DOS Games Discussion

[sevenlittleduffs]

can i install an old soundblaster card in my computer that runs xp and still keep in the new sound card in?

[dosraider]

It don't think it is a very good idea to put 2 souncards in,you gonna have trubbles.
Windows XP will see the 2 soundcards in the booting hardware check,you would have to disable one of them in the config panel,the result??? don't know,never tried such a stunt, in my opinion it's a crazy stunt.
And what about the IRQ?The DMA?You prob gone mess your system up.

May i ask WHY you would put an old card in?USB Joystick?
If that's the reason: use dosbox,it gives full usb joystick support.

[dr_st]

No problems whatsoever with using two soundcards. Windows will see both but only use one at a time, and with certain applications you can choose to override the Windows default selection.

I have two soundcards in both my main comps, none of which is disabled, and I switch freely between the two.

The thing is - if you want an old soundcard for DOS games, you probably want an ISA card. Do you have ISA slots in your PC?

[dosraider]

Never to old to learn new tricks,THX dr_st

[sevenlittleduffs]

yea, thats true, i didnt think about the isa slots, the old one prob wouldnt fit. so what other sound card do you use in your computer besides the new one?

[billy the guest]

I am considering putting two soundcards in my computer because I am using two Windows installations. I have one disk with Windows 98 and one with Windows 2000. My older soundcard is a Soundblaster AWE 64 Gold, and I have messed with it to get everything just the way I want it on that card. Inside Win 98 it works fine. But it has 16-bit drivers and I don't know how it will square with Win 2000. My other card is a Soundblaster Live and I was planning to put it in for Win 2000. I figure that device conflicts can be avoided simply by enabling only one soundcard in each operating system.

...At least until I figure out how to do everything on the Soundblaster Live that I did on the AWE 64 Gold. I've been tweaking the MIDI instrument samples and saved it in an .SF2 (soundfont) file using the Vienna soundfont editor. It included things like getting rid of annoying vibrato from some woodwind instruments and fixing the percussion so that they don't keep sounding past the note-off. I even replaced the abominable "orchestra hit" patch with a velocity mapped table of phomeme samples that let me put vocalizations in MIDI files.

But I don't know if Soundblaster Live supports SF2 files so that I could port this work over to it. Until I find out for sure, I may as well have both soundcards in the computer.

Billy

[Guest]

cant you disable one of them like you do on onbord motherbords with grapics cards

[dr_st]

You can, but you shouldn't. They don't bother one another.

[Billy the Guest]

I wasn't thinking of disabling any card altogether. But Making only one card available to each Windows system. That would mean using the system manager to disable the AWE 64 Gold in Win 2000 and disabling the SB Live in Win 98.

[dr_st]

Like I said, it's not something you have to do. Just select the default card for each Windows.

[Billy the Guest]

Thanks.

The old AWE64 Gold software let you load wavetables from a soundfont file (SF2). This is a file that contains the wavesample data, plus the generator values for every sample, controlling things like attack, sustain, release, vibrato, tremolo, etc. The Vienna soundfont editor that came with the card lets you edit every aspect of the SF2 file. If you've ever heard the cheezy vibrato in the clarinet and then heard it again with the vibrato removed, you will know exactly why I value beling able to change it this way.

Does anyone know here if the Soundblaster Live recognizes SF2 (or perhaps SF3) files and provides a way to load them? If not, what new method has been provided for customizing MIDI wavetables in a matter like what I described above?

My windows "filetype" list shows something called an "instrument definition file", but I have no idea what they do or if they function in a like manner. Thanks.

[dr_st]

I think SBLive! allows you to load SF2 files via it's AudioHQ. I don't remember exactly how it's done. Might try it later on my older desktop that has SBLive!.

[Billy the Guest]

It looks like you are correct. I went to my old computer that has a clean install of Win 95 just for trying out the SBLive. Indeed there is an AudioHQ and after you open it you click on the Soundfonts tab. There you find a "Load" button to install an SF2 file. The layout is different than the "AWE Control" in the Gold gard, however, and I still haven't gotten familiar with the concept of "banks". I want the loaded SF2 file to be the "default" wavetable without having to put a "bank switch" command in the MIDI file. I would guess that is done by using bank 0, correct?

I also saw that my Windows Device Manager doesn't list the AWE 64 Gold as one device, but rather as three: an audio device, a MIDI device, and a gameport. I would guess that disabling these three is the same as disabling the whole soundcard. Would this be sufficient to avoid device conflicts with a second soundcard?

[Billy the Guest]

It appears that a marriage of SBLive! and Windows 2000 was never met to be. Whether I use the drivers included with the card, the Windows native drivers, or the drivers in the update, and whether I use the AudioHQ that came with the card or the AudioHQ in the update, I still haven't found a combination of them that work. The presence of the older card also doesn't seem to be the problem.

At one point when I installed the SBLive! with the AWE64Gold present. The AudioHQ opened apparently, but the SBLive drivers weren't present. I booted again and the drivers came back but the AudioHQ just ignored me when I tried to click on it. Maybe AudioHQ will load as long as no enabled drivers are present, but not if they are present but the wrong ones.

But even with both the drivers and the AudioHQ from the update it still doesn't function in Windows 2000, even though the documentation claims that the update was precisely to make SBLive! work in Windows 2000.

There is nothing on or with my card indicating that it is a varient on the SBLive! There is no modifier like Value, Platinum, or 24-bit. It's just plain SBLive! So I'm assuming I picked the right driver update.

The diagnostic software included in the update software worked, and three of the tests failed, one of those being the soundfonts check.

I decided to install the SBLive! in my Win 98 alongside the AWE64Gold. It works fine there. Until I can find a newer card designed for Windows 2000, I'll have to keep my Win 98 even if only for music purposes.

If there is anyone there who actually has a Windows 2000 Professional workstation with the Soundblaster Live! software fully functional. If there is, tell me how you did it.

Thanks.