DOS vs PCI soundcards...

[Mini-Me]

Hiya.
:)

Couple of questions:

1) Can DOS talk to the PCI bus, or was it written primarily for the ISA-bus?

I have exceptional amounts of trouble, getting PCI sound-cards to work under DOS.

The old SB and ESS ISA cards, generally are auto-detected fine by the DOS program or game, but PCI ones arn't - and won't...
:(

2) Anyone know of any PCI cards that WILL work under DOS - even if I have to use software drivers for it.

I've tried a couple of PCI cards(C-Media and VIA chipset based), and even with their so-called DOS drivers and setup as SB compatible, DOS programs cannot see the card...

I am trying to build an old DOS games box for all my old classic games, but the box has no ISA slots, only PCI...

Thanks!
:cool:


MM.

[Paleo Pete]

Usually DOS games look for sound cards on a certain IRQ, normally 5. I'm not sure if DOS has any problems with the PCI us, but ut was around while DOS was still in use although windows was taking over fast, but it might be that it has trouble working with PCI cards. And it might not be the machine, it might be the games themselves unable to communicate with the PCI bus.

My best advice if you want a machine to play DOS based games is build one on older hardware with ISA slots to work with. Poke around at resale shops, flea markets etc and you should be able to locate a couple of older early Pentium machines for very little cash, any 1st generation Pentium 133MHz or faster should handle just about any DOS game around. I keep a couple around to tinker with and usually have all sorts of parts to build from, I guess one of the best so far was a P-233MMX with DOS 6.22 and win3.11 on it, 64MB RAM and Matrox Mystique video. But it played Heretic and Wolfenstein 3D really well :D I think I might have put Descent on that one too, can't remember...it would easily run on that hardware.

[Rick]

In the case of some Old dos games ( Like Doom) they won't work with any sound card above IRQ 7 ..

No matter what the slot type is.
isa or pci
Check your software before you give up on the pci sound card

[Mini-Me]

Some of those old DOS games were great!
:)

I contacted Dell in New Zealand, and they said that I can get a new riser board for this machine, which has ISA slots on it. It will cost about NZ$60(about 30 bucks US), from Singapore. I have ordered one.


MM.