I might give up with DOS gaming because its too complicated to get things running. I've spent countless hours trying to get a sound blaster card working in DOS, I followed a youtube tutorial downloaded what I needed from Phils computer lab and followed the video step by step... still no sound. After many hours of watching videos trying to install the sound blaster end result, messed up my DOS install so when the computer starts DOS doesn't start without a dos boot disk and still no sound. I've got a headache.
Caporegime
Reading this thread is making me want to dig out some of my kit to play with.
I have a mini treasure trove of goodies and its all just sitting in cupboards!
I have a mini treasure trove of goodies and its all just sitting in cupboards!
Soldato
C:>sys a: c:
To get your Dos system bootable.
Sorry if I've missed it, is your sound card ISA? What make and model?
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Did you try unisound @Retro6. If you can't get sound running with that, then there is something seriously wrong with the card/system. Just need a minimal dos install, a game to test and the unisound driver.
Just type unisound, and it will configure the card with the regular A220 I5 D1 P330 and the volumes are set to a reasonable level.
Just type unisound, and it will configure the card with the regular A220 I5 D1 P330 and the volumes are set to a reasonable level.
Soldato
As above, you really cant go wrong with unisound absolutely fantastic bit of kit and makes most soundcard DOS installers/drivers irrelavant
Thanks I got my DOS system bootable again. I saved Unisound onto a floppy and ran it on the 486 and it detects the sound card as a "CTL0070" Creative Vibra16C PnP.
It Loads unisound default settings I assumed that was it, I just tried Wing Commander but still no sound from the card so I'm guessing I need to do something more when I run Unisound?
It Loads unisound default settings I assumed that was it, I just tried Wing Commander but still no sound from the card so I'm guessing I need to do something more when I run Unisound?
Soldato
Sorry to ask the basics @Retro6
Are your speakers working?
Are they plugged into the right port on the sound card spkr out / line out?
And then it comes to the IRQ / DMA settings. Take note, ensuring if the card is PnP, that it's not conflicting with other resources on the PC.
Have you tried another game The Doom setup tool is a good one to try sound.
Are your speakers working?
Are they plugged into the right port on the sound card spkr out / line out?
And then it comes to the IRQ / DMA settings. Take note, ensuring if the card is PnP, that it's not conflicting with other resources on the PC.
Have you tried another game The Doom setup tool is a good one to try sound.
Maybe the computer doesn't have enough resources to run the sound card. Speakers are plugged in, everything is ready to go. I get sound from the built in PC speaker but nothing from the sound card. I'll try DOOM and Prince of Persia and see what happens.
I put this together a while ago. Originally I picked up the parts for this of the MM for my Lad to play some Roblox. He had an upgrade and I thought the parts would be awesome for a XP/W7 build so this is what i built
Intel i7 4770K (currently stock
)
16GB of Kingston Genesis Ram
Asus Gryphon Z87 MATX motherboard
EVGA Geforce GTX 780Ti (3gb) (Got this for £30 off ebay)
Creative X-Fi Fatality (awesome for Windows XP)
Fractal Define Focus G Mini
Corsair 550W PSU
2 SSD's (Samsung 128gb Drives - each one having an OS installed) and a 2TB WD Black
Was quite fun building this and it plays games awesome. The X-Fi card sounds wicked.
Installed Dino Crisis 2 today and had a blast
Intel i7 4770K (currently stock
)16GB of Kingston Genesis Ram
Asus Gryphon Z87 MATX motherboard
EVGA Geforce GTX 780Ti (3gb) (Got this for £30 off ebay)
Creative X-Fi Fatality (awesome for Windows XP)
Fractal Define Focus G Mini
Corsair 550W PSU
2 SSD's (Samsung 128gb Drives - each one having an OS installed) and a 2TB WD Black
Was quite fun building this and it plays games awesome. The X-Fi card sounds wicked.
Installed Dino Crisis 2 today and had a blast
Soldato
Nice build! Ive been given a very similar PC and a 1060 recently so am just waiting for a PSU. Will be making that into a roblox machine for my kid as she has realised how much better the PC version is over her tablet !I put this together a while ago. Originally I picked up the parts for this of the MM for my Lad to play some Roblox. He had an upgrade and I thought the parts would be awesome for a XP/W7 build so this is what i built
Intel i7 4770K (currently stock
16GB of Kingston Genesis Ram
Asus Gryphon Z87 MATX motherboard
EVGA Geforce GTX 780Ti (3gb) (Got this for £30 off ebay)
Creative X-Fi Fatality (awesome for Windows XP)
Fractal Define Focus G Mini
Corsair 550W PSU
2 SSD's (Samsung 128gb Drives - each one having an OS installed) and a 2TB WD Black
Was quite fun building this and it plays games awesome. The X-Fi card sounds wicked.
Installed Dino Crisis 2 today and had a blast
I have some fond memories of DOS gaming but only when I filter out the nightmare of boot disks, ems/xms memory, sound card/game port issues and the like...
And these were the days when there was no Internet to Google how to do everything.
I pretty much ruined our 486 and needed Amstrad to send me restore disks to fix it but in the process learned a lot.
Gaming on XP is about as far back as I can be bothered to go on original hardware these days.
Soldato
Been away for a week so haven't touched anything for a bit but got home to find the 2nd card of my cheap 9600gt setup had arrived. Both together owe me a whopping £16! 
Installed and connected the EZ Plug as demanded by the A8N-SLI and they are up and running, detected through drivers and just did a solid 3dmark '03 first pass with no issues, so good start.
Gave me back a score of 35479 which feels like it's pretty much on the right level as core2duo systems are around the 50k mark
Installed and connected the EZ Plug as demanded by the A8N-SLI and they are up and running, detected through drivers and just did a solid 3dmark '03 first pass with no issues, so good start.
Gave me back a score of 35479 which feels like it's pretty much on the right level as core2duo systems are around the 50k mark
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I might have got ripped off on that 486 The trouble I've had with it is not worth what I paid but its the crazy "retro" world we live in now.
I still can't get no sound out of the sound card. Unisound detects it but no audio out just sound through PC speaker. The sound card works as I've tested it in another machine.
I tried to upgrade the RAM and its not counting RAM correctly. I tried new old stock unopened Kingston EDO RAM no joy... I also bought some RAM on eBay which the seller said they were tested and are 100% good. I tried different RAM slots. The computer will only work with the RAM it came with so I'm stick with no sound and 3MB of RAM...
I may just have to sell it on for parts... well it works.... kinda.
Its junk box parts. This is why I never pay crazy prices for old crap. I paid 50 for this so not too bad I'll make the money back or at least some of it by selling it on for parts. Better luck next time.
I still can't get no sound out of the sound card. Unisound detects it but no audio out just sound through PC speaker. The sound card works as I've tested it in another machine.
I tried to upgrade the RAM and its not counting RAM correctly. I tried new old stock unopened Kingston EDO RAM no joy... I also bought some RAM on eBay which the seller said they were tested and are 100% good. I tried different RAM slots. The computer will only work with the RAM it came with so I'm stick with no sound and 3MB of RAM...
I may just have to sell it on for parts... well it works.... kinda.
Its junk box parts. This is why I never pay crazy prices for old crap. I paid 50 for this so not too bad I'll make the money back or at least some of it by selling it on for parts. Better luck next time.
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Soldato
Computers of that era just have certain.... Quirks.. If you were nearby I would be interested to take a look at it. Just dont scrap it )) You would easily get your money back even with its faults.
Did it ever get battery damage?
)) You would easily get your money back even with its faults.Did it ever get battery damage?
Soldato
Getting there now apart from the EZ plug molex location utterly triggering me and I need to work out a final route that doesn't have to mean the PSU cable sags across the board / top GPU
Also after saving this beauty from the skip at work it's now sporting a fresh XP Pro OS and is running great. The little X1400 mobile GPU has surprised me so far and is playing some old favourites beautifully.
Also after saving this beauty from the skip at work it's now sporting a fresh XP Pro OS and is running great. The little X1400 mobile GPU has surprised me so far and is playing some old favourites beautifully.
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I wont... I figured that its probably just fussy with RAM I'll do some more research on the system. I downloaded a manual but I didn't find out what I needed to know but I'll keep searching. Its got a new AA battery pack installed. No corrosion on the board from what I can see and ISA slots are clean.Computers of that era just have certain.... Quirks.. If you were nearby I would be interested to take a look at it. Just dont scrap it
Did it ever get battery damage?
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The machine is brilliant for DOS. The problem is we always want more lol. Rather than wanting more I've been having fun experimenting with DOS and CF Cards. I managed to make a lot of CF cards bootable that wasn't bootable before... Partitions were active and DOS installed fine but after rebooting the CF Card wouldn't boot so I restarted the machine again with DOS disk 1 in A: drive and ran the "fdisk /mbr" command which made the CF card boot.
I only have one set of DOS floppy disks and I want to make a back up copy of them because if one goes bad I'm screwed. Can't seem to make back up copies of them. I've tried DISKCOPY and I can copy onto blank disks but they fail to work after. I've also tried the drag and drop method in windows but that does the same thing. Can not seem to get my DOS Floppies backed up and I don't want to have to keep using the original floppies because once they go bad that is it.
I've noticed that even downloaded DOS doesn't work either. I know DOS Disks can be copied because I remember people doing so.
Ironically I tested out Phils MS DOS Start up pack and that fails too. It doesn't boot so you have to have DOS already installed to load it and then you can run it but it will give invalid switch errors 4 times and quit. Seems like there are some hidden files in DOS preventing copies being made.
I've noticed that even downloaded DOS doesn't work either. I know DOS Disks can be copied because I remember people doing so.
Ironically I tested out Phils MS DOS Start up pack and that fails too. It doesn't boot so you have to have DOS already installed to load it and then you can run it but it will give invalid switch errors 4 times and quit. Seems like there are some hidden files in DOS preventing copies being made.
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Soldato