Sound for DOS games on modern hardware?

From: TeoZ <teoz_at_neo.rr.com>
Date: Wed Jun 18 14:32:01 2003

The not so modern aureal vortex sound cards (Sq1500,Sq2500,Diamond monster
mx300, etc) have pretty good soundblaster emulation in dos mode with their
standard driver setup. These cards are dirt cheap on ebay. Very few new
soundcards have DOS level drivers anymore, if any.

I like the older games too which is why I have 2 dos machines running a
Gravis Ultrasound max+ Sound blaster pro 2.0, and a gravis Ultrasound PnP
8mb ram + Sound blaster 16 PnP with Yamaha DXB50 wavetable addon.

I also have an original soundscape (reveal sc600 i think) and a Soundscape
PnP on the shelf if needed. Have to have all your bases covered and I am too
cheap to buy a Roland soundcard when the GUS emulates it ok.



----- Original Message -----
From: "Ethan Dicks" <erd_6502_at_yahoo.com>
To: <cctalk_at_classiccmp.org>
Sent: Wednesday, June 18, 2003 2:52 PM
Subject: Sound for DOS games on modern hardware?


> 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 - 14:32:01 BST