Dos SB16 Sound card emulation help request

F

Franz29

Spaceman
Hi there. I have been browsing the site for a while and it inspired me to dig out my old WC games. I had some success running Privateer 2 in DOSBox but had issues with WC3 and 4 (probably due to the less than stellar PC specs: AMD 2700 1Gb RAM). I then realised I had a perfectly good machine for the games sitting gathering dust in the cupboard. This is an AMD 1333 with 256 Mb RAM with Windows Me (yuck, I know). I had an old SB 16 PCI card (CT4740) that I put in.

I created a boot disk using an image I found on bootdisk.com and downloaded the SBPCI.zip drivers and followed the instructions.

My Config.sys reads;

DEVICE=HIMEM.SYS /testmem: off
FILES=30
BUFFERS=20
DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\EMM386.EXE RAM NOVCPI
DOS=HIGH,UMB

LASTDRIVE=Z

and my autoexec.bat reads;

@echo off

MSCDEX.EXE /D:banana /L: D
SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 H5 P330
SET CTSYN=C:\DOSDRV
C:\DOSDRV\SBEINIT.COM
C:\WINDOWS\SMARTDRV.EXE

When I boot, the CD loads fine but the sound card gives me an error reading;
error: PCI device detect failed; Device not found.
Creative SB16 Emulation Driver NOT loading.

Any idea on what the problem is? The card works fine under windows. I tried changing the IRQ to 7 with the same result.

All help is greatly appreciated, I really want to play through WCIII and IV again.

Cheers
Stephen
 
Franz29 said:
Hi there. I have been browsing the site for a while and it inspired me to dig out my old WC games. I had some success running Privateer 2 in DOSBox but had issues with WC3 and 4 (probably due to the less than stellar PC specs: AMD 2700 1Gb RAM). I then realised I had a perfectly good machine for the games sitting gathering dust in the cupboard. This is an AMD 1333 with 256 Mb RAM with Windows Me (yuck, I know). I had an old SB 16 PCI card (CT4740) that I put in.

I created a boot disk using an image I found on bootdisk.com and downloaded the SBPCI.zip drivers and followed the instructions.

My Config.sys reads;

DEVICE=HIMEM.SYS /testmem: off
FILES=30
BUFFERS=20
DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\EMM386.EXE RAM NOVCPI
DOS=HIGH,UMB

LASTDRIVE=Z

and my autoexec.bat reads;

@echo off

MSCDEX.EXE /D:banana /L: D
SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 H5 P330
SET CTSYN=C:\DOSDRV
C:\DOSDRV\SBEINIT.COM
C:\WINDOWS\SMARTDRV.EXE

When I boot, the CD loads fine but the sound card gives me an error reading;
error: PCI device detect failed; Device not found.
Creative SB16 Emulation Driver NOT loading.

Any idea on what the problem is? The card works fine under windows. I tried changing the IRQ to 7 with the same result.

All help is greatly appreciated, I really want to play through WCIII and IV again.

Cheers
Stephen
Click to expand...

It looks as if you are missing something in your autoexec.bat file before the line that says C:\DOSDRV\SBEINIT.COM you should have the line....
SET SoundBlasterPCI=C:\DOSDRV

If you have the utility in the DOSDRV directory, you can use it to test dos functionality of the card (after rebooting with the new line added). The utility is SoundBlasterTEST.EXE or it may be labeled SBTEST.EXE depending on which version of the drivers you may have.
 
Thanks GunSlinger2.

I made the change to the autoexec.bat file but I still get the same error. The test exe obviously doesn't help because the card did not load.
My autoexec.bat now reads;

@echo off

MSCDEX.EXE /D:banana /L: D
SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 H5 P330
SET CTSYN=C:\DOSDRV
SET SoundBlasterPCI=C:\DOSDRV
C:\DOSDRV\SBEINIT.COM
C:\WINDOWS\SMARTDRV.EXE

The original parts were directly taken from the sample autoexec.bat found in the sbpci.zip file I downloaded. I also changed the bios to make is PnP OS = False just in case this was interfering with no joy.

Can you think of anything else that might cause the problem?
 
Franz29 said:
Thanks GunSlinger2.

I made the change to the autoexec.bat file but I still get the same error. The test exe obviously doesn't help because the card did not load.
My autoexec.bat now reads;

@echo off

MSCDEX.EXE /D:banana /L: D
SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 H5 P330
SET CTSYN=C:\DOSDRV
SET SoundBlasterPCI=C:\DOSDRV
C:\DOSDRV\SBEINIT.COM
C:\WINDOWS\SMARTDRV.EXE

The original parts were directly taken from the sample autoexec.bat found in the sbpci.zip file I downloaded. I also changed the bios to make is PnP OS = False just in case this was interfering with no joy.

Can you think of anything else that might cause the problem?
Click to expand...

Is there an option in your BIOS to reserve IRQ5 for Legacy/ISA devices? It may be that something else in your system is taking IRQ5 and the emulation driver can't grab it. If I recall correctly, there was also an executable in the folder (in your case \DOSDRV ) that actually did all of the configuration for you. I'll see if I can research anything else that may help.
 
Thanks Gunslinger.

I have already tried reserving IRQ 5 for a legacy device, then also tried setting the Audio Card's PCI slot to IRQ 5 manually in the bios (tried all the slots one by one just to be sure, even though it is on slot 2). I even went as far as manually setting DMA1 setting to legacy just in case. Still the same results.

I will keep playing at it and see if I can get it to work, but if your research turns anything up, I appreciate the help.

Regards
Stephen
 
And as if by magic, it worked.
I set the PnP to No, set the IRQ to Legacy and then set the slot to 5. I edited my autoexec to read;

MSCDEX.EXE /D:banana /L: D
SET SBPCI=C:\DOSDRV
SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 H5 P330
SET CTSYN=C:\DOSDRV
C:\DOSDRV\SBINIT.COM
C:\WINDOWS\SMARTDRV.EXE

Previously I had C:\DOSDRV\SBEINIT.COM which is what the readme said it should be. Once all that was set, the card loaded with no problems.

Gunslinger, thanks for all your help, it was you who pointed me in the right direction. No all I have to do is find that old gameport joystick so I can start destroying those pesky cats!

Stephen
 
Franz29 said:
And as if by magic, it worked.
I set the PnP to No, set the IRQ to Legacy and then set the slot to 5. I edited my autoexec to read;

MSCDEX.EXE /D:banana /L: D
SET SBPCI=C:\DOSDRV
SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 H5 P330
SET CTSYN=C:\DOSDRV
C:\DOSDRV\SBINIT.COM
C:\WINDOWS\SMARTDRV.EXE

Previously I had C:\DOSDRV\SBEINIT.COM which is what the readme said it should be. Once all that was set, the card loaded with no problems.

Gunslinger, thanks for all your help, it was you who pointed me in the right direction. No all I have to do is find that old gameport joystick so I can start destroying those pesky cats!

Stephen
Click to expand...


I am glad to hear you got it working. It looks like you also needed to change the SET SoundBlasterPCI line to SET SBPCI. I'll have to remember that. Even the stuff I found at Creative Labs website shows that you have to spell it out in the set command.


Good luck fragging those cats...frag a few for me....
 
Spoke too soon. Started up the game this evening and the movies freeze on me. It's the SB16 card in the config, if I remove that the movies run fine (albeit silently ~~~ ;) ). I will keep trying things out.

Couldn't find a joystick so I just got an old one off ebay for 5 pounds, can't complain. Will I have an issue with the gameport speed? Hopefully not, but throwing that one out there as a pre-emptive strike ;).

Cheers

Stephen
 
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