If you're not going to use pure DOS, then there was no point in going through the process of installing the VxD drivers, was there?
Remove them, clear any sound card stuff from your autoexec and install the WDM drivers.
Sound for DOS games in Windows should then work automatically (without needing to set blaster).
Just type "set" in the command prompt and it will tell you what settings to use in setup.

Kickass game by the way, well worth the trouble of setting up 😁

Can you check the resources set for the SB16 emulation in Device Manager?

feda wrote on 2023-02-28, 22:26:

If you're not going to use pure DOS, then there was no point in going through the process of installing the VxD drivers, was there?

There is some point in the process of installing the VxD drivers apart from the SB16 emulation, better stability and performance with Windows games.

Gmlb256 wrote on 2023-02-28, 22:55:

Can you check the resources set for the SB16 emulation in Device Manager?

Use automatic settings ☑

Settings based on: Basic configuration 0003

I/O Range: 0240 - 024F
I/O Range: 0310 - 0311
I/O Range: 0388 - 038B
DMA: 03
DMA: 07

Conflicting device list: No conflicts

Gmlb256 wrote on 2023-02-28, 22:55:

There is some point in the process of installing the VxD drivers apart from the SB16 emulation, better stability and performance with Windows games.

That's the conclusion I made as well having watched a PhilsComputerLab video on this sound card, in which he said the same thing, along with the fact that the Audigy 2 Driver Utility Program info also recommends VxD for W98se gaming.

feda wrote on 2023-02-28, 22:26:

Kickass game by the way, well worth the trouble of setting up 😁

Yes, it looks great, hope to get it running properly soon! right up my alley in terms of the music, voice style, and sci-fi setting, and as a fan of similar games like Imperium Galactica/strategy games in general.

feda wrote on 2023-02-28, 22:26:

If you're not going to use pure DOS, then there was no point in going through the process of installing the VxD drivers, was the […]
Show full quote

If you're not going to use pure DOS, then there was no point in going through the process of installing the VxD drivers, was there?
Remove them, clear any sound card stuff from your autoexec and install the WDM drivers.
Sound for DOS games in Windows should then work automatically (without needing to set blaster).
Just type "set" in the command prompt and it will tell you what settings to use in setup.

Will come back to this if other things don't work out.

Unofficial Ghost wrote on 2023-03-01, 12:27:

Use automatic settings ☑ […]
Show full quote

Gmlb256 wrote on 2023-02-28, 22:55:

Can you check the resources set for the SB16 emulation in Device Manager?

Use automatic settings ☑

Settings based on: Basic configuration 0003

I/O Range: 0240 - 024F
I/O Range: 0310 - 0311
I/O Range: 0388 - 0388
DMA: 03
DMA: 07

Conflicting device list: No conflicts

Gmlb256 wrote on 2023-02-28, 22:55:

There is some point in the process of installing the VxD drivers apart from the SB16 emulation, better stability and performance with Windows games.

That's the conclusion I made as well having watched a PhilsComputerLab video on this sound card, in which he said the same thing, along with the fact that the Audigy 2 Driver Utility Program info also recommends VxD for W98se gaming.

I have just checked and the setup.exe in Reunion only allows DMA to be 1. This is true for both Sound Blaster and SoundBlaster Pro options. According to your Basic configuration 0003 you have a rather unconventional SB setup where the low DMA is 3. Unfortunately it seems that Reunion cannot work with this setting.

Falcosoft wrote on 2023-03-01, 13:15:

I have just checked and the setup.exe in Reunion only allows DMA to be 1. This is true for both Sound Blaster and SoundBlaster Pro options. According to your Basic configuration 0003 you have a rather unconventional SB setup where the low DMA is 3. Unfortunately it seems that Reunion cannot work with this setting.

Yeah that definitely looks to be the culprit. The reason for this appears to be that the automatic settings bypass basic configuration 0000, 0001 & 0002 due to the following conflicts:

Interrupt Request 05 used by: Intel(R) 82801EB USB Universal Host Controller - 24D7
Interrupt Request 05 used by: ACPI IRQ Holder for PC IRQ Steering

The setting for Basic configuration 0000 does use a low DMA of 1.

I tried unticking the 'use automatic settings' and setting it to 0000, but the game then crashes.

Unofficial Ghost wrote on 2023-03-01, 13:46:

Yeah that definitely looks to be the culprit. The reason for this appears to be that the automatic settings bypass basic configu […]
Show full quote

Falcosoft wrote on 2023-03-01, 13:15:

I have just checked and the setup.exe in Reunion only allows DMA to be 1. This is true for both Sound Blaster and SoundBlaster Pro options. According to your Basic configuration 0003 you have a rather unconventional SB setup where the low DMA is 3. Unfortunately it seems that Reunion cannot work with this setting.

Yeah that definitely looks to be the culprit. The reason for this appears to be that the automatic settings bypass basic configuration 0000, 0001 & 0002 due to the following conflicts:

Interrupt Request 05 used by: Intel(R) 82801EB USB Universal Host Controller - 24D7
Interrupt Request 05 used by: ACPI IRQ Holder for PC IRQ Steering

The setting for Basic configuration 0000 does use a low DMA of 1.

I tried unticking the 'use automatic settings' and setting it to 0000, but the game then crashes.

Some of these "Basic configuration" settings allows the IRQ channel to be changed manually. Set it to IRQ 7 if LPT1 (disable it in the BIOS setup just in case) or another device isn't using it.

Gmlb256 wrote on 2023-03-01, 13:56:

Some of these "Basic configuration" settings allows the IRQ channel to be changed manually. Set it to IRQ 7 if LPT1 (disable it in the BIOS setup just in case) or another device isn't using it.

Under Basic configuration 0000 I get the message "This resource setting cannot be modified" when I try to change the IRQ value.

My Bios settings are:

OnBoard Floppy Controller: Enabled
Serial Port Address: Disabled
Infrared Port Address: Disabled
Parallel Port Address: Disabled

I went back to the Basic configuration 0003 settings and am able to change the low DMA number to 1, but unable to see if that has worked as the game starts to run but then crashes with the error:

Not enough memory! Please run with more main memory or EMS (max 256k).

Did a quick search for this error and found the commands below recommended as a potential fix, so tried adding them to my Config.syd:

Device=c:\windows\himem.sys /testmem:off
Device=c:\windows\emm386.exe ram d=64 min=0
Dos=high,umb

Unfortuantely no luck with that either!... Come on damn game, work! 😁

Great choice mate, Reunion was an awesone game.

I wonder why you try to run it on such a machine. It was released in 94 for DOS. SBPro is the way to go here.

But, Try using a different PCI slot for the Audigy. There is a principle called irq sharing running in pci bus. it seems like the usb controller is blocking the needed irq.

First try disabling the on board usb controller and use PS2 input devices.
https://download.asrock.com/Manual/P4i65G.pdf page 31

It may be that the ressources you need are then free.
if so config the audigy resources manually in windows device manager. use A220,I5, D1 should be configuration profile 0000 as stated before. then save this.
windows writes this to the cmos.
then enable usb again and see if it gets a different irq.

if it does not work try another pci slot.

normally pci slot 2 does not share ressources with other devices per pci definition.

also check out https://techgenix.com/intshare/ for more info

Hey Zapedge, cheers for the info man. I'm just about to go to work, but will check all of this out later.

i found the picture i was looking for earlier here in another post.
check out Re: Matrox Millennium II glitching and freezing with drivers installed.
there you see that pci slot 2 does not share interupts with others.
i assume you put the soundlaster in slot 4 or 5? it shares irq with the usb controller.

good luck

Unofficial Ghost wrote on 2023-03-01, 14:23:

Not enough memory! Please run with more main memory or EMS (max 256k).

Try going into the executable or bat file's memory tab in the properties menu. Set everything to the maximum available number (instead of auto). It helps sometimes.

zapedge wrote on 2023-03-01, 16:23:

I wonder why you try to run it on such a machine. It was released in 94 for DOS. SBPro is the way to go here.

Yeah, I see what you're saying & in the future I will likely look into building more era specific builds, but for starters (this is my 1st old school build in recent years) I wanted to build an all-rounder for playing games ranging from DOS - 2000, and perhaps some early 00's games. After doing a fair bit of research, it seemed like a W98SE system would be suitable + the parts were readily available/reasonably priced.

zapedge wrote on 2023-03-01, 16:23:

But, Try using a different PCI slot for the Audigy. There is a principle called irq sharing running in pci bus. it seems like t […]
Show full quote

But, Try using a different PCI slot for the Audigy. There is a principle called irq sharing running in pci bus. it seems like the usb controller is blocking the needed irq.

First try disabling the on board usb controller and use PS2 input devices.
https://download.asrock.com/Manual/P4i65G.pdf page 31

It may be that the ressources you need are then free.

if so config the audigy resources manually in windows device manager. use A220,I5, D1 should be configuration profile 0000 as stated before. then save this.
windows writes this to the cmos.

I disabled the USB controller which resolved the IRQ conflict showing up in the SB16 Emulation resources, but... a new conflict showed up in it's place as:

Interrupt Request 05 used by: Audigy Audio Processor.

In the SB16 Emulation resources 0000 profile I'm unable to try and resolve this by changing the IRQ value, I get the message "This resource setting cannot be modified".

Switching to profile 0001, I'm able to change the IRQ value, so I set it to 7 (other settings - I/O Range: 0220 - 022F, 0330 - 0331, 0388 - 038B, DMA: 01, DMA: 07)
Rebooted & changed the Reunion setup.exe to Sound Blaster Pro, I/O: 220h, Interrupt number: 7, DMA: 1
The game gets to the hero select screen with music playing, but then hangs up/white screen after selecting a hero! 🙁

zapedge wrote on 2023-03-01, 16:23:

then enable usb again and see if it gets a different irq.

I've left it disabled for now, will stick with PS2 whilst trying to figure this out.

zapedge wrote on 2023-03-01, 16:23:

if it does not work try another pci slot.

normally pci slot 2 does not share ressources with other devices per pci definition.

I've got my Audigy installed into the last PCI slot (3). I actually can't move it to another slot as I installed an aftermarket cooler on my GPU and it takes up the AGP + 1 PCI slot, and is close enough to the 2nd PCI slot that the fan is in contact with the Audigy card.

At this point I'm thinking of uninstalling the Soundblaster drivers and starting again.

feda wrote on 2023-03-02, 04:55:

Try going into the executable or bat file's memory tab in the properties menu. Set everything to the maximum available number (instead of auto). It helps sometimes.

Cheers, gave that a try, but still get the same error.

For whatever reason after trying different configs in resources and whatnot, I'm not getting the memory error anymore, but still stuck with probs mentioned above! 🙁

IRQ 7 is even better because very old games have it hardcoded.

the crash is most likely to the insane cpu speed you have.
Pentium 4 is unfornunately not software-slowable afaik

I could be wrong, but not convinced about CPU speed, as I was able to run the game when I first made this thread.
It's just that I had no voice or effects sounds, only music, but the game was perfectly playable.
I've only started getting the crash since messing with various settings.

Hey guys. reinstalled Windows again last night and had a go at using the Audigy WDM drivers as Feda suggested.

Unfortunately back to getting a memory error crash when I try to go beyond selecting a hero:

However I'm pretty sure the game has effects sounds now?... because, well, a sound effect plays when I select a hero. 😁 (IIRC I didn't hear that with the VxD/SB16 Emulation setup)

For some reason the intro only plays up to the point of the purple dudes face dissapearing, but doesn't transition to/play the actual intro, with the voiced storyline, so not sure if the voice sounds are working. (it doesn't crash at this point, just skips that part of the intro & proceeds to new game screen)

What should I try to resolve the memory error?...

Not sure how helpful this is.. but here's my MEM info:

The games memory settings under properties are all set to Auto, although have tried (unsuccessfully) with max settings.

Here's my device manager, autoexec and config settings as well:

.... I'm sure there must be a work around for this memory error?.. but if not I've got a Cobra AW-840 I wanted to eventually install as a 2nd card alongside the Audigy (for it's decent OPL 3 emulation & the card is small enough to fit re: the GPU cooler) I could try, and also got a SB Live! that could replace the Audigy.