Sound Blaster sounds in DOS games from Windows ME? \ VOGONS

Sound Blaster sounds in DOS games from Windows ME?

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First post, by Elia1995

Posted on 2022-05-19, 08:39

Elia1995 Offline

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Rank: Oldbie
Posts: 668
Joined: 2016-04-21, 12:45
Location: Italy

Hello!
Is there a way to get Sound Blaster sounds work in DOS games from Windows ME using an AWE32 PNP sound card? For some reason, music in such games is working just fine, but if I select the sound blaster card in their setups, they give me a conflicting IRQ error (Duke Nukem and ROTT, but probably other games I haven't tested yet too), and others are just silent, but with working music!

I also installed the WinMEDOS.COM patch to get real DOS mode in Millennium, but I can't access the D:\ partition from DOS, says there isn't such drive (for some reason it only sees up to C:\, even if I put LASTDRIVE=Z in the config file), so I can't test if sound works from real DOS mode.

Currently assembled vintage computers I own: 11

Most important ones:
A "modded" Olivetti M4 434 S (currently broken).
An Epson El Plus 386DX running MS-DOS 6.22 (currently broken).
Celeron Coppermine 1.10GHz on an M754LMRTP motherboard

Reply 1 of 2, by pc-sound-legacy

Posted on 2022-05-23, 21:51

pc-sound-legacy Offline

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Rank: Member
Posts: 161
Joined: 2019-06-23, 23:19

Windows ME tried to cover it's DOS roots pretty hard. That's why I prefer Windows 98SE instead.
If you hear music, the card is initialized and listen to the adlib ports. Did you manually select the adresses or use auto detect in the games sound setup? (Maybe manually will work)
I have no clue why drive D is invisible to be honest. Maybe use a DOS 7.0 boot disc for further trouble shooting. Maybe it is too big? Wasn't there a limitation to 8GB in DOS?

Reply 2 of 2, by Gmlb256

Posted on 2022-05-24, 01:00

Gmlb256 Offline

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Posts: 2099
Joined: 2018-04-11, 15:33

That limitation to 8GB only applies with MS-DOS version up to 7.0 (the one from Windows 95 prior OSR2 which doesn't support FAT32 partitions). Which partition type is being used for drive D?

Even with the "MS-DOS mode" patch for Windows ME, it is hacked from the "Windows Millennium Emergency Boot Disk" and has some limitations (HIMEM.SYS being integrated into IO.SYS, unable to load EMM386 and config menus doesn't work as intended). For that reason, I also prefer Windows 98.

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