buckeye wrote on 2021-06-10, 13:51:

Never done this before so was wondering if it's pretty straightforward or not.

Why don't you try it and find out..?

Do I first disable the 32pnp card in windows 98 and then install the Live?

That should not be necessary.

How will this affect the 32pnp in DOS if at all?

The cards should end up on different IRQs and you should be able to configure your DOS games (and your BLASTER environment variable) accordingly. Or you can just refrain from loading SBINIT.COM (or SBEINIT.COM) unless you need it.

Jorpho wrote on 2021-06-10, 14:37:

Why don't you try it and find out..? […]
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buckeye wrote on 2021-06-10, 13:51:

Never done this before so was wondering if it's pretty straightforward or not.

Why don't you try it and find out..?

Do I first disable the 32pnp card in windows 98 and then install the Live?

That should not be necessary.

How will this affect the 32pnp in DOS if at all?

The cards should end up on different IRQs and you should be able to configure your DOS games (and your BLASTER environment variable) accordingly. Or you can just refrain from loading SBINIT.COM (or SBEINIT.COM) unless you need it.

I will try it, but I was looking for feedback from those who have done this before and might offer any
insight on potential "stumbling blocks" that may be encountered along the way.

Thanks for the sbinit.com tip, I believe that resides in the autoexec.bat file for win98.

Perhaps you should clarify what you expect to accomplish with this configuration?

There's 2 main philosophies, summarised by..

1 Add soundcards
2 ???
3 Profit

and

1 soundcard; some noise, 2 soundcards; more noise, 3 soundcards; all the noise.

BitWrangler wrote on 2021-06-10, 16:14:

There's 2 main philosophies, summarised by.. […]
Show full quote

There's 2 main philosophies, summarised by..

1 Add soundcards
2 ???
3 Profit

and

1 soundcard; some noise, 2 soundcards; more noise, 3 soundcards; all the noise.

More noise for me I guess, just curious if the Live will sound THAT much better.

For your planned setup, you don't need to disable anything in Windows or DOS, unless you plan on trying to use the Live's SB16 compatibility under DOS (which would be pointless, IMHO).

I currently have, in one Windows 98 SE machine :
SB Live!
AWE64 (used to have have and SB32, which worked just as well)
Orpheus (used to have and Audiotrix 3D/XG)
Gravis Ultrasound

Everything works fine under DOS (without the Live's SB16 compatibility) and in Windows (except the Ultrasound which I have not bothered installing under Windows) without any resource conflicts . The only strange issue I had and to which I did find a workaround is documented here : Re: ORPHINIT: New Init Software For The Orpheus Sound Card Considering this requires a Voodoo 3 , and SB Live! and a WSS compatible card, this is unlikely to affect you .

BitWrangler wrote on 2021-06-10, 16:14:

There's 2 main philosophies, summarised by.. […]
Show full quote

There's 2 main philosophies, summarised by..

1 Add soundcards
2 ???
3 Profit

and

1 soundcard; some noise, 2 soundcards; more noise, 3 soundcards; all the noise.

Nobody says that you need to use them all at once . An external mixer or even a switchbox (if one's use case cases are simple enough) should take care of any combined noise concerns .

As for why one would want multiple sound cards, other than the fact that some games either sound better (or at least different) depending on the sound card or do not work at all with certain sound cards, there is also the fact a sound card such as an SB Live! has better DirectSound support (and EAX) under Windows .

Admittedly, having as many sound cards and sound modules as I do (and I am not the worst offender on that front) in a single system is not for everyone. My main constraint is space. If I had room for multiple retro PCs I would likely spread the sound cards around them .

Finally, having 2 sound cards in a given PC was a thing for some people even back in the 90s . For example, having a Gravis Ultrasound and a Sound Blaster compatible of some sort was something not only I but several other people I knew did .

I've 3 builds with both an ISA and PCI card, as darry said. ISA for dos, PCI for improved sound quality and EAX

On my AWE32/SBLive rig only issue I have is the 2 game ports conflicting in Device manager. I just disabled the AWE's
No need to disable the entire AWE, just set the card you want to use as primary in control panel.

For dos I've 2 shortcuts to MS-DOS mode on my desktop one for the AWE and one for the Live!
Not that I really use the Live option, its more just because I can and helpful for trying out things mentioned here, for actual gaming AWE is less trouble