Sound for DOS games on modern hardware?

From: Ethan Dicks <erd_6502_at_yahoo.com>
Date: Wed Jun 18 13:56:00 2003

In a fit of nostalgia, I was wanting to cruise around "Wolfenstein 3D"
and "Spear of Destiny" - I still have my original *purchased* copies
from 10+ years ago (on-topic!). What I'm having problems with is
getting the sound to work. I've tried in two different machines,
the "odder" one being my A7V motherboard with a PCI Turtle-Beach
Montego Bay II card (it has no ISA slots). I've tried fiddling with
the "SET BLASTER" statement in the AUTOEXEC.BAT, but I can't come up
with a way to get either game to see the PCI sound card.

This is after booting direct to the underlying DOS in Windows 98,
so it's not a "DOS-in-a-Window" problem.

Are there any good sound card probe programs for DOS that could
go looking for my card and prove it can be found? I know the IRQ,
but being a non-Creative Labs card, I can't verify the I/O setting,
nor the DMA channel, and especially not the "T"ype for the BLASTER
environment variable.

Has anyone else tried running ancient software that wants to talk
to sound cards on modern hardware? I expect to have similar problems
with adventure games and the like, so I am looking for a general
solution. "Try an older computer" is not a helpful suggestion. I
am limited in how much physical space I am permitted to occupy at
my S.O.'s place. An additional computer would cause a lot more trouble
than it's worth.

-ethan
Received on Wed Jun 18 2003 - 13:56:00 BST