Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-11-05, 12:53:

lucagb76 wrote on 2024-11-04, 21:55:

When I try to run SBEGO I get an error message.

I'm not familiar with that program, as it's not a part of my guide.

I mean that all the parameters are correct but doesn't work.
Wolfenstein found only adlib.
Fast Tracker 2 doesn't work.
Etc.

GL1zdA wrote on 2024-11-06, 22:19:

Yes, you can, but you will still need EMM386 or similar in CONFIG.SYS. Personally, I would make a shortcut to the game you want to run and use a custom AUTOEXEC.BAT/CONFIG.SYS configuration just for the single game. This way you won't pollute your CONFIG.SYS with EMM386.

Yes it works fine i've tested yesterday, Sound Card is now automatically init under DOS.
For EMS i can only use with NOEMS parameters, anything else produce a error on my system. All games i've tried seems to works fine with NOEMS.

I just got one issue with Jazz Jackrabbit, the game instantly reboot my PC when i try launch it.
Even if before it correctly auto-detected the sound card.

Others games like Jungle Book, Asterix, Tintin 1 & 2, Earthworm Jim, Duke Nukem 3D works fine.

TgamesFR wrote on 2024-11-07, 10:06:

Yes it works fine i've tested yesterday, Sound Card is now automatically init under DOS. For EMS i can only use with NOEMS param […]
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GL1zdA wrote on 2024-11-06, 22:19:

Yes, you can, but you will still need EMM386 or similar in CONFIG.SYS. Personally, I would make a shortcut to the game you want to run and use a custom AUTOEXEC.BAT/CONFIG.SYS configuration just for the single game. This way you won't pollute your CONFIG.SYS with EMM386.

Yes it works fine i've tested yesterday, Sound Card is now automatically init under DOS.
For EMS i can only use with NOEMS parameters, anything else produce a error on my system. All games i've tried seems to works fine with NOEMS.

I just got one issue with Jazz Jackrabbit, the game instantly reboot my PC when i try launch it.
Even if before it correctly auto-detected the sound card.

Others games like Jungle Book, Asterix, Tintin 1 & 2, Earthworm Jim, Duke Nukem 3D works fine.

For Jazz1 you probably need the "TPPATCH" which patches Turbo Pascal games for faster CPUs.

For soundfonts under pure DOS it's really impossible ?
On some websites they saying it's possible with Live! cards using Sound Blaster equivalent of SoundFont manager for DOS. But i don't know how to get that program.
In my case i want for Audigy 2 ZS.

TgamesFR wrote on 2024-11-10, 00:49:

For soundfonts under pure DOS it's really impossible ?
On some websites they saying it's possible with Live! cards using Sound Blaster equivalent of SoundFont manager for DOS. But i don't know how to get that program.
In my case i want for Audigy 2 ZS.

Soundfont support in DOS for a Live! or Audigy variant is something that I have never heard of and I have owned and used Live! and newer cards since the 90s. "Sound Blaster equivalent of SoundFont manager for DOS" reads more like a generic description of a concept than any actual program/software.

Even EMU8000 based cards (ISA SB32/AWE32/AWE64 models) have limited support for soundfonts under DOS (older SBK ones are loadable but newer and more common SF2 ones are not, unless someone has written a utility to do handle those since the last time I checked).

TgamesFR wrote on 2024-11-10, 00:49:

For soundfonts under pure DOS it's really impossible ?

I don't know of any tools which would allow soundfonts to be used on SBLive/Audigy cards in pure DOS. As far as I can tell, Creative's drivers are hardcoded to use ECW sets under those circumstances. Even external MIDI devices can't be used in pure DOS on these cards.

But if you do find some new info, feel free to share it here.

I had problems with my Audigy 2 ZS SB0560, drivers by itself are working fine enough, but after i installed drivers for DOS and added additional SB Live emulation it made my 98 SE behave so weird that its on point of not being usable. 🙁 I have to make few restarts in order to let me boot into system, and often it freezes my mouse or just wont boot properly in a first try. And one weird thing is when i tried to add new soundfont files, i could not find D:\DOSDRV\SF2 folder, its simply not there.

Studiostriver wrote on 2024-11-10, 19:40:

I had problems with my Audigy 2 ZS SB0560, drivers by itself are working fine enough, but after i installed drivers for DOS and added additional SB Live emulation it made my 98 SE behave so weird that its on point of not being usable. 🙁 I have to make few restarts in order to let me boot into system, and often it freezes my mouse or just wont boot properly in a first try. And one weird thing is when i tried to add new soundfont files, i could not find D:\DOSDRV\SF2 folder, its simply not there.

Just to confirm, you've downloaded my modified driver CD image from here right? Because that's the only driver version that works with this guide, and it does have a SF2 folder.

Other than that, if it's not clear from the initial post, this guide must be followed precisely every step of the way. Even the slightest deviation can lead to problems. In particular, be sure to do a clean install of Windows and check that your system has enough free resources before attempting to use the rest of the guide.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-11-10, 20:00:

Studiostriver wrote on 2024-11-10, 19:40:

I had problems with my Audigy 2 ZS SB0560, drivers by itself are working fine enough, but after i installed drivers for DOS and added additional SB Live emulation it made my 98 SE behave so weird that its on point of not being usable. 🙁 I have to make few restarts in order to let me boot into system, and often it freezes my mouse or just wont boot properly in a first try. And one weird thing is when i tried to add new soundfont files, i could not find D:\DOSDRV\SF2 folder, its simply not there.

Just to confirm, you've downloaded my modified driver CD image from here right? Because that's the only driver version that works with this guide, and it does have a SF2 folder.

Other than that, if it's not clear from the initial post, this guide must be followed precisely every step of the way. Even the slightest deviation can lead to problems. In particular, be sure to do a clean install of Windows and check that your system has enough free resources before attempting to use the rest of the guide.

Hmm. It seems i`ve used older version i found on vogons that is not 3.1. I just formatted partitions , and reinstalled fresh 98SE and XP SP3. I following your tutorial quite religiously, but i will try second time. 😀
One also very strange thing is that with 98SE these drivers asks for 98SE CD and it install correctly 1394 driver, with XP SP3 it do not ask me for CD, nor it see 1394 driver so i`m stuck without using dock XP which is quiet shame.
Trying know again with your updated driver CD image.

Here i am again. It seems that 3.1 cd image and fresh installation fixed the things on 98 SE. The only problems that i had is that PCI IRQ is assigned the same as Radeon 9600 XT card, so in bios i manually chosen one that is ( in my case 3 and 4) free, know it all works right. Thanks a lot!
Know to try the same process on XP SP3, of course without DOS emulation, hopefully it will manage to see 1394 driver in installation cd.

Studiostriver wrote on 2024-11-11, 01:54:

Here i am again. It seems that 3.1 cd image and fresh installation fixed the things on 98 SE. The only problems that i had is that PCI IRQ is assigned the same as Radeon 9600 XT card, so in bios i manually chosen one that is ( in my case 3 and 4) free, know it all works right. Thanks a lot!

Good to hear that!

I will add SB0360 to the list of supported Audigy models then.

I've noticed after playing many games during hours and when i want poweroff the PC on Windows 98, CTHELPER.EXE hold Windows 98 in the screen "Windows is powering off your computer".
In that case only way is to force manually poweroff or reboot the PC then normally poweroff from Windows 98.

There is a way to disable that process running in background ? From registry or Config on 98.

TgamesFR wrote on 2024-11-18, 05:14:

I've noticed after playing many games during hours and when i want poweroff the PC on Windows 98, CTHELPER.EXE hold Windows 98 in the screen "Windows is powering off your computer".
In that case only way is to force manually poweroff or reboot the PC then normally poweroff from Windows 98.

There is a way to disable that process running in background ? From registry or Config on 98.

It's possible to remove it using MSCONFIG or similar tools which can disable startup programs.

From what I've read on this forum and elsewhere, CTHELPER.EXE can be problematic on certain systems, but it may also be needed to improve game compatibility. By default, Creative's base driver pack installs that program, so they likely intended for it to be used. I have no idea how disabling it would affect games.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-11-18, 06:43:

It's possible to remove it using MSCONFIG or similar tools which can disable startup programs.

From what I've read on this forum and elsewhere, CTHELPER.EXE can be problematic on certain systems, but it may also be needed to improve game compatibility. By default, Creative's base driver pack installs that program, so they likely intended for it to be used. I have no idea how disabling it would affect games.

No issues so far to have CTHELPER.EXE disabled, now i don't have any hold of Windows before shutdown the PC (started to happen if i play during many hours and differents games).
I've even noticed a increase of performances, because before CTHELPER.EXE was sort of taking 100% of the CPU usage randomly and had some FPS drops (not happen all the time, was very random).
Now it's smooth and stable. Need more testing but i recommand disable it.

Reporting that, apparently, the guide works with SB0160 too.
Got the config error after the reboot but it went away after the second reboot. Also, but I was in a hurry and I couldn’t investigate further, Lemmings glitched every three seconds or so under win98se dos mode.

geg81 wrote on 2024-12-07, 18:40:

Reporting that, apparently, the guide works with SB0160 too.

Thanks! I'll add it to the list of Audigy models that were confirmed as working. From what I gather, the SB0160 is an Audigy ES.

Also, but I was in a hurry and I couldn’t investigate further, Lemmings glitched every three seconds or so under win98se dos mode.

Older DOS games from the early 90s don't work that well with Creative's SB16 emulation. Sometimes, it helps to run such games in pure DOS (e.g. Restart in MS-DOS mode) but even that won't help in certain cases. An ISA sound card is a much better choice for games from that time period.

Running DOS games in Windows has always been a hit or miss, with and without sound. Some games have never had working sound, despite being plenty old and requiring only Adlib, such a Dungeon Master.

I've noticed one issue with the Rayman 1 games (normal, Gold and Juniors versions) when running them on Windows 98 SE (Deamon Tools 3.47).
I have sound effects and musics working during gameplay and menus but absolute no sounds during cutscenes.

Anyone have this issue too with Audigy 2 ZS drivers ?

It's strange because the sound on top of cutscenes are just RedBook Audio who are nothing to do with Sound Blaster internal processing of sounds/musics.

I don't have this issue on another similar PC with another sound card.

It's playable but i've never saw anyone talking of a similar bug on his side.

Except that game, all i've tried works fine so far .
Just like i said earlier the driver have a code who badly handle exceptions.
And if a exception occurs it not try to catch it, it gonna bluescreen the machine with him. Something who not happen with others drivers for others cards.
I guess it's because Creative not enough tested thoses drivers at that time.
With knowledge we can fix here and here the few games who have thoses issues so it's not a big deal.