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Sound Blaster 16 WDM Drivers (attached). Incompatible with DOS games. Please help.

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First post, by Volo

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Dear Sirs,

I have been poking this issue for a while now. I have a PC with Sound Blaster 16 and want to make it work with Daemon-Tools emulated disks on my Win98SE.
As you may know, VxD drivers don't support Red book audio virtualization - you need VDM drivers.

After weeks of poking around I've stumbled on Russian Windows 98IF project (http://bust.narod.ru/98if.html), They have WDM drivers for SB16! (If you'd like to test those - unzip all of the attached files into Latin-named folder and install it instead of the present SB16 drivers - be sure to manually set the card's Ports, IRQ and DMAs in Device Manager, as drivers default settings are incomprehensible). Documentation states they've ripped these WDM drivers from Windows ME.

Drivers work - sorta. I've cleared most of issues with Windows games (Sound works, i can hear CD-music), but I've lost DOS compatibility!
DOS games just can't detect or address SB16 with VDM drivers (they worked with VxD). I now have no sound - only CD-audio in DOS games.

Could you please assist me with restoring DOS compatibility of VDM Sound Blaster16? Do you have any experience with Win ME drivers on Win 98?
Your messages shall be appreciated. Properly working SB16 WDM drivers would be a Holy Grail for us, retrogamers.

Attachments

  • Filename
    WDMAUDIO.zip
    File size
    3.57 KiB
    Downloads
    206 downloads
    File comment
    Yamaha OPL3 Library
    File license
    Fair use/fair dealing exception
  • Filename
    _ecw.zip
    File size
    2.01 MiB
    Downloads
    163 downloads
    File comment
    Wave-table Bank for Audio Drivers by Windows 98IF project
    File license
    Fair use/fair dealing exception
  • Filename
    _ctsbwdm.zip
    File size
    3.46 MiB
    Downloads
    287 downloads
    File comment
    Sound Blaster 16 WDM Driver by Windows 98IF project
    File license
    Fair use/fair dealing exception

Want to play MS-DOS keyboard-only games with a gamepad? Feel free to purchase Volo's Pad-to-PS/2 by writing me an e-mail:
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Reply 1 of 11, by jaZz_KCS

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I never had any problems, ever, on any system running a SB16 (CT1740 - I have several systems with this card) in conjunction with the latest official W9x drivers from Creative. I have often read about Digital/Analogue CD-Audio not working within Windows using Daemon Tools, but could never, ever reproduce this. IF it didn't work on one machine at some point, a quick change of the Digital/Analogue setting within Daemon Tools itself always fixed it.

Filename
sbw9xup.exe
File size
311.97 KiB
Downloads
210 downloads
File comment
Latest Creative driver for SB16 for Win9x
File license
Fair use/fair dealing exception

These drivers are both, Windows and Dos(-window) compatible.

Reply 2 of 11, by dr.zeissler

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Interestingly red-book works on some games in win95 and win95 does not have any wdm-drivers! (with cd-images of course)
keep in mind: using wdm means NO! FM!, that's a no go for me.

Last edited by dr.zeissler on 2019-10-28, 12:34. Edited 1 time in total.

Retro-Gamer 😀 ...on different machines

Reply 3 of 11, by jaZz_KCS

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I also have CD Audio working from mounted images on various systems that use VxD drivers (the last official Creative ones are VxD drivers), so it is definitely not as straight forward as "VxD does not work with CD Audio in conjunction with Daemon Tools / Images..."

I read the entry on philscomputerlab.com about "it just plainly not working with VxD drivers," and immediately reacted: "Wait, what? I have VxD drivers and I definitely remember CD Audio working on mounted images with VxD." And sure enough, on all my machines it does actually work. So something is off here...

Reply 4 of 11, by Kamerat

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Run the VxD drivers for the SB16 and run a second sound card for emulated CD audio and run a cable between the cards so you can mix the sound together. Daemon Tools should also support emulation of CD audio by itself, so you shouldn't need WDM drivers at all.

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

Reply 5 of 11, by Volo

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Thank you. Strangely, but sbw9xup.exe refuses to install on my rig:

  • Intel 440 BX
  • Win 98 SE (Russian)
  • ISA SoundBlaster 16 Value (CT2770).

UPD: I managed to install sbw9xup.exe. Still not better than default driver.

Maybe I have to tinker with BIOS or something? Set up Ports or interrupts... What are your working settings?

Want to play MS-DOS keyboard-only games with a gamepad? Feel free to purchase Volo's Pad-to-PS/2 by writing me an e-mail:
3hUGsDI.png

Reply 6 of 11, by jaZz_KCS

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On Intel 440ZX with newest driver as linked,
Win98, CT1740.
A220 I5 D1 H5 M330

CD-Audio from mounted images work out of the box without settings change in D-Tools with these newest VxD drivers.

Reply 7 of 11, by Volo

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Thank you. It seems that at least 3 or 4 different hardware solutions were called SoundBlaster 16 back in the day.

Could not defeat my CT2770 - it seems it cannot mix sound from different applications with VxD drivers.
Had to resort to adding SB Audigy 2 to the setup and plugging it to Line-In of the SB16.

An utterly inelegant solution. 😢

Want to play MS-DOS keyboard-only games with a gamepad? Feel free to purchase Volo's Pad-to-PS/2 by writing me an e-mail:
3hUGsDI.png

Reply 8 of 11, by schlang

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I'm sorry, I'm too dumb to find the password for all the archives from this russian website, anybody please help

PC#1: K6-III+ 400 | 512MB | Geforce4 | Voodoo1 | SB Live | AWE64 | GUS PNP Pro
PC#2: 486DX2-66 | 64MB | Riva128 | AWE64 | GUS PNP | PAS16
PC#3: 386DX-40 | 32MB | CL-GD5434 | SB Pro | GUS MAX | PAS16

Think you know your games music? Show us: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=37532

Reply 10 of 11, by schlang

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it asks for the Windows 98IF installation CD (ks.cat) and if I supply the original Win98SE disc the system does into bluescreen when initializing the sound card

PC#1: K6-III+ 400 | 512MB | Geforce4 | Voodoo1 | SB Live | AWE64 | GUS PNP Pro
PC#2: 486DX2-66 | 64MB | Riva128 | AWE64 | GUS PNP | PAS16
PC#3: 386DX-40 | 32MB | CL-GD5434 | SB Pro | GUS MAX | PAS16

Think you know your games music? Show us: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=37532

Reply 11 of 11, by stealthjoe

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jaZz_KCS wrote on 2019-11-01, 23:02:
On Intel 440ZX with newest driver as linked, Win98, CT1740. A220 I5 D1 H5 M330 […]
Show full quote

On Intel 440ZX with newest driver as linked,
Win98, CT1740.
A220 I5 D1 H5 M330

CD-Audio from mounted images work out of the box without settings change in D-Tools with these newest VxD drivers.

Hello jaZz_KCS! Let me know if you are using any CD audio cable from your ide drive to the sound card in these systems?

Intel 845GEBV2, Pentium 4 2.4 Ghz, Geforce FX5600 256MB, 512MB RAM, 160GB HDD, Sound Blaster Live! SB0100 - Win 98/XP

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