS
804/23/1999 10:22 PM  30,742 COUNTRY.SYS
907/11/2008 09:21 PM   5,829 CTMOUSE.EXE
1004/23/1999 10:22 PM  20,554 DEBUG.EXE
1104/23/1999 10:22 PM  19,083 DELTREE.EXE
1204/23/1999 10:22 PM  21,975 DISKCOPY.COM
1304/23/1999 10:22 PM  17,175 DISPLAY.SYS
1404/23/1999 10:22 PM  15,495 DOSKEY.COM
1504/23/1999 10:22 PM  68,871 DRVSPACE.BIN
1604/23/1999 10:22 PM  69,902 EDIT.COM
1704/23/1999 10:22 PM  10,790 EDIT.HLP
1804/23/1999 10:22 PM  58,870 EGA.CPI
1904/23/1999 10:22 PM 125,495 EMM386.EXE
2004/23/1999 10:22 PM  20,574 FC.EXE
2104/23/1999 10:22 PM  63,916 FDISK.EXE
2204/23/1999 10:22 PM   6,658 FIND.EXE
2304/23/1999 10:22 PM  49,575 FORMAT.COM
2404/23/1999 10:22 PM  33,191 HIMEM.SYS
2504/23/1999 10:22 PM  17,655 IEXTRACT.EXE
2604/23/1999 10:22 PM  19,927 KEYB.COM
2704/23/1999 10:22 PM  34,566 KEYBOARD.SYS
2804/23/1999 10:22 PM  31,942 KEYBRD2.SYS
2904/23/1999 10:22 PM  31,633 KEYBRD3.SYS
3004/23/1999 10:22 PM  13,014 KEYBRD4.SYS
3104/23/1999 10:22 PM   9,324 LABEL.EXE
3204/23/1999 10:22 PM  32,146 MEM.EXE
3304/23/1999 10:22 PM  29,271 MODE.COM
3404/23/1999 10:22 PM  10,471 MORE.COM
3504/23/1999 10:22 PM  27,299 MOVE.EXE
3604/23/1999 10:22 PM  25,473 MSCDEX.EXE
3704/23/1999 10:22 PM 166,023 MSD.EXE
3804/23/1999 10:22 PM   6,940 NLSFUNC.EXE
3904/23/1999 10:22 PM  41,302 OAKCDROM.SYS
4003/10/1993 06:00 AM 194,309 QBASIC.EXE
4103/10/1993 06:00 AM 130,881 QBASIC.HLP
4204/23/1999 10:22 PM 143,818 SCANDISK.EXE
4304/23/1999 10:22 PM   7,332 SCANDISK.INI
4404/23/1999 10:22 PM  45,379 SMARTDRV.EXE
4504/23/1999 10:22 PM  25,882 SORT.EXE
4604/23/1999 10:22 PM  17,904 SUBST.EXE
4704/23/1999 10:22 PM  18,967 SYS.COM
4804/23/1999 10:22 PM   3,878 XCOPY.EXE
4904/23/1999 10:22 PM   3,878 XCOPY32.EXE
5004/23/1999 10:22 PM  41,472 XCOPY32.MOD

As far as MIDI OUT under DOS for the SBLive/Audigy (and prolly the Aureal) sound cards, I'm not sure. But I _do_ know that the MIDI IN doesn't work... I tried that one today with the old Creative Labs' "CMS Intelligent Organ" (PRO_ORG.EXE) <grin> 😀

Regarding the live! cards, and their ability to perform in DOS. It's been ages since I tested these things. I do have a strong recollection that the DOS driver was not fully complete. There's discussion about it on old usenet postings. I expect it was the MIDI port functionality that was missing. I'm sorry I can't be more help. So much stuff I've tested over the last 2-3 years. Head's spinning.

Some other stuff I remember. I must have tested over a dozen SB PCI type cards (not live! cards, but the AudioPCI and SB variants), and the CT5803 by Dell sounded the best in terms of general hi-fi quality. Eg:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Dell-Creative-Sound-Bla … H-/320585702174

Also, for the original Ensoniq AudioPCI, it comes with a software driver package that works well in Windows 95. The model to look out for is AudioPCI 3000, I think - it's definitely the one without Creative written on the chip. I trawled ebay and google images, but I can't find the exact one that I liked the most at the moment, but it's appearance is distinctive - it's got 3 small coloured strips next to the output jacks. (Not the output jack plug sockets themselves.)

Coolies!

Well the USB boot flash drive was a peace of cake! That HP tool is awesome.

It can even do Fat16 if you want Dos 6.22 with 2 GB max. storage.

But if you have a big fat USB stick go with Fat32 and W95B or W98. I haven't figured out how to remove the W98 boot/splash screen but the config.sys and autoexec.bat files work just fine.

Just make sure they point to c: