Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2022-01-28, 08:53:

This driver CD is a bit different. It creates a separate section for DOS emulation called "Creative Miscellaneous Devices". Here […]
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boxpressed wrote:

In Device Manager, there was only one item -- the SB Live. That was odd and never happened before.

This driver CD is a bit different. It creates a separate section for DOS emulation called "Creative Miscellaneous Devices". Here's how Device Manager looks on my SB0100 with VxD drivers from that CD installed:

SB0100.jpg

If you have that section as well, then it's safe to assume that the driver installation was successful.

Try running Creative Diagnostics which should have been installed by default, alongside the drivers. I wonder if you'll get any sounds during the various tests from that utility.

Of course. You're right! It's been over a year since I've messed around with my Live cards, and I used to know that, 🤣. I will keep testing today and report back -- thank you for the reminder.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2022-01-28, 08:53:

This driver CD is a bit different. It creates a separate section for DOS emulation called "Creative Miscellaneous Devices". Here […]
Show full quote

boxpressed wrote:

In Device Manager, there was only one item -- the SB Live. That was odd and never happened before.

This driver CD is a bit different. It creates a separate section for DOS emulation called "Creative Miscellaneous Devices". Here's how Device Manager looks on my SB0100 with VxD drivers from that CD installed:

SB0100.jpg

If you have that section as well, then it's safe to assume that the driver installation was successful.

Try running Creative Diagnostics which should have been installed by default, alongside the drivers. I wonder if you'll get any sounds during the various tests from that utility.

I tried on another system (unfortunately a Via 686 Socket A system, that has problems with Live cards), and I got the same result: no sound. I ran the diagnostics, but nothing changed.

No sound from the SB16 legacy functionality either. I even tried two different speakers. Very odd.

boxpressed wrote on 2022-01-29, 00:47:

I tried on another system (unfortunately a Via 686 Socket A system, that has problems with Live cards), and I got the same result: no sound. I ran the diagnostics, but nothing changed.

No sound from the SB16 legacy functionality either. I even tried two different speakers. Very odd.

Strange. I'm guessing that this CT4830 does produce sound on a different setup i.e. when using Audigy drivers or while running under WinXP?

If so, the only thing that comes to mind is that it could possibly be an OEM model, which may require specific drivers from the original manufacturer. Otherwise, I'm out of ideas.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2022-01-29, 04:04:

boxpressed wrote on 2022-01-29, 00:47:

I tried on another system (unfortunately a Via 686 Socket A system, that has problems with Live cards), and I got the same result: no sound. I ran the diagnostics, but nothing changed.

No sound from the SB16 legacy functionality either. I even tried two different speakers. Very odd.

Strange. I'm guessing that this CT4830 does produce sound on a different setup i.e. when using Audigy drivers or while running under WinXP?

If so, the only thing that comes to mind is that it could possibly be an OEM model, which may require specific drivers from the original manufacturer. Otherwise, I'm out of ideas.

No worries -- thank you for all your help. It does work under XP, so I think the CT4830 will be the "XP Live" for me until I can find that CD that matches my model.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2022-01-29, 04:04:

boxpressed wrote on 2022-01-29, 00:47:

I tried on another system (unfortunately a Via 686 Socket A system, that has problems with Live cards), and I got the same result: no sound. I ran the diagnostics, but nothing changed.

No sound from the SB16 legacy functionality either. I even tried two different speakers. Very odd.

Strange. I'm guessing that this CT4830 does produce sound on a different setup i.e. when using Audigy drivers or while running under WinXP?

If so, the only thing that comes to mind is that it could possibly be an OEM model, which may require specific drivers from the original manufacturer. Otherwise, I'm out of ideas.

Success! I finally got the CT4830 to install smoothly. Specifically, I got *a* CT4830 to install smoothly. It turns out there are two versions of the CT4830, one with the digital out and one without. I assume that the one with the digital out is the retail version, the one without the OEM version. In the photo below, the one on top works with your CD. Thanks again!

boxpressed wrote on 2022-01-29, 16:12:

Success! I finally got the CT4830 to install smoothly. Specifically, I got *a* CT4830 to install smoothly. It turns out there are two versions of the CT4830, one with the digital out and one without. I assume that the one with the digital out is the retail version, the one without the OEM version. In the photo below, the one on top works with your CD. Thanks again!

Glad things worked out in the end!

And that's a very interesting find about the two CT4830 cards. I think you're spot on with that observation.

boxpressed wrote on 2022-01-29, 16:12:

It turns out there are two versions of the CT4830, one with the digital out and one without. I assume that the one with the digital out is the retail version, the one without the OEM version.

Do both of those cards have the same IDs in the hardware manager?

I ask, because I noticed some weirdness with the driver disc that came with my CT4830, which is the model with the 5th digital out port. From my notes:

This is the original driver disc for a SB Live Value CT4830. If you examine the drivers on the disc, you see this: […]
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This is the original driver disc for a SB Live Value CT4830. If you examine the drivers on the disc, you see this:

CT4832 - SBlive! Value PCIVEN_1102&DEV_0002&SUBSYS_80271102
CT4760 - SBlive! Value PCIVEN_1102&DEV_0002&SUBSYS_80401102

However, I checked my CT4830 and it is identical to the CT4832. It also has the same hardware ID PCIVEN_1102&DEV_0002&SUBSYS_80271102.

This driver disc works perfectly with my CT4830 card. It looks like the CT4830 and CT4832 are the same cards with different model numbers.

KT7AGuy wrote on 2022-01-29, 18:04:

Do both of those cards have the same IDs in the hardware manager? […]
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boxpressed wrote on 2022-01-29, 16:12:

It turns out there are two versions of the CT4830, one with the digital out and one without. I assume that the one with the digital out is the retail version, the one without the OEM version.

Do both of those cards have the same IDs in the hardware manager?

I ask, because I noticed some weirdness with the driver disc that came with my CT4830, which is the model with the 5th digital out port. From my notes:

This is the original driver disc for a SB Live Value CT4830. If you examine the drivers on the disc, you see this: […]
Show full quote

This is the original driver disc for a SB Live Value CT4830. If you examine the drivers on the disc, you see this:

CT4832 - SBlive! Value PCIVEN_1102&DEV_0002&SUBSYS_80271102
CT4760 - SBlive! Value PCIVEN_1102&DEV_0002&SUBSYS_80401102

However, I checked my CT4830 and it is identical to the CT4832. It also has the same hardware ID PCIVEN_1102&DEV_0002&SUBSYS_80271102.

This driver disc works perfectly with my CT4830 card. It looks like the CT4830 and CT4832 are the same cards with different model numbers.

The CT4830 I have with the digital out is 80261102

boxpressed wrote on 2022-01-25, 14:15:

Yesterday, I found this ISO on archive.org that seems to work: https://archive.org/details/sb-instal-sb-0220 […]
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Yesterday, I found this ISO on archive.org that seems to work: https://archive.org/details/sb-instal-sb-0220

It's for the SB0220, but it is a late version that seems to work with a range of Live! cards and early Audigy cards.

Rather than running the autorun setup program (which will install the WDM driver), you have to wait for 98SE to detect the plug and play card and ask for a driver. Then you point to D:/audio/drivers/98se_me, and then you tell the setup program to install an older set of drivers and not the default. This installs the VXD drivers.

However, the setup program doesn't install the legacy DOS drivers. Is there an easy way to do this? (I know about Joseph_Joestar's great method for using the Audigy install CD but was wondering if there is another way using only this install CD.) Thanks!

Out of curiosity, I tried this SB0220 driver CD on my SB0100 which resulted in some interesting findings. Standard installation using Autorun worked perfectly fine on my card. Of course, that installs WDM drivers. Fortunately, running D:\Audio\Drivers\CTZAPXX.EXE launches Creative's driver utility which makes it very easy to remove those and install VxD drivers instead:

By simply following the instructions presented on the screen, this utility will automatically uninstall WDM drivers, restart the computer, and then install VxD drivers. It will not install any DOS drivers, which was expected, as there are none on this driver CD. However, the Audigy DOS support package seems to install on top of these drivers without any issues. I was even able to use soundfonts for General MIDI music while running DOS games under Win9x. Here's Patch93's SC-55 soundfont in all of its 49 MB glory:

This is pretty similar to what I was able to achieve in this guide, but with one crucial difference. The drivers from this SB0220 CD work fine with all of Creative's support programs, such as AudioHQ, Surround Mixer, EAX Control Panel etc. The ones from the Audigy2 ZS driver CD (which I used in my guide) did not work with these utilities.

In light of those findings, this might just be the ultimate Win9x compatible SBLive driver CD. That said, I'm not sure if it can to cover such a wide range of SBLive cards as the Audigy drivers that I used in my guide can. But it might be worth trying these on various SBLive models and seeing how things turn out.

EDIT - I may have been a bit too optimistic. The VxD drivers from the SB0220 CD seem to be somewhat unstable. Certain games like Thief 2 will hard lock and force a reboot when those drivers are used. On the other hand, the WDM drivers from that same CD have no such issues.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2022-02-18, 19:26:

Out of curiosity, I tried this SB0220 driver CD on my SB0100 which resulted in some interesting findings. Standard installation […]
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boxpressed wrote on 2022-01-25, 14:15:

Yesterday, I found this ISO on archive.org that seems to work: https://archive.org/details/sb-instal-sb-0220 […]
Show full quote

Yesterday, I found this ISO on archive.org that seems to work: https://archive.org/details/sb-instal-sb-0220

It's for the SB0220, but it is a late version that seems to work with a range of Live! cards and early Audigy cards.

Rather than running the autorun setup program (which will install the WDM driver), you have to wait for 98SE to detect the plug and play card and ask for a driver. Then you point to D:/audio/drivers/98se_me, and then you tell the setup program to install an older set of drivers and not the default. This installs the VXD drivers.

However, the setup program doesn't install the legacy DOS drivers. Is there an easy way to do this? (I know about Joseph_Joestar's great method for using the Audigy install CD but was wondering if there is another way using only this install CD.) Thanks!

Out of curiosity, I tried this SB0220 driver CD on my SB0100 which resulted in some interesting findings. Standard installation using Autorun worked perfectly fine on my card. Of course, that installs WDM drivers. Fortunately, running D:\Audio\Drivers\CTZAPXX.EXE launches Creative's driver utility which makes it very easy to remove those and install VxD drivers instead:

Driver_Utility.jpg

By simply following the instructions presented on the screen, this utility will automatically uninstall WDM drivers, restart the computer, and then install VxD drivers. It will not install any DOS drivers, which was expected, as there are none on this driver CD. However, the Audigy DOS support package seems to install on top of these drivers without any issues. I was even able to use soundfonts for General MIDI music while running DOS games under Win9x. Here's Patch93's SC-55 soundfont in all of its 49 MB glory:

SoundFont.jpg

This is pretty similar to what I was able to achieve in this guide, but with one crucial difference. The drivers from this SB0220 CD work fine with all of Creative's support programs, such as AudioHQ, Surround Mixer, EAX Control Panel etc. The ones from the Audigy2 ZS driver CD (which I used in my guide) did not work with these utilities.

Surround_Mixer.jpg

In light of those findings, this might just be the ultimate Win9x compatible SBLive driver CD. That said, I'm not sure if it can to cover such a wide range of SBLive cards as the Audigy drivers that I used in my guide can. But it might be worth trying these on various SBLive models and seeing how things turn out.

EDIT - I may have been a bit too optimistic. The VxD drivers from the SB0220 CD seem to be somewhat unstable. Certain games like Thief 2 will hard lock and force a reboot when those drivers are used. On the other hand, the WDM drivers from that same CD have no such issues.

So close! I think your own Audigy fix is the closest we will come to a universal solution. It would just be nice to have a CD to give to a novice and have it work straightaway, but that would be an exception and not the rule in retrocomputing.

boxpressed wrote on 2022-02-28, 19:45:

So close! I think your own Audigy fix is the closest we will come to a universal solution. It would just be nice to have a CD to give to a novice and have it work straightaway, but that would be an exception and not the rule in retrocomputing.

I did make one interesting discovery while testing that CD - it appears possible to use Creative's utility programs (AudioHQ, EAX Console, Surround Mixer etc.) from that disc together with the VxD drivers from the Audigy2 ZS CD. This pretty much eliminates all the downsides of using Audigy drivers on a SBLive.

I'm still testing it though, and that may take a while. If everything checks out, I will release an updated version of my guide which will be based on the aforementioned approach.

I love creative, I have yet another version of the CT4830, this one has the digital out but lacks the CD_SPDIF and a chip in that area. 😉

Truly useful and informative posts here, thank you all!

My CT4830 will soon arrive, in the photo above, the one on top is the same model that I ordered.

My question is, is it possible to have it working under pure DOS (not 'Restart to DOS')?