ALS4000...which is what? My motherboard has PcAudio98, biaatch 😉

Yeah, but your PC98 chip was made by somebody. PC98's just a specification, set by Microsoft, unless I'm mistaken.

ALS4000 is made by Avance Logic and is a PC98/PC99-compliant PCI audio controller.

Sorry to bring an old thread up but where in sam hell can I find this als4kdos.zip anywhere? The link is dead now and I can't use my als4000 (Avance Logic, Inc.) sound card in dos... If there are any alternative dos drivers it would be nice to know though. Of course I can't use emm386 with 4gb of ram (unable to set page frame address). I used jemm386 with a sblive! and 4gb of ram and even though it initializes properly no dos games-setup can find any card. It works of course on my other system with 256mb of ram and regular emm386... So I'd really like to get this driver to use my als4000 that's just laying around 😵 😵 😵 😵

new url:

http://vsynchmame.mameworld.info/
http://vsynchmame.mameworld.info/als4kdos/

be sure to check out the DOTS.

there are hacked drivers for CS4624/CS4614/CS4280, YMF724/744/754, Trident 4DWave-NX, EV1935 (OPTi935 MACHONE), viasbpro.

Thanks so much for the new link!! Can't wait to try it I'm sure it'll be great! 😀

I wonder how good this card is compared to the aureal vortex cards under dos (considering pci sound cards only). Does the gameport work as well? Mainly for midi output? This is great stuff!

avance cards are fairly good. midi and gameport works in dos. the problem with newer mobo's are IRQ and DDMA issues.

the official drivers are in here:
http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/

on left panel, click on:
Downloads --> Computer Peripheral ICs --> Sound IC's --> Software

Bumping, sadly, I saw a web site that highly recommended als4000 chipset sound cards due to not needing ems386 etc. and the motherboard I was trying to deck out is a mew-am asus board. I bought two sound cards in an auction only to find out after they hung up when the drivers loaded. Then I found this thread =(

I am going to either pick up a different MB or use this one and check auctions for an FM sound card as stated above.

CRAP!!!!

Anyways, I have this MEW-AM Asus Motherboard with a P3 Celeron 700 mhz and 1 stick of 256 MB pc133 sdram and I was trying to set up an old school dos 6.2.2 / windows 3.11 (because I have some windows 3.1 games that do not like windows 95 + I miss windows 3.1 ::sniffles::)

This board has zero isa slots. =(
Note: I want to use this board mainly because it sucks.... if you pop windows xp on it and try to use it... well. IMO it's unusable.

This board has onboard sound but I cannot get the drivers for win 3.1 to work and technically it does not support dos sound so I plan to disable that and pop in a PCI Sound Card FM801.

For video back in my old pentium 100 mhz days I always liked diamond (for some strange reason) so I was thinking of getting a Diamond Viper V330 and maybe a voodoo card for the off chance of a dos game that needs it falls into my hands?

Any help or advice? It really sucks I cannot use these als4000 sound cards... I even FOUND one of my old ones in a box here and I don't really have a board that can handle it.....

Well..... actually. I DID find one old MB and I have no idea what it is.

It has SUPER TX ST82C5613 '97 written on it and has an intel pentium socket 7 proccessor, not sure what mhx it is. this board is nice because it has 3 isa slots and 3 pci slots and it has 5 ram slots but 4 of them are old as crap I think. (I haven't looked into this board as an option yet)
EDIT: I think I will be unable to use this old board... it's missing some cable for the mouse port etc. All I see is a keyboard port attached to the MB. I assume somewhere in my mess of wires there is an attachment for the mouse port.

Any advice?

a board that old should still support DOS audio even with onboard soundchip. try running NSSI to determine your onboard soundcard.

NSSI:
http://www.navsoft.cz/

i always recommend ESS Tech soundcards for DOS audio. they are noisy, but they just work. if they didn't, then most likely other cards with more complex installation conditions will fail as well.

Regarding the onboard sound chip, you need to physically locate it. It should point you / us in the right direction...

An excellent DOS soundcard for PCI slots is the Ensoniq AudioPCI, which where so good that Creative bought Ensoniq and sold the AudioPCI under their name (with a Creative sticker on the AudioPCI sticker).

They are excellent for newer DOS games. E.g. Games that supported SB16 and General Midi, roughly from the DOOM times onwards like Descent, Duke Nukem 3D and so on. You will have issues with older games, like Space Quest 4 and so on. The digital speech will lock up your machine and the AudioPCI also has horrible FM sound.

But Sound Blaster + General Midi in new games, this card just works!

I made some recording for Doom and Dark Forces: http://www.mediafire.com/?b1z1vta58ec8m88
The cards look very distinct and there are a ton on ebay. Just search for AudioPCI:

The mew-am board onboard sound you mean?

if you look up the mew-am board on asus they have windows 3.1 and up drivers but for some reason... even though the sound card is enabled.. (it worked in win 2000 before i reinstalled dos and win 3.1)

the win 3.1 drivers are not working for some odd reason...
and they do list something for dos but it's not drivers, i read the readme and they just say it's an example of how dos sound could be emulated.

This onboard sound is pissing me off!

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

An excellent DOS soundcard for PCI slots is the Ensoniq AudioPCI, which where so good that Creative bought Ensoniq and sold the AudioPCI under their name (with a Creative sticker on the AudioPCI sticker).

Well, you praise the Ensoniq thing a bit to much: Allright it was good for a first entry in the PCI soundcard market, and it was cheap to make. And it indeed can be usefull for many Dos games.
But when you set up an Aureal Vortex-2 based PCI-Card or a Yamaha DS-XG based PCI-card, and add an external synth or DB, you are way ahead of the Ensoniq card.
(I used all three of them cards for years)

gerwin wrote:

Aureal Vortex-2 based PCI-Card or a Yamaha DS-XG based PCI-card

I'd like to know more! Do these work in pure DOS as well?

I have never heard about these cards, the AudioPCI are so plenty full on ebay however that's why I recommend them.

And with the later DOS games they indeed "just work" with excellent Sound Blaster and General Midi support.

Well wait a minute here. I want full sweet sounding (and looking) dos games for reviews. (

I will be hooking up a vga amp and using a dvr recording device with vga inputs.)

I want to know the best sound cards for awesome sound the way it was meant to be. even if that means more than one.

Same goes for video cards.

I will even use ISA if need be but in that case I will need to use an older board I don't have atm.

What cards should I be looking for? Is the FM801 a good choice? is the diamond viper 330 a decent enough card?

(Note: I have some games for windows 3.1 which showed some choppy garbled 2d areas on my onboard video... so a good 2d card is very important to me.)

Ok in this case you will need to go ISA. There is really no way around that...

Any examples of games you will be visiting for your project?

Please tell me more about your VGA AMP and DVR recording device! I have a thread further down called "VGA Capture Thread" and your contribution is very very welcome. So far I use a VGA > S-Video converter box...

I'll check out your thread and put up the details. I am also planning on video recording and posting full results of my retro dos project for youtube.

I want to review pretty much all the old ultima and other 2d games and the FMV games like lawnmower man etc. I finally beat lawnmower man and posted the ending on youtube. (but I used dosbox)

Just give me a bit I am at work atm. I'll get the info.

http://www.youtube.com/my_videos?feature=mhum
Youtube name VGCodeMaster

www.vgcodemaster.com

(I have to add the last two videos to my web site though.)

Subscribed 😀

PS: Take your time, there is no rush...

The era your game is from determines what devices you need to get so it's quite game specific. Are you looking at staying with FM sound or do you want to expand into Roland MT-32 and General Midi as well?

It's hard to give a specific answer, I am looking at a lot of the FMV games that came out in the 90's lawnmower man, angel devoid, etc. and also the 2d games like prince of persia and a lot of the old school rpg games realms of arkania, the journeyman project turbo, buried in time, shivers, the 7th guest, return to zork, cyber race, (cyber race really seems to have dosbox issues.) I think it locks up after the intro talking, once you get to the fmv game play it poofs. Hyperblade, Heavy Gear, Quest for glory V ( and ALL the other Sierra titles quest for glory, kings quest etc.) The Legend entertainment series of games, comanions of Xanth, death gate, Shannarra, etc. Mtv's club dead, (has dosbox issues also I think.)
Xcom, The Daedalus encounter, Lands of lore 1, 2, and 3.

And MUCH more.

I have an EXTENSIVE old game collection and I do not want to emulate them... I want to do it the right way. (Plus I get all warm and squishy inside typing dos commands and rummaging around in windows 3.1)

oh also panic in the park, the fmv game is only compatible with windows 3.1 and windows 95. I have a lot of wacky cooky games that have major compatibility issues.

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

I'd like to know more! Do these work in pure DOS as well? […]
Show full quote

gerwin wrote:

Aureal Vortex-2 based PCI-Card or a Yamaha DS-XG based PCI-card

I'd like to know more! Do these work in pure DOS as well?

I have never heard about these cards, the AudioPCI are so plenty full on ebay however that's why I recommend them.

And with the later DOS games they indeed "just work" with excellent Sound Blaster and General Midi support.

I would recommend that you investigate a handful of win9x era PCI soundcards. Here are some in alphabetical order:

* Aureal SQ2500 and Diamond Monster MX300. Both use the Aureal Vortex 2 chipset. A review of the SQ2500 can be found here. The Aureal SQ2500 cards seem to be rare. I'm not sure why. You're best bet is to get an MX 300, or I think the Montego II card also uses the Vortex 2 chipset.

* Creative Audigy 2 ZS. Amazingly, this has a VxD driver, but I have noticed that some features have been dropped for it. For instance, if you opt for the top-of-the-range model with either a breakout box, or a front drive bay, the remote control does not seem to work.

* Creative Soundblaster Live! (Try models CT4660 and CT4760)

* Ensoniq AudioPCI ES1370 chipset.

* Terratec DMX 6fire. A WDM Win98 driver exists, but I don't think a VxD driver exists. I think that a "budget" version of this card exists, which doesn't include the costly front drive bay box. However, the front drive bay box does allow you to attach a wavetable daughterboard, but I don't think you can access it in pure DOS.

* Turtle Beach Santa Cruz. A WDM Win98 driver exists, but I don't think a VxD driver exists.

* Yamaha DS-XG based card. Unfortunately, the model of one of these cards has escaped my memory.