Are you playing these games in a DOS window within Windows 98SE, or are you dropping into MS-DOS mode? If you are playing in a window, open a DOS prompt and type SET. One of the results should return a SET BLASTER environment variable. What details are set here? Your games should match what is listed for SET BLASTER. The ES1869 is a PnP card, so what is set at an MS-DOS level may change when Windows is loaded. If you check in Device Manager, many Sound Blaster and ESS cards have a device you can right click on (Usually the driver for the device is of .VXD type) --> properties --> and then the details of what resources such as IRQ, DMA, etc. for legacy/DOS mode are listed and these are reflected in the SET BLASTER environment variable.

Other issues are some Sierra games won't work properly if the CPU is too fast: The GOSIERRA 3 utility I have tried in the past for King's Quest games almost always gets sound working properly. Other utilities are at Sierra Help, as well.

Take a look:
http://www.sierrahelp.com/Utilities/SoundUtilities.html

Finally,
Make sure you have selected the MPU-401/Wavetable header in Windows Control Panel for Windows to use this as primary MIDI. It's listed under the Multimedia option. I believe ESFM is set as default for most ESS cards. I might not have the exact terms as I'm working off of memory, please keep in mind.

Meatball wrote on 2023-01-13, 22:13:

Are you playing these games in a DOS window within Windows 98SE, or are you dropping into MS-DOS mode? If you are playing in a […]
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Are you playing these games in a DOS window within Windows 98SE, or are you dropping into MS-DOS mode? If you are playing in a window, open a DOS prompt and type SET. One of the results should return a SET BLASTER environment variable. What details are set here? Your games should match what is listed for SET BLASTER. The ES1869 is a PnP card, so what is set at an MS-DOS level may change when Windows is loaded.

Other issues are some Sierra games won't work properly if the CPU is too fast: The GOSIERRA 3 utility I have tried in the past for King's Quest games almost always gets sound working properly. Other utilities are at Sierra Help, as well.

Take a look:
http://www.sierrahelp.com/Utilities/SoundUtilities.html

Finally,
Make sure you have selected the MPU-401/Wavetable header in Windows Control Panel for Windows to use this as primary MIDI. It's listed under the Multimedia option. I believe ESFM is set as default for most ESS cards. I might not have the exact terms as I'm working off of memory, please keep in mind.

Thanks for the insight.

I've been playing them in Dos Mode- I have no idea how to play them in windows. One of the reasons is that I have 3 soundcards - 2 PCI and the ISA ESS, and I never got the ESS drivers to work in windows. They often crash the system if I choose them as the sound output in windows (I had to cycle through a few different drivers online to find ones that worked at all, and they worked in dos mode). However, I configured MS Dos mode to only load the ESS drivers (and not my other two soundcards, mx300 and sb live). And ESS works fine in dos... except with a few games as mentioned.

Do you have an analog audio cable connected from the CD drive to the ESS? Just checking. Also, you can still try the Sierra Sound utilities for problematic games in DOS.

I usually drop into DOS mode only if a game absolutely refuses to work (Crusader games, for example, of course someone here might have a work around I'm not aware of, but I digress). If you are interested in getting the cards to work in Windows (I know this could be a lot of work, but I'm throwing it out there just in case; and if everything is generally working, you probably may want to leave well enough alone):

Uninstall all of the cards and manually each one at a time.

Start with the ESS card, the drivers built-in with Windows should are good enough for the ESS card.

See the file I attached. Locate your own AU30MMED.INF file included with the Vortex 2 card (attached was renamed to .TXT) in your drivers and look in the [AspenOverides.Addreg] section. In my example, I commented out all of the functions unnecessary, especially the Joystick/MPU401, Sound blaster, and related legacy compatibility. You will save resources and don't need these anyway, because the Sound Blaster will handle them in Windows.

After editing the file, install the MX300.

Install the Sound Blaster Live! with MS-DOS drivers. If you're using the CD to install, you may need to change them from WDM to VXD. The VXD drivers will grant SB16 support.

Next, you can set the ES1869 in control panel to handle MIDI, then you can loop all of the cards through each other, if you aren't already doing so.

If the Sound Blaster Live! wasn't set as primary audio output, you can set this in the same MULTIMEDIA control panel applet.

In the SOUND mixer applet, you can then adjust the volumes and enable/disable/mute what you need from each card. Remember to check for muted Line-IN, MIDI sythesizers, MPU-401, and/or related per the device hosting the sound you desire enabled.

The SET BLASTER environment variable will be listed in your AUTOEXEC.BAT and Device Manager under the SB16 compatible/legacy device. Set your DOS games to use this. But also, you have to check what address the ESS MPU-401 is listening on. Generally, I change this to 300 in Windows. The Sound Blaster is usually occupying 330.

If you're not interested in the above adventure, a DOS expert around here will probably want to see your AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS files.

I've noticed the following with my ESS 1688/X2GS combo and Gabriel Knight. Sound Blaster for FX and music: works. Sound Blaster and the X2GS: silence. If I connect something directly to the X2GS I hear the music. So I checked ESSVOL afterwards and master volume is low, aux and line are off. I can't set them back, rebooting is needed and MIDITO's mixer lock doesn't seem to have an effect.

Rawit wrote on 2023-01-15, 23:13:

I've noticed the following with my ESS 1688/X2GS combo and Gabriel Knight. Sound Blaster for FX and music: works. Sound Blaster and the X2GS: silence. If I connect something directly to the X2GS I hear the music. So I checked ESSVOL afterwards and master volume is low, aux and line are off. I can't set them back, rebooting is needed and MIDITO's mixer lock doesn't seem to have an effect.

Yeah, some Sierra games like Gabriel Knight seem to mute certain inputs on ESS cards. I had the same issue on my 1868F.

I remember that running the game once, then quitting, then starting it again sometimes fixed the problem. But generally, it seems best to use an external mixer for such games with an ESS card.

(as an aside, I've also been unable to get any sound out of commander keen 1-3 and duke 1- but keen 4 and duke 2 are fine- any insights are welcome as I try to continue to learn more and keep enjoying the 98se pc and games I have now and wished I had as a kid).

The first games you mentioned all have SFX only, no music, and only play sounds via PC Speaker. Keen 4 and Duke 2 play music and sound via PC Speaker or Adlib/FM.

As for the Sierra games, there's several possibilities. Have you tried selecting nothing for digital sound and keeping General MIDI for music (assuming you have it set that way for music), in case it's a device conflict? This is to test for bugs, not to force you play without digital sound, BTW. 😉

I think you addressed it above, but you're playing from Sierra.exe (DOS), not Sierraw.exe (Windows), right? Just to be absolutely clear.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2023-01-16, 00:06:

Yeah, some Sierra games like Gabriel Knight seem to mute certain inputs on ESS cards. I had the same issue on my 1868F.

This problem has already been discussed here and there is already a solution for it.
Re: Gabriel Knight 1 - General Midi/MT-32 Not Working.
MIDIto r12 (Midi and FM redirection, Mixer locking, Sound Blaster fixes)

Falcosoft wrote on 2023-01-21, 00:15:

This problem has already been discussed here and there is already a solution for it.
Re: Gabriel Knight 1 - General Midi/MT-32 Not Working.
MIDIto r12 (Midi and FM redirection, Mixer locking, Sound Blaster fixes)

Very nice! I was aware of that utility but not of its mixer locking functionality.

This will be useful for other games that like to mess with the mixer settings as well.