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First post, by Great Hierophant

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The Fallout (DOS version) sound configuration utility allows the user to select from the following cards
Sound Blaster 16/AWE
Sound Blaster Pro
Sound Blaster 1
Ensoniq Soundscape
ESS Audiodrive
Windows Sound System
Gravis Ultrasound MAX
Gravis Ultrasound

Even though the game may give you these selections, not all of them work properly. Forget about Sound Blaster Pro or 1 support, all you will hear is nasty static. The Gravis Ultrasound fared a little better, with some semblance of the sound being heard, but the sound always stuttered so bad as to be unuseable. The only option that I have discovered that works is the Sound Blaster 16/AWE.

I wonder if the other options, which all support the Windows Sound System functionality, would fare better (or actually work). The WSS chips are far more straightforward in their approach to 16-bit sound than the basic Ultrasound Classic or ACE. Can anyone inform me whether they do?

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Reply 1 of 17, by Davros

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would help if you told us what card you have....

you have to set your card to a certain type with the T part of set blaster line

blaster.jpg

The TYPE OF CARD should be 1 if you have an older Soundblaster, or a Sound
Blaster emulating card. Use 3 if you have a newer plain Soundblaster. Use
2 for an older Soundblaster Pro. Use 4 for a newer Soundblaster Pro.

Reply 2 of 17, by Great Hierophant

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Davros wrote:
would help if you told us what card you have.... […]
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would help if you told us what card you have....

you have to set your card to a certain type with the T part of set blaster line

blaster.jpg

The TYPE OF CARD should be 1 if you have an older Soundblaster, or a Sound
Blaster emulating card. Use 3 if you have a newer plain Soundblaster. Use
2 for an older Soundblaster Pro. Use 4 for a newer Soundblaster Pro.

I have used a real and emulated Sound Blaster 16, Pro, 1 and Ultrasound (ACE) with the game, only the 16 works. Has anyone ever got the sound in this game working with the other options.

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Reply 4 of 17, by Great Hierophant

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filipetolhuizen wrote:

I assume T5 and T6 are for SB16 and AWE32 respectively, right?

No, the T variable is as follows:

T1 for Sound Blaster 1.0/1.5/MCV
T2 for Sound Blaster Pro 1.0
T3 for Sound Blaster 2.0
T4 for Sound Blaster Pro 2.0
T5 for Sound Blaster Pro MCV
T6 for Sound Blaster 16/AWE32

Also, the Fallout CD case and the Quick Reference Card only say 100% Sound Blaster card recommended. By this I really think that Sound support in DOS was an afterthought. It really should have said "100% Sound Blaster 16 card recommended." Still, if anyone has ever got the game to work with WSS hardware, I would love to know.

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Reply 5 of 17, by robertmo

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Fallout as many other games uses Human Machine Interfaces sound drivers. They all have the same problems. Search the forum.

I only wonder why so buggy drivers (or it is just we how don't know how to use them) were used in so many games...

Reply 6 of 17, by Davros

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Ultrasound Ace

A budget version of Ultrasound Classic with 512 KB of RAM (upgradable to 1024 KB, just as the MAX); had no game port or recording. Marketed as a competitor to Wave Blaster-compatible cards, it was supposed to be installed alongside a SoundBlaster Pro/16 card as a 'wavetable synthesis' upgrade.

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Reply 7 of 17, by Great Hierophant

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robertmo wrote:

Fallout as many other games uses Human Machine Interfaces sound drivers. They all have the same problems. Search the forum.

I only wonder why so buggy drivers (or it is just we how don't know how to use them) were used in so many games...

Thanks for that information, I believe you provided the answer before:

Now, however, I have a different problem: playing in DosBox, the audio seems to have a nasty layer of white noise over it when I use Gravis Ultrasound for midi. It took a lot of tinkering to get the Ultrasound recognized (set it to port 220 as that's all the game recognizes for the GU) and it test-plays midi okay, but digital audio with it sounds horribly distorted. Sound Blaster 16 (now set to port 240) gives no sound in the test, but regular old Sound Blaster does just fine. However, starting the game = white noise over audio!

The poster is talking about Spycraft, and he gives an accurate description of how the Ultrasound sounds in Fallout. You replied:

robertmo wrote:

I have found out that there are at least two types of Human Machine Interfaces sound drivers. If I remember correctly one type works correctly with GUS. The other type (Spycraft for example) doesn't play GUS digital audio correctly even on a real hardware (although gus max plays it correctly, but it is not emulated in dosbox) and doesn't play gus music. Both also have problems with Roland MT-32 support (on real hardware too): One type doesn't play it at all, the other type plays it only when you run it after choosing a different mpu device first (although i think music is not being played properly).

The GUS Max uses a WSS compatible CS4231 chip for 16-bit stereo ADC/DAC. As that is the chief difference between the MAX and the Classic, it seems that the WSS compatible options would work in Fallout and other games using the Human Machine Interfaces sound drivers.

If the Classic had the rare daughterboard attachment, it "should" work just fine as a MAX.

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Reply 8 of 17, by Great Hierophant

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I finally got around to obtaining a copy of Spycraft. Using the HMIDET.386 and HMIDRV.386 from that game allow Fallout to work with a true Sound Blaster Pro (1.0). It may not be quite as clear as a Sound Blaster 16, and may be a bit choppy at times, but it should work. I have attached the files from Spycraft you should the files of the same name that Fallout has in its main directory.

Attachments

  • Filename
    hmi386.zip
    File size
    67.44 KiB
    Downloads
    1122 downloads
    File license
    Fair use/fair dealing exception

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Reply 9 of 17, by Paddan1000

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Weird. When I choose SB16/AWE64 for sound in Fallout, using an AWE64 Gold, the game won't start. The test soundcard option in the options menu doesn't play any sound either. Only the Soundscape option works.
The game feels a bit buggy too, since I get artifacts on screen every time the screen fades.

Reply 10 of 17, by 7F20

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Great Hierophant wrote:

I finally got around to obtaining a copy of Spycraft. Using the HMIDET.386 and HMIDRV.386 from that game allow Fallout to work with a true Sound Blaster Pro (1.0). It may not be quite as clear as a Sound Blaster 16, and may be a bit choppy at times, but it should work. I have attached the files from Spycraft you should the files of the same name that Fallout has in its main directory.

Hello Hierophant, I love your blog. Great fun!

I am trying to get Fallout running from the GOG version. I have followed what the internet says I should do (i.e. installing the dos patch, the dos copyprotection, the 386 files, changing the config, etc) and I still can't get sound running.
I am emulating dosbox in Win 7.
I have been inside the fallout config file, and I am fooling around with the sound settings, but I can't seem to make it happen.
I am assuming that Device= is the sound card. It defaulted to -1, which is weird, but whatever. I have been changing that value, and the only thing I can change is that -1 will crash dosbox after the initial load screen is done.
If I remove the two 386 driver files (the ones from spycraft) the game won't crash, but sound is still gone.

Do you have any more thoughts on the fallout config, or what I might be doing wrong?
MAybe the DMA, port, IRQ need messing with?

Reply 11 of 17, by DosFreak

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Don't use the DOS version of Fallout.

http://www.nma-fallout.com/showthread.php?194 … -April-4th-2015
If you don't want anything additional at least download the listed patches and install those.

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Reply 12 of 17, by swaaye

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I spent the last few weeks playing Fallout without FIXT. I had started my game before knowing of FIXT's existence. I strongly suggest getting the fixes. 😀

Reply 13 of 17, by 7F20

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DosFreak wrote:

Don't use the DOS version of Fallout.

http://www.nma-fallout.com/showthread.php?194 … -April-4th-2015
If you don't want anything additional at least download the listed patches and install those.

I am trying to play Fallout in a Linux environment. I don't think I can play the windows version.
I guess if it's just silly to try, I will give up.

Reply 16 of 17, by Axatax

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I'm going to be boorish and necro this 12 year old thread. This thread is the first link that comes up on a Google search for "Fallout sound problems".

If you have Daggerfall, run SOUND.EXE and configure a digital sound card, then look in the resulting HMISET.CFG file for the "[DIGITAL]" section. The settings for IRQ/DMA/Port and DeviceID are notated in hexadecimal. Convert these values to decimal and copy HMIDRV/HMIDET.386 from Daggerfall into your fallout directory. Edit "FALLOUT.CFG" (in the Fallout directory) and copy the decimal values from the fields in HMISET.CFG into the corresponding fields in this file.

I have Fallout working with my PAS16 now, which wasn't initially supported by Fallout (and would only produce static with SB setting - the PAS16 fix is the only way I can get audio with this game). This doesn't fix the problems with SB 1/2, unfortunately, but maybe this will be helpful to some people searching for this. The SB cards < SB16 seem especially bugged for whatever reason - but maybe you can use some other sound card options to get the game working like I did with the PAS16. Some older ISA cards are also compatible with WSS and maybe that would be worthy of investigation.

Reply 17 of 17, by Stiletto

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Axatax wrote on 2021-04-17, 01:14:

I'm going to be boorish and necro this 12 year old thread.

The last reply was in 2015, so moderators only see it as 6 years old. Still a bit of a stretch to update it now, but we'll let it slide 😉

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