There are people around here who have cards like yours (at least the same generation). They can help but they will need the content of your autoexec.bat and probably config.sys files...

(Maybe it is just a missing "diagnose /s", maybe sg else etc.)

What are the model numbers of your two SB16's?
I noticed some S16's are only half PnP; they need to be initialised with diagnose before they work but CTCM won't recognise them. As oppsed to older cards with jumpers which work with nothing more than a SET BLASTER line in autoexec.

As jolaes said, please post your config.sys and autoexec.bat and all variations of SET BLASTER you are using. If hocus pocus says it can't find the FM device I suspect you may have deleted the wrong part of the SET BLASTER line.

Also, with a Pentium 2 you may find some older DOS games, particularly a few Epic/Apogee games will give 'runtime error 200' on startup, its something to do with games written in turbo pascal, and there is a patch available for that if you troll google.

Recently, I've been messing about with an AWE64. After installation of the DOS and Win 3.x software, my auto + config files now look like this. BTW, if you want to learn more about what ctcm.exe is doing, run ctcu.exe in DOS, version 6.22 or less.

Bits of autoexec.bat

Bits of config.sys

I want to thank you all for replying on such a short notice.
Stupid to forget to include my configsys and autoexec, well, here goes:

config.sys

1[MENU]
2menuitem=Windows
3menuitem=Highend
4menuitem=Lowend
5menuitem=Lowestend
6
7[Highend]
8SHELL=C:\COMMAND.COM /P /E:32768
9DEVICEHIGH=C:\WINDOWS\SETVER.EXE
10DOS=HIGH, UMB
11DEVICEHIGH=C:\WINDOWS\HIMEM.SYS /testmem:off
12DEVICEHIGH=C:\WINDOWS\EMM386.EXE RAM
13FCBSHIGH=16,0
14FILES=40
15BUFFERS=40
16DEVICEHIGH=C:\DOSDRV\cd1.SYS /D:CDROM1
17LASTDRIVE=E
18
19[Windows]
20SHELL=C:\COMMAND.COM /P /E:32768
21DEVICEHIGH=C:\WINDOWS\HIMEM.SYS
22FILES=40
23BUFFERS=40
24LASTDRIVE=Z
25
26[Lowend]
27DOS=HIGH, UMB
28LASTDRIVE=D
29
30[Lowestend]
31DOS=HIGH, UMB

my autoexec.bat:

1@ECHO OFF
2GOTO %CONFIG%
3
4:Windows
5SET PATH=C:\ULTRASND;C:\WINDOWS;C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND;C:\PROGRA~1\WIN98RK;C:\DOSDRV;
6CALL gus.bat
7CALL 3dfx.bat
8WIN
9GOTO END
10
11:Highend
12pause
13SET PATH=C:\ULTRASND;C:\WINDOWS;C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND;C:\PROGRA~1\WIN98RK;C:\DOSDRV;
14CALL C:\gus.bat
15CALL C:\3dfx.bat
16CALL C:\sndblstr.bat
17LH C:\Windows\COMMAND\MSCDEX.EXE /D:CDROM1
18LH C:\Dosdrv\MOUSE.EXE
19GOTO END
20
21:Lowend
22SET PATH=C:\ULTRASND;C:\WINDOWS;C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND;C:\DOSDRV;
23CALL C:\sbsmpl.bat
24CALL C:\gus.bat
25REM CALL C:\sndblstr.bat
26GOTO END
27
28:Lowestend
29SET SOUND=C:\DOSDRV\SBAWE64\SB16
30SET BLASTER=A220 I7 D1 T3
31GOTO END
32
33:END
34@ECHO ON

I think the only interesting here now is gus.bat and sndblstr.bat

gus.bat:

1@REM ===== Gravis initialization (4.10) =====
2@SET ULTRASND=260,3,3,3,3
3@SET ULTRADIR=C:\ULTRASND
4@C:\ULTRASND\ULTRINIT.EXE -dj
5@REM ===== Gravis initialization ends =====

sndblstr.bat

1SET SOUND=C:\DOSDRV\SBAWE64\SB16
2SET BLASTER=A220 I7 D1 H7 P300 E620 T6
3SET MIDI=SYNTH:1 MAP:E
4LH %SOUND%\ctcm
5LH %SOUND%\aweutil /s
6LH %SOUND%\diagnose /s
7LH %SOUND%\mixerset /p /q

What are the model numbers of your two SB16's? I noticed some S16's are only half PnP; they need to be initialised with diagnose […]
Show full quote

What are the model numbers of your two SB16's?
I noticed some S16's are only half PnP; they need to be initialised with diagnose before they work but CTCM won't recognise them. As oppsed to older cards with jumpers which work with nothing more than a SET BLASTER line in autoexec.

As jolaes said, please post your config.sys and autoexec.bat and all variations of SET BLASTER you are using. If hocus pocus says it can't find the FM device I suspect you may have deleted the wrong part of the SET BLASTER line.

Also, with a Pentium 2 you may find some older DOS games, particularly a few Epic/Apogee games will give 'runtime error 200' on startup, its something to do with games written in turbo pascal, and there is a patch available for that if you troll google.

The only game that gave me such an error was Jazz Jackrabbit and I indeed fixed it with the turbo pascal patch.
The sound blaster card model names are:
pnp: CT2980
non-pnp: CT2290 (or CT2291 as a sticker on the back of the card states)[/quote]

I might be wrong on this, but sound blaster detection should not depend on whether it is a PnP card or not. Plug and Play is a technology that just allows to assign hardware resources without messing with jumpers, but that's it. Once those resources are already assigned, there's no difference at all between a PnP and a non-PnP card. The usual problem with PnP devices is that your software is expecting the hardware to use some specific setting, but you can't force it to do so because there are no jumpers, and the PnP manager doesn't assign the settings you need. Your games may be expecting the sound blaster to use IRQ5 instead of IRQ7, for example. See if you can force the AWE64 to use IRQ5. Or read the game manuals to find out if there's a command line parameter to override default settings (-i5, -i7, etc).

The standard sound blaster is set to IRQ 7 by default, so I kept it that way.
I managed to get 3 of 3 devices working by installing it from the actual cd. (well, downloaded the contents and burned it on cd). Still it's a drama to get things to work so I put in the CT2290, which does a better job but still games like wolfenstein 3d, keen and the such won't recognise it. Everything else does recognise and utilise it so I really begin to think it's a speed problem *sigh*

And btw. yes I tried with IRQ 5 but it did not make any difference.

EZ wrote:

The standard sound blaster is set to IRQ 7 by default, so I kept it that way.

Well, it doesn't matter at all what the standard Sound Blaster setting is, if you are not sure that your card settings and your environment settings do match. By the way, what CONFIG.SYS profile are you selecting for those Apogee games? It seems that each one is running a different batch file: High runs sndblstr.bat, Low runs sbsmpl.bat (not posted), and Lowest runs the ending lines of autoexec.bat; High profile is configuring BLASTER environment variable for a SB16 (T6), but Lowest profile configures BLASTER for a SB 2.0 (T3). Does that mean that you select High for AWE64, Low for CT2980 and Lowest for CT2290? Or you randomly try every profile on every card? If so, are you sure that your CT2290, CT2980 and AWE64 are able to fully emulate SB 2.0? Have you tried other Tn values for BLASTER on the Lowest profile, that is, T1, T2, T4 and specially T6, the actual value for those SB16 cards?

I've tried all that, but it did not help.
The GUS was to 'blame', I tried to put it on a non-creative-violent IRQ like 12, didn't help either, nor rem'ing the gus batch file. Only physically removing the GUS made Commander Keen recognise my sound blaster. Perhaps there's a patch for that? Otherwise I think I'll have to have a secondary pc with a traditional soundblaster 1.0 because one thing's for sure, I'm not letting that GUS gather dust 🤣

Strange thing is, I checked my DOSBOX configuration on my win7 pc and it stated the gravis ultrasound was enabled. Perhaps the PNP part of the ACE is a bit fishy? As far as I could see no SBOS was loaded btw. but I have to recheck that I think.

EZ wrote:

I've tried all that, but it did not help.
The GUS was to 'blame', I tried to put it on a non-creative-violent IRQ like 12, didn't help either, nor rem'ing the gus batch file. Only physically removing the GUS made Commander Keen recognise my sound blaster. Perhaps there's a patch for that? Otherwise I think I'll have to have a secondary pc with a traditional soundblaster 1.0 because one thing's for sure, I'm not letting that GUS gather dust 🤣

But... didn't you disable AdLib port on your GUS??? I thought that was the main reason for having a GUS ACE, the ability to disable FM emulation on it and use a Sound Blaster for AdLib music without a conflict on 388h I/O port.

😊

It now works!
Mwuhahaha pathetic earthlings! With this machine, I will dominate you all!

-edit- eh, well a big THANK YOU is in order I suppose 🤣 I owe you one!
-edit2- well, I hadn't noticed that jumper when I unpacked it. Only the address jumper. I hadn't thought about sound blaster emulation in the first place as this card's name is "audio card enhancer" so I expected it should work together well with the sound blaster. As it now does 🤣

EZ wrote:

:blush: […]
Show full quote

:blush:

It now works!
Mwuhahaha pathetic earthlings! With this machine, I will dominate you all!

-edit- eh, well a big THANK YOU is in order I suppose :lol: I owe you one!
-edit2- well, I hadn't noticed that jumper when I unpacked it. Only the address jumper. I hadn't thought about sound blaster emulation in the first place as this card's name is "audio card enhancer" so I expected it should work together well with the sound blaster. As it now does :lol:

LOL! That's a nice machine you got there, but you still need some power-ups in order to achieve complete humankind's domination: upgrade your P-II to a P-III Tualatin, get that Voodoo2 SLI'ed with a second card, install a SIMMconn with 32 Mb on your AWE64, and add a true General MIDI/General Standard device. That will destroy all humans for sure!

Well, that, and an original IBM xt (and a couple of other retro machines like the Apple IIGS, Sam Coupe and Acorn Archimedes)
But for now, I think it's time to thoroughly enjoy them old goodies! 🤣

But soon......