Been workin on a old computer of mine put a 2 gig hard drive in it, loaded dos 6.22, cd rom driver and windows 3.11. Followed by that I installed 3com network card and got it networked to my LAN.

Computer is 486/100 Mhz, 16mb ram.
Now to the sound card, it's a Creative Chipset, CT-4500 marked on the sound card.

I went to driverguide.com downloaded drivers and installed them in DOS. I also ran ctcmbbs.exe to setup pnp. After that I ran the test which was successful.

I rebooted the computer logged into windows 3.11 and proceded to install sound drivers there also. Soundblaster 1.5 i believe it was. Sound works now in 3.1.

Now on to the dos part.

I tried a old game of mine, Commander Keen 4 Keen Galaxy. I started the game it recogized the soundblaster device. So I then started the game and it said Insufficent memory cannot play background music.

Following that issue I proceded to add emm386.exe to config.sys. Rebooted the computer once again.

Tried starting the game no error message, but still no sound.

Any Ideas what I may have missed or left out when installing the sound card?

Also I can't seem to find a CD player for 3.1 / dos that will play audio cd's. Yes i've downloaded some but they aren't working like CD Player Version 1.3 for Windows (C) 1994 Howard Ho. It just opens up but after I create ini it doesn't do anything, nothing to press except for help tab.

CD rom is working fine as it reads data cd's. Audio cable is also connected from cd rom to sound card, but since players don't work I'm sure that cannot be the issue.

Any help with this info would be greatly appreciated as I would like to have this old piece of history working like it did back in 94'.

ASUS A7V8X
Athlon XP 2700+ @ 2.17ghz
1GB DDR 2700
nVidia 128mb FX 5200
80GB WD SE + 200GB Maxtor
NEC ND-3500AG DVD R/RW

Have you setup the (correct) BLASTER variables in autoexec.bat? Often that may be all that's needed, but the game must be properly configured - I think the "Keens" are pretty straightforward though.

"I proceded to add emm386.exe to config.sys."

Well, hopefully you mean you edited config.sys to manage memory with emm386, himem and a DOS= statement, and optimized the amount of free conventional memory by loading drivers and devices high.

If you get people asking the wrong questions, you don't have to worry about the answers

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Duh me I forgot to post the config.sys

I'm not exactly sure what CTCM.EXE? I don't see a BLASTER either.

DEVICE=C:\DOS\SETVER.EXE
DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\HIMEM.SYS
DEVICE=C:\DOS\EMM386.EXE
DEVICE=C:\CTCM\CTCM.EXE
DOS = HIGH
FILES=30
M ATA---
[COMMON]
LASTDRIVE = Z
DEVICE=C:\MTM\MTMCDAI.SYS /D:MTMIDE01
M ATA---
DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\IFSHLP.SYS
STACKS=9,256

Autoexec.bat too if that's necessary.

SET CTCM=C:\CTCM
C:\CTCM\CTCU /S /W=C:\WINDOWS
M ATA---
C:\WINDOWS\net start
C:\WINDOWS\MSCDEX.EXE /S /D:MTMIDE01
M ATA---
C:\DOS\SMARTDRV.EXE /X
@ECHO OFF
PROMPT $p$g
PATH C:\WINDOWS;C:\DOS
SET TEMP=C:\DOS

ASUS A7V8X
Athlon XP 2700+ @ 2.17ghz
768MB DDR 2700
nVidia 128mb FX 5200
WD 80gb SE
NEC ND-3500AG DVD R/RW

DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\HIMEM.SYS
DEVICE=C:\DOS\EMM386.EXE NOEMS
DOS=HIGH,UMB
DEVICEHIGH=C:\DOS\SETVER.EXE
DEVICEHIGH=C:\CTCM\CTCM.EXE
FILES=30
M ATA---
[COMMON]
LASTDRIVE = Z
DEVICEHIGH=C:\MTM\MTMCDAI.SYS /D:MTMIDE01
M ATA---
DEVICEHIGH=C:\WINDOWS\IFSHLP.SYS
STACKS=9,256

Use 'DEVICEHIGH' to conserve conventional memory - and dump the 'stacks' line unless you are positive you need it. Setver? Likely unimportant, but it doesn't use much RAM
You use the 'NOEMS' on EMM386 so that no upper memory is wasted created a page frame for EMS (expanded memory), as that is almost always unnecessary

@ECHO OFF
SET CTCM=C:\CTCM
C:\CTCM\CTCU /S /W=C:\WINDOWS
M ATA---
C:\WINDOWS\net start
LH C:\WINDOWS\MSCDEX.EXE /S /D:MTMIDE01
M ATA---
C:\DOS\SMARTDRV.EXE /X
PATH C:\WINDOWS;C:\DOS
SET TEMP=C:\DOS

Likewise, use LH to load executables high, and try creating a 'TEMP' directory (and point to it with SET) instead of dumping the junk files in the DOS directory (much neater) - you don't need to set the prompt, that's set by default.

You'll still need to determine the BLASTER variables and set those in autoexec.bat in order to get your sound to work in DOS

If you get people asking the wrong questions, you don't have to worry about the answers

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Okie dokie I got sound to work :)

I redownloaded all the drivers for the card directly from Creative.

I will add NOEMS, HIGH, & LH and see what happens.

Now my only problem is finding a compatible CD player that will work DOS & 3.11. I tried winamp but it just find's files but they never start playing. CD rom don't recognize audio cd's at all for some reason.

What fun! Some how my 2 gig HD only got formated/partitoned to 504mb. I didn't see a FDisk option on the dos 6.22 disk 1.

I want to get all the bugs worked out before I try to reinstall. Then I can make a perfect install lol if that's possible! Ha.

Thanks for your input it has been quite helpful.

ASUS A7V8X
Athlon XP 2700+ @ 2.17ghz
1GB DDR 2700
nVidia 128mb FX 5200
80GB WD SE + 200GB Maxtor
NEC ND-3500AG DVD R/RW

DOS6xx uses FAT16 partitions, which can be no larger than approx. 2Gb, but many 486 BIOS were limited to about 500Mb.

Possibly you can put the drive in a more modern machine and set it up there - I seem to recall that working - otherwise you might have to resort to drive overlay software (or accept the present limitation)

"I will add NOEMS, HIGH, & LH and see what happens."

Yeah, well - it's not a recipe: a dash of this and a sprinkle of that, salt to taste - those commands and statements have a purpose, mainly to maximize the amount of conventional memory available to DOS programs - that amount starts out as 640K, and everything that isn't loaded high or into UMBs decreases it. When DOS programs render an error message due to 'insufficient memory', conventional memory is what's referred to. Often the documentation will tell you the minimum requirements, but for many games etc, it's 540 or more free K of conventional

If the sound is now working, likely the installation program set the variable for you

If you get people asking the wrong questions, you don't have to worry about the answers

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Just run memmaker to configure config.sys and autoexec.bat to get maximum available conventional memory.

A flawed program, but sure

A wonderful way to learn memory management - I'll probably just recommend that from now on, rather than doing any more of these

If you get people asking the wrong questions, you don't have to worry about the answers

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Why is memmaker flawed? Is there a better program (or a later/improved version than 6.22) to maximize conventional memory?

Yea I had it autodetect in bios and double checked it just to make sure.

Bios Reads as follows

47 = User Type Cyln: 4092 Head: 16 WPcom 65535 LZone: 4092 Sect: 63 and Size 2014 MB

Funny thing is it says Hard Disc D: not installed but there is a cd rom lol. Oh well at least it works in DOS & Windows.

Also I bet back when I tried to Network Dos 5.0 on it's own I bet that was one of it's memory errors.

I'll have to remember it on one of my next dos quest's.

Also Is it true you can take memory manager out of 95 or 98 and use it in DOS ?

Thanks again all.

ASUS A7V8X
Athlon XP 2700+ @ 2.17ghz
1GB DDR 2700
nVidia 128mb FX 5200
80GB WD SE + 200GB Maxtor
NEC ND-3500AG DVD R/RW

Yes, I have used emm386.exe and himem.sys from win98SE. They are supposed to be better than the DOS 6.22 versions.

Setting the BLASTER environment variable

WILL POST FOR FOOD.

Setting the BLASTER environment variable?

Nice of you to join in... I guess you didn't notice response #1

Oh, my main issue with memmaker is it won't "do" multiple configurations (unlike QEMM) - I seem to recall a few other foibles that require manual editing to more fully optimize the startups - but it has been some time since I bothered with it.

Usually I can do better - and that's my other issue - you don't learn a whole lot - if you don't want to know how things work, use Windows

M$ quit developing memmaker along with DOS back in '94, and it's not terribly useful in 9x - I used to use QEMM 6 or 7 a while back, pretty remarkable, on one configuration it used only 6K of conventional.

Short of that (imo) the best tool is your own brain - it doesn't take a huge amount of understanding to get the broad strokes, but you can really 'squeak out' a few extra (and perhaps important) K by altering the load order and seeking out memory 'holes' (unused UMBs)

If you get people asking the wrong questions, you don't have to worry about the answers

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