DOS Games Discussion

Due to a Harddrive crash, I've been working on getting my old DOS computer to work again. I had an old harddrive kicking around that fortunitely already had most of my old DOS games, but because it was used in a different computer it didn't have any of the proper drivers. I've managed to get everything to work on it, except the sound card. It's a SoundBlaster16 (model: CT4170), and I downloaded the drivers off the Creative site and put them on the computer. However, I just can't get the thing to work.

At the end of the installer, it gave me the following settings:
base I/O: 220
MIDI port: 330
IRQ: 5
low DMA: 1
high DMA: 5

However, while running the diagnose.exe program included with the drivers, it always fails at one point or another on the tests. The odd thing is that if I immediately run diagnose.exe after starting the computer, the test fails at setting the MIDI port to 330. If I run ctcu.exe and run those tests (which all pass) and THEN run diagnose.exe, it passes the MIDI port and fails at setting the low DMA.

I get the feeling that I need to change these settings. ctcu looks like it has the option of changing them, however for most of the settings there is only one available option...

Also, I recall having this difficulty with diagnose.exe before my HD crash. I believe I never fixed the crash, but still had sound. I'm using the exact same computer (except for the HD), but I have no sound now. If it makes a difference, this HD had win 3.1 installed on it, while my old one did not.

Any help with this accursed sound card would be greatly appreciated. I really miss playing some of my old DOS games like MOO and Blood.

I had the same problem on my 95 - I couldn't get sound out of newer games like Starcraft but if I played Master Of Orion with the sound set to adlib or crystal pnp drivers then it worked fine. For some reason, after I took it back out of a box in my closet and booted it back up I had sound for everything again.

dont use wdm based drivers on old pc's only use those drivers on a p3 1000mhz or faster pc.

If I'm not mistaken the only thing that's really needed to get sound of a Creative Soundblaster in pure DOS environment is CTCM.EXE.

i cant get doom 2 to work because whenever it makes sound it gets all laggy like when i shoot the game is slow

From Windows, I presume?