Steps to do to make Sound Blaster Emulation working on real dos (7.1 from Win98 installation in this case)

My computer :
Athlon XP 1800+
Asus A7V333 with Award Bios v6 Rev 1017
Onboard Audio Chip CMI8738
512 Megs RAM ( 2 x 256 DDR )
80 Gigs HDD
Win98SE with direct boot to DOS
Sound Blaster Live! 5.1 PCI (SB0100)

I made this guide because i wasted 2 days on lots of forum threads, sites....

ALWAYS BACKUP THE AUTOEXEC.BAT, CONFIG.SYS AND ANY OTHER CONFIG FILE BEFORE MODIFYING...

1. disable onboard audio chip (bios and/or jumper on the motherboard) (IMPORTANT!!)

2. disable in bios options the "Plug and Play OS" (IMPORTANT!!)

3. get the SB LIVE! dos drivers
in my case SB Live! 5.1 SB0100, this one :
http://vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?fileid=52&menustate=0
or this one with better soundfont file:
https://www.philscomputerlab.com/sound-blaster-live.html

4. extract them to a new empty folder : c:\CREATIVE

5. open CTSYN.INI, delete everything in and add this
[ctsyn.drv]
OPLPORT=388
MPUPORT=330
SBPORT=220
SBIRQ=7
SBDMALO=1
SBDMAHI=5
SBENABLE=TRUE
JOYPORT=200
JOYENABLE=TRUE

;SOUND FONT FILE FROM PHIL S COMPUTER LAB
;CHECK TH ECW FILE YOU HAVE IN THE DRIVER FOLDER
WAVESET=C:\CREATIVE\EAPCI8M.ECW
PCIPORT=9400
PCIIRQ=5

[SBEINIT]
CONFIG=SBESET.CFG

[SBESET.CFG]
SBPORT=220
MPUPORT=330
SBIRQ=7
SBDMALO=1
SBDMAHI=5
OPLPORT=388
SBENABLE=TRUE
JOYPORT=200
JOYENABLE=TRUE

;SOUND FONT FILE FROM PHIL S COMPUTER LAB
;CHECK TH ECW FILE YOU HAVE IN THE DRIVER FOLDER
WAVESET=C:\CREATIVE\EAPCI8M.ECW
PCIPORT=9400
PCIIRQ=5

[SBEMIXER]
MasterVolL=250
MasterVolR=250
WaveVolL=250
WaveVolR=250
CDVolL=0
CDVolR=0
SynthVolL=250
SynthVolR=250
MT32=TRUE
DigitalSpeakerEnable=FALSE

5.1 check again the folders and ECW file in the CTSYN.INI ....

6. open autoexec.bat, delete any old audio config lines and add this to the top of the file
SET PATH=C:\CREATIVE
SET CTSYN=C:\CREATIVE
SET BLASTER=A220 I7 D1 H5 P330 T6
SBEINIT.COM

7. reboot

8. start SBEGO on the command line and test your configuration

9. Test some games audio setup (Warcraft2 in my case)

10. enjoy the better computer era 😁

Informations :
- Finally, on my computer, the SB Emulation driver sets the PCI IRQ4 or 12 when loaded at boot... Anyway, it works.
- General Midi, MT32 works fine too. except in XWING, audio setup "General Midi with Sound Blaster" or "MT32 with Sound Blaster" don't work. Only Midi or SB, both can't work, i don't know why.
- Configuration of emm386 : the option NOEMS can be set, the SB emulation works fine but some games require EMS to work.
mine is : DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\EMM386.EXE I=B000-B7FF RAM D=256 AUTO
- Smartdrive should be at the end of the autoexec.bat because it takes lot of memory and the sbeinit.com will not load if i remember.
- IRQ/SLOT selection in BIOS can be set as AUTO
- PCI IRQ Ressource Exclusion can be set as AUTO
- Legacy ISA stuff in BIOS can be set as AUTO

I hope this will help some dos fanatics like me.
Alex