I think that with PCI cards and Dos you are not bound to find a lot compatible cards.
AFAIK most of the cards today require EMS for SB emulation IF they have dos drivers at all.
Requiring EMS is not too bad but not too good either for games like Ultima 7 that don't run with EMS...

I suggest using an AWE32 or AWE64.

Both of those are ISA.

No, I'm pretty sure the AWE64 is PCI.

There may well be a PCI version of the AWE64, but both the original and the "Gold" versions were ISA bus.

For compatibility, any modern Creative SoundBlaster is worth investigating if you're running a Windows NT-based OS. ISA cards are really good if you're going to use DOS.

hm, I'd say for NT based OS it doesn't matter what sound card you use. there is no compatibility in those OS. That'S why there is VDMS...

I think this thread got more off topic from it's off topic roots. I figured the bunch of people on this board would know about DOS games on modern hardware.

It looks like I'll have to do it myself. I'm going to buy a Fortemedia SP-801 chipset board and a Yamaha YMF744 based board (like the Aopen AW744-L) and compare myself. From perusing Dejanews for a weekend, it seems like those two stand the best chance of operating in real mode DOS with MPU-401 FM synthesis (or GM) capability in addition to SB Pro sound. I'll compare the three (along with my Aureal SQ2500) to see which PCI has the absolute best DOS compability and return the other one.

VDMSound is nice, but it doesn't compare to good 'ol DOS. Unfortunately, I no longer have a mobo with an ISA slot, and the box I want to buy for this purpose is the Shuttle SS40G SSF PC, which only has PCI slots. It's going to be my "legacy" game machine. That's for all my DOS, Win31 and Win98 stuff. All my other PC's have Win2K or better now, so I had to give up old game compability to make that move. It would be nice if VDMSound could do it all, but I think MS is to blame for the restrictions in the modern operating systems.

-Robert

IMHO, if your talking compatibility of a PCI soundcard with the old ISA Soundblaster, you've got the best card (SQ2500). The Aureal SQ2500 has hardware support for SB compatibility and DOS mode, i.e., no drivers are required (although a program does load your setting into memory (if I recall correctly). Creative's PCI cards require expanded memory to load DOS drivers, and aren't as SB compatible as the SQ2500. Too bad Aureal didn't survive. The SQ2500 would still be a good sound card today if it had ME and XP drivers, and the SQ3500 Aureal had on the boards looked like it was going to be a good card.

I'll report back my findings here, and probably on a Usenet group somewhere so it gets recorded in the annals of Dejanews history. My SQ2500 already doesn't do FM music for Alone in the Dark 2 and 3, so I stopped my testing right there. It does SB Pro sound, but that's it.

Robert

You guys should just pick up a quality DOS card on Ebay. They go for soooo cheap these days.

None of the PCI Sound cards really do a decent job. My Live! uses the old Ensoniq ECW wavesets for DOS Midi, it's pretty bad really. Wasn't good on the AudioPCI, isn't good here.

I have a Ensoniq Soundscape ELITE from the good 'ol days, saved for DOS purposes. I also just picked up a SB32, gonna max out it's sample RAM 😀

Most new motherboards don't have any ISA slots. I just upgraded from a Celeron to a P4 and discovered this problem.

Sound Blaster 16 PCI. $30.

So is this the definitive answer? Creative Labs SoundBlaster 16 PCI? It doesn't look like it to me. The specifications mention drivers for all flavors of windows (except 3.1) but not for DOS. I don't know if that is the best DOS compatible PCI solution or not.

I'm looking for this answer as well. DOS+PCI+SB compatible for old games.

The SB was the standard back in the DOS days. The PCI SB16 is about the closest your gonna get to the oldest most compatible PCI Sound card for old DOS games.....

Originally posted by Maetryx The specifications mention drivers for all flavors of windows (except 3.1)

I think that's a support issue. IIRC, you basically won't find much of any DOS drivers anymore as Creative doesn't want to provide support (in any way) for DOS anymore. Odds are, it will work.

There are still cards out there that have "real" DOS support, but the selection is getting very thin. My Philips PSC706 has DOS support (even supports MIDI wavetable in DOS), but it seems flaky in DOS with my present motherboard.

AOpen still has "true DOS" support in it's AW540 card,
http://www.aopen.com/products/sound/aw540.htm

I know everyone else slates it, but I picked up an SB PCI 128 about 4 years ago and I've never had a problem with the legacy drivers I got with it. The quality's probably not the best around, but hell, it works, and I'll take that...

AWE32 and AWE64 both work well but I'm not sure if either of those have PCI flavours.

I wouldn't put much stock in the DOS support for Creative PCI cards, as Creative didn't actually develop it. It was actually developed by Ensoniq, whom Creative bought-out as a way into the PCI sound card market.

I'm pretty sure the SB16 PCI is close to the PnP ISA SB16 though - you probably just need to download drivers from Creative's web site to initialize the card at boot time.

Creative Labs does not appear to have drivers for that SB16 PCI for either MS-DOS or Windows 3.x available for download. However, it sounds like some of you here actually have older PCI Sound Blasters and that maybe the original software that came with them included DOS drivers. Is that the case?

Also, thanks for helping me on this. I appreciate the link to the Aopen AW540, which really does advertise MS-DOS support on the manufacturer's own website. 😀