Originally posted by Soul Reaver First of all, I've posted this problem on another forum already but they weren't able to help me. But this one seems more directly geared towards what I need to know, so I'll ask here.

Another forum on another board? or here?

I've been trying to play some of the old classic games I have, including Doom 2, Ultima Underworld and Hexen...
For some reason, none of these old DOS games will play music, even though the sound works fine!...I'm playing them in a Windows 98 environment without actually restarting in DOS mode or anything (I don't think my sound card has any DOS drivers anyway).

Hrmm... Just remember that each of these may need individual troubleshooting.

My sound card is a Creative Labs Sound Blaster Live!

The music in these games is always somewhat midi-ish, but this card plays midi music fine on webpages or over WinAmp - it just won't play it in the games!

Well, remember that MIDI in DOS games was originally intended for a "real" MIDI device. What modern Windows do, is redirect that output to a software/hardware wavetable.

It's stopped working since I've formatted my HD though and reinstalled everything. I can't figure out what might be different now to make it stop working.

Wild guess? You switched between VXD and WDM drivers for your soundcard. When I used to have this card, I remembered my compatibility would "switch around", depending on whether I was using VXD or WDM drivers. There's some debate as to which is more preferable.

I really want to play Ultima Underworld again!

You might take a look at:
http://reconstruction.voyd.net

As far as DOOM and Hexen are concerned, start using the Win9x/NT ports available at http://www.doomworld.com/ports/windows.shtml

If your system is capable, I recommend the "Doomsday" engine (JDOOM, JHeretic, JHexen) from Jaakko Keränen.
His homepage is: http://www.doomsdayhq.com/

Just some things to note:
- The SB Live doesn't have a real OPLx FM chip on-board, so if you're trying to do Adlib/Soundblaster music in your DOS games, they'll sound like crap because it uses poor quality emulation in Win9x
- If you try to do General MIDI/MPU-401 music, it uses a primitive Ensoniq software wavetable synthesizer with a 2 megabyte Ensoniq "waveset" instrument bank (look for a .ECW file buried in your Windows system folders - that's what it's using)

In short, Creative's support for DOS on the SB Live in Win9x and pure DOS is not very good. I've been enjoying DOS games much more using WinXP and VDMSound because I can use SoundFonts for MIDI and I can get much better OPLx emulation.

*walks off grumbling about Creative Labs*

Ensure you are using "MPU-401" instead of "AdLib/SoundBlaster" for the MIDI interface in those games.

Snover wrote:

Ensure you are using "MPU-401" instead of "AdLib/SoundBlaster" for the MIDI interface in those games.

Hmmm... how do I change this? And if I don't have a MPU-401 option, how do I get one?

I thought I knew where to change it (the MIDI tab in the Control Panel -> Multimedia section) but unfortunately it doesn't seem possible to change it there. At least, there's no MPU-401 written anywhere there.

Hrmm... Just remember that each of these may need individual troubleshooting.

I don't THINK they do... these games all used to work with Midi and now don't, so I assume the problem has a common cause.

Another forum on another board? or here?

Sorry I didn't make that clear enough... I meant on another board.

Wild guess? You switched between VXD and WDM drivers for your soundcard. When I used to have this card, I remembered my compatibility would "switch around", depending on whether I was using VXD or WDM drivers. There's some debate as to which is more preferable.

I don't THINK that's it... I haven't installed any different drivers to my knowledge... I think I installed the same drivers from the same disc as before.

Generally, HunterZ is absolutely right when he talks about "enjoying DOS games much more using WinXP and VDMSound " vs. a dos session, but aside from this

Soul Reaver wrote:

(I don't think my sound card has any DOS drivers anyway).
My sound card is a Creative Labs Sound Blaster Live!

well I also have a SB Live and those dos drivers exist.
Don't you have the drivers disk ?
In any case I have it, and yet was unable to install them (I mean the dos ones) off the cd because of an IRQ conflict, which not even editing the bios settings could fix.
So I searched and found one standalone "sblive2sb16.zip" archive and finally using a boot disk from Win98 (for this purpose it can't be WinME because of an emm386 mismatch between the Live dos drivers and the Millennium ebd) there was a way of bypassing the IRQ problem and having those drivers eventually installed (and initialized !!).
So if you want, why not try it 😀

The Windows MIDI settings will have NO effect on the DOS emulation for the SB Live, because as I said, the SB Live uses an Ensoniq software synthesizer instead of the Windows MIDI device. Yes, it's stupid, but that's what they did.

You have to choose MPU-401 or General MIDI or whatever in the particular DOS game you're trying to run.

Originally posted by Soul Reaver I don't THINK they do... these games all used to work with Midi and now don't, so I assume the problem has a common cause.

Don't assume. While it's quite possible that it's solely a middle problem, it's just as possible that it's a combination of other issues.

Sorry I didn't make that clear enough... I meant on another board.

Ok, I was looking for other people's conclusions. Can I presume they came up with nothing?

I don't THINK that's it... I haven't installed any different drivers to my knowledge... I think I installed the same drivers from the same disc as before.

Well I no longer have the card to verify it, so we need a SB Live user with some experience on this.