Hello!
I was looking at my PC's specifications, and it has an Intel HDA with a Realtek ALC897 codec. I'd like to know if it would work on it?

Lualb wrote on 2026-02-01, 23:49:

Hello!
I was looking at my PC's specifications, and it has an Intel HDA with a Realtek ALC897 codec. I'd like to know if it would work on it?

Probably would work, Intel chipset and Realtek codec is the best supported combination currently. You'll have to try it out and let us know.

someone commented on Github that SweetLow had done some reverse engineering of SBEMUL.SYS and indeed he had, there's a patched version of it on his old website sweetlow.orgfree.com which reports a T6 BLASTER string and allows 16-bit sound playback (but only using the same low DMA channel as the 8-bit because trapping of the high DMA channel accesses seems to be Broken in the DOS VDM.) He also confirms that "SoftFM" just emulates the adlib presence detection at whatever port number. there's no actual FM emulation. well that's a pity.

ALC892 on Asrock H81M-ITX works perfectly also with SBEMUL and Midi emulation. Dxdiag didn't play any tests, but I'm not sure if I had this issue with other boards either. IRQ is 5 and only shared with an "IRQ Holder for PCI Steering".

The DXDIAG test for DirectX 6.1 is broken in the current version because I changed the reported sample rates and I think it tries to ask for 22000 hz instead of 22050 and then fails when that isn't available. DirectX 8 and 9 DXDIAG seems to be fine. Will be fixed in the next release.

I'm trying to do a big refactor to support multiple codecs on a link, required for docking stations and HDMI display audio from integrated Intel graphics.