What kind of Ensoniq chip is it? (Soundscape or AudioPCI?)
What is in your CONFIG.SYS file?
What is in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file?

this is my audio card

Creative SB PCI128 (Ensoniq ES1371) Sound Card PCI

i had a diverse autoexec.bat files,with all the lines added my by myself,but while i was searching for drivers,i inadivertitely found one that overwrote my files with these

1SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 H5 P330 T6
2SET SBPCI=C:\DOSDRV
3C:\DOSDRV\SBLOAD
4C:\DOSDRV\SBINIT.COM
5C:\WINDOWS\SMARTDRV.EXE
6
7C:\WINDOWS\SMARTDRV.EXE

config.sys

1DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\HIMEM.SYS
2DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\EMM386.EXE NOEMS NOVCPI
3DOS=HIGH,UMB

edit:after turning my pc on and trying out these new files,commander keen now works under win 98 with sound..though the sound its off..sounds really strange...with a different tempo than how it should be..other dos games,like in pursuit of greed,still can't even recognize the sound card.

You'll need the drivers in SBPCI.zip that you can download here: http://easymamecab.mameworld.info/html/snddosdr.htm
Do you know what the card's real IRQ # and I/O address are?

i installed those drivers just now,and the music in commander keen is still wrong..also im still unable to let Greed detect my sound card.i don't know the irq etc..i just went with the "classic"sb values,irq 5 dma 1 x220

Under Control Panel → System → Device Manager → System Devices, which of the following do you see?:

• any device with Advanced Power Management or APM in its name
• any device with Advanced Configuration and Power Interface or ACPI in its name

(I hope you won't say "neither" or "both"!)

Zaxxon wrote:

edit:after turning my pc on and trying out these new files,commander keen now works under win 98 with sound..though the sound its off..sounds really strange...with a different tempo than how it should be.

The music on an Ensoniq just isn't going to sound like it does on an older soundcard. That's the way it is. You might get somewhere if you try to load up one of the larger wavesets.

When SBINIT runs, it should tell you what IRQ and other settings the emulated Sound Blaster is using.

stx:i have the apm one,but not the other one.
jorpho:how do i find the wavetables and how to load them?btw i tried tekwar's soundsetup,and i autodetected the card..it came out sb awe 32...i did a sound test(it uses the miles sound system test setup)and the sound works fine.it didn't detected though the midi one'so i'v chosen it manually.by choosing mpu401,the song on the midi test sounded superb.if i choose sb for midi instead,i the test song sounds like the awful commander keen one.

here's what sbcfg.exe (sbinit just says "driver loaded) says

pci hardware:port e800 irq 12

sound blaster 16 emulation : port 220 irq 5 dma 1

mpu 401 emulation port 330 irq 5

adlib emulation port 388

Zaxxon wrote:

how do i find the wavetables and how to load them?

I can't remember, but the documentation is out there. You'll definitely need an ECW waveset, which you can get at Ensoniq Soundscape resources (manuals, files, links, help) if nowhere else.

I have no idea why Tekwar thinks it's an AWE32. I've never heard of anything like that before.

ok i got the ecw file from the link and found a guide,and on the sound card control tab,on system devices,i succesfully changed the default wavetable(was 2 mb)with the new one (8mb)...it is recognized and accepted by the card,i rebooted,and...nothing changed :'(

I suspect that the 4 MB and 8 MB wavetables do not have higher quality sound, but they have more sounds (more drum kits and GS). If the game is only using General MIDI (GM), then loading the larger wavetables won't help the sound quality. I haven't been able to tell the difference in DOS games when using the 8 MB wavetable instead of the 2 MB wavetable. (That's why I keep a SB AWE64 Value.)

I figured that getting the correct IRQ # and I/O addresses would help, but it looks like it's already configured. Sorry. Maybe the sound just will not be good for your DOS games if you're using an AudioPCI-based card. 😢

uh ok thanks anyway..i was wondering though what would happen if install dosbox in win 98..although it would be a huge backfire,since dos games in a native environment should run better anyway

side question:for the sake of it ,i tried running a dos game on a windows 7 32 bit machine..and it runs...well it tries to,after its beginning to actually run,windows 7 tells me that the" system does nto support full screen mode"(even though it was in a window).which intrigued me,since i have always used win 7 x64,(and this x32 machine its my dad's pc)and of course there was no way to run them on win 7...i used dosbox for years so i know that i could use it,but still,the fact that deep inside a x32 version of win 7 there's a way(or i think there is )to run dos games its even better than having dosbox..but alas,i get this error,and many other people have it as well,judging from all the queries on google.unfortunately,99% of them just had the "try dosbox" obtuse reply...do you guys know anything about this error?

Zaxxon wrote:

ok i got the ecw file from the link and found a guide,and on the sound card control tab,on system devices,i succesfully changed the default wavetable(was 2 mb)with the new one (8mb)...it is recognized and accepted by the card,i rebooted,and...nothing changed :'(

No, that setting is lost upon rebooting into DOS.

I looked it up. You need to edit SBPCI.INI , which should be in the same directory as SBINIT.COM.

Zaxxon wrote:

side question:for the sake of it ,i tried running a dos game on a windows 7 32 bit machine..and it runs...well it tries to,after its beginning to actually run,windows 7 tells me that the" system does nto support full screen mode"(even though it was in a window).which intrigued me,since i have always used win 7 x64,(and this x32 machine its my dad's pc)and of course there was no way to run them on win 7...i used dosbox for years so i know that i could use it,but still,the fact that deep inside a x32 version of win 7 there's a way(or i think there is )to run dos games its even better than having dosbox..but alas,i get this error,and many other people have it as well,judging from all the queries on google.unfortunately,99% of them just had the "try dosbox" obtuse reply...do you guys know anything about this error?

Please try to write more clearly. I barely understand what you are talking about.

Yes, Windows 7 32-bit can run some DOS games – in theory, it is just as capable as Windows XP. However, it doesn't always work very well, and certainly not nearly as well as DOSBox. Try opening a Command Prompt window and pressing ALT-ENTER. If that doesn't work, then there's probably nothing else you can do.

what do i need to edit in sbpci.ini?

DOSBox can run on all Windows versions starting with Windows 95 and can be alot better than running the games on a DOS machine.

As far as running games in NTVDM on WIndows 7 32bit and why you received the fullscreen error it's because WDDM video drivers do not support this capability anymore. To use fullscreen in NTVDM in Vista/7 you'll need to use XPDM drivers. IIRC Windows 8 doesn't support XPDM drivers so Windows 7/2008 are the last versions of Windows you can run fullscreen DOS games in NTVDM.

Although no one in their right mind would want to run games in NTVDM unless they had an ancient computer that was too slow for DOSBox and they were too lazy to boot into DOS to play their games. (or some fringe case where the game works in NTVDM but not DOSBox)

Zaxxon wrote:

what do i need to edit in sbpci.ini?

Is there nothing there that indicates which waveset it is using?

If there's an SBCFG.EXE, you might be able to use that as well.

yes the last line was set to use the 2mb one.i changed it to use the 8mb one(after accurately check the path and stuff)..rebooted,and nothing changed at all.i simply give up...

i found this line on the ini file

SelfConfig=true

it may affect something if i turn it to true?

Wikipedia's AudioPCI page reads,

...FM music was simulated using the Ensoniq wavetable, with the result that most FM soundtracks sounded little more than a jumble of cacophonous notes played on random MIDI instruments....

Maybe that explains

Zaxxon wrote:

the sound its off..sounds really strange

There's no shame in running DOSBox on Windows 98 if the results are better. It just might not give you that feeling of pride or accomplishment that comes from retro purity (for some people).

i tried a couple of other dos games,from various era and on 3 out of 5 couldn't recognize my soudn card.but dosfreak wrote that dosbox shoudl work fine also on win 98,so i'm willing to give it a try,although...

It just might not give you that feeling of pride or accomplishment that comes from retro purity (for some people).

..that was my mission 😉

Does your motherboard have an ISA slot? You could have even more retro purity and better compatibility with an ISA sound card instead of an AudioPCI.

You are running these DOS games in real-mode DOS (for maximum retro purity and compatibility) without having Windows loaded, right?