HELP! Sound problems in DM!

[isamu]

Hi guys. I downloaded the DM zip file from this site but I'm not getting any sound in the game. I tried both dos and windows but nothing. I have a PIII 500 w/128megs of ram, but my sound card is one of those PCI built on the mother board 16 meg cards. Does anyone else have any problems getting sound from DM? Is there a patch or something I can download to fix it? Thanks.

[Ian Clark]

I have always had exactly the same problem. I don't think there is a way to correct it, I haven't tried the Amiga version so I wouldn't know about that...

I should think the Amiga one would work ok with sound.

[Gambit37]

DM requires a 100% DOS compliant sound card to run, as it's an old DOS game, and the sound will not work under Windows95 or above unless you have native DOS drivers for your soundcard/chip. This is increasingly unlikely on the more modern computers as most of them are not built to be backwards compatible, and do not have DOS drivers.

I have an SBAwe64, and have the necessary DOS drivers. I have made myself a boot disk with the required sound/mouse drivers on it and the sound works fine in DM. The best solution is to shop around at computer fairs to pick up an old 486 with something like a SoundBlaster 16 in it - it should be a minimal investment, and you will still be able to enjoy your old DOS games. I'm gonna do this at some point so that I can play DM2 with sound, as I simply cannot get that to work on my AWE64.

Sorry, but it looks like you'll have to give the PC version a miss if you want sound and stick to the emulated Aimga version.

[isamu]

So if I buy the SBAwe64 sound card seperately and install it, it'll have the dos drivers there and all ready to go? How much does this sound card cost? BTW, I have an old 386 PC that's a real dinosaur. Will it likely contain an on board sound chip or a separate card by itself? And can I install two cards at once? One for current games and one for dos games and easily switch between the two?

[Gambit37]

Yes, buying an old AWE64 will give you all the necessary drivers that you need to make it work. However, I wouldn't recommend doing this on a new computer unless you really know what you're doing. You'll probably want to make a dual boot machine with a separate DOS configuration, and this can nigh on impossible on a computer that already has Win9x on it.

It IS possible, but you'd need to ensure that Windows was set up in such way as to ignore the old sound card and only use whatever card you currently have installed, and this can be trickiy, especially if the old card is plug-and-play.

Your old 386 may be a better option - and virtually none of those would have had any kind of default sound at all, so unless you bought a sound card for it, you'll still need to get hold of one to get sound in DM. I'm not even sure what the minimum spec for DM is, but it MAY run on a 386.

To be honest, If your computer is less than 18 months old, you'd be better off looking at classified ads to see if you can find someone who is selling an old 486 that has a soundcard in it. It's still probably the cheapest and less fussy option to playing old DOS games with sound. Good luck!

[isamu]

Thanks, I'll check it out.

[BinaryBandit]

Sound Blaster Live! Works well as long as you have the dos drivers installed. These drivers readily available from the Sound Blaster Live! site.

I'm playing from Windows 98 and got all the sounds.

[isamu]

O.K. here's the name of my sound chip according to my device manager under properties--
C-MEDIA-I-8738/C3DX PCI AUDIO LEGACY DEVICE. What part of this is the REAL name of my sound chip? I'm assuming this may or may not be Sound Blaster compatible. Also, keep in mind that according to the device manager, within this sound chip contains a dos emulator called "DOS mode MPU-401 emulator". Anyone know if this is supposed to give me sound? How do I enable it.

[Gambit37]

It sounds like you have an all-in-one controller chip that handles your sound and quite possibly other system devices such as keyboard and mouse input.

Do a search on this on the net and you'll probably find drivers and/or information on how to enable DOS sound. I don't have any experience of using all-in-one controllers so this is where my knowledge ends I'm afraid. Perhaps someone else can help you.

[BinaryBandit]

Here is something that may help you to get sound with DM in dos...

If you got the latest drivers downloaded and installed for your sound card then it isnt your drivers.
The SB16 emulation of the Sound Blaster Live! and various other newer soundcards in DOSMODE requires your motherboard to support NMI (Non-Maskable Interrupt) in order to work. Check with your manufacturer or look at your motherboard documentation to determine whether your motherboard supports it.

[Gambit37]

Isamu, you could try the following sertings, but remember that they may not be exactly right for your card depending on how it's been configured and what IRQ it's using:

SET SOUND=C:\ CREATIVE\SOUND
SET MIDI=SYNTH:1 MAP:E MODE:0
SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 H5 P330 E620 T6

In my case the settings after the SET BLASTER are the important ones. A220 = Port the card is using, I5 = Interrupt 5, D1 = Low DMA setting 1, H5 = High DMA setting 5. The other stuff won't make any difference to Dungeon Master.

Remember that DM <b> <i> does</i></b> use low quality sound anyway - at least by today's standards, so you may not be able to improve it. Did you play DM when it first came out, and if so can you remember how it sounded? If you can, you won't get it any better than you remembered it. <i>Edited by <A HREF=http://pub17.ezboard.com/uianclark.show ... age=EN>Ian Clark</A>  <IMG SRC=http://www.ezboard.com/ezgfx/gicons/anim_1.gif BORDER=0 WIDTH=10 HEIGHT=10> at: 9/9/00 8:08:58 pm
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[Ian Clark]

Gambit37, I edited the above message because an emoticon ended up there by mistake, where you put C: / It became ?) <p><font face=arial>Ian

Pulp - Styling the pattern for life!</font></p>

[isamu]

Thanks. O.K. here's the latest news. I literally just came back from the PC shop where my buddy installed my new Sound Blaster AWE32 sound card. We then went online to Sound Blaster.com to download the driver for it. Fortunately, every game is running with good sound now in dos mode, especially the games I play in MAME. Unfortunately, for some reason, the sound I'm getting in DM is still very distorted and scratchy. My friend told me this is likely due to the fact that it's DM probably uses 8 bit sound and in order for my AWE32 soundcard to produce the correct sound from this particular game, I need to enable the right "Set Blaster String" so that the it creates 8 bit sound from dos games. Gambit, since you also have an SBAWE sound card, I was wondering if you could please look in either your auto exec.bat or at the dos prompt and find out what the exact set blaster string is for your card. Or anyone else that has this sound card and is getting good sound outta DM. I'd really appreciate it. The fact that *SOME* sound is coming from DM at all, seems like a step in the right direction. And since this is the case Binary Bandit, I'm assuming that my mothere DOES support Non-Maskable Interrupt or else I wouldn't get ANY sound from the game. But I think it might be that I have the wrong setblaster string enabled. Please help me on this!

[isamu]

Hmm interesting. Your set blaster string is almost the same as mine except instaed of the last six digits being E620 T6, mine are switched around with T6 coming BEFORE E620. So I went into the dos prompt and edited the set blaster line by typing SET BLASTER=A220 I5 H5 P330 E620 T6. But I can't get it to keep the changes I made. When I type "exit" and then go back to dos and type set, the blaster line goes back to the way it was before. This is a dumb question but what's the command line to keep the changes you made to your strings? I thought you could just type "exit" but that doesn't keep the changes you made.

[Toni Y]

When you start the dos prompt windows creates a new DOS environment. After you type 'exit' it is cleared from memory.

Only way you can make the change permament is to type it in real DOS before windows starts (edit your autoexec.bat, it should already contain the line SET BLASTER=...whatever... )

[isamu]

I just realized a few things that's interesting. First, I don't know if you realize this or not, but I have been getting the distorted sounds in DM when I run it directly from Windows. So I thought I'd try running it in PURE dos mode to see what happends. I noticed that when I run DM in PURE dos, I don't even get an option to enable Sound Blaster. It just gives me the PC Speaker option. On the other hand, if I choose PC Speaker, I actually get the *corrrect* full sound without any distortions whatsoever. But what sucks about it is that for some reason my built in PC speaker has very low volume and the sound seems to be coming from inside the actual tower. But getting back to the game start up options, why in the world is DM not recognizing my Sound Blaster when it runs in pure dos, yet it does when running in Windows? I would be glad to run it in pure dos, because like I've stated before, when running in Windows the Sound Blaster sounds extremely distorted. So now all I've got to do is figure out a way to make DM see my card in pure dos. Are most of you guys running the game in pure dos or from Windows? If that doesn't work, is there a way to somehow trick my SBAWE32 into hearing the game even if I choose the "PC Speaker" option? Oh by the way. Here's what my Autoexec.bat text reads under the DM program settings:

SET TEMP=C:\ WINDOWS\TEMP
SET PROMPT=$p$g
SET winbootdir=C:\ WINDOWS
SET PATH=C:\ WINDOWS;C:\ WINDOWS\COMMAND
SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 H5 P330 E620 T6
LoadHigh C:\ WINDOWS\SmartDrv
LoadHigh C:\ WINDOWS\Command\DOSKey

Is there anything in this configuration that looks like it might be missing something?
<i>Edited by <A HREF=http://pub17.ezboard.com/uianclark.show ... age=EN>Ian Clark</A>  <IMG SRC=http://www.ezboard.com/ezgfx/gicons/anim_1.gif BORDER=0 WIDTH=10 HEIGHT=10> at: 9/10/00 7:42:04 am
</i>

[Gambit37]

Um, yes, playing DM under Windows will cause distorted sound. All this time, when you said you couldn't get sound running in DOS, I had thought you meant that you had <b> booted</b> your computer in to DOS, not that you were running a <i> DOS session</i> in Windows. Could have got you a solution much quicker if I'd known - I guess that's what I get for having grown up with DOS....

If you want to run in pure DOS and have your sound work, you need to make sure that the DOS drivers for your sound card are loaded in your AUTOEXEC.BAT - the one that you find on your C:\ drive. You should have some files in your sound card folder that can be run - it may be called something like CTCM.EXE or CTPNP.EXE. So you need to add all the following information into your C:\AUTOEXEC.BAT:

SET SOUND=C:\SOUND

The above line should be modified to the folder where your SBAWE64 drivers are located

SET MIDI=SYNTH:1 MAP:E MODE:0
SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 H5 P330 E620 T6
LOADHIGH C:\SOUND\CTCM.EXE

Hope that helps! Put it this way - you can only get sound working in DM if you boot into pure DOS with a soundcard that has DOS enabled drivers - playing under Windows will mess up the sound.

Thanks for the edit Ian; I must remember to turn of emoticons when posting paths and stuff....

[isamu]

O.K. been kinda busy today but I finally figured out how to put the string in my autoexec.bat file. By the way, the name of my AWE32 folder is "upddrv". There are two main driver files that run. One is called "sbw9xup" and has the typical "Run\command" icon, while the other one is called "upddrv95" and seems to be an upgrade for windows 95 that installs itself once clicked on(I already did this). I'm assuming that "sbw9xup" is the main file, but there are other icons in the folder that look like extensions. I believe a few of them are the dos drivers.

Anyway here's what I did. Went to dos prompt, typed c\ hit enter, typed edit autoexec.bat. Once inside autoexec.bat, I typed the following commands:

rem blaster=A220 I5 D1 H5 P330 E620 T6
SET SOUND=C: \Windows\DESKTOP\upddrv\sbw9xup.exe
SET MIDI=SYNTH:1 MAP:E MODE:0
SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 H5 P330 E620 T6
LOADHIGH C: \WINDOWS\DESKTOP\upddrv\sbw9xup.exe

You may wondering why I have the rem blaster line at the top. Well I was told by the pc guy at the shop that it keeps the string from changing. Frankly, I haven't noticed this and it really doesn't show a significance. Do I really need it to be there?

Also, the LOADHIGH command is giving me a "File not found" error. Can you look at the above LOADHIGH command and tell me if that's exactly the way it's supposed to be? Is there supposed to be a an = between LOADHIGH and C:? Am I supposed to type the directory to the MAIN driver file in the LOADHIGH string the way it shows above? Or do I type it to one of the extensions in the folder? Darn. I feel that I'm sooo close to getting DM to recognize the card that I can taste it! Just a little more tweaking to go. With your help I know I'll succeed

[Gambit37]

OK, there's a problem with your approach. The file that you're trying to load (sbw9xup.exe) is <b> NOT</b> the file required to enable DOS drivers. That's just a Windows installation program that installs the Sound Balster drivers - and you shouldn't be referencing it in your AUTOEXEC file, so remove it. You seem to be getting in a bit of a pickle, so let's start again from scratch.

I'm not at home right now, so when I return I think the best thing I can do is to send you the necessary files from my own set-up with clear instructions on exactly how to do this. You'll probably be better off setting up a boot floppy disk - as I did - so I'll give you details on how to do that. Email me privately with your email address so that I can send you the files (click on my name on the left to send me email)

[Chaos]

If you could at all possible, send me your config as well. I use the awe64, and have not been able to get the sound to work. Be a god and send it to me.
I wanna hear the scream of death
My own dungeon is coming along ok....on my second level...hope to finish it by Christmas for all those hardcore dungeon master dudes.

[Gambit37]

Sure - what's your email address??

[Chaos]

Thanks man. This has been a great forum.My address is sparkitup69@hotmail.com.
Do you know if anyone has a dungeon finished yet?
l8r

[Van]

sound card does have the drivers when you buy it, even OEM

I believe its an option when installing the card, it works for me.

Van

[isamu]

yeah your right but I bought mine used and it didn't come with @#%$ so i had to d/l the rivers from Soundsblaster.com. The bad thing about it was the fact that all this time I thought I thought dos drievrs were included with that download but but it appears they weren't. Thanks to Gamit37, I can now enhoy hearing those dors opening and those screamers screaming! Gambit should be a manager at Micro$oft with all his technicel expertise I'm a little drunk so I'm gunna go play DM now!!!

[Gambit37]

Sorry about this Chaos - I forgot to send you the drivers and the message moved down the board so I forgot about it. I'll send them to you within the next day or so.