I like to play older games directly from DOS. I have a pretty new Aopen AW-850 sound card. The problem is, the drivers that came on CD with the card are drivers for windows. Dos cannot load these drivers.

This card is Soundblaster compatible. I was wondering if anyone knows of a generic sb compatible driver that can be loaded from the config. Again, the drivers which came with the card are windows drivers, and can't be loaded from DOS.

Thanks please let me know if anyone has a suggestion...

steve,

You might try the early SB drivers. I believe they're 1.0 and 1.5. Available at driverguide.com.
They worked with the antique soundblaster card I acquired last month.

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Hi Steve.

Did you get a manual with the sound card?

It says you can install the DOS drivers by going to the directory Driver\DOSDRV on the CD and typing install.

If you don't have the manual download it from here -

http://download.aopen.com.tw/downloads/downloadsite.asp?RecNo=4834&Site=AOT&Publish=Yes&nowok=&Product=Sound Cards&Model=Cobra AW850&Type=Manual&DownSize=69

Take care,

Linda

Thanks Linda, but I did try installing the dos drivers from the aopen cd. It did install the driver, but when I tried to load it in DOS with the config.sys file, DOS locked up, all I could assume is that these are drivers windows use when you go to DOS within windows. I don't want to do that, I want to get my soundcard to work within DOS. Any other recommendations would be appreciated because I am stymied....

Linda, if you are still there or anyone else, have you tried to install the DOS Drivers for this soundcard by doing the DOS install from the CD. I looked further into this, the install does change the autoexec to the sb settings. But the install doesn't change the config.sys, which I believe needs to be done to get the sound to work in DOS. And there a three drivers installed to a directory, none of which has a .sys extension. The three files have either a .ex_ or co_. Are these drivers for DOS. It seems to me since this is a recent soundcard (made in 2002 I believe) this soundcard isn't meant to work directly from DOS. AM I missing something here? Any help would be appreciated.......

Hi Steve.

Here is a link that shows samples of the autoexec.bat and config.sys files.

I don't think the config.sys file needs to be altered for the sound card.

http://www.computerhope.com/ac.htm

Make sure setsound and setblaster are setup in your autoexec.bat.

There may be a conflict in your IRQs. DOS soundblaster usually uses IRQ 5 or 7. If something else is using IRQ 5, then the sound card may go to another IRQ which may not work in DOS. You could try maually changing the IRQs in your computer or switch your sound card to another slot and see if the computer gives it another IRQ.

Here is a link that may be helpful - in the section PCI Card Problems in DOS -

http://www.mameworld.net/emuadvice/sound.html

You may have to get a SoundBlaster 16 card if the above links don't help. Ebay has SoundBlaster 16 cards for 10 to 15 dollars. Some are listed as buy now so it is not an auction.

Take care,

Linda