Sound Blaster 16 emulation in new systems

I have a Sound Blaster Live! 5.1 Digital installed in an AMD PC system with
the motherboard Gigabyte GA-7N400-L (chipset nVidia-nForce2).

I've tried to emulate Sound Blaster 16 in pure DOS with the SBEINIT tool
provided from Creative, but the emulation doesn't work: SBEINIT initalize
correctly with no errors but SBEGO doesn't detect the emulation.
Maybe my motherboard doesn't support NMI, or it's not enabled (I haven't
found any NMI options in the Award BIOS).

So, my questions a
What are your experiences about sound blaster emulation in new systems?
Do you have the same problems of me?
Newest motherboards don't support SB16 emulation?
Or it's a specific problem of the nVidia-nForce2 chipset?
There's a way to enable NMI if BIOS doesn't support it?

Thank you!

Francesco wrote:

I have a Sound Blaster Live! 5.1 Digital installed in an AMD PC system with
the motherboard Gigabyte GA-7N400-L (chipset nVidia-nForce2).

I have a Chaintech znif7

So, my questions a
What are your experiences about sound blaster emulation in new systems?
Do you have the same problems of me?
Newest motherboards don't support SB16 emulation?
Or it's a specific problem of the nVidia-nForce2 chipset?

I cannot get SB emulation to work at all either on this mobo! Has
nForce2 as well. I have even put in an old soundcard coz the mobo
install Cd has messed up the win98se install anyway for sound, so I
could
not even use the on-board sound! Still, the SB emulation won't work,
and I have been through all the usual cuprits ... the closest I get it
that
there's no IRQ available, yet all reports show IRQ5 is not used (I have
little extra in the system (just a modem!). I can even reassign the
IRQ's around and
there will always be one free ... of course, 5 is the "best" one to use
for
SB (eh?).

Anyway, I just live with it, as it's not important to me, but I thought
I
would add to the brew as there do seem to be similarities ...

Tra,

--
Rob Fletcher, University of York, UK
[Spamtrap - Remove the "y" to reply]

"Francesco" wrote in message
...
I have a Sound Blaster Live! 5.1 Digital installed in an AMD PC system
with
the motherboard Gigabyte GA-7N400-L (chipset nVidia-nForce2).

I've tried to emulate Sound Blaster 16 in pure DOS with the SBEINIT tool
provided from Creative, but the emulation doesn't work: SBEINIT initalize
correctly with no errors but SBEGO doesn't detect the emulation.
Maybe my motherboard doesn't support NMI, or it's not enabled (I haven't
found any NMI options in the Award BIOS).

Now, I assume when you say pure DOS, you're talking about booting into
Windows' Real mode, as opposed to running a DOS window under Windows'
Protected mode, right?

So, my questions a
What are your experiences about sound blaster emulation in new systems?
Do you have the same problems of me?
Newest motherboards don't support SB16 emulation?
Or it's a specific problem of the nVidia-nForce2 chipset?
There's a way to enable NMI if BIOS doesn't support it?

I think you may simply be out of luck here. In the old days of DOS,
Soundblasters were pre-assigned various IRQ numbers, port addresses, memory
ranges, etc. These locations were well known. Then as Windows gradually took
over the landscape, they introduced the Plug'n'Play standards, which meant
that all of these well-known statically-located resources were now free to
move around to any available addresses that were free. It made resource
contention a virtual thing of the past, but old programs no longer can
figure out where things are. DOS may not even be able to initialize the
P'n'P hardware properly, since it predates P'n'P; unless the manufacturer
included a DOS-based driver for it (not likely anymore).

Have you tried running your DOS app under a DOS window rather than directly
in DOS mode? In a case like that the DOS window might be able to emulate a
Soundblaster for you through hardware emulation, under anybody's soundcard.
Also, it may or may not emulate SB16, but it might only emulate SB8, so be
prepared for that too.

Yousuf Khan

On Sun, 31 Aug 2003 13:19:42 GMT, "Francesco"
wrote:

I have a Sound Blaster Live! 5.1 Digital installed in an AMD PC system with
the motherboard Gigabyte GA-7N400-L (chipset nVidia-nForce2).

I've tried to emulate Sound Blaster 16 in pure DOS with the SBEINIT tool
provided from Creative, but the emulation doesn't work: SBEINIT initalize
correctly with no errors but SBEGO doesn't detect the emulation.
Maybe my motherboard doesn't support NMI, or it's not enabled (I haven't
found any NMI options in the Award BIOS).

So, my questions a
What are your experiences about sound blaster emulation in new systems?
Do you have the same problems of me?
Newest motherboards don't support SB16 emulation?
Or it's a specific problem of the nVidia-nForce2 chipset?
There's a way to enable NMI if BIOS doesn't support it?

I'm not sure whether your problem is trying to emulate a SB16 with a
SB Live, or trying to emulate a SB16 with a new non SB16 mboard.

You could try VDMSound which allows DOS sound emulation under Win
NT/2000/XP (I've never used it):

http://ntvdm.cjb.net/

but you say you're running under pure dos. Most likely your interrupt
isn't set to IRQ 5, port 220, DMA 1 and 5, MIDIport 330. You might
also have to turn on or off BIOS plug and play or manually set the
interrupts in the bios.

Or just buy a second hand Vibra128 card, even new ones aren't
expensive.


Sig:
Westheimer's Discovery: A couple of months in the laboratory can save a
couple of hours in the library. -Frank H. Westheimer, chemistry professor
(1912- )

Now, I assume when you say pure DOS, you're talking about booting into
Windows' Real mode, as opposed to running a DOS window under Windows'
Protected mode, right?

Yes, pure DOS means booting in DOS 7.1 under Win98SE...

Have you tried running your DOS app under a DOS window rather than
directly
in DOS mode? In a case like that the DOS window might be able to emulate a
Soundblaster for you through hardware emulation, under anybody's
soundcard.
Also, it may or may not emulate SB16, but it might only emulate SB8, so be
prepared for that too.

I've already tried running DOS games under the Windows box, I get standard
Sound Blaster(8 bit) emulation, but work only for digital sound, not for FM
music or MIDI out.
The motherboard have an integrated Realtek sound chip that works the same as
the SBLive in the Windows DOS box (digital 8 bit sound ok, but no FM music),
so I think that the emulation of FM music under Windows is not supported.

I'm not sure whether your problem is trying to emulate a SB16 with a
SB Live, or trying to emulate a SB16 with a new non SB16 mboard.

I'm trying to emulate SB16 with SBLive under DOS in real mode (not in
Windows)...

You could try VDMSound which allows DOS sound emulation under Win
NT/2000/XP (I've never used it).

I don't want to use DOS emulation under WinNT/2000/XP, because these
operating systems are not friendly with old DOS apps(specially with games),
anyway thanks for the advice...

Most likely your interrupt
isn't set to IRQ 5, port 220, DMA 1 and 5, MIDIport 330. You might
also have to turn on or off BIOS plug and play or manually set the
interrupts in the bios.

The emulation under DOS use port 220, irq 5, dma 0/5, midi port 330, these
resources are free, I have checked under Windows system manager, so I don't
think it's a resource conflict.

"Francesco" wrote in message
...
I've already tried running DOS games under the Windows box, I get standard
Sound Blaster(8 bit) emulation, but work only for digital sound, not for
FM
music or MIDI out.
The motherboard have an integrated Realtek sound chip that works the same
as
the SBLive in the Windows DOS box (digital 8 bit sound ok, but no FM
music),
so I think that the emulation of FM music under Windows is not supported.

It would make some sense that only 8-bit emulation is available, because
Creative put patents around its 16-bit SB's. The only standard that was in
the public domain (and therefore the only standards other manufacturers
could legally emulate) were the 8-bit SB and SBPro (mono and stereo,
respectively). So even Creative's own later-generation SoundBlasters were
only emulating their 8-bit SoundBlaster; but they wouldn't give their
competitors permission to emulate anything beyond 8-bit stereo SoundBlaster.

The FM synthesizer part of the SoundBlaster was actually a clone of the
previous king of the hill of soundcards, the AdLib (if anyone remembers the
AdLib?). The original SoundBlaster was an AdLib compatible with added
digital sound, as an extra feature. It eventually usurped the AdLib, because
not only did it do all of the things that the AdLib did, but also did
digital sound.

Now, how do you know that your FM music is not working in the DOS window? Is
there some software that attempts to access the AdLib ports and fails?

Yousuf Khan

Francesco wrote:
I've already tried running DOS games under the Windows box, I get standard
Sound Blaster(8 bit) emulation, but work only for digital sound, not for FM
music or MIDI out.

The motherboard have an integrated Realtek sound chip that works the same as
the SBLive in the Windows DOS box (digital 8 bit sound ok, but no FM music),
so I think that the emulation of FM music under Windows is not supported.

If you're using WDM drivers than you're probably using Microsoft's own
craptastic SoundBlaster emulation. With the SBLive you need to use the
VxD drivers to use Creative's much much better SoundBlaster emulation.
But, if your motherboard doesn't support NMIs then Creative's emulation
won't work, niether under a Windows DOS box nor under plain real-mode
MS-DOS.

Ross Ridge

--
l/ // Ross Ridge -- The Great HTMU
[oo][oo]
-()-/()/ http://www.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/u/rridge/
db //

Now, how do you know that your FM music is not working in the DOS window?
Is
there some software that attempts to access the AdLib ports and fails?

Yes, every game I have configured with SoundBlaster/AdLib FM music, loads
correctly, but I don't hear any music, only digital sound...
Good news: the MIDI port 330 works, so I can use my external Roland MIDI
module for games that allow music through MIDI out!

If you're using WDM drivers than you're probably using Microsoft's own
craptastic SoundBlaster emulation. With the SBLive you need to use the
VxD drivers to use Creative's much much better SoundBlaster emulation.
But, if your motherboard doesn't support NMIs then Creative's emulation
won't work, niether under a Windows DOS box nor under plain real-mode
MS-DOS.

My Sound Blaster Live 5.1 Digital is the latest of the Live series (I have
bought it right now), and it's shipped with a CD that contains only the new
WDM drivers, old VXD drivers that permits SB16 emulation are not more
supported, and with the new drivers I don't have the old SB16 emulation mode
available in the system manager.
So, I found the old LiveWare 3.0 package (no more available at Creative
site!) in some web sites and download it; LiveWare 3.0 contains the latest
VXD drivers and DOS drivers for Windows9x/DOS that allow SB16 emulation; I
have tried to install it in Windows 98SE but the installation abort because
of system errors (maybe the old VXD drivers are not compatible with new
systems, and Creative replace it with the more stable WDM drivers,
sacrificing SB16 emulation). I have manually extracted the DOS drivers
(SBEINIT,etc.) and configured it correctly, but the emulation under real
mode DOS don't work.