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First post, by seras13

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I am into old-school gaming so i am collecting all retro consoles that i can find ane building game collections for them. The next logical step for me was to get into some DOS gaming since i kinda grew with both NES and some PC gaming back in the day.
Since i didn't want to build the PC from scratch, i kinda wanted to have it 'on the go', like any of ky consoles.....i turn it on and play some games, so i bought a brand PC laptop Toshiba Tecra 8000 which serves my needs quite good.
Since all the PC fuzz that i learned back in the day is long gone, i forgot how most of the stuff goes this is the second time i was installing Win98SE on it cuz the first time i messed a lot of things on it with some drivers i suppose.

My spec are:
CPU: Pentium II 366Mhz
RAM: 64Mb
HDD: 6Gb
Sound: Soundblaster16

The Pc is just what i want, i can run DOS games and also some early Pentium/WIN titles (like jazz jackrabbit 2,Tomb Raider 2,Monkey Island 3 basically sequels for some DOS games that i will have in my collection and some fun memorable titles)

Now what's the problem with it....
First time i installed win98se and started building my collection i ran on several problems involving sound most noticebly. Has some issues with cpu being too fast but i solved that and some other problems with this site which for i am very grateful. But the sound (i guess it was drivers not compatible with eachother i tried with soundblaster drivers,awe32 and awe64 gold) it gave me a headache. Only games with soundblaster worked and you had to choose if you want sfx or music, some of them worked both but most of the time it was one thing or another. From irq problems to not finding drivers, to dukenukem3d not working at all for some reason and windows opening c:\windows folder in explorer from startup. So a lot of stuff was fucked-up

So i started from scratch installed win98se again and read somewhere that it should be better to leave windows itself take care of the drivers. So the only thing i messed around is installing unnoficial usb bus drivers so i can use USB stick to copy games.
Now everything works well i just need to make shortcuts for certain games to be runned in dos mode and chose proper sound card in the game setup.

So far i setup this:
Doom (runs in dos through shortcut with soundblaster)
Doom 2 (runs in dos through shortcut with soundblaster)
Jazz (runs in dos through shortcut with soundblaster)
Wolfenstein3d (runs in dos through shortcut with soundblaster)
Dukenukem3d (runs in dos through shortcut with soundblaster for sfx and general midi for music i will check again not on my pc right now)
Secret of monkey island and monkey island 2 (run directly in windows through dos prompt with soundblaster for sfx and roland for music)
Prince of persia 1 and 2 (run directly in windows through dos prompt with soundblaster for sfx and roland for music)

The last two (monkey island and prince) i am having issues with. For some reason those games work only when they are run directly in windows. If i run them with shortcut through dos they don't have sound at all. In windows however they work but monkey island 1(tried second one too) have only music with roland but no sfx with soundblaster. Also monkey island 2 music is weird and all over the place, its like it runs too fast then too slow then it cant keep up the pace, always offbeat.
For prince of persia i managed to run the first one fine but the second one works untill you hit someone with sword (first scene). And then it freezes. I guess it tries to make sound through soundblaster and thats the moment the game freezes/hangs.
I read there are a lot of issues with that combination soundblaster/roland, so is there a way to fix this?
I don't want to mess around with autoexec like i did last time. Right now it is empty, no lines in it but games work fine. And didn't install any driver not for soundblaster or roland.....idk if thats necessary.....
So if it is i just wanted ti check here before i do it i dont want to mess thing up again. Or maybe there is some workaround for this.

I'm sorry i wrote this much i'm just trying to explain everything as much as i can, but i am here if you need some more info.
Also excuse me for my bad english hope you all understand me. Thx in advance

Reply 1 of 19, by Hezus

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The Roland MT32 sound is ONLY for users who have an external MT-32 module and a MIDI cable connected to the gameport. The same goes for all General Midi options in games. You'd need an external MIDI sound module for those as well. So do not select this option for your laptop.

I googled your laptop and I found that you a 'Yamaha YMF715-S' chipset, which is Sound Blaster Pro compatible. So this is NOT a Soundblaster 16. If you're looking for drivers, you might need to find those specific ones if you want the sound to work properly. There is an archive of the drivers you need for your laptop right here: https://onedrive.live.com/?id=CA5F36EDC3B600B … A5F36EDC3B600B9 (last file).

Now if you're playing MSDOS games, I'd recommend you exit Windows fully before starting them. Especially the older games might have problems with sound and graphics when they're loaded from Windows. Even if they are loaded into a MSDOS window and the shortcut icon says 'msdos', it's not a true MSDOS environment. So always try pure MSDOS if you run into trouble. You might have to set up the sound card specifically for MSDOS, but I'm not familiar with that Yamaha chipset. If you're lucky, the Windows sound driver installer in that archive I linked above might also install the DOS drivers.

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Reply 2 of 19, by seras13

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Hezus wrote on 2021-04-13, 13:41:

The Roland MT32 sound is ONLY for users who have an external MT-32 module and a MIDI cable connected to the gameport. The same goes for all General Midi options in games. You'd need an external MIDI sound module for those as well. So do not select this option for your laptop.

I googled your laptop and I found that you a 'Yamaha YMF715-S' chipset, which is Sound Blaster Pro compatible. So this is NOT a Soundblaster 16. If you're looking for drivers, you might need to find those specific ones if you want the sound to work properly. There is an archive of the drivers you need for your laptop right here: https://onedrive.live.com/?id=CA5F36EDC3B600B … A5F36EDC3B600B9 (last file).

Now if you're playing MSDOS games, I'd recommend you exit Windows fully before starting them. Especially the older games might have problems with sound and graphics when they're loaded from Windows. Even if they are loaded into a MSDOS window and the shortcut icon says 'msdos', it's not a true MSDOS environment. So always try pure MSDOS if you run into trouble. You might have to set up the sound card specifically for MSDOS, but I'm not familiar with that Yamaha chipset. If you're lucky, the Windows sound driver installer in that archive I linked above might also install the DOS drivers.

Thx for the reply. Well idk even on my first install when i did try installing a bunch of different drivers for some reason those specific games did only work ind soundblaster for sfx and roland for music. Now, how did my soundcard produce the sound i really don't have a clue, it's probably some kind of emulation but as i said it only works that way.
Also, yeah, in win98se you can run most of the games directly double clicking on the .exe file but it will always miss some sounds for sfx or midi. So i always make shortcuts for them so it restarts the pc into dos mode and run them there ,also adding specific commands if needed for certain games.
But its always as this:
First i enter setup for a game i wanna check and choose soundblaster output. Save my setting.
Then i try it out in windoes just to see how it runs (usually theres sounds missing) then i create a chortcut for DOS and thats it. They almost always work best in DOS of course.
But those several games i mentioned are very strange. Monkey island and prince of persia series both have more problems in dos than in windows. I just dont have sfx sounds (usually in windows i have sfx but no midi) but in dos no sound at all.
Monkey island especially it show" integer divide by 0" error which is as i know a problem with faster CPU's. Usually you can resolve the problem with disabling the cache but for me that didnt work as well.
I only changed the cod for running it from "monkey.exe v mo g" to "r" in the end (g is for soundblaster and r for roland) and now the game runs fine even tho i dont own roland so.....its really strange.
I will try using the drivers from the link but i am just scared if they mess up something can i roll back somehow? Will uninstalling them from device manager and installing windows ones again back things up where they were? Since this is my second time inatalling win98, the first time installing sound drivers did mess up everything for some reason. I just wanna know is it safe to install/remove drivers just like that, thats all

Reply 3 of 19, by Hezus

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seras13 wrote on 2021-04-13, 16:57:
Thx for the reply. Well idk even on my first install when i did try installing a bunch of different drivers for some reason thos […]
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Thx for the reply. Well idk even on my first install when i did try installing a bunch of different drivers for some reason those specific games did only work ind soundblaster for sfx and roland for music. Now, how did my soundcard produce the sound i really don't have a clue, it's probably some kind of emulation but as i said it only works that way.
Also, yeah, in win98se you can run most of the games directly double clicking on the .exe file but it will always miss some sounds for sfx or midi. So i always make shortcuts for them so it restarts the pc into dos mode and run them there ,also adding specific commands if needed for certain games.
But its always as this:
First i enter setup for a game i wanna check and choose soundblaster output. Save my setting.
Then i try it out in windoes just to see how it runs (usually theres sounds missing) then i create a chortcut for DOS and thats it. They almost always work best in DOS of course.
But those several games i mentioned are very strange. Monkey island and prince of persia series both have more problems in dos than in windows. I just dont have sfx sounds (usually in windows i have sfx but no midi) but in dos no sound at all.
Monkey island especially it show" integer divide by 0" error which is as i know a problem with faster CPU's. Usually you can resolve the problem with disabling the cache but for me that didnt work as well.
I only changed the cod for running it from "monkey.exe v mo g" to "r" in the end (g is for soundblaster and r for roland) and now the game runs fine even tho i dont own roland so.....its really strange.
I will try using the drivers from the link but i am just scared if they mess up something can i roll back somehow? Will uninstalling them from device manager and installing windows ones again back things up where they were? Since this is my second time inatalling win98, the first time installing sound drivers did mess up everything for some reason. I just wanna know is it safe to install/remove drivers just like that, thats all

As I tried to mention before: the shortcuts to these DOS games you make in Windows aren't in full DOS mode. They are still being starting within the Windows environment. If you want to load them in DOS, you will have to exit Windows and then restart the PC in MSDOS mode. Or, you can press F5 when the Windows boot screen comes up and you'll be able to select MSDOS boot from the menu.

The driver package I linked to seems to be a reliable source, so I think it's safe to install those drivers. Now these earlier Windows versions can be a pain in the ass when it comes to drivers, so if you want to be sure it's best to start with a clean Windows installation. If you want to make the installation faster, you can copy over the 'win98' folder from the Windows Install CD to your harddrive. You can then run the setup without needing the CD. This is also very useful for installing drivers that require files from the CD. It's easy to remove Windows by booting into MSDOS mode and then type 'deltree Windows'. This will then remove the entire Windows folder. After that you'll be good to install Windows again.

Now, when it comes to these older DOS games: they don't need driver programs to be loaded for sound but rather look for the SET BLASTER variable in the autoexec.bat file. If that isn't set, or is set incorrectly then the sound in these games will not work properly. To set these variables you need to know the adress, IRQ and DMA channels of your soundcard. I think those will be set by the Plug and Play manager in your motherboard BIOS (you can often see this displayed when the PC boots). Try installing those sound card drivers from the package.. it will probably set the values for you correctly.

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Reply 4 of 19, by seras13

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kinda did it. downloaded the package for tecra 8000 and just installed sound driver nothing else. at first i thought i lost sound to everything.
then i tried to run the setup for every game once again and music or midi worked for all but no sfx (not in dos, not in win). so i though hmmm that's prob soudblaster missing since in most of the games i set soundblaster for sfx.
then i added manually the line in autoexec "SET BLASTER:A220 I5 D0 T6".
I worked that around by looking at my bios and copying things, since 220 represent's the channel, "I" is for IRQ, "D" is for DMA, and i didn't know what is "T" for, so i looked it up and T represents the type of the card meaning:
T6 All 16 bit Sound Blaster cards are type 6.
T5 The 8 bit Pro card is type 5.
T4 The SB PRO is type 4.
T3 A parameter of type 3 indicates an old Sound Blaster card
T2 All 8 bit cards are type 2.

Since for my computer specs it says "Soundblaster16/PRO" i think it's number 6 so i put that.
Maybe i am imagening but sfx is kinda crackling a bit....but....alas it works! And that's all that matters. Maybe i will try and test the other settings but for now it is OK like this.
IDK if you meant to edit manually AUTOEXEC file like this but it works, so i will try not to touch anything more, and now Roland sounds beautifuly (i am talking about those memorable Monkey Island songs) and no more offbeat sound or anything strange.
I hope this helps everyone if they are having similar issues like me. So, on the clean install of 98SE, find your proper drivers (well that was the point since the "official ones" that i downloaded before were probably not meant for this PC) install the drivers, set lines in autoexec and setup your games once more from scratch.
Thank you all for the help

Reply 5 of 19, by cyclone3d

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Those T settings are incorrect. See here:
SoundBlaster Environment variables question

  1 : Soundblaster 1.0/1.5/MicroChannel   22kHz,  8bit, mono
2 : Soundblaster Pro 1.0 (dual-OPL2) 44kHz, 8bit, mono or 22KHz, 8bit, stereo
3 : Soundblaster 2.0/2.0 CD/2.5 44kHz, 8bit, mono
4 : Soundblaster Pro 2.0 (OPL3) 44kHz, 8bit, stereo
5 : Soundblaster Pro 2.0 Microchannel 44kHz, 8bit, stereo
6 : Soundblaster 16/32/AWE32/AWE64 44kHz, 16bit, stereo

Note: For types 2, 4, 5, 6 stereo sound is enabled.
Note: All Sound Blaster 16, 32, AWE32, AWE64 PnP models are of Type 6.
Note: Note: No one Sound Blaster type can use all of the possible Base Port addresses.

Yamaha modified setupds and drivers
Yamaha XG repository
YMF7x4 Guide
Aopen AW744L II SB-LINK

Reply 6 of 19, by seras13

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cyclone3d wrote on 2021-04-13, 22:29:
Those T settings are incorrect. See here: SoundBlaster Environment variables question […]
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Those T settings are incorrect. See here:
SoundBlaster Environment variables question

  1 : Soundblaster 1.0/1.5/MicroChannel   22kHz,  8bit, mono
2 : Soundblaster Pro 1.0 (dual-OPL2) 44kHz, 8bit, mono or 22KHz, 8bit, stereo
3 : Soundblaster 2.0/2.0 CD/2.5 44kHz, 8bit, mono
4 : Soundblaster Pro 2.0 (OPL3) 44kHz, 8bit, stereo
5 : Soundblaster Pro 2.0 Microchannel 44kHz, 8bit, stereo
6 : Soundblaster 16/32/AWE32/AWE64 44kHz, 16bit, stereo

Note: For types 2, 4, 5, 6 stereo sound is enabled.
Note: All Sound Blaster 16, 32, AWE32, AWE64 PnP models are of Type 6.
Note: Note: No one Sound Blaster type can use all of the possible Base Port addresses.

so which one should i use? 6 works, but kinda crackling a bit, or maybe i am just imagening

Reply 7 of 19, by cyclone3d

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You should be using 4 I think for your laptop.

When listening to OPL music, you will normally hear a bit of crackling, or rather clicking, in almost all games. This is due to how the OPL chips are designed and there is not any way to avoid it except for the songs to be programmed specifically to not do it.

As for other types of noise... Could be power supply, motherboard capacitors, sound card capacitors, or the game itself.

Your laptop may have some wavetable built in. On my phone now so I can't really check easily.

Yamaha modified setupds and drivers
Yamaha XG repository
YMF7x4 Guide
Aopen AW744L II SB-LINK

Reply 8 of 19, by Hezus

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seras13 wrote on 2021-04-13, 22:31:
cyclone3d wrote on 2021-04-13, 22:29:
Those T settings are incorrect. See here: SoundBlaster Environment variables question […]
Show full quote

Those T settings are incorrect. See here:
SoundBlaster Environment variables question

  1 : Soundblaster 1.0/1.5/MicroChannel   22kHz,  8bit, mono
2 : Soundblaster Pro 1.0 (dual-OPL2) 44kHz, 8bit, mono or 22KHz, 8bit, stereo
3 : Soundblaster 2.0/2.0 CD/2.5 44kHz, 8bit, mono
4 : Soundblaster Pro 2.0 (OPL3) 44kHz, 8bit, stereo
5 : Soundblaster Pro 2.0 Microchannel 44kHz, 8bit, stereo
6 : Soundblaster 16/32/AWE32/AWE64 44kHz, 16bit, stereo

Note: For types 2, 4, 5, 6 stereo sound is enabled.
Note: All Sound Blaster 16, 32, AWE32, AWE64 PnP models are of Type 6.
Note: Note: No one Sound Blaster type can use all of the possible Base Port addresses.

so which one should i use? 6 works, but kinda crackling a bit, or maybe i am just imagening

Use T4. Even though your source says it's soundblaster16/pro, there are hardly any soundcards out there that are truly Soundblaster 16 compatible. Only the real Soundblaster 16 by Creative is. All other soundcards mostly only have Soundblaster Pro compatibility, even though they have the number 16 in their name.

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Reply 9 of 19, by seras13

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Yeah i put in autoexec t4....tell you the truth i don't see any difference it works both ways but i gues since mine is yamaha opl i should use T4.
Now everything works ,except prince of persia 2 but maybe that's bad version of a game.
Tried all of the combinations with sfx and midi setup, and whichever i choose game freezes the fisrt time you hit the guard with the sword at the start of the game (i guess in that exact moment the game tries to output sfx sound but all goes to hell for somw reason). It only works in dos with midi for music/no sfx OR in windows with only sfx/no music.
Will try to play around a bit butni guess you can't expect to run every game you want in theese old systems

Reply 10 of 19, by Hezus

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Just FYI:
Music in games isn't always MIDI. If it's stored in the MIDI format your soundcard will try to play it using FM Synthesis or through a Wavetable. Wavetables are often optional boards or can be found on more expensive soundcards.

All other music is mostly OPL2 or OPL3 (also often referred to as Adlib). This is played by the OPL chip on your soundcard. Nearly all soundcards support OPL with the chip or through some sort of emulation.

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Reply 11 of 19, by seras13

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Ok, just now i am getting a hang of the stuff. All those manual entries seemed like they were working but they actually didn't. Now when i have the better idea what soundcard i must use i started fresh again from the beginning.
Firstly i installed "Audician 32" from PhilsComouterLab, a package for yamaha OPL3 soundcards which doesnt necesserily contains a driver for the card but chipset drivers are there. And most importantly it wrote the proper lines in Autoexec itself. Sound was like with the plain 98SE install, hit and miss, some games work, some won't......so THEN, on top of it i installed OPL3 sound drivers made exactly for Toshiba Tecra8000 that were posted in here, on that onedrive link someone posted earlier, and now i am getting a proper sound. Some games (like prince of persia) that i run with roland command didn't play midi now, but when i choose soundblasterpro they work, generl midi for monkey island too, all in all most of the stuff is working as it should.
I say "most of the stuff".....
Firstly "setupsa.exe" the configuration utility which is for testing setting of the card and storing them properly is acting kinda strange. It doesnt give me any errors at all and you have some options in there to test the sound....like if you hit the 'w' key you can hear some midi (probably wdm), you hit 'f' key you hear just a small bump sound (i guess fm synth or maybe internal soeaker idk whats that supposed to showcase but nevertheless it works and outputs the sound) and then when you hit 's' key, which is for soundblaster is gives me the SB error. In readme file it says of you get some errors its maybe because irq or dma was wrongly set. I tried different combinations but i alwas get that error and cant hear that soundblaster sound.
It works in most of the games, but there is some problem for sure.
Finally i compiled secret of monkey island - talkie edition, i dont get any sound running it in general midi mode, I can do only adlib. Its ok. Sound work, songs play.
But the first time Guybrush opens his mouth to speak the game hangs and you can only restart the pc. Same in windows, same in dos. My opinion is thats because of the same problem with missing soundblaster output in 'setupsa' utility....
I don't quite get it.....should i have some soundblaster pro drivers installed so the card could run properly when i choose adlib or soundblasterr settings? I though she is just emulating it and since for example i setup doom games with soundblaster sounds, prince of persia 1+2 soundblaster pro sounds.... All four games work with no problems. Why shouldnt MI run fine with adlib (which is actually adlib/sounblaster) mode?

Reply 12 of 19, by Hezus

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seras13 wrote on 2021-04-17, 05:21:
Ok, just now i am getting a hang of the stuff. All those manual entries seemed like they were working but they actually didn't. […]
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Ok, just now i am getting a hang of the stuff. All those manual entries seemed like they were working but they actually didn't. Now when i have the better idea what soundcard i must use i started fresh again from the beginning.
Firstly i installed "Audician 32" from PhilsComouterLab, a package for yamaha OPL3 soundcards which doesnt necesserily contains a driver for the card but chipset drivers are there. And most importantly it wrote the proper lines in Autoexec itself. Sound was like with the plain 98SE install, hit and miss, some games work, some won't......so THEN, on top of it i installed OPL3 sound drivers made exactly for Toshiba Tecra8000 that were posted in here, on that onedrive link someone posted earlier, and now i am getting a proper sound. Some games (like prince of persia) that i run with roland command didn't play midi now, but when i choose soundblasterpro they work, generl midi for monkey island too, all in all most of the stuff is working as it should.
I say "most of the stuff".....
Firstly "setupsa.exe" the configuration utility which is for testing setting of the card and storing them properly is acting kinda strange. It doesnt give me any errors at all and you have some options in there to test the sound....like if you hit the 'w' key you can hear some midi (probably wdm), you hit 'f' key you hear just a small bump sound (i guess fm synth or maybe internal soeaker idk whats that supposed to showcase but nevertheless it works and outputs the sound) and then when you hit 's' key, which is for soundblaster is gives me the SB error. In readme file it says of you get some errors its maybe because irq or dma was wrongly set. I tried different combinations but i alwas get that error and cant hear that soundblaster sound.
It works in most of the games, but there is some problem for sure.
Finally i compiled secret of monkey island - talkie edition, i dont get any sound running it in general midi mode, I can do only adlib. Its ok. Sound work, songs play.
But the first time Guybrush opens his mouth to speak the game hangs and you can only restart the pc. Same in windows, same in dos. My opinion is thats because of the same problem with missing soundblaster output in 'setupsa' utility....
I don't quite get it.....should i have some soundblaster pro drivers installed so the card could run properly when i choose adlib or soundblasterr settings? I though she is just emulating it and since for example i setup doom games with soundblaster sounds, prince of persia 1+2 soundblaster pro sounds.... All four games work with no problems. Why shouldnt MI run fine with adlib (which is actually adlib/sounblaster) mode?

I really want to help you, but when I read this it seems like you didn't read any of my advice and pointers. I took time to find the correct driver for you and still you install drivers that are not even for your card. I told you that 'general midi' isn't something your card supports and yet you are hellbent on selecting that option...

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Reply 13 of 19, by seras13

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Hezus wrote on 2021-04-17, 08:01:
seras13 wrote on 2021-04-17, 05:21:
Ok, just now i am getting a hang of the stuff. All those manual entries seemed like they were working but they actually didn't. […]
Show full quote

Ok, just now i am getting a hang of the stuff. All those manual entries seemed like they were working but they actually didn't. Now when i have the better idea what soundcard i must use i started fresh again from the beginning.
Firstly i installed "Audician 32" from PhilsComouterLab, a package for yamaha OPL3 soundcards which doesnt necesserily contains a driver for the card but chipset drivers are there. And most importantly it wrote the proper lines in Autoexec itself. Sound was like with the plain 98SE install, hit and miss, some games work, some won't......so THEN, on top of it i installed OPL3 sound drivers made exactly for Toshiba Tecra8000 that were posted in here, on that onedrive link someone posted earlier, and now i am getting a proper sound. Some games (like prince of persia) that i run with roland command didn't play midi now, but when i choose soundblasterpro they work, generl midi for monkey island too, all in all most of the stuff is working as it should.
I say "most of the stuff".....
Firstly "setupsa.exe" the configuration utility which is for testing setting of the card and storing them properly is acting kinda strange. It doesnt give me any errors at all and you have some options in there to test the sound....like if you hit the 'w' key you can hear some midi (probably wdm), you hit 'f' key you hear just a small bump sound (i guess fm synth or maybe internal soeaker idk whats that supposed to showcase but nevertheless it works and outputs the sound) and then when you hit 's' key, which is for soundblaster is gives me the SB error. In readme file it says of you get some errors its maybe because irq or dma was wrongly set. I tried different combinations but i alwas get that error and cant hear that soundblaster sound.
It works in most of the games, but there is some problem for sure.
Finally i compiled secret of monkey island - talkie edition, i dont get any sound running it in general midi mode, I can do only adlib. Its ok. Sound work, songs play.
But the first time Guybrush opens his mouth to speak the game hangs and you can only restart the pc. Same in windows, same in dos. My opinion is thats because of the same problem with missing soundblaster output in 'setupsa' utility....
I don't quite get it.....should i have some soundblaster pro drivers installed so the card could run properly when i choose adlib or soundblasterr settings? I though she is just emulating it and since for example i setup doom games with soundblaster sounds, prince of persia 1+2 soundblaster pro sounds.... All four games work with no problems. Why shouldnt MI run fine with adlib (which is actually adlib/sounblaster) mode?

I really want to help you, but when I read this it seems like you didn't read any of my advice and pointers. I took time to find the correct driver for you and still you install drivers that are not even for your card. I told you that 'general midi' isn't something your card supports and yet you are hellbent on selecting that option...

Sorry i'm maybe not fully understanding how to properly setup old system so i need little help.
As i said i DID install the driver you provided and things kinda worked but not at full capacity. Installing only those drivers you provired didn't write any lines in autoexec or system.ini, so i guess that was were the problem is. But installing firstly Audacian 32 and THEN your driver, DID setup everything as it should be. It wrote the lines needed in autoexec and most important, correct lines for my card, which are "a220 i5 d1 t4". And i know its not general midi its something called soft midi and i suppose its emulating it somehow. And, as i said i am trying to use adlib (which is the main problem i am exoeriencing right now with monkey island talkie edition). Don't get me wrong, i am very thankful that you took the time to help someone out, just saying how things are for my particular system setup for some reason. Just trying to learn from others while setting up my machine, hopefully wothout more strange things happening like it did so far

Reply 14 of 19, by newtmonkey

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I think you should focus on one thing at a time. If every game works but one or two, instead of installing weird drivers, you should instead focus on what is possibly wrong with the game that doesn't work. You should forget completely about Roland and general MIDI, these options are not meant for your computer and are just complicating things.

You should be configuring every game to use "Sound Blaster Pro" only (or "Sound Blaster compatible" or something like that), for both music and sound effects. If the game still does not work with sound after switching from Windows to DOS, there is either something wrong with the game (this is almost to be expected if you are downloading abandonware games), or the game is coded to work only on specific settings or with specific cards.

I understand that you want to get Monkey Island Talkie Edition working, but please understand that this is a fanmade patch that requires some level of understanding with regard to DOS and sound cards if you hope to troubleshoot it. I would suggest tackling this problem later once you've gained some experience with using DOS and configuring games properly. It sounds to me that you've got nearly every game you've tried working, so why not take a break and enjoy some of your hard work for a while? You can revisit Monkey Island later, maybe after reading up on DOS hardware, etc.

Reply 15 of 19, by seras13

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newtmonkey wrote on 2021-04-17, 09:57:

I think you should focus on one thing at a time. If every game works but one or two, instead of installing weird drivers, you should instead focus on what is possibly wrong with the game that doesn't work. You should forget completely about Roland and general MIDI, these options are not meant for your computer and are just complicating things.

You should be configuring every game to use "Sound Blaster Pro" only (or "Sound Blaster compatible" or something like that), for both music and sound effects. If the game still does not work with sound after switching from Windows to DOS, there is either something wrong with the game (this is almost to be expected if you are downloading abandonware games), or the game is coded to work only on specific settings or with specific cards.

I understand that you want to get Monkey Island Talkie Edition working, but please understand that this is a fanmade patch that requires some level of understanding with regard to DOS and sound cards if you hope to troubleshoot it. I would suggest tackling this problem later once you've gained some experience with using DOS and configuring games properly. It sounds to me that you've got nearly every game you've tried working, so why not take a break and enjoy some of your hard work for a while? You can revisit Monkey Island later, maybe after reading up on DOS hardware, etc.

Of course, i just like to get some help if i don't quite understand something, to get a lil boost of knowledge sort of speakeaking so i can actually learn more while configuring and doing the thing in the meantime. Is not that big of a deal if some games won't work i mean i don't expect every single ones of them to work of course. Right now it just baffles me, since this is just clean install of 98se, with driver specific to, not only the sound card, but right version for this specific branded laptop. So no BS, no messing around, and something is making a problem again. Furthermore, first time when i was messing with installing a lot of wrong drivers at one point that game worked, and other didn't AND when you are choosing adlib command it says (adlib/soudblaster) so obviously it is capable of doing it but i just hate when some things happen and you cant find a logical answer why. You know how it is when you are really close to something you just want to get deep into the problem to understand it better.....at least that's how i look at things, and that's how from my early age i learned everything about computers. But i must agree i got a lil more involved than i expected since i owned a win98 machine long ago, but i can see i forgot like 99% of everything that i knew. Not to mention the natural need to rely on simple solutions like modern Operating Systems nowadays have.

Reply 16 of 19, by newtmonkey

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I know what you mean, I do the same thing with my DOS PC; if I can't get a game working I'll spend an hour troubleshooting it, looking up stuff, etc., really obsessing over it until I can get it working. Also, as you've found over the past few days, once you solve a problem with one game it tends to also solve problems with a lot of other games too.

Look at it this way: Four days ago you were having all sorts of problems getting games to work with sound, but now you have mostly everything working and you've also learnt alot. Sometimes just stepping back and playing some games will refresh your mind and maybe give you some ideas.

The important thing I think now is to learn about your system a bit. Like I said above, you should just forget about Roland and General MIDI for now, your system does not support these options, and if they appear to "work" it's a weird fluke or something like that. Just focus on Sound Blaster Pro or Sound Blaster Compatible for now. Since you are focusing on DOS games, I would just completely forget about running them in Windows for now, it's adding another layer of complexity, and the Windows drivers may be hiding the fact that your DOS environment is not set up right.

Some games require a SET BLASTER line in AUTOEXEC.BAT to run properly, and that is likely what installing the Audacian 32 drivers did. In other words, the drivers themselves did not help, but they also added the line you needed to AUTOEXEC.BAT. You might want to post your CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files (from DOS) here just for reference, someone might be able to find something awry in there.

Reply 17 of 19, by seras13

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bios setting are not default btw i changed just 3 things. (picture 1 where is highlighted)
default were in order:
-IRQ7= changed to IRQ5
-Channel 1= changed to 0
-Channel 0= changed to 1

For whatever reason it didn't output any sound at all if set like it was default. I found this setup somewhere on some other forum, can't quite remember, idk if it is good like that, but it works so i am sticking with it for now
Also (picture 2) is the error i am getting when i try to test soundblaster in SETUPSA.EXE

AUTOEXEC.BAT:
SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 T4

CONFIG.SYS
DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\PANNING.SYS

(there were some lines i added manually for setupsa, that's how readme file said to do, but i am showing what are default unaltered settings)

Also ijust to mention, before with some old setting and drivers some games only ran properly with full music AND sfx ONLY in dos (doom, doom2, jazz jackrabbit, wolfenstein3d, dukenukem3d....) the others ONLY from windows (prince of persia 1 and 2, monkey island 1 and 2 the regular ones not talkie editions).
Now with theese setting i can ran every single game in both, they have all the sounds, no errors in both DOS and Windows

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Reply 18 of 19, by seras13

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does anyone know if my Yamaha YMF715-S chipset is capable of working with WDM drivers?
i installed latest 98se drivers which are VxD, but i can't get CD music in games (grayed out), with WDM it should work but i can't find any, only for ME and XP systems

Reply 19 of 19, by urbanus

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I have made a Windows 98SE CD for the Toshiba Tecra 8000 that includes Audio drivers for DOS and Windows.
Maybe you will have more luck with those? (I haven't read the thread here in detail).

With a clean Windows 98SE install and default BIOS settings, you can replace the "Autoexec.bat" etc with the ones in DOS drivers files.
Should work as is.

The "recovery" CD: https://archive.org/details/windows-98-se-t-8000