hellfire_raptor wrote on 2020-04-27, 19:10:

Hello. First of all, thanks for accept me in the forum I recently installed win98SE on a Compaq Deskpro with a pentium iii 733 […]
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Hello.
First of all, thanks for accept me in the forum
I recently installed win98SE on a Compaq Deskpro with a pentium iii 733 i bought. I already installed the chipset, video and sound drivers and everything seems to work well on windows. I can hear music on winamp and the windows system sounds works well too, but when i run a DOS game like wolfenstein 3d, doom or descent under windows, i cant make it sound. The only sound i have is the sound FX ones (the shots and the soldiers cry, etc)

According to Everest, this board sound card is a Intel 82801ba(m) AC 97 ich2 and i spend a entire day by searching drivers. The only one that works on windows at least is a ADI SOUNDMAX one, but every other that i downloaded just failed.

What i can do? Is just my sound card isnt soundblaster compatible? Or i just doesnt found the right driver after long sessions of search?

Thanks in advice

It's your soundcard . You get sound effects such as speech because of Windows 98 SE integrated Sound Blaster Pro emulator . But that emulator does not have an FM synth, so you do not get music. Your sound card has no native Sound Blaster compatibility.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-ca/windows-hard … rectedfrom=MSDN

So that means im forced to search a soundblaster compatible card ?

hellfire_raptor wrote on 2020-04-27, 19:46:

So that means im forced to search a soundblaster compatible card ?

If you want both sound effects and FM synthesizer music in a Windows 98 SE DOS box and under real DOS, the answer is yes .

EDIT: It would preferably be an ISA card (if your computer has such slots), if you want maximum compatibility .

There is an experimental and unsupported VDMSound 2.1.0 for Win98. Frankly, I never tried it it was available too late for me that I didn't care about Win98 on real machine anymore. If you managed to get it working, then you will get SoundBlaster and FM music from Win98 DOS mode through AC97. I tried VDMSound on Win2k/XP and it worked within the NT DOS mode for DOS games. As machines get more powerful, just use DOSBox for DOS games and play them nicely on windowed mode.

I would estimate that DOSBox on Pentium III 733MHz with Windows XP could easily match a real 486DX2-66MHz.

Thanks for your replies. Thats just a project i wanna make for play that old games like my chilhood. I have a modern pc and tried dosbox sucessfully, but i wanted to do it on a ctr and shitty speakers, but my main pc only supports hdmi and, while the emulation is near perfect, its not the same.
However, ill use dosbox until i find a soundblaster card

Thanks for all

hellfire_raptor wrote on 2020-04-27, 21:00:

Thanks for your replies. Thats just a project i wanna make for play that old games like my chilhood. I have a modern pc and tried dosbox sucessfully, but i wanted to do it on a ctr and shitty speakers, but my main pc only supports hdmi and, while the emulation is near perfect, its not the same.
However, ill use dosbox until i find a soundblaster card

Thanks for all

No PCI Sound Blasters (excepect maybe the ultra rare AWE64D) have an actual FM synth and their emulation of one really sucks.

So if looking for an FM synth capable PCI soundcard for DOS, I suggest a Yamaha YMF724, YMF744 or YMF754 based card . There are also options from C-Media and ESS .

Best of luck with whatever you do choose .

Ill try to pick one of these, but i found near me a sound blaster 128 pci. I know that fm emulation will be emulation, but will that work for wolfenstein and doom? At least until i find a yamaha card
Edit: i seen a live too, but i dont know whats the version
Thanks

hellfire_raptor wrote on 2020-04-27, 21:34:

Ill try to pick one of these, but i found near me a sound blaster 128 pci. I know that fm emulation will be emulation, but will that work for wolfenstein and doom? At least until i find a yamaha card
Edit: i seen a live too, but i dont know whats the version
Thanks

I most likely will work . what I meant by "sucks" , is that tjhe FM sounds really crappy . SB PCI 128 and SB Live have pretty much the same functionality under DOS, the Live is better featured under Windows . If you are not using multiple audio outs, the Live cards are pretty similar .

And ironically, PCI Sound Blaster cards are less compatible with software meant for the ISA sound blasters than some of thethird party PCI sound cards .

darry wrote on 2020-04-27, 21:46:

And ironically, PCI Sound Blaster cards are less compatible with software meant for the ISA sound blasters than some of thethird party PCI sound cards .

Thanks for all, ill go for one of these until i get a yamaha one