Make sure you're using default settings for 0.74, and not the settings from a .conf file of a prior version.

Try loadfix with various allocation sizes. Might seem unrelated to sound, but there could be an issue with how the installer tries to read the BLASTER environment variable.

ripsaw8080 wrote:

Make sure you're using default settings for 0.74, and not the settings from a .conf file of a prior version.

Try loadfix with various allocation sizes. Might seem unrelated to sound, but there could be an issue with how the installer tries to read the BLASTER environment variable.

I'm sure I was using the defult settings.
However, when I tried to install the game with the same config on another PC, it worked just fine.
Could the problem be hardware-related?

Maybe there's a problem related to the sound system in Windows; however, you said the install worked in 0.73 but not in 0.74, and I wouldn't expect that kind of problem between those two versions.

How are you sure you're using default settings? One way to be sure is to delete your conf file, or rename it to keep a backup.

ripsaw8080 wrote:

Maybe there's a problem related to the sound system in Windows; however, you said the install worked in 0.73 but not in 0.74, and I wouldn't expect that kind of problem between those two versions.

How are you sure you're using default settings? One way to be sure is to delete your conf file, or rename it to keep a backup.

Do other games work with digital and FM sound using 0.74 on the same system where you're having this problem?

Please read ripsaw's post above.

This is the second sound issue with Windows 7 (non-english version), the Realtek audio device, and DOSBox. It's probably coincidental, and other solutions should be tried first, but I wonder if a Windows 7 or a driver update has broken compatibility with some SDL version (or another section of code).

Edit: there is a suggestion to reduce the audio sampling rate for the Realtek audio device.

ripsaw8080 wrote:

Do other games work with digital and FM sound using 0.74 on the same system where you're having this problem?

I tries a few games(Doom, ROTT, etc) just now and they all worked just fine.
BTW, I have also tried loadfix with various allocation sizes and it didn't work.

Did I understand you correctly that the game installs OK in 0.74 on other systems that you've tried? if so, can you get the game to work by installing on a system that doesn't have the problem, and then copying the installation to the system that has the problem?

I notice that the gamename is chinese. Does the directory listing contain weird characters that get translated differently somehow ?

ripsaw8080 wrote:

Did I understand you correctly that the game installs OK in 0.74 on other systems that you've tried? if so, can you get the game to work by installing on a system that doesn't have the problem, and then copying the installation to the system that has the problem?

Yes, the game installes ok in 0.74 on my Laptop.

Coping the installation doesn't work as well. I still got "DIG support not found" messgae. And when I pressed ctrl-c when the error message occured, the game was able to start but still got some sound issures, which didn't occur on my laptop.

I attached two screen recordings to show the problem more clearly.

0.74
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsUjjeOvQas
0.73
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9cH6YNX76A

Qbix wrote:

I notice that the gamename is chinese. Does the directory listing contain weird characters that get translated differently somehow ?

No, just ordinary English filenames.

Something peculiar about your 0.74 recording: 2082 cycles is shown in the title bar, but it should be 3000 if you're using default settings, as in your 0.73 recording... not sure how that happened, but I can't stress enough the importance of using default settings when troubleshooting problems.

I see that the game uses DOS/4GW, and I'm guessing your laptop is not as fast as your i7 system, so perhaps the issue is speed. Too much speed can sometimes cause sound hardware detection failure. So, the first thing to try is limited or fixed cycles. For example "cycles auto limit 15000" or "cycles 15000" but you'll have to experiment with the number of cycles. After that you can try forcing normal core. Finally, you can try using DOS32A instead of DOS/4GW, but I think it's unlikely to help in this case.

ripsaw8080 wrote:

Something peculiar about your 0.74 recording: 2082 cycles is shown in the title bar, but it should be 3000 if you're using default settings, as in your 0.73 recording... not sure how that happened, but I can't stress enough the importance of using default settings when troubleshooting problems.

I see that the game uses DOS/4GW, and I'm guessing your laptop is not as fast as your i7 system, so perhaps the issue is speed. Too much speed can sometimes cause sound hardware detection failure. So, the first thing to try is limited or fixed cycles. For example "cycles auto limit 15000" or "cycles 15000" but you'll have to experiment with the number of cycles. After that you can try forcing normal core. Finally, you can try using DOS32A instead of DOS/4GW, but I think it's unlikely to help in this case.

The recording shows 2082 cycles because the hotkey to record screen in FastStone Capture is Ctrl+F11 and I was stupid enough to press that when Dosbox had the focus... Sorry for the confusion.
Anyway, I tried "cycles auto limit 15000" and forcing normal core. They both worked! I didn't know cpu speed could cause hardware detection failure.
I want to thank everyone on this thread for your patience to help me out, and ripsaw8080 and Qbix for making this amazing emulator!