You don't need to reassign the DMA and IRQ in the device manager. Windows handles it for Windows and DOS handles it for DOS.

I will have to test this out, but I am pretty sure that you are going to want to make sure the IRQ that sbeinit says it is using is the IRQ in CTSYN and in autoexec.

Try setting IRQ5 to be assigned to the slot the Audigy 2 ZS is in via the BIOS and see if that helps. Most DOS games are going to want IRQ5 or IRQ7. Some are even hard coded to one or the other.

What if you leave SBEINIT.COM out of your autoexec.bat when you boot Windows? I can't recall if it is supposed to be there when you are not booting into MS-DOS mode. It's easy enough to check, anyway.

cyclone3d wrote:

You don't need to reassign the DMA and IRQ in the device manager. Windows handles it for Windows and DOS handles it for DOS.

I will have to test this out, but I am pretty sure that you are going to want to make sure the IRQ that sbeinit says it is using is the IRQ in CTSYN and in autoexec.

Try setting IRQ5 to be assigned to the slot the Audigy 2 ZS is in via the BIOS and see if that helps. Most DOS games are going to want IRQ5 or IRQ7. Some are even hard coded to one or the other.

Which IRQ? There's two options, a PCI one and an SB one?

bergqvistjl wrote:

cyclone3d wrote:

You don't need to reassign the DMA and IRQ in the device manager. Windows handles it for Windows and DOS handles it for DOS.

I will have to test this out, but I am pretty sure that you are going to want to make sure the IRQ that sbeinit says it is using is the IRQ in CTSYN and in autoexec.

Try setting IRQ5 to be assigned to the slot the Audigy 2 ZS is in via the BIOS and see if that helps. Most DOS games are going to want IRQ5 or IRQ7. Some are even hard coded to one or the other.

Which IRQ? There's two options, a PCI one and an SB one?

Ah, didn't see that before. Maybe try IRQ 5 for the PCI IRQ and leave the SB IRQ at 5 as well or change it to 7.

You shouldn't need the DOS drivers within 98SE. If anything, they're probably the reason things mess up.

I think the VxD driver for the SB16 legacy device is all that's required. That'd be the SB16.inf and CTSB16.VXD inside X:\Audio\Drivers\VxD\VXD.cab.

I'd be surprised if that motherboard was the source of any incompatibility with NMI's or anything like that.

firage wrote:

You shouldn't need the DOS drivers within 98SE. If anything, they're probably the reason things mess up.

I think the VxD driver for the SB16 legacy device is all that's required. That'd be the SB16.inf and CTSB16.VXD inside X:\Audio\Drivers\VxD\VXD.cab.

I'd be surprised if that motherboard was the source of any incompatibility with NMI's or anything like that.

That's what I've been doing, see this: http://i.imgur.com/oRtLJC1.jpg

If you can't make it work even after clearing out the DOS drivers, it seems you may need to resort to DOS mode and those drivers. It's not a rare problem based on Google results, but there's very little in the way of solutions.

firage wrote:

If you can't make it work even after clearing out the DOS drivers, it seems you may need to resort to DOS mode and those drivers. It's not a rare problem based on Google results, but there's very little in the way of solutions.

It's very weird. It only detects the SB16 emulation device as actually being present if I stick SBEINIT.COM in my autoexec.

I'm moving to a (hopefully) more compatible card.

Out of curiosity, I Googled for "audigy12.exe" (with quotes) and found this discussion in an unrelated thread. Maybe you've seen it already:
http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/46349-98se2me … -98-se/?page=43

bergqvistjl wrote:

firage wrote:

If you can't make it work even after clearing out the DOS drivers, it seems you may need to resort to DOS mode and those drivers. It's not a rare problem based on Google results, but there's very little in the way of solutions.

It's very weird. It only detects the SB16 emulation device as actually being present if I stick SBEINIT.COM in my autoexec.

I'm moving to a (hopefully) more compatible card.

If your goal is Sound Blaster emulation under 98SE DOS I would suggest you consider a different motherboard with ISA slots and just get a Sound Blaster AWE64 ISA card instead. Even though it uses a DOS TSR it doesn't affect the compatibility and can run any DOS SB supported game.

The motherboard you have only has PCI slots and an AGP. Your motherboard is best suited for just running 98SE games. You could try an Ensoniq PCI sound card which I did test and seemed to work for SB emulation but just remember you do get stuttering from time to time so nothing beats a real ISA Sound Blaster card if you want true DOS SB support without the headaches. If you go into Windows 98 Device Manager you can reconfigure the IRQ to 7 from 5. This will allow you play some older titles that looked for the IRQ7. Rise of the Dragon and I believe Stellar 7 that did not like IRQ5. You would lose the voice speech from working if the IRQ was wrong.

95DosBox wrote:

If your goal is Sound Blaster emulation under 98SE DOS I would suggest you consider a different motherboard with ISA slots and just get a Sound Blaster AWE64 ISA card instead. Even though it uses a DOS TSR it doesn't affect the compatibility and can run any DOS SB supported game.

Technically, it only needs to keep a TSR loaded if you want to use the onboard wavetable for MPU401 compatible games. If a game supports AWE32/64 directly, the game only supports FM Synth/Digital Audio, or you're using an external midi module, you can just initialize the card and not leave anything resident.

zerker wrote:

95DosBox wrote:

If your goal is Sound Blaster emulation under 98SE DOS I would suggest you consider a different motherboard with ISA slots and just get a Sound Blaster AWE64 ISA card instead. Even though it uses a DOS TSR it doesn't affect the compatibility and can run any DOS SB supported game.

Technically, it only needs to keep a TSR loaded if you want to use the onboard wavetable for MPU401 compatible games. If a game supports AWE32/64 directly, the game only supports FM Synth/Digital Audio, or you're using an external midi module, you can just initialize the card and not leave anything resident.

There were many earlier games prior to AWE32 and AWE64 and I believe they didn't work correctly or at all without it or I would have just not used the TSR. Space Quest 6 and Mortal Kombat ][ were two DOS games that specifically supported the AWE32 directly. Since I usually preloaded the TSR I never tried it without it. But I think you still needed the TSR to run older SB games like Rise of the Dragon and Stellar7. You also needed to install 95 or 98 and change the default IRQ from 5 to 7 at least once so maybe that might also work without the TSR. I haven't tested the MIDI Game Port with Roland MT-32 in pure DOS so it could require the TSR. I've only tested the Roland MT-32 in DOSBOX and works fine with the AWE64. I need to test it with a SBLIVE PCI on a modern system to see it that also worked with a real MT-32. But with Munt supposedly getting close to the real McCoy we may not need more than XP, DOSBOX, and Munt to play the classics with ease. 😠 😊

Okay, there is a lot of confusion in your post. I own any regularly use an AWE64, so I hope I can clear things up a bit.

The AWEUTIL application has several modes of operation. I've captured the help text below for reference:

1AWEUTIL TSR   Version 1.36
2Copyright (c) Creative Technology Ltd, 1994-96. All rights reserved.
3
4Usage:     AWEUTIL [options]
5Options:   /U       Unload
6           /S       Initialize only
7           /R:nn    Set reverb amount to nn (0 - 100)
8           /C:nn    Set chorus amount to nn (0 - 100)
9           /KEY     Enable keyboard control (default)
10           /KEY-    Disable keyboard control
11           /EM      Enable MIDI Emulation
12           /EM-     Disable MIDI Emulation
13           /EM:GM   Enable MIDI Emulation using General MIDI
14           /EM:GS   Enable MIDI Emulation using GS Emulation
15           /EM:MT32 Enable MIDI Emulation using MT32 Emulation

The /S option for initializing the card is necessary for most games, but it does NOT leave anything resident in memory. So it is not a 'TSR' when used in this mode.

The /EM modes do require the application to remain loaded as a TSR, but those are only required to route MIDI data from the outgoing MIDI port to the internal Synth. Running with no modes will also load as a TSR so you can use some hotkeys to control the card; it's not really worth it for this though.

• If you use an external synth (MT32/SC55/etc) on the joystick port, you do not require these modes; it will output by default. I do this regularly.
• If you only use FM synth or native AWE support, these modes are not needed either.

You can change the IRQ without Windows 9x, but you will still require Windows 3.1 to install the AWE64 drivers. This will install a DOS tool called ctcu which can be used for this purpose. I'm sure someone has a zip file or a process to grab these files if you don't want Windows 3.1 either, though.

I specifically wanted to know if it would work with a PCI sound card. Anyway, I've given up. It seems the specific combination of sound card, chipset and game are incompatible with each other.

zerker wrote:

Okay, there is a lot of confusion in your post. I own any regularly use an AWE64, so I hope I can clear things up a bit. […]
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Okay, there is a lot of confusion in your post. I own any regularly use an AWE64, so I hope I can clear things up a bit.

The AWEUTIL application has several modes of operation. I've captured the help text below for reference:

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1AWEUTIL TSR   Version 1.36
2Copyright (c) Creative Technology Ltd, 1994-96. All rights reserved.
3
4Usage:     AWEUTIL [options]
5Options:   /U       Unload
6           /S       Initialize only
7           /R:nn    Set reverb amount to nn (0 - 100)
8           /C:nn    Set chorus amount to nn (0 - 100)
9           /KEY     Enable keyboard control (default)
10           /KEY-    Disable keyboard control
11           /EM      Enable MIDI Emulation
12           /EM-     Disable MIDI Emulation
13           /EM:GM   Enable MIDI Emulation using General MIDI
14           /EM:GS   Enable MIDI Emulation using GS Emulation
15           /EM:MT32 Enable MIDI Emulation using MT32 Emulation

The /S option for initializing the card is necessary for most games, but it does NOT leave anything resident in memory. So it is not a 'TSR' when used in this mode.

The /EM modes do require the application to remain loaded as a TSR, but those are only required to route MIDI data from the outgoing MIDI port to the internal Synth. Running with no modes will also load as a TSR so you can use some hotkeys to control the card; it's not really worth it for this though.

• If you use an external synth (MT32/SC55/etc) on the joystick port, you do not require these modes; it will output by default. I do this regularly.
• If you only use FM synth or native AWE support, these modes are not needed either.

You can change the IRQ without Windows 9x, but you will still require Windows 3.1 to install the AWE64 drivers. This will install a DOS tool called ctcu which can be used for this purpose. I'm sure someone has a zip file or a process to grab these files if you don't want Windows 3.1 either, though.

It's been awhile maybe over a decade or close to two in REAL DOS since I used the AWE64 Value when I did use the AWEUTIL. This was around 1998-1999 and I believe without running that AWEUTIL program older Sound Blaster and Adlib games might not have detected the sound card. But I do recall I kept it in my autoexec.bat to deal with that problem. Maybe it didn't stay in memory after it ran so I'm not sure as that autoexec.bat file or the system I had it in was wiped. But without the AWEUTIL using the AWE64 GOLD did all your older Sound Blaster games work that didn't support AWE32 natively? Most games that predated the AWE32 in the sound option I had a feeling still needed to run the AWEUTIL to initialize the card or it wouldn't work. Maybe someone else here has been playing around with it recently.

I do have a P4 set up recently and installed an AWE64 GOLD ISA in it. I kind of put this computer on hold because I'm looking for a massive P4 cooler to run this without fans. Maybe I can do a test later with a clean boot no drivers and see if Prince of Persia 1 or 2 still had digitized sound and music. But the real test are those earlier games like Rise of the Dragon that I recall only liked IRQ7 instead of IRQ5 which was more commonly used in later SB card generations for the default IRQ. I never had a problem with IRQ7 because I didn't print that often while gaming. I suppose Windows disliked it so I had to change the Printer IRQ to 5 or disable it to reconfigure the AWE64 to work properly since it was PnP. The earlier SB AWE32 ISA with jumpers were probably the best most compatible ISA cards that didn't require any sort of drivers to be preloaded like AWEUTIL. From a troubleshooting and compatibility standpoint these seemed to be the best choice for easy straightforward SB DOS Gaming. But none were on the level of AWE64 GOLD in sound quality. So if a AWE32 GOLD were to have been released that was not PnP it would have been the best and possibly most revered card.

bergqvistjl wrote:

I specifically wanted to know if it would work with a PCI sound card. Anyway, I've given up. It seems the specific combination of sound card, chipset and game are incompatible with each other.

I took a look at your system specs.

CPU support shows:
https://www.asus.com/supportonly/TUSL2-C/HelpDesk_CPU/

This is an Intel P3 era MB. So the answer is a SB Ensoniq and SB Live should work with the SB DOS Emulation TSR driver. But again I tested this on a P4 and you will still hear stuttering every now and then like it's freezing or hiccuping. If you can deal with that minor annoyance then you use your MB and try it out. If this starts to get on your nerves I would go with a motherboard that has pure ISA slots and use a SB AWE32 non PnP the one with actual jumpers to change the IRQ. Or if you want to simply your life just use a modern computer with XP or Windows 7 and run DOSBOX with Munt and you'll get pretty close to 90-95% of the SB DOS gaming experience without the headaches.

Unless someone here has been testing the SB-LINK with SB PCI cards exclusively to give their evaluation if that fixes the emulation stuttering problem then you'd still need to find a motherboard that has the SB-LINK interface which I don't think was too common.

If you insist on using the Audigy 2ZS I also have that card but I have not tested it under a P4. Also I think you are better of testing an Audigy 1 PCI instead. I tried the Audigy 2 patch but I don't think it worked but that could also be because I tested it on a Z68 and all PCI sound cards I've tested the DOS SB Emulation did not detect on my newer chipset but it could possibly work on a P3/P4.

bergqvistjl wrote:

I'm trying to get my Audigy 2ZS to be detected as a soundcard within DOS games running within Windows 98 (i.e. without having to […]
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I'm trying to get my Audigy 2ZS to be detected as a soundcard within DOS games running within Windows 98 (i.e. without having to restart in MS-DOS mode)

My system is an ASUS TUSL2-C (BIOS ver. 1012). I have disabled as much onboard devices as I could (Serial & Parallel ports & USB) to free up IRQs etc.

My Audigy 2ZS is installed in PCI Slot 3 (with the VxD Windows drivers installed off of the Audigy2ZS Install CD. No other PCI cards are installed. The PCI card gets assigned to IRQ3

I've installed the Audigy 1 DOS drivers from this thread: audigy dos drivers, as well as run the AUDIGY12.EXE patch.

The DOS drivers installer did not create a CTSYN.INI, so I created one myself from here http://wysiwyg.bg/music_software/drivers/soun … /sblive/DOSDRV/ (I've updated the PQIIRQ to match mine which is 3):

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1[ctsyn.drv]
2OPLPort=388
3MPUPort=330
4SBPort=220
5SBIRQ=5
6SBDMALO=1
7SBDMAHI=5
8SBEnable=true
9JOYEnable=true
10Waveset=C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\default.ecw
11PCIPort=0
12PCIIRQ=3
13JOYPort=200
14
15[SBEINIT]
16CONFIG=SBESET.CFG
17
18[SBESET.CFG]
19SBPORT=220
20MPUPORT=330
21SBIRQ=5
22SBDMALO=1
23SBDMAHI=5
24OPLPORT=388
25SBENABLE=TRUE
26JOYPORT=200
27JOYENABLE=TRUE
28WAVESET=C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\DEFAULT.ECW
29PCIPORT=0
30PCIIRQ=3

Nothing else on the system (according to Windows) is using IRQs 3 and 5.

My Autoexec is set to the following:

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1mode con codepage prepare=((850) C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\ega.cpi)
2mode con codepage select=850
3keyb uk,,C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\keyboard.sys
4SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 H5 P330
5SET CTSYN=C:\WINDOWS
6C:\DOSDRV\SBEINIT.COM
7C:\AUDIGY12.EXE

and this is my config.sys:

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1DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\HIMEM.SYS
2DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\EMM386.EXE
3DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\setver.exe
4device=C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\display.sys con=(ega,,1)
5Country=044,850,C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\country.sys

Now when the system boots, SBEINIT.com says its been loaded successfully on port 'b800' with IRQ 3, this is then confirmed by the audigy12.exe patch

However when I view device manager in window, the newly detected SB16 emulation driver displays this: http://i.imgur.com/oRtLJC1.jpg

If I go into the resources tab, and manually assign the ports, DMA & IRQs to match that in my ctsyn.ini file, I get a fatal exception BSOD (Although the device has now started). Occasionally if I *then* run a DOS game from windows, it detects the card, but when I attempt to test the sound, the applications throw an illegal operation & quit.

Any ideas?

HI when you open device manager \ Sound video and game controllers what is installed?

Hi (bumping this thread). I recently took my "old" (ca. 2002) PC from storage with the goal of playing both some nostalgic Windows games and some very nostalgic DOS games. The sound card I had was (unfortunately) a Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Platinum Ex with the breakout box. The machine itself was a Pentium 4 2.4GHz, 1GB RAM, Radeon 9800 Pro (Pro or XT, not sure) and an IC7-G motherboard (PCI).

I installed a clean Windows 98 SE because I figured I could then rock with proper DOS instead of emulation.

But is proper DOS really a "mission impossible" for this sound card? It works perfectly in Windows 98 SE, but for the life of me I can't get it to work in DOS at all. I've looked at all the Vogons threads, configured the autoexec thingies and CTSYN.INI files, installed the Audigy patch etc. - doesn't work, supposedly initializes fine but no sound. I've tried IRQ 5 and 7. SBEINIT gives an IRQ of 3 though - but if that one is used, the computer hangs.

If I understood correctly, you need the VXD drivers to use SB16 and it seems you can only get those from the Audigy 2 ZS disc. If I do the installation using the "driver change" utility, it first needs to uninstall WDM drivers - when it does that, though, after reboot I get weird error messages etc. I did the registry hack someone suggested but the yellow warning sign stays in my Device Manager on SB16, despite rebooting.

(Disclaimer by the way - I haven't used PCs since those days in 2002 so my skills with these things are particularly rusty, pardon beforehand if I'm missing something obvious)

Try my guide.

It's intended for the ZS but, in theory, it could work with any Audigy and SBLive card.