pure DOS 6.22 on a LGA 775 Asus P5KPL-SE PCI Soundcard issues CT4810 Creative CT5880 \ VOGONS

pure DOS 6.22 on a LGA 775 Asus P5KPL-SE PCI Soundcard issues CT4810 Creative CT5880

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First post, by Nick_p

Posted on 2025-02-15, 21:14

Nick_p Offline

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Rank: Newbie
Posts: 3
Joined: 2025-02-15, 14:27

Hi all, medium time lurker, 1st time poster.

I decided recently to build a pure DOS PC. I have dedicated Win 98 and XP machines, but couldn't get some CD DOS games to work so decided to try to build a DOS machine. I've built a new machine but can't get the PCI soundcard to work.

Hardware is a P5KPL-SE motherboard, 128GB Sata SSD, IDE CD rom, and a real Floppy drive. This is all working fine. RAM is 2GB DDR2. Not sure this is important but it's being throttled via the BIOS to 500Mhz or what ever.

Software is pure Dos 6.22 with Phil's Autoexec.bat and config.sys.

My sound card is a CT4810 PCI with Creative Chip 5880 and I cannot get it to work.

the basic SB install says it can't find the 220, 320 stuff and the PCI128 sinstaller just doesn't see the device.

I feel this is a motherboard / BIKOS issue, but really not sure. If I run the MSD program, I don't see anything that looks like an Esoniq/SB device

If I run the PCICFG app, I see the soundcard and have tried to amend the sound blaster ini file with the actual I/O base value.

I can't find the IRQ port that I think I am missing here. The MOBO doesn't show it on boot.

Is there anyone who can help me get the soundcard working please? I've spent days getting to where I am now and I'm not giving up 😀

Cheers

Nick

Reply 1 of 4, by ludicrous_peridot

Posted on 2025-02-16, 15:22

ludicrous_peridot Offline

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Posts: 191
Joined: 2020-05-28, 10:51

Hey Nick

I've spent some time with 775-based MOBO-s and am actually running one (replying to you from this PC, albeit not from DOS).
For me the two types of sound cards for which digitized sounds actually worked were either Yamaha YX-7X4 based (via DS-XG, tried 724 and 744) or Aureal Vortex (Vortex 1 in my case). E.g. with an EMU10K*-based cards I was only able to get digitized sound in Windows 9x, not pure DOS.
This boils down to sound card's bundled drivers either providing emulation of DMA or depending on OS doing the same.
Here's some research on the matter if you are curious: PCI sound cards and Chipsets from various manufacturers...

I am not sure about the particular card you run - but if Creative drivers do not provide DMA emulation, contemporary SBEMU/VSBHDA tools may have support for it. There's a comprehensive thread on these in the Sound forum.

That said, the card will most likely have Adlib/OPL sound enabled either out of the box, or with initializer tool provided with the drivers.
You could then use, say, Wolf3D shareware version to check if music plays fine just to troubleshoot.

Sorry, not being very helpful with your search for the IRQ - not running the same make of BIOS. You could check if your BIOS has "non-PNP" operation mode, and if this unlocks direct IRQ assignment options for you, or if using IRQ reservation options makes a difference.

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Reply 2 of 4, by Nick_p

Posted on 2025-02-16, 16:46

Nick_p Offline

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Rank: Newbie
Posts: 3
Joined: 2025-02-15, 14:27

ludicrous_peridot wrote on 2025-02-16, 15:22:
Hey Nick […]
Show full quote

Hey Nick

I've spent some time with 775-based MOBO-s and am actually running one (replying to you from this PC, albeit not from DOS).
For me the two types of sound cards for which digitized sounds actually worked were either Yamaha YX-7X4 based (via DS-XG, tried 724 and 744) or Aureal Vortex (Vortex 1 in my case). E.g. with an EMU10K*-based cards I was only able to get digitized sound in Windows 9x, not pure DOS.
This boils down to sound card's bundled drivers either providing emulation of DMA or depending on OS doing the same.
Here's some research on the matter if you are curious: PCI sound cards and Chipsets from various manufacturers...

I am not sure about the particular card you run - but if Creative drivers do not provide DMA emulation, contemporary SBEMU/VSBHDA tools may have support for it. There's a comprehensive thread on these in the Sound forum.

That said, the card will most likely have Adlib/OPL sound enabled either out of the box, or with initializer tool provided with the drivers.
You could then use, say, Wolf3D shareware version to check if music plays fine just to troubleshoot.

Sorry, not being very helpful with your search for the IRQ - not running the same make of BIOS. You could check if your BIOS has "non-PNP" operation mode, and if this unlocks direct IRQ assignment options for you, or if using IRQ reservation options makes a difference.