PCI Sound in MS DOS 6.22

[svenklotz]

Hi, all,

please - what brand of PCI soundcard WORKS really in real MS DOS 6.22? What ist to do to get this work?

Thanx,

Sven.

[Wally]

hi
PCI card that works in real MS dos 6.22 ...

hmmm...
I use Aurael Vortex..

[countdracul666@earthlink.]

Hey I have a bunch of 51/4 disk games is their any way to transfer them from
5 1/4 to 3 1/2 disk because I have installed a 5 1/4 disk drive in my computer
but it wont let copy from one disk to another?

[Guest]

I run a DOS game and use a vortex2 PCI soundcard, and I have a question.

In Lords of the Realm I, I can get either music or sound effects (speech) but not both.

Can you tell me what you did to get this soundcard working under Dos 6.22?

[Guest]

Unless the company or someone made a DOS driver specially designed for the particular PCI sound card, it is about 99.999% impossible to use a PCI sound card in DOS.

If you have Windows 95 or newer, you should be able to get sound in DOS games by running them straight through Windows and not using pure DOS mode.

[Guest]

Thanks for the reply ("...it is about 99.999% impossible to use a PCI sound card in DOS.") Yes, that has been my experience so far. It helps to have it confirmed.

On the other hand, the right drivers must be there, because when I set the game up as if I was using a Soundblaster (or SB Pro) I get vocals and no music. When I set it up as SB Pro 2, I get music and no speech. So maybe the problem is with the game...but still, same result. Any ideas on how to solve that?

As for running the game in Windows, I do want to keep trying it in plain DOS.

So...I have an old ISA card. An ESS 1869. I tried to install it in Win98 with the idea that I could then use it in my DOS 6.22 partition, but it wouldn't detect. Maybe I will try putting it in the slot anyway, and leave the Vortex 2 going in 98, and try to get the ESS to work in DOS.

Any ideas about that?

[dr_st]

On the other hand, the right drivers must be there, because when I set the game up as if I was using a Soundblaster (or SB Pro) I get vocals and no music. When I set it up as SB Pro 2, I get music and no speech. So maybe the problem is with the game...but still, same result. Any ideas on how to solve that?

It's not a problem with the game, most likely. It's probably due to the sound card compyling only partially to the standard required by DOS games. Have you searched for DOS drivers for your card and tried using them? Sometimes it works. I know I couldn't get my DOS SBLive drivers to work, but many people could.

So...I have an old ISA card. An ESS 1869. I tried to install it in Win98 with the idea that I could then use it in my DOS 6.22 partition, but it wouldn't detect. Maybe I will try putting it in the slot anyway, and leave the Vortex 2 going in 98, and try to get the ESS to work in DOS.

I'm not familiar with the ESS1869 card, but I do have one other ESS card, and what's unique about it is that it needs ABSOLUTELY NO DRIVERS to work in DOS. However, since it's not a PnP card, you need to use a configuration program that lets you see and change its port/IRQ/DMA settings. Do you have this program? It should be called ESSCFG.EXE.

[Guest]

Dr st, Actually, I do have that program. Although up til now I haven't known what it was for. It was in a zip file I downloaded a few weeks ago. I thought I was getting ESS 1869 "drivers".

Along with it is ESSVOL.EXE. Says I can use this one to set the volume.

I will try these out, and do the ISA card install, soon as I get time (tomorrow night).

I did search high and low for Vortex 2 drivers for DOS. No luck, even on Driverguide. So I installed the 98 drivers (or just put 'em on the DOS partition, in a file) and ran AU30DOS.COM. The drivers do load, according to a message on startup. They just don't run the game right. Haven't tried that card on any other DOS game yet.

BTW, I couldn't get Win98 to detect the ISA card at all, when I tried it a week ago, so I wonder if DOS will even know it is there. My plan is to put it in the slot, start up DOS, run the CFG and VOL programs...and see what happens.

Is there more to it? I can put the CFG and VOL programs in the Autoexec.bat. Is there something else I should put in there, or in Config.sys? THX much.