17 Feb
2006
17 Feb
'06
1:56 p.m.
Hello,
Does anyone know of a Sound Blaster compatible *PCI* card that
works under DOS? I have searched Creative Labs website and it looks
like their PCI 64 / 128 sound cards will not work under DOS since there
are no DOS driver available. :(
Thanks,
Bryan
17 Feb
17 Feb
2:45 p.m.
On 2/17/2006 at 1:56 PM bpope at wordstock.com wrote:
Does anyone know of a Sound Blaster compatible *PCI*
card that
works under DOS? I have searched Creative Labs website and it looks
like their PCI 64 / 128 sound cards will not work under DOS since there
are no DOS driver available. :(
I believe that the SBLive PCI has full legacy SB support in rel DOS mode.
At least that's what everyone claims. The PC 128 uses emulation for SB
support and I've heard that it is very twitchy in real mode DOS.
Cheers,
Chuck
18 Feb
18 Feb
7:22 a.m.
I was told once that the SB 16 PCI supports DOS. Though, when I
thought about it, I think it only supports EMULATION in DOS since it
was brought about around the time of the 64/128 PCI's. Also, the DOS
support is only if that specific motherboard has SB16 DOS support as
an option in the BIOS (I've actually confirmed that bit once or twice
for a client).
-John Boffemmyer IV
At 01:56 PM 2/17/2006, you wrote:
Hello,
Does anyone know of a Sound Blaster compatible *PCI* card that
works under DOS? I have searched Creative Labs website and it looks
like their PCI 64 / 128 sound cards will not work under DOS since there
are no DOS driver available. :(
Thanks,
Bryan
--
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20 Feb
20 Feb
6:01 p.m.
Bryan Pope wrote:
Does anyone know of a Sound Blaster compatible *PCI* card that
works under DOS? I have searched Creative Labs website and it looks
like their PCI 64 / 128 sound cards will not work under DOS since there
are no DOS driver available. :(
AFAIK it is either impossible to have true legacy support provided to
DOS via a PCI card, or at least very difficult. Every single PCI card
I've worked with that claimed legacy support did so via the use of some
sort of program. The Creative programs were the worst; they were
resident, and some required protected mode. The best was a Turtle Beach
Santa Cruz, which used a .COM file to enable it, and I don't think it
was resident.
But no, I've never seen any PCI sound card just work perfectly without a
TSR or .SYS driver.
--
Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/
Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/
Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/
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8:09 p.m.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jim Leonard" <trixter at oldskool.org>
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Monday, February 20, 2006 6:01 PM
Subject: Re: Sound Blaster PCI + DOS?
The Aureal PCI cards had DOS support, and worked with MIDI also if you have
the daughtercard installed. Do you have a PCI only machine you are trying to
use?
Bryan Pope wrote:
Does anyone know of a Sound Blaster compatible *PCI* card that
works under DOS? I have searched Creative Labs website and it looks
like their PCI 64 / 128 sound cards will not work under DOS since there
are no DOS driver available. :(
AFAIK it is either impossible to have true legacy support provided to
DOS via a PCI card, or at least very difficult. Every single PCI card
I've worked with that claimed legacy support did so via the use of some
sort of program. The Creative programs were the worst; they were
resident, and some required protected mode. The best was a Turtle Beach
Santa Cruz, which used a .COM file to enable it, and I don't think it
was resident.
But no, I've never seen any PCI sound card just work perfectly without a
TSR or .SYS driver.
--
Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/
Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/
Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/
A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/
21 Feb
21 Feb
9:50 a.m.
The Aureal PCI cards had DOS support, and worked with MIDI also if you have
the daughtercard installed. Do you have a PCI only machine you are trying to
use?
Yes.. I would like to use it as a DOS (and Windows, but that isn't
really an issue) gaming machine..
Thanks,
Bryan
12:13 p.m.
Bryan Pope wrote:
>
> The Aureal PCI cards had DOS support, and worked with MIDI also if you have
IIRC the Aureal support was fairly poor. Just a warning.
--
Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/
Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/
Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/
A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/
12:40 p.m.
On 2/21/2006 at 11:13 AM Jim Leonard wrote:
IIRC the Aureal support was fairly poor. Just a
warning.
Any PCI card is probably not going to be able to support legacy DMA type
transfers, but siimple SB port 220H I/O shouldn't be a problem with PCI
cards that do emulation right. There have been some discussions about PCI
sound cards in real mode DOS on the vintage gaming fora.
Cheers,
Chuck
1:05 p.m.
Chuck Guzis wrote:
On 2/21/2006 at 11:13 AM Jim Leonard wrote:
It's not, but without DMA the cards are nearly useless. It limits them
to FM/MIDI synth output only. No digitized sound output whatsoever.
--
Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/
Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/
Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/
A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/
IIRC the Aureal support was fairly poor. Just a
warning.
Any PCI card is probably not going to be able to support legacy DMA type
transfers, but siimple SB port 220H I/O shouldn't be a problem with PCI
1:28 p.m.
Chuck Guzis wrote:
Waaahh!! :( Well, I am glad I asked here before I started pulling my
hair out trying to get a PCI SB to work under DOS. :)
Thanks!,
Bryan
On 2/21/2006 at 11:13 AM Jim Leonard wrote:
It's not, but without DMA the cards are nearly useless. It limits them
to FM/MIDI synth output only. No digitized sound output whatsoever. IIRC the Aureal support was fairly poor. Just a
warning.
Any PCI card is probably not going to be able to support legacy DMA type
transfers, but siimple SB port 220H I/O shouldn't be a problem with PCI
2:07 p.m.
Bryan Pope wrote:
Waaahh!! :( Well, I am glad I asked here before I started pulling my
hair out trying to get a PCI SB to work under DOS. :)
I'm not saying it doesn't work, I'm saying it doesn't work well. Try it
and first try a game that has Adlib sound only, see how it plays. Then
try digital.
A good litmus test is Doom (shareware is fine). If the Adlib/FM music
and digital sound effects are going at the same time, and you don't hear
any cracking/popping/looping in the digital sound (which would indicate
a problem with auto-init DMA), then you're golden. Any problems you
have after that point you can blame on the game :-)
--
Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/
Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/
Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/
A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/
Any PCI card is probably not going to be able to
support legacy DMA type
transfers, but siimple SB port 220H I/O shouldn't be a problem with PCI
It's not, but without DMA the cards are nearly useless. It limits them
to FM/MIDI synth output only. No digitized sound output whatsoever.
1:42 p.m.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jim Leonard" <trixter at oldskool.org>
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Tuesday, February 21, 2006 1:05 PM
Subject: Re: Sound Blaster PCI + DOS?
Chuck Guzis wrote:
I figured you people had a stash of ISA Soundblasters, Gravis Ultrasound,
Yamaha dxb50, Roland, and Ensoniq Soundscape cards laying around just for
retro gaming. ISA slots survived into the Pentium 3 era atleast (which tend
to be way too fast for DOS gaming anyway).
On 2/21/2006 at 11:13 AM Jim Leonard wrote:
It's not, but without DMA the cards are nearly useless. It limits them
to FM/MIDI synth output only. No digitized sound output whatsoever. IIRC the Aureal support was fairly poor. Just a
warning.
Any PCI card is probably not going to be able to support legacy DMA type
transfers, but siimple SB port 220H I/O shouldn't be a problem with PCI
1:53 p.m.
Chuck Guzis wrote:
I figured you people had a stash of ISA Soundblasters, Gravis Ultrasound,
Yamaha dxb50, Roland, and Ensoniq Soundscape cards laying around just for
retro gaming. ISA slots survived into the Pentium 3 era atleast (which tend
to be way too fast for DOS gaming anyway). On 2/21/2006 at 11:13 AM Jim Leonard wrote:
It's not, but without DMA the cards are nearly useless. It limits them
to FM/MIDI synth output only. No digitized sound output whatsoever. IIRC the Aureal support was fairly poor. Just a
warning.
Any PCI card is probably not going to be able to support legacy DMA type
transfers, but siimple SB port 220H I/O shouldn't be a problem with PCI
2:10 p.m.
Bryan Pope wrote:
Mo'Slo, and programs like it, create busywait loops in software and are
extremely poor at slowing machines down gracefully enough to run finicky
time-sensitive software (read: games).
A better solution is slowing down the clock of the machine itself, or
disabling caches, or lowering the bus speed, or all three. Check
http://www.oldskool.org/pc/throttle for one such program.
--
Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/
Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/
Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/
A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/
I figured you people had a stash of ISA Soundblasters, Gravis Ultrasound,
Yamaha dxb50, Roland, and Ensoniq Soundscape cards laying around just for
retro gaming. ISA slots survived into the Pentium 3 era atleast (which tend
to be way too fast for DOS gaming anyway).
There is the Mo'Slo program, but I haven't tried it with games yet.
2:12 p.m.
Whoops, for the DOS version I meant this instead:
http://www.oldskool.org/pc/throttle/DOS
Jim Leonard wrote:
Bryan Pope wrote:
Mo'Slo, and programs like it, create busywait loops in software and are
extremely poor at slowing machines down gracefully enough to run finicky
time-sensitive software (read: games).
A better solution is slowing down the clock of the machine itself, or
disabling caches, or lowering the bus speed, or all three. Check
http://www.oldskool.org/pc/throttle for one such program.
--
Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/
Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/
Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/
A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/
I figured you people had a stash of ISA Soundblasters, Gravis
Ultrasound,
Yamaha dxb50, Roland, and Ensoniq Soundscape cards laying around just
for
retro gaming. ISA slots survived into the Pentium 3 era atleast
(which tend
to be way too fast for DOS gaming anyway).
There is the Mo'Slo program, but I haven't tried it with games yet.
2:58 p.m.
On 2/21/2006 at 1:10 PM Jim Leonard wrote:
Mo'Slo, and programs like it, create busywait loops
in software and are
extremely poor at slowing machines down gracefully enough to run finicky
time-sensitive software (read: games).
A better solution is slowing down the clock of the machine itself, or
disabling caches, or lowering the bus speed, or all three. Check
http://www.oldskool.org/pc/throttle for one such program.
Careful that you don't run afoul of any patents:
http://xrint.com/patents/us/5125088
...and folks wonder what's wrong with the US patent system....<sigh>
Cheers,
Chuck
2:08 p.m.
Teo Zenios wrote:
I figured you people had a stash of ISA Soundblasters,
Gravis Ultrasound,
Yamaha dxb50, Roland, and Ensoniq Soundscape cards laying around just for
retro gaming.
What makes you think I don't? :-) I have well over 30, although I'm a
collector nut who eventually wants to start a PC Sound Card wiki with a
metric crapload of info on them. Yes, I'm strange.
--
Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/
Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/
Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/
A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/
2:32 p.m.
On 2/21/2006 at 11:13 AM Jim Leonard wrote:
Where is this board? I googled it but I am not sure if the hits I
received were "the one". :)
Cheers,
Bryan
IIRC the Aureal support was fairly poor. Just a
warning.
Any PCI card is probably not going to be able to support legacy DMA type
transfers, but siimple SB port 220H I/O shouldn't be a problem with PCI
cards that do emulation right. There have been some discussions about PCI
sound cards in real mode DOS on the vintage gaming fora.
3:43 p.m.
Bryan Pope wrote:
Where is this board? I googled it but I am not sure if the hits I
received were "the one". :)
You may have better luck looking on ebay for "a3d" "aureal" or
"vortex".
--
Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/
Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/
Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/
A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/
IIRC the Aureal support was fairly poor. Just a
warning.
Any PCI card is probably not going to be able to support legacy DMA type
transfers, but siimple SB port 220H I/O shouldn't be a problem with PCI
cards that do emulation right. There have been some discussions about PCI
sound cards in real mode DOS on the vintage gaming fora.
3:51 p.m.
Bryan Pope wrote:
Where is this board? I googled it but I am not sure if the hits I
received were "the one". :)
You may have better luck looking on ebay for "a3d" "aureal" or
"vortex".
Are these more compatible then Creative Labs ones?
Thanks,
Bryan
IIRC the Aureal support was fairly poor. Just a
warning.
Any PCI card is probably not going to be able to support legacy DMA type
transfers, but siimple SB port 220H I/O shouldn't be a problem with PCI
cards that do emulation right. There have been some discussions about PCI
sound cards in real mode DOS on the vintage gaming fora.
4:01 p.m.
Bryan Pope wrote:
Are these more compatible then Creative Labs ones?
That's subjective. *No* PCI card fully and completely emulates a
"legacy" ISA Sound Blaster without problems, not even from Creative
themselves. So I can't really answer that.
Me personally, I solved this problem a few years ago by getting a ABIT
KT7-RAID motherboard, and sticking a 1.3MHz Duron in it. That gave me a
1.3GHz machine with a single ISA slot, so it became my
uber-dos-game-box. The speed was several times faster than what
Pentium-era games were expecting (and *orders of magnitude* faster than
what 1980s games were expecting) so don't expect things to be rosy...
but for the games that worked properly, the additional speed/framerate
was just breathtaking (Flight Unlimited, Quake, and Carmageddon come to
mind). For that machine, I used a Sound Blaster 16.
At those kinds of speeds, you can expect greater than 30 frames per
second at 640x480 and above -- not too shabby for games that never
supported 3D acceleration.
--
Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/
Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/
Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/
A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/
Where is this board? I googled it but I am not sure
if the hits I
received were "the one". :)
You may have better luck looking on ebay
for "a3d" "aureal" or "vortex". 
7:07 p.m.
I have a shitload of ISA Creative brand sound cards if anyone needs
one. I also have a bunch of sound cards that are not Creative brand
that are ISA, if SB compatability is of no (or little0 concern. No
manuals or drivers, just cards.
--
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