I found that http://www.damsbo.com/Soundblaster/sbmod.htm connector pin #9/8 are another spdif connector that escape me on my first read. They work perfectly on dos bypassing the buggy sbemixer! 😀 To have audio on windows I have to set the speaker selection to 5.1 instead of 2.0 otherwise there is no audio.

Beware, the Soundblaster Live! while a LOVELY card for almost all needs past and present unless your doing surround, has the same issue as all the other PCI sound cards on DOS. They just have a habit of not working. Sound on DOS is a miracle in it's own right, the fact that it works is nothing short of a quantum state.

ISA sound cards (AWE64 is a great card if you can find one cheap, make sure it has all the right chips, i've been burned) (AWE32 is good for early pentium and mid to late 486 machines, and is nice because of the easily purchasable 30 pin SIMMS instead of a proprietary and expensive memory upgrade) work better under DOS, people try and try, but at the end of the day, they don't work out well. I have never personally tried it out with my SBLive, but that's because DOS is for P5s and 0123486 machines.

However for your use, you might as well use DOSBox, or even a modern MOD player, not sure why you need DOS.

There is also something called SB Link which may be available on some boards for better DOS compatibility with PCI cards.

Ampera wrote:

However for your use, you might as well use DOSBox, or even a modern MOD player, not sure why you need DOS.

Thanks for your reply Ampera, but the use for this card is very specific. This computer use dos to drive a soundblaster 1.5 and a LifeAMP dos module player that use the emu10k1. I have a awe64 and considered it for the job but I dont think you can disable sb emulation while keeping the emu8k alive (and use AMP (AWEModulePlayer)). Anway next to this computer, there is another computer holding a sbawe32 and a guspnp, so it's no diversity to have two emu8k in the same room. Maybe I didnt had emphased enough that the sole reason I want a sblive on dos on that computer is to use LiveModulePlayer with hardware playback on the emu10k1, this player is astounding, and if you hear it pcm digital! I think this is the capstone of module music playback.

ElBrunzy wrote:

Ampera wrote:

However for your use, you might as well use DOSBox, or even a modern MOD player, not sure why you need DOS.

Thanks for your reply Ampera, but the use for this card is very specific. This computer use dos to drive a soundblaster 1.5 and a LifeAMP dos module player that use the emu10k1. I have a awe64 and considered it for the job but I dont think you can disable sb emulation while keeping the emu8k alive (and use AMP (AWEModulePlayer)). Anway next to this computer, there is another computer holding a sbawe32 and a guspnp, so it's no diversity to have two emu8k in the same room. Maybe I didnt had emphased enough that the sole reason I want a sblive on dos on that computer is to use LiveModulePlayer with hardware playback on the emu10k1, this player is astounding, and if you hear it pcm digital! I think this is the capstone of module music playback.

I'm more of a MIDI type of guy. Sorta like MOD and a nice musical interface all in one.

I beleive that when it come to emuXk and Gravis music, midi and mod are all the same, dont you think so ?

Have you tried running your software from a DOS window within Windows?

ElBrunzy wrote:

I beleive that when it come to emuXk and Gravis music, midi and mod are all the same, dont you think so ?

From a technical standpoint MOD is a list of samples and in what order to play them

MIDI is a list of instruments that have various samples assigned to them, and then arbitrary data that informs how it should be played.

This way, a MOD file will be a lot larger than a MIDI file, since a MIDI file just need to provide the lightweight data to the synthesizer that will already have the samples, however
MOD will sound essentially the same no matter where you play it, since the samples are included, and MIDI will definitely change if it's on an OPL2 chip, or a 1GB soundfont.

I have CT4670, SB0060 and SB0220. I've tried the latest DOS driver with all three cards. On CT4670 and SB0220 digital signal is present, 48 kHz. On SB0060 it is absent. I don't know why. If I try other older DOS drivers the signal may be absent on digital output (on 4670 or 0220, I don't remember now). In Windows digital output is working always and with all three cards.

And: the key /d:+ doesn't work. I.e. if dig signal is present I can't to disable it, and if dig signal is absent I can't enable. The same I can say about .INI file, section DigitalEnable=TRUE/FALSE, it can't turn dig output on/off.

Thanks alot PARUS you give me faith in my sb0220 incoming ebay item.

Sorry for the Necro, but I would like to add that on both a CT4830 and an SB4670, digital audio (S/PDIF) output in LMP (Live Module Player) under DOS works when using output SPDIF03/SPDIF0#3 , which is what is on pin #9 of AUD_EXT (pin 8 being ground) and on pin #12 of SPDIF_EXT (see http://ixbtlabs.com/articles/livetolive51/index.html ).

On either card, I am unable to get audio in DOS using LMP through SPDIF00/SPDIF0#0 , even if I route WAVE and SYNTH to SPDIF0 using Multichannel DOS mixer for DOS sound builds v0.49 for Live, v1.01 for Audigy . On the SB4670, in DOS, I was able to get MPXPLAY to output through SPDIF00 (I have not tested this on the CT4830 yet), but not through SPDIF03/SPDIF0#3. It is unfortunate that Multichannel DOS mixer for DOS sound builds v0.49 for Live, v1.01 for Audigy does not seem to support routing audio through SPDIF03/SPDIF0#3 (or maybe I am doing it wrong).

Anyway, considering all this, my tentative solution to get S/PDIF audio working in DOS (no matter the program) and under Windows 98 SE is to tap both SPDIF03/SPDIF0#3 and SPDIF00/SPDIF0#0 and send them to my DIY S/PDIF mixer (to which I will add additional inputs).

EDIT : This is all without running SBEINIT as I do not use SB16 emulation .