WC3 Sound with SB Live?

Raid

Spaceman
I've got the dos version of WC3 and was wondering can you set it up to work with a live value card? Do you have to start the game with windows totally shut down? Cause I've got it running in win 98 dos mode but no sound. And what do you put where it asks for FX card then asks for IRQ , etc? How about soundcard? I selected sound-blaster compatible. And when you test the music it sounds garbled... I got it just because it was the limited edition and didn't think I'd ever get to play it...I'll get the Win 95 version as soon as I see it. Would I have the same problem with it? Thanks! .....Raid
 
You're probably better off playing it from Windows if you can. The SBLive! DOS driver is rather picky. To find out which settings to use, right-click on My Computer, select Properties, hit the Device Manager tab, hit the plus sign next to "Sound, video and game controllers," and double-click on the SBLive! entry. Then, hit the Resources tab. That'll show you all the settings that the card is using.

You'll want to select the latest SB card listed for digital effects, and probably SB AWE for MIDI (if that doesn't work, choose General MIDI).

Hope this helps.
 
Thanks for the info Stinger. I have the Sound card sample playing correctly. I selected MPU-401 General Midi, and as far as the sample goes it plays fine. Still having trouble with the FX card... It won't play the sample and it says Exception 13 happened. My setting for my live card are: SB Port-240 MPU 401 Port-330 ADLIB Port-388 IRQ-9 8bit DMA-3 16bit DMA-7 ......on Digital FX card set-up when it asked for the port I guessed it meant the SB port so I chose 240...I don't know what the ADLIB port is and the game allows only from 210 thru 350... If any-one has any ideas...please let me know!
 
SB Port was the correct one to put; are you sure it's 240? It's usually 220.... The ADLIB port is for FM synthesis; don't worry about it for newer games.

The problem might be caused by the program trying to use the wrong DMA or IRQ setting. Make sure it's all correct.
 
Yeah, it's 240... And every-thing is correct... I think. I'll keep at it. Not in no real hurry, I'm playing WCP-SO now.( :

[This message has been edited by Raid (edited February 13, 2000).]
 
Still not having any luck...It's really a shame, every-thing except the FX card set-up is fine... The info I posted above about my SB Live! value is correct....what is this exception 13 error anyway? Is there anyway around it? Has other people got WC3 working with a SBLive in MS-DOS? Is my only option to try in full DOS? How do I go about that? As always thanks for the help! Raid...
 
Guess it's time for me to find out how to get the SBLive! working in DOS, then.

[goes to http://www.sblive.com , checks out drivers....

Ooh, man, good thing I'm connected to a T1 line here; 5.4MB would be bad with a 56k connection.

Blast! It requires that I have an SBLive! installed just to unpack the driver files....

Alright, now to check with a friend/search engine....

Hmm... well, that proved fruitless. Is there someone else here who uses a Live! card?]

Hmm... 'fraid I can't help you until I can find out more about the Live! drivers.
 
Sorry... I don't have one either
biggrin.gif


TC

------------------
CAG of the Blacklance HQ
"Canadian and proud of it"-TC
 
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Well... maybe.

Do a search (Start->Find) on Creative. If you find a directory with that label, post the contents (names of files and such).
 
Here's what EA support had to say......
Unfortunately your sound card will not be able to work with this particular
game. Your sound card uses EMM 386 to initialize in DOS mode. The game,
however, was designed to run in an environment free of EMM 386 and cannot
run at the same time as this program. We apologize for an inconvenience
this poses..........
Well guys, is this the end of the story? He went on to say I may try a boot-disk... But, how will that help?
 
Hold on, now, that's absolutely not true. WC3 is perfectly happy running with EMM386; I know this through experience. They're mistaking this game for Ultimas VII and VII, pt 2, which can't run using EMM386. There isn't a Wing Commander in existence that doesn't love expanded memory.
 
Stinger is absolutely correct. I have EMM386 running all the time and WC3 works fine.

TC

------------------
CAG of the Blacklance HQ
"Canadian and proud of it"-TC
 
Stinger, there's a program file named creative and a sub-file, SB Live. Under SBlive there's a folder named DOSDrv...
In the folder is 7 applications,Dos4gw.exe, Sbecfg.exe, Sbego.exe, Sbeinit.com, Sbeload.exe, Sbemixer.exe,and Sbeset.exe ... 1 cfg file,Sbecfg.cfg and 2 bin files,Psbeg.bin and Sbecore.bin and also one text file called,Sbeset.txt...
Does this help any?
Also, under Driver file details it has Driver files: C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\CTSYN.VXD File version: 4.06.607 Provider: Creative and C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\MMDEVLDR.VXD File version 4.10.1998 Provider:Microsoft.....
I hope this helps... But, I have a bad feeling It's not what you need to know....Oh, well...
smile.gif
 
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Try going into DOS and running sbeset and sbeset /? and telling us what you get.

TC

------------------
CAG of the Blacklance HQ
"Canadian and proud of it"-TC
 
Basically, go into pure DOS and run each of those executables. Hopefully, you'll be able to recognize it when you hit the right one. If there are any you're unsure of, pipe the output to a text file (or just write it down) and give it to us.
 
This is what I've found out so far...
SBECFG.EXE is the creative SB16 emulation config. utility, version:3.00...
SBEGO.EXE is a diagnostic utility for sb emulation, version:2.00.02...
SBEINIT.COM is the sb16 emulation driver, version:4.00...
SBEMIXER.EXE is the sb16 emulation mixer control, version:1.03...
My current config. according to SBECFG.EXE is
...PCI-HARDWARE:pORT=E400 IRQ-5
SB16 EMULATION: PORT=240 IRQ=9 DMA=3,7
MPU-401(General MIDI, Roland MT-32/LAPC-1)Emulation:pORT=330
Adlib Emulation:pORT=380
Game Port:pORT=200
As soon as I figure out more I'll let you know... Please forgive me, I know next to nothing about DOS... But I'm trying...
 
Looks like the one we're looking for is SBEINIT.COM. The mixer settings look good, as do the MPU-401 settings. So, stick a reference to SBEINIT.COM in your DOSSTART.BAT. You should be able to run WC3 by selecting Start->Shutdown->Restart in MS-DOS Mode. Here are the settings you'll want to select during the WC3 install:

Digital card: SB16
Port: 240
IRQ: 9
DMA: 3
DMA (if it asks for a second one): 7

MIDI/Music card: General MIDI

That should be it.
 
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