NeoG_ wrote on 2026-01-14, 22:44:

Well I suppose you can force the sb16 emulation to the right settings... You will need to edit ctsyn.ini but windows will overwrite the file on every boot with the settings used in windows. What I would do is create a copy of ctsyn.ini in the game directory with the updated settings and to do a SET CTSYN=D:\DOS\MONKEY1 in the game batch file before running the SB live initializer so it uses that file instead

Okay, thanks. I'll give that a try and see. I've also read about changing the mouse from my serial/USB to my old serial mouse. And setting CuteMouse with the 3 and W switches.

DustyShinigami wrote on 2026-01-14, 22:55:

Okay, thanks. I'll give that a try and see. I've also read about changing the mouse from my serial/USB to my old serial mouse. And setting CuteMouse with the 3 and W switches.

Typically changing the mouse driver will solve the issue of the game freezing when you move the mouse while sound is playing. If it crashes when you don't touch the mouse or run the game in keyboard only mode (using the 'k' parameter) it won't be the issue.

You would typically see it on machines with PS/2 ports and using Cutemouse 2.0alpha4 fixes the crashes since it bypasses potentially buggy BIOS routines for mouse handling.

NeoG_ wrote on 2026-01-14, 23:39:

DustyShinigami wrote on 2026-01-14, 22:55:

Okay, thanks. I'll give that a try and see. I've also read about changing the mouse from my serial/USB to my old serial mouse. And setting CuteMouse with the 3 and W switches.

Typically changing the mouse driver will solve the issue of the game freezing when you move the mouse while sound is playing. If it crashes when you don't touch the mouse or run the game in keyboard only mode (using the 'k' parameter) it won't be the issue.

You would typically see it on machines with PS/2 ports and using Cutemouse 2.0alpha4 fixes the crashes since it bypasses potentially buggy BIOS routines for mouse handling.

Hmm. I'll try just keyboard mode next. But sadly, trying my regular serial mouse and mouse driver didn't help. Decided to test the game in a DOS window within Windows. At least there I'm able to hit Esc during any dialogue whether it's heard or not. In pure DOS the whole system appears to lock up. I also added the CTSYN in the game's folder, though if that's primarily for the SB16, I'd rather leave that for the time being. I know it works with the SB16, but it's the Yamaha I want it to work with. And at the moment I'm getting the impression the game just doesn't support this particular card...? Maybe it's too old...? Because it's an ISA card...? I've no idea. Either way, adding and setting the CTSYN in the game's BAT file doesn't work.

When I tried DMA 1 and 3 and IRQ 7 in DOS-Windows, I noticed that when there was speech I just got horrible static noise. I've also tried disabling everything that isn't needed in my autoexec file - SHSUCD, CuteMouse, Scitech Display Doctor 6.53, a patch that supposedly allows me to have bigger HDDs... Disabled them all, but no change. 🙁

Keyboard only didn’t work, either. Also tried it with just s and regular Sound Blaster, but just got static noises.

Going to re-set the Sound Blaster up. Looks like that will have to do. If I can get it working again, of course. 😅

I wonder if the yamaha card used with this game is speed sensitive - It may be slow but can you try the Yamaha card with L1 cache disabled. Since the SB16 emulation was written much later it might be immune.

I can certainly try.

Either way, I was right about not being able to set up the SB. 😖 I did foolishly delete the CTSYN.ini file. Don’t ask. I figured it was related to the Sound Blaster only and as I’d uninstalled it beforehand, it would just re-create it again after reinstalling the drivers. At any rate, the driver won’t install properly now. The whole system locks up. 😢

Of course, it could be because I’ve set my Yamaha to use I5 and D1-3…? And the SB wants/needs them…? Though I would have thought it would just assign the next available resource…? It certainly wasn’t a problem for it the last time I set it up. But yeah - won’t reinstall and therefore, no SB16. 😕

NeoG_ wrote on 2026-01-15, 00:27:

I wonder if the yamaha card used with this game is speed sensitive - It may be slow but can you try the Yamaha card with L1 cache disabled. Since the SB16 emulation was written much later it might be immune.

L1 Cache off, but this time an error rather than a lock-up

EDIT: Tried with HIMEM, but it just freezes, like usual.

Okay, I have two things to try, regarding getting the SB set up and working again: let Windows sort out the resources of my Yamaha, as it's currently set to custom with resources I've assigned, and if that fails, and the SB installation still crashes the PC, then I've remembered the first time I installed it, I believe I had the SB in first, and then installed the Yamaha.

Big shock. My ideas haven't worked. Despite uninstalling and taking out the Yamaha card, the installation of the SB driver still keeps locking up the system. I'm pretty sure I've put it back into the right PCI slot, but I'll need to check if there's a conflict with slot 4.

Also set IRQ 5 and 7, in the BIOS, from Legacy back to PCI/ISA.

Okay, progress...! Of sorts. In the end, it was PCI slot 2 I wanted, which I don't remember using before, but that's where it's much more stable. Re-installed the SB drivers and configured them up to an extent. To begin with, I was getting a warning in the Device Manager about resource conflicts for the SB16 Emulation, so I've jiggled those so that it's using IRQ7 and DMA 3/5. Enabled the device in CTSYN.INI as it just wasn't re-enabling in DOS for some reason. Now for some weird reason SBESET.EXE doesn't work and just tells me Error: Entry not found in INI file... I'm guessing that would be CTSYN.INI...? Apart from that, the device initialises in the game's BAT file.

What I don't like about using the SB16 is that MIDI is inferior. Is it possible to initialise both Yamaha and SB16 so I get music/MIDI from the Yamaha and speech/SFX from the SB16...? I think I might have asked this question before in another thread. Or is this where I would need a mixer?

Regarding speech though - speech happens, but I can't hear anything. So at least the game isn't locking up. I'm guessing the game needs to use IRQ 5...?

Managed to sort out the SBESET utility by tinkering with the resources in Windows again. Now it's working as it should. Still wasn't getting speech though, but then discovered it was because I was using Unisound to configure my sound card. I was under the impression it could configure any old sound card for DOS...? But it's for ISA PnP cards, which the SB isn't. ^^; So it was only detecting and configuring the Yamaha, which kept making it crash. Skipping that, the audio/speech was/is working correctly ...to an extent. Again, at the beginning of the dialogue between Guybrush and the lookout, the dialogue stops and the lookout's talking animation continues, but it doesn't continue on unless you press Esc. I tried disabling the L1 cache with CPUSPD, but it doesn't help. So I'm not sure if that's a known bug or something else. Going to try it with 86Box next.

Also, by not being able to use the Yamaha, and configuring that with Unisound, the SB16's MIDI is awful. It doesn't seem to use the sound canvas like Unisound allows it to. Also tried plugging it into the SB. So I'm guessing I need to set the MPU-401 address to something different...? Both cards are configured to use 330, though it hasn't complained of a conflict.

Okay, fingers crossed that speech stopping is the same kind of issue keropi experienced, which was fixed with a different mouse driver. Hopefully that solves the issue for me, too. As to the sound canvas and SB16, I came across this thread - Sound Blaster Live! 5.1 + Roland SC-55 (actually working with VDMSound) - which I'm hoping will be an appropriate workaround.

I found another thread where a user was having the same issue as you - Game didn't work with a YMF card and on an SB16 comapatible (in this case an AWE64) the speech cut off

Monkey Island Ultimate Talkie - black screen on start in real DOS 6.22

But there is no resolution in the thread, maybe you can message the user and see if they ever fixed it

NeoG_ wrote on 2026-01-15, 22:38:

I found another thread where a user was having the same issue as you - Game didn't work with a YMF card and on an SB16 comapatible (in this case an AWE64) the speech cut off

Monkey Island Ultimate Talkie - black screen on start in real DOS 6.22

But there is no resolution in the thread, maybe you can message the user and see if they ever fixed it

Thanks for the find. I'll see if I can reach them. 😀

Nope. Changing the mouse driver hasn’t fixed the speech glitch with the lookout. I’m out of ideas on the cause of that or how to get around it. 😖😢

I have one more thing to try and then I'm probably going to give up with it. Go back to my original plan of looking into whether it's possible to play the game and CD audio from the HDD, or play the CD version with General MIDI.

I need to find/use a CPU throttler that slows my CPU down in small increments. See if the issue I'm having is CPU related. Every one I've tried so far have been too much, like Throttle, CPUSPD, and Mo-Slo. As well as disabling the L2 cache. It makes the game too slow to load and freezes the game even more when speech starts. Going to try Slowdown and Set Mul next. If it is CPU related, I'm considering the possibility of getting a Pentium II 266Mhz. There isn't anything slower than that for a Slot 1 by the looks of it. But it might help some games.

it is very much possible that it is the p3 that causes these issues
these lucas games even had patches for 486 cpus - else you would get garbled sound and freezes
granted this is the "SE" patched game but still the game engine remains the same AFAIK
so it well worths it to test with some other system, I would get a p1 since you already have a p3 for more demanding stuff
there is the ICACHE utility that can enable/disable L1 on demand and this brings a 200mmx system to 386DX speeds

keropi wrote on 2026-01-16, 13:56:

it is very much possible that it is the p3 that causes these issues these lucas games even had patches for 486 cpus - else you w […]
Show full quote

it is very much possible that it is the p3 that causes these issues
these lucas games even had patches for 486 cpus - else you would get garbled sound and freezes
granted this is the "SE" patched game but still the game engine remains the same AFAIK
so it well worths it to test with some other system, I would get a p1 since you already have a p3 for more demanding stuff
there is the ICACHE utility that can enable/disable L1 on demand and this brings a 200mmx system to 386DX speeds

I was looking into different Pentiums, but isn't the Pentium 1 for a different motherboard type? I have Slot 1.

But yeah, it's very possible it could be. The test rig on 86Box is using a Pentium II and that was fine. Although the virtual HDD became bricked and wouldn't load anything up. So I had to re-set everything up again. Same hardware configuration. Although now the speech isn't working on there for some reason.

keropi wrote on 2026-01-16, 13:56:

it is very much possible that it is the p3 that causes these issues these lucas games even had patches for 486 cpus - else you w […]
Show full quote

it is very much possible that it is the p3 that causes these issues
these lucas games even had patches for 486 cpus - else you would get garbled sound and freezes
granted this is the "SE" patched game but still the game engine remains the same AFAIK
so it well worths it to test with some other system, I would get a p1 since you already have a p3 for more demanding stuff
there is the ICACHE utility that can enable/disable L1 on demand and this brings a 200mmx system to 386DX speeds

Is it possible to use a Pentium Pro on a Slot 1 motherboard? I couldn't help but notice on 86Box that I have the option to have a Pentium Pro with Slot 1 and an i440BX motherboard.

Okay, just learnt about Slotkets. Those are new to me. 😮 But how do you know if your Slot 1 motherboard supports one? Also, it sucks that a Pentium Pro Slotket is rare.