Zen Internet Support Forum

I want to run some old DOS stuff on a PC running XP.

Not all sound cards that allegedly have DOS drivers will work (e.g. SB PCI128).   Does anyone know if there are any 'legacy' (i.e. obsolete) PCI sound cards will actually support sound when running in DOS?

Have a go with Dosbox which emulates a dos system inc CPU, graphics and sound, it will use your existing sound card and drivers by emulating an Soundblaster 16 in software.

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David Nelson
Team Leader
Business Support Unit
Zen Internet

I did try that.  It isn't the fastest PC in the world, and Dosbox needs quite a lot of resources (as its developers agree).

There is also a sound emulator program for XP, but that is of limited help when the graphics don't work in XP!

That's true, I think the slowest PC I've run it on is 1.7Ghz which was just about acceptable although it depends on what games you want to play.

As far as getting DOS compatibility working under XP you're going to have real trouble I don't really have any suggestions which might work.

 
You might try using some virtualisation software to install a DOS copy in a self-contained "sandbox" that way it won't affect the running of your main computer. Virtualisation has much lower overheads than emulation as it will run the CPU code natively on your hardware but will provide software peripherals. I've had some experience using Virtualbox which works well (under Linux at least) it emulates an Intel ICH AC'97 sound processor which might be compatible with older sound card drivers like SB Pro.

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David Nelson
Team Leader
Business Support Unit
Zen Internet

Most sound cards are compatible with SoundBlaster who made the original sound cards back in the 1980's, even many of the more recent PCI cards.

My suggestion would be go to a car boot sale and you will find people selling old sound cards for pennies. Then look for the DOS drivers on Google. 

Another source of old hardware is Freecycle - sign up to your local freecycle on http://www.freecycle.org/ and request one - you will be showered with offers :-)

i'm really stuck on this one and hope someone with expertise in here can help.
i'm despirately trying to get my old PC up and running in pure dos everyhtin gis installed fine however i can not get a driver to work for the sound card.

its a soundmax ad1881 intergrated into the motherboard. it seems dos drivers don't exist for this card which i can't believe

it has win95 and win98. I got the card to run in win98 but when you exit to dos it has no sound setup. so i'm stuck any ideas?

 thanks

 

Entering:

     soundmax ad1881 dos driver

into Google Search brings up what look like promising links.

Sound can be a real PIA though; I use DOSBox under XP to run old DOS stuff and it's never failed yet.  Flakey sometimes but I've had nothing actually not wrok (even Civilisation 2 runs, with max res graphics and sound!).

... whooops!

 That should have been Elite II (Civilisation has a perfectly decent XP port so does not need DOSBox).

I've merged these 2 threads as they are essentially the same subject and are also off topic so belong in here.

You tend not to find proper DOS drivers for integrated sound chips so you may be onto a non-starter here.

The Dosbox emulator is very good but requires a good powerful PC however you can run it on your main PC in a self-contained folder without it getting in the way of your main environment and doesn't require additional drivers.
 

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David Nelson
Team Leader
Business Support Unit
Zen Internet

Hello EmGee

Sometimes it is necessary to set up your soundcard under DOS. You can do this by running SYSEDIT within XPs' run command .

You may need to write a config.sys and a autoexec.bat to set up your sound card.. this was how it was done in the old dark ages of DOS.   have a look here ..   http://www.computerhope.com/ac.htm 

note the "set  sound " and the "set blaster" lines in the autoexec.bat .... these are the important lines.

At the very bottom of the page there is a link called "How to get sound working in Dos"  which takes you to this page    http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000360.htm

good luck ...Dos aint so hard  

Yhanks, I'll certainly give that a go. Since then I've got an early Sound Blaster card which should give a bit more chance. The other way is emulation - I've found that my updated PC (with the dual core AMD 3000 GHz CPU) does run Dosbox very smoothly, whereas the old one (XP2000+, 1.3 HHz I think) certainly didn't.

I would have thought that old sound cards were of the ISA variety and therefore wouldn't fit the more modern computer.  ISA slots have been missing for quite a while now.