VOGONS


First post, by Fallonite

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie

Hello,

I recently bought a Sound Blaster 16 PCI off of eBay, and I love how it sounds on my Windows 98 SE machine. However, I have FreeDOS on another partition on the same machine, and getting the support I need for it is a hassle. Currently I have Creative drivers installed that I got from Ensoniq / Creative AudioPCI however the sound quality ranges from terrible to meh in FreeDOS.

The PC is an Athlon XP PC with no ISA slots. I know, I know, Athlon XP is way overkill for DOS, but for the games I play and running FreeDOS, it works perfectly for me, and money is tight so I can't really afford to buy an older mobo+CPU+possibly RAM.

Here are some sound test comparisons I did in Doom:

https://www.dropbox.com/home/Doom%20Sound%20Blaster%20Tests

The SB Test SB + SB file is what it sounds like when I set both Music and Sound Effects to the Sound Blaster

The SB Test MIDI + SB file is what it sounds like when I set Music to General MIDI and Sound Effects to Sound Blaster

The Doom95 file is what it sounds like when I play Doom95 on the Windows 98 SE Partition.

As you can hear, the quality is fantastic on Windows, but when Im playing on FreeDOS no amount of tweaking the settings can fix it.

So my question is is there a way to somehow "trick" the Windows 98 drivers to work in FreeDOS, since theres a DOSDRV folder included and which supports native DOS in Windows 98, is there another way to get the sound working properly, or am I forced to run around on eBay and find another PCI card that isnt too expensive that has both DOS and WIN98 compatibility?

Reply 1 of 3, by collector

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

Wrong forum. Ask old hardware and driver/configuration questions in Marvin. This forum is for old Windows games on modern systems. Marvin, the Paranoid Android

The Sierra Help Pages -- New Sierra Game Installers -- Sierra Game Patches -- New Non-Sierra Game Installers

Reply 3 of 3, by Kamerat

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

What's the motherboard you're running it on? If it got a VIA chipset then go get a soundcard based on the ESS Solo-1. Sound Blaster 16 PCI is nothing like the ISA based models, but it's rather Ensoniqs AudioPCI design.

DOS Sound Blaster compatibility: PCI sound cards vs. PCI chipsets
YouTube channel