No sound in DOS with Sound Blaster Emulation

[Yart]

Before I begin, can a moderator please remove my other thread about looking for the Windows Sound System 2.0 floppies? I didn't get any replies, found them, and I started a new thread to draw fresh eyes to a new problem. Thank you.

I have freshly installed DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.11 on my Toshiba T4800CT laptop, and I cannot get the sound to work in DOS. They will however, work in Windows.

The system is equipped with Windows Sound System hardware and I'm supposed to be able to get sound with my DOS games with Sound Blaster emulation that comes with the drivers. I'm using the Windows Sound System 2.0 disks (5 disk set) for the installation.

To start, I setup the drivers in Windows. My sound card is using the address of 0530h, IRQ 7, DMA 1. Works fine in Windows. Sounds load no problem.

For the Sound Blaster Emulation I set it to use the address of 0220h, IRQ 7, DMA 1, and I have tried both enabling and disabling Single Mode DMA with a DMA Buffer Size of 32 but that hasn't done anything noticeable. The setup tells me to run a configuration program to write to the CONFIG.SYS file to configure my sound for DOS. I run it with the settings above but still no dice.

For the games I use the option of Sound Blaster, 0220h, IRQ 7, DMA 1. Doesn't work.
Games I've tried so far are Doom and Jazz Jackrabbit. Absolutely nothing. Jazz tells me to configure my sound card and won't start up as if the card isn't even there.

I even tried changing the IRQ of the Sound Blaster emulation to 5 and then setting the games to use that instead, in case it was a confusion between the physical and emulated cards with the IRQ, but still no dice.

Here are the contents of my CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT. (And yes I pick Sound Blaster Compatibility when I boot up)

CONFIG.SYS

[MENU]
menuitem=Default,Default Configuration
menuitem=SoundBlasterCompat,Sound Blaster Compatibility

[Default]
DEVICE=C:\DOS\SETVER.EXE
DEVICE=C:\WIN311\HIMEM.SYS
DOS=HIGH
FILES=40
DEVICE=C:\WIN311\IFSHLP.SYS
STACKS=9,256


[SoundBlasterCompat]
DEVICE=C:\WIN311\HIMEM.SYS
DOS=HIGH,UMB
DEVICE=C:\SNDSYS\EMM386.EXE noems
DEVICE=C:\SNDSYS\WSSXLAT.EXE sbio=220 irq=7 dma=1 wave=7 linein=7
BUFFERS=20
FILES=30
[Common]

AUTOEXEC.BAT

C:\DOS\SMARTDRV.EXE /X
@ECHO OFF
PROMPT $p$g
PATH C:\WIN311;C:\DOS
SET TEMP=C:\DOS
C:\CMOUSE\CTMOUSE.EXE

I've been at this for days and I'm completely stumped. Anyone have any ideas?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Caluser2000]

Try adding Set Blaster to your autoexec.bat http://www.rinkworks.com/apogee/s/6.4.2.shtml

 

[High_Treason]

And if that doesn't work, try disabling the parallel port - there are programs that still have problems even with the sound IRQ at 5, notably Duke Nuke II can weird out, Crystal Dream (scene demo) and some others... I never got Jazz Jackrabbit to work with a SoundBlaster / Compatible, besides, that game was made by sceners from Ultra Force and uses MOD files and that's what a GUS is for. Perhaps "No GUS, no Demo" carries over to "No GUS, no Game" for that one.

Here's hoping you get it working.

 

[Yart]

:/ Neither works. Sorry guys.

I tried the SET BLASTER with ","s and with spaces. Parallel port affected nothing.

I even tried reformatting and I ran the setup again, and even ran the extra step the installer tells me to run (WSSCNFG.EXE). Slapped on Major Striker, nope. Flat out tells me there's no Sound Blaster or Adlib detected on game startup.

 

[k2x4b524[]

Jazz Jackrabbit should see your soundcard without any drivers. I have run it this way from a clean boot on my 486 when it was running, same with my pentium when i had it, doom on the other hand, does need hardware drivers. Jazz see it on the hardware level, so if you dont get sound with jazz, there is a conflict somewhere in the pipe most likely.

Im not sure with the windows sound system though, the only time i worked with one it was VERY touchy, and as the name implies, it prefers a windows environment.

 

[Trixter]

This is a longshot, but some cards only provided Sound Blaster compatibility when games were shelled out to DOS from within Windows. I might be misremembering this as a Windows 95/98 phenomenon, but it couldn't hurt to try it.

 

[gslick]

The unusual thing about the Windows Sound System is that it is not hardware compatible with the Sound Blaster interface and uses features of V86-mode to trap hardware access to the Sound Blaster interface and emulate the effects of that hardware access in software. There is an interface in EMM386 (Int 2F/AX=4A15h/BX=0000h) to allow WSSXLAT to install the hooks to trap that hardware access.

Don't know if that is relevant at all to the issue at hand here, just some interesting info.

 

[Trixter]

uses features of V86-mode to trap hardware access to the Sound Blaster interface and emulate the effects of that hardware access in software.

GUS owners are unfortunately aware of how little the success rate was with this method.

Yart, try some 16-bit real-mode DOS games that use Adlib only, like Rambo III or Operation Wolf or something. If anything is working at all, those will work. You've only been testing games that attempt to initialize the DSP (digital sound).

 

[retrogary]

Hey Yart, I am dying to know. Did you manage to get it working?
I have just bought a T4850CT so I am very much in the same situation. I was hoping to use it for DOS gaming so it would be a real bummer if I can't get it working under DOS...

 

[Yart]

Hey Retrogary, sorry I'm two years late.

No, I never got it to work sadly. I eventually just got a dock and installed some Sound Blaster card and called it a day. I haven't powered that machine on in years as I've moved on to desktops and decided laptops for DOS gaming wasn't worth the hassle or gamble.

 

[rittwage]

WSS (Windows Sound System) is exactly what it states.

It only works in Windows, and in a DOS shell while running Windows. It does this through emulating a Sound Blaster.

In plain DOS, it does nothing.

However... Some WSS cards have SB emulation TSRs, but they tend to be very finicky and work with very few games. I know Diamond and Turtle Beach had WSS cards with such a TSR coming with their Opti/Crystal Semiconductor-based WSS cards, and therefore can cover Doom, Duke3D, etc. If Toshiba did not provide a TSR, you will be out of luck.

 

[PeterNC]

MOBOs with ESS1*88 are a better choice IMO. Not sure if any notebook/laptop MOBOs ever came equipped with that chipset.

 

[bakemono]

In plain DOS, it does nothing.

It's not that it does nothing, but that most DOS games came out before WSS existed and do not support it. Some later games do have support.

MOBOs with ESS1*88 are a better choice IMO. Not sure if any notebook/laptop MOBOs ever came equipped with that chipset.

Yes there are laptops with an ESS 688 or 1688. Many 430MX-based models had it (Pentium and Pentium MMX).

 

[creepingnet]

Just throwing my .02 on this since I'm using an NEC Versa M/75 with the Crystal CS-4231-KQ chipset for DOS gaming quite a lot, and I"ve been using that laptop for over a year. Sorry if I repeat a lot of stuff - I've been tinkering a TON with this one.

First off, almost any laptop with the WSS/compatible chipset may or may not have the OPL. I know the Versa M/75 does not as it does not have it on the board. I've read Zenith and Toshiba were in the same boat on some models, probably using the same chip since your struggles sound like mine. This means no Adlib/MIDI audio on these computers. I know with the Crystal it's because it's marketed as a "Business Audio" chipset. OPL is usually hosted on a separate chip. For me to even figure out what the M/75 had for sound, I had to unscrew and remove the PCMCIA cage from the motherboard as the chip was under there, the only sound chip was the CS-4231-KQ.

The SoundBlaster emulation does not do MIDI, it only does digital audio. Most games that do support at least sound effects through WSS from pure DOS have their own drivers and were made in 1994 or later - most of these are Sierra titles. Here's some games that work in DOS with WSS...

- Freddy Pharkas Frontier Pharmacist CD (w/speech) - audio, no sound effects
- The 7th Guest (some releases), I have a release that does not unfortunatley
- Lighthouse for DOS (Sierra) - sound effects only
- Links 386 Pro
- NASCAR 2, Music and Digital Audio w/ Speech
- Queen Tetris - I swear I got this working on the M/75 in FreeDOS
- Day of the Tentacle with Speech
- Under a Killing Moon (4 CDs!!) - Music AND Speech AND Sound Effects via WSS in DOS (this thing has a lot of compatibility with a lot of souund cards, if it won't work with Killing Moon, it probably does not exist until after 1996).

Emulators will work with SB Emulation in Windows, NESticle runs GREAT with WSS. But that's true of anything that can make use of that feature.

I did try getting the SB Compatibility working in FreeDOS 2.1 using the 1.0 and 2.0 driver sets and using EMM386.exe and WSSXLAT with no success. Have to use the Microsoft provided EMS driver because the FreeDOS version won't play ball with WSSXLAT. Set Blaster does not work either, at least, not normally.

But if you want MIDI & Sound from that era, some good laptops that DO have that include the Versa P/75, NanTan 9200/5110D, ThinkPad 755, and Samsung Sens 800, just to name a few. I have the P/75, it shares the same dock with the M/75, 40EC, and V/50 I have.

A workaround I used for awhile was to put a SoundBlaster pro 2.0 in the docking station and only play the games that needed it to work while docked. Problem was it conflicted with the ESS688 in my P/75, causing hanging upon playing audio files in Windows at the time, and crashes/no sound in DOS. That said, I still use the M/75 a lot though because I sometimes like to play DOS games to chill at the end of the day. and the M/75 not having audio offers a benefit in not waking/irritating my wife since the volume control on the Versa (fn+F6) is a bit of a noise-maker "squeak, Squeak, SQUeak, SQUEAK!!, ..."