VOGONS


Reply 80 of 215, by BitWrangler

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darry wrote on 2021-09-01, 04:06:
BitWrangler wrote on 2021-09-01, 03:33:

Would I want to try this on a SB0410 I just got the other week and haven't given a home to yet?

The SB0410 is based on a CA0106 chip variant . It is not compatible with drivers meant for the EMU10K1/EMU10K2 based Live! And Audigy cards .

See SB Audigy (SB0570 with ca0106-watlf chip)

Thanks, yeah, still figuring out what kind of halfassed mongrel it is.

Unicorn herding operations are proceeding, but all the totes of hens teeth and barrels of rocking horse poop give them plenty of hiding spots.

Reply 81 of 215, by VDNKh

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Applied this driver to my SB0100 and VIA PT880 Ultra build, notorious for having issue with my sound card's SB16 emulation, and it worked perfectly. No more BSOD when I install the SB16 emulator and IRQ conflicts preventing the driver from loading. It Just Works (tm). I had no issues with installing the IRQ steering and chipset drivers first. The SB Live driver seems to be okay with sharing an IRQ, Half Life works with EAX enabled and no pops or clicks, but I put the SB16 driver on its own IRQ by disabling a USB port in 98. Don't know if it mattered though.

Can't get sound effects in the DOS version of SimCity to work but the FMVs work. Duke Nukem 3D works perfectly, along with the SC-55 sound font. Sounds just like the video with the actual SC-55.

Reply 83 of 215, by Joseph_Joestar

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subnet_zero wrote on 2021-11-19, 19:03:

I got it working on my SB Live! CT4620. Duke and Lara, they will confirm it. Installation as described, thanks for your work on this. 💪

Cheers, I'm glad the guide worked out so well for you!

VDNKh wrote on 2021-11-19, 03:55:

Can't get sound effects in the DOS version of SimCity to work but the FMVs work.

Creative's SB16 emulation does have its limits. In general, I found that late-era DOS games usually work fine, but some older ones can have issues.

PC#1: Pentium MMX 166 / Soyo SY-5BT / S3 Trio64V+ / Voodoo1 / YMF719 / AWE64 Gold / SC-155
PC#2: AthlonXP 2100+ / ECS K7VTA3 / Voodoo3 / Audigy2 / Vortex2
PC#3: Athlon64 3400+ / Asus K8V-MX / 5900XT / Audigy2
PC#4: i5-3570K / MSI Z77A-G43 / GTX 970 / X-Fi

Reply 84 of 215, by subnet_zero

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Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2021-11-19, 19:15:
subnet_zero wrote on 2021-11-19, 19:03:

I got it working on my SB Live! CT4620. Duke and Lara, they will confirm it. Installation as described, thanks for your work on this. 💪

Cheers, I'm glad the guide worked out so well for you!

Will you put the CT4620 in your post with the known working cards? 😅

Reply 85 of 215, by Joseph_Joestar

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subnet_zero wrote on 2021-11-19, 21:55:

Will you put the CT4620 in your post with the known working cards? 😅

Added, thanks!

PC#1: Pentium MMX 166 / Soyo SY-5BT / S3 Trio64V+ / Voodoo1 / YMF719 / AWE64 Gold / SC-155
PC#2: AthlonXP 2100+ / ECS K7VTA3 / Voodoo3 / Audigy2 / Vortex2
PC#3: Athlon64 3400+ / Asus K8V-MX / 5900XT / Audigy2
PC#4: i5-3570K / MSI Z77A-G43 / GTX 970 / X-Fi

Reply 86 of 215, by khyypio

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Damn it, I forgot to mention this previously: Audigy SB0090 confirmed to work flawlesly with this driver setup. I used this method with my audio upgrade of which I made a video about. I also credited Joseph_Joestar and Phil in it for your work 😀

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VeVgns9m2YI

Reply 87 of 215, by Joseph_Joestar

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khyypio wrote on 2021-11-20, 09:47:

Damn it, I forgot to mention this previously: Audigy SB0090 confirmed to work flawlesly with this driver setup. I used this method with my audio upgrade of which I made a video about. I also credited Joseph_Joestar and Phil in it for your work 😀

Cheers! I have a separate guide for Audigy cards, with slightly different steps. But yeah, it's pretty much the same thing, and these drivers should work on most Audigy models as well.

BTW, nice video! Very cool what you did with those speakers.

PC#1: Pentium MMX 166 / Soyo SY-5BT / S3 Trio64V+ / Voodoo1 / YMF719 / AWE64 Gold / SC-155
PC#2: AthlonXP 2100+ / ECS K7VTA3 / Voodoo3 / Audigy2 / Vortex2
PC#3: Athlon64 3400+ / Asus K8V-MX / 5900XT / Audigy2
PC#4: i5-3570K / MSI Z77A-G43 / GTX 970 / X-Fi

Reply 88 of 215, by badmojo

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Great thread thanks OP I need to try this! And I love your vids khyypio - really nice presentation and that dry sense of humour gets me every-time 😂

Life? Don't talk to me about life.

Reply 89 of 215, by khyypio

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Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2021-11-20, 10:13:
khyypio wrote on 2021-11-20, 09:47:

Damn it, I forgot to mention this previously: Audigy SB0090 confirmed to work flawlesly with this driver setup. I used this method with my audio upgrade of which I made a video about. I also credited Joseph_Joestar and Phil in it for your work 😀

Cheers! I have a separate guide for Audigy cards, with slightly different steps. But yeah, it's pretty much the same thing, and these drivers should work on most Audigy models as well.

BTW, nice video! Very cool what you did with those speakers.

Thanks! I haven´t seen that thread yet, gotta go through it at some point.

badmojo wrote on 2021-11-20, 10:19:

Great thread thanks OP I need to try this! And I love your vids khyypio - really nice presentation and that dry sense of humour gets me every-time 😂

Thanks to you as well! Yeah, that dry road is a safe road ;D

Reply 90 of 215, by 2sekunds

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I have to THANK YOU!!!! WOW!!! This worked beautifully!! I have my Soundblaster Live 5.1 (sb0220 Retail) working pefectly now! I cannot thank you enough for taking all the time and effort to post this!

Reply 91 of 215, by Joseph_Joestar

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2sekunds wrote on 2022-01-20, 18:11:

I have to THANK YOU!!!! WOW!!! This worked beautifully!! I have my Soundblaster Live 5.1 (sb0220 Retail) working pefectly now! I cannot thank you enough for taking all the time and effort to post this!

Cheers! I'm glad the guide worked out so well for you.

PC#1: Pentium MMX 166 / Soyo SY-5BT / S3 Trio64V+ / Voodoo1 / YMF719 / AWE64 Gold / SC-155
PC#2: AthlonXP 2100+ / ECS K7VTA3 / Voodoo3 / Audigy2 / Vortex2
PC#3: Athlon64 3400+ / Asus K8V-MX / 5900XT / Audigy2
PC#4: i5-3570K / MSI Z77A-G43 / GTX 970 / X-Fi

Reply 92 of 215, by atom1kk

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Hi . i managed also to install it with my CT4830. Under windows works everything fine, also under Windows -DOS mode.

But under real DOS every game hangs up on start.

Sorry Solved... was my mistake, did some changes in the bios before, set to default, now works.

Great Job. THANK YOU

Reply 93 of 215, by Joseph_Joestar

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Note: the initial post in this thread has now been updated with a new version of the guide which uses a slightly different approach. I'm archiving the original version here, in case someone still wants to use that.

ARCHIVED version 1 of the guide

0. Introduction:

So why would anyone want to do this? Because it allows you to use soundfonts for General MIDI in DOS games. I know this is already possible with WDM drivers but those drivers limit DOS emulation to SBPro (instead of SB16) and they sometimes cause issues with Windows games that use EAX. This method allows you to run VxD drivers and still use soundfonts for DOS games. Note that this only works when DOS games are running from within Windows 98. If you choose "Restart in MS-DOS mode" then the soundfonts won't work and the card will use those crappy .ECW sets instead. To my knowledge, there is no way to use .SF2 based soundfonts in pure DOS with a Sound Blaster Live.

Anyway, you don't need to modify the drivers in any way for this to work. All you need is some way to unpack a single CAB file, and 7-Zip does that nicely. This guide assumes that you have a clean install of Windows 98SE and a Sound Blaster Live card. It will probably fail if you already have other versions of Creative's drivers installed, but it works 100% on a clean install.

EDIT - I have personally tested this method with a Sound Blaster Live 5.1 (model SB0100). Later on, different people have tested it with some other SBLive models as well, and all information about that has been summarized in this post

1.Hardware and software requirements:

Before proceeding to the next section of this guide, make sure that the following hardware and software requirements are met. If they are not, the driver installation may fail.

1.1 Upon booting up your system, enter the BIOS and disable all COM and LPT ports in order to free up additional resources. If your motherboard has an integrated sound card, network card or any other integrated device that you are not using, disable it in the BIOS as well. Lastly, if you are not using USB, disable that too
1.2 During the driver installation process, the SBLive should be the only sound card in your system. Using a second sound card may cause the driver installation to fail
1.3 This guide has only been tested on Windows 98SE. A clean install of Windows 98SE must be performed before attempting the driver installation procedure. Do not use any unofficial "service packs". Only install the drivers for your motherboard and graphics card until you complete all the steps in this guide
1.4 The SBLive requires one free IRQs for the card itself. The value assigned to this IRQ varies from system to system, but it should not be the same as the IRQ assigned to the SB16 emulation device. Additionally, the SB16 emulation device requires three I/O ports, one IRQ and two DMA channels. The default values are: I/O ports 220, 330 and 388, IRQ 5, DMA 1 and DMA 5. If any of those resources are not free, the driver installation may fail. To determine if your system has enough free resources, under Windows 98SE click Start > Programs > Accessories > System Tools > System Information > Hardware Resources and check the IRQ, DMA and I/O sections

2. Preparation:

2.1 Download and install 7-Zip version 9.20 for 32-bit Windows (it works fine on Win98)
2.2 Download the Audigy2 ZS driver CD ISO
2.3 Use 7-Zip to extract the contents of the "Audigy_2_ZS_Install_CD.7z" to C:\AU1
2.4 After that, right click on "C:\AU1\Audigy 2 ZS Install CD.iso" > 7-Zip > Extract Here to unpack the contents of the ISO image (it may report some errors with CHM files but that's ok)
2.5 Download the Audigy DOS support package
2.6 Extract the contents of audigy2-dospack.rar to C:\AU2 (note: it appears that this archive was created with a newer version of WinRAR, you may need to unpack it on your modern computer)

3. Windows Driver Installation

3.1 Right click on My Computer > Properties > Device Manager > Sound, video and game controllers. If there is an "Ad Lib Compatible (OPL2)" device present there, right click on it > Remove > Ok
3.2 Run C:\AU1\CTShared\LaunchApp\SysInfo\Setup.exe which will install the Creative System Information utility and update the InstallShield Engine (important later)
3.3 Run C:\AU1\DirectX\dxsetup.exe which will install DirectX 9.0a and restart your computer (if you already have a newer version installed, skip this step)
3.4 Go to C:\AU1\Audio\Drivers\VxD > right click on VxD.cab > 7-Zip > Extract Files > C:\AU1\Audio\Drivers\ (this should populate the existing VxD folder with the files from the CAB)
3.5 Run C:\AU1\Audio\Drivers\CTZAPXX.exe and select "Driver Installation" and "VXD Drivers" then click Ok
3.6 Driver installation will take several minutes, don't interrupt the process until you are prompted to Restart then click Ok
3.7 After the restart, wait until the installer finishes, then go to Start > Settings > Control Panel > Multimedia > Audio > Playback > Advanced Properties > Performance > Sample Rate Conversion Quality > move the slider to "Best"
3.8 Run C:\AU1\Audio\SFBMgr\Setup.exe and install the Sound Font Bank Manager (if you get an InstallShield Engine error here, repeat step 3.2)

Congrats on installing the Audigy VxD driver on a SBLive, now we'll tackle DOS compatibility.

4. DOS Driver Installation

4.1 Run C:\AU2\AUDIGY DOS DRIVER\Setup.exe and restart when prompted
4.2 Wait until the Creative SB16 Emulation drivers are fully installed (this may take a few minutes)
4.3 During the boot process you might see a "Config file incomplete" error. Restart your computer one more time and it should disappear

If the installation was successful, you should now have the following under Device Manager:

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Congrats on being able to use soundfonts in DOS games while running VxD drivers. Currently, the SBLive is using Creative's default 2 MB soundfont. If you want something that sounds much better, see below.

5. SC-55 Sound Font Installation (optional)

5.1 Download Patch93's SC-55 soundfont and extract the archive contents to C:\AU3
5.2 Download SF Pack and extract the archive contents to C:\AU3
5.3 Run C:\AU3\SFPACK.EXE > Ok > File > Add Files > Files of type: SFPack Files > C:\AU3\SC-55.sfpack > Open
5.4 After that, click File > Go/Stop. Wait for about 30 seconds. Now, if everything worked ok, you should have a SC-55.sf2 file in C:\AU3 (file size should be 45.1 MB)
5.5 Start > Programs > Creative > SoundFont Bank Manager
5.6 Click on "Midi Devices" and use the slider to set SoundFont Cache to slightly more than 50 MB then click Ok
5.7 Click on "Bank" then click on the default soundfont (2GMGSMT) to select it, then click Replace, point to C:\AU3\Sc-55.sf2 wait a few seconds until it loads then click Ok
5.8 Run your favorite DOS game (like Duke3D for example) and in setup choose General MIDI for music

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Listen to the MP3s attached to the first post in this thread to check how Duke3D sounds on a SBLive using this soundfont. For comparison, here's Duke3D on a real SC-55.

6. Getting MT-32 compatibility in pure DOS (optional)

6.1 Start > Shutdown > Restart in MS-DOS mode
6.2 C:\Progra~1\Creative\DOSDrv\sbemixer.exe
6.3 Make sure that the MT-32 option is checked, then click Save and press ESC to exit
6.4 Run your favorite DOS game that supports MT-32 (like Monkey Island for example)

Note that MT-32 emulation doesn't sound too great on this card, but I'm including it for completeness sake. That said, these drivers also allow your SBLive to emulate FM Synthesis, should you want that. Of course, this sounds different from a genuine OPL3 chip, but I'd still consider it tolerable. Sample MP3s are attached to the first post of this thread.

Last edited by Joseph_Joestar on 2022-11-22, 06:26. Edited 2 times in total.

PC#1: Pentium MMX 166 / Soyo SY-5BT / S3 Trio64V+ / Voodoo1 / YMF719 / AWE64 Gold / SC-155
PC#2: AthlonXP 2100+ / ECS K7VTA3 / Voodoo3 / Audigy2 / Vortex2
PC#3: Athlon64 3400+ / Asus K8V-MX / 5900XT / Audigy2
PC#4: i5-3570K / MSI Z77A-G43 / GTX 970 / X-Fi

Reply 94 of 215, by Joseph_Joestar

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Guide updated to version 2. New in this release:

  • You can now install various Creative Utilities such as AudioHQ, Surround Mixer etc.
  • You can now select additional speaker setup options (for example 4.1 and 5.1) instead of just stereo
  • The "Digital Output Only", "Bass Redirection", "SPDIF Bypass" and "AC-3 Decode" options are now available in Creative's AudioHQ

    After some extensive research, I have discovered that the utilities from this SB0220 driver CD are compatible with the Audigy2 ZS drivers and can be installed on SBLive cards as well. This resolved the long standing issue with version 1 of this guide which previously prevented SBLive users from installing these utilities when using Audigy drivers. Enjoy!

PC#1: Pentium MMX 166 / Soyo SY-5BT / S3 Trio64V+ / Voodoo1 / YMF719 / AWE64 Gold / SC-155
PC#2: AthlonXP 2100+ / ECS K7VTA3 / Voodoo3 / Audigy2 / Vortex2
PC#3: Athlon64 3400+ / Asus K8V-MX / 5900XT / Audigy2
PC#4: i5-3570K / MSI Z77A-G43 / GTX 970 / X-Fi

Reply 95 of 215, by Anilocin

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Can confirm that this technique also works perfectly under WinMe.

You have to delete CheckOS.EXE from the Audigy DOS Driver folder, or else the setup will stop, as it only allows Win95/98.

After deleting (full deletion, not recycle!) CheckOS.EXE, you should be able to run setup.

After setup and one reboot, you should have SB16 Emulation!

Medion MD 9783 2Ghz P4 Notebook w/ Win98SE/2K/XP Multiboot

694X 733Mhz P3 Build w/ Win98SE/XP Dualboot

Reply 96 of 215, by zconnect

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CT4830 - Doesn't seem to be working in windows 98 dos mode for me? I've ran sbeinit which says that the driver is initialized and have the correct parameters in games, but there's just no sound, and the diagnostics program says "is SB emulation enabled ???" when I try it. I've tried reserving the IRQs as legacy ones in my BIOS but that doesn't seem to change anything.

Board is an AOpen AX6BC with a 440BX chipset, running a pentium 3 450mhz.

The sb16 emulation works fine under Windows, just not DOS mode. Been trying to get this working for weeks, can't use an ISA slot because the only two ISA slots on the board are being used by a PAS16 (drivers aren't installed in DOS mode and it's disabled in Windows so it shouldn't be interfering with anything) and a bootleg voltage blaster.

Reply 97 of 215, by Joseph_Joestar

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zconnect wrote on 2022-08-22, 23:58:

CT4830 - Doesn't seem to be working in windows 98 dos mode for me? I've ran sbeinit which says that the driver is initialized and have the correct parameters in games, but there's just no sound, and the diagnostics program says "is SB emulation enabled ???" when I try it. I've tried reserving the IRQs as legacy ones in my BIOS but that doesn't seem to change anything..

Since there have been several reports from other people that their CT4830 worked fine with these drivers, I'm guessing that the issue you're experiencing is specific to your system. Possibly caused by a resource conflict.

As mentioned at the beginning of the guide, using a second sound card alongside the SBLive is tricky and may cause the SB16 emulation to fail, unless everything is configured perfectly. I would suggest physically removing the PAS16 from the case and then reinstalling everything again.

If that solves the problem, then you need to troubleshoot the resource conflicts between the two cards. Doing that is beyond the scope of this guide, but you can find some tips in section 1: Hardware and software requirements.

PC#1: Pentium MMX 166 / Soyo SY-5BT / S3 Trio64V+ / Voodoo1 / YMF719 / AWE64 Gold / SC-155
PC#2: AthlonXP 2100+ / ECS K7VTA3 / Voodoo3 / Audigy2 / Vortex2
PC#3: Athlon64 3400+ / Asus K8V-MX / 5900XT / Audigy2
PC#4: i5-3570K / MSI Z77A-G43 / GTX 970 / X-Fi

Reply 98 of 215, by zconnect

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Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2022-08-23, 02:50:
Since there have been several reports from other people that their CT4830 worked fine with these drivers, I'm guessing that the […]
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zconnect wrote on 2022-08-22, 23:58:

CT4830 - Doesn't seem to be working in windows 98 dos mode for me? I've ran sbeinit which says that the driver is initialized and have the correct parameters in games, but there's just no sound, and the diagnostics program says "is SB emulation enabled ???" when I try it. I've tried reserving the IRQs as legacy ones in my BIOS but that doesn't seem to change anything..

Since there have been several reports from other people that their CT4830 worked fine with these drivers, I'm guessing that the issue you're experiencing is specific to your system. Possibly caused by a resource conflict.

As mentioned at the beginning of the guide, using a second sound card alongside the SBLive is tricky and may cause the SB16 emulation to fail, unless everything is configured perfectly. I would suggest physically removing the PAS16 from the case and then reinstalling everything again.

If that solves the problem, then you need to troubleshoot the resource conflicts between the two cards. Doing that is beyond the scope of this guide, but you can find some tips in section 1: Hardware and software requirements.

I tried removing it and it still doesn't work. I think my motherboard just doesn't support it, despite being a slot 1 board, which generally support SB Live in pure dos. I'll just give up and use it in 98.

Reply 99 of 215, by slivercr

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I just followed this method to install a SB0220 in a Slot1 system with W98. I did so without installing DirectX9 and can confirm it works without any problem whatsoever.

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