Old game sound issues

[nuz]

Has anyone else had sound issues with old games on newer machines? My current PC can't play sounds for any game made mid '90s or earlier. I even tried downgrading to a SB40 (Soundblaster 4.0) but nothing. IS there an emulator or something to fix this or do I need to keep my old PC around just for my old games.

[PhilXP]

My 98SE's sound card is a Soundblaster 128. It is compatable with almost every dos game I ran on That computer. Try to get a Sound Blaster 128

[nuz]

Kind of missing the point here. My old machine is an AMD K6-3d 450MHz running Win98 with 192MB RAM 13.5 GB HDD SiS 6326 8MB graphics and a Yamaha Crystal sound card. I have absolutely no problems running DOS games on it.
A few months ago the HDD died. You can't get IDEs easilty nowadays, a few years later they'll be extinct. Suppose I do replace the HDD but then the RAM starts dying, where am I going to find PC100 RAM?
Which is why once I've recovered as much as I can 'm planning to shift to my current PC, which as I said can't play sound for older games( e.g. I had the option of playing Starcaft on the new machine without sound or on the old machine). Therefore, I need an emulator that makes the game software think it's running on an older machine.

[PhilXP]

About the ram. Try pc memorystore.com thats where I order my ram.
How it works is first you select your manufacurer then the model
I ordered the current for thats in my laptop and Windows 98 from there.

Starcraft's sound works on my acer without a problem

[123456]

nuz, if you have an ISA slot, I highly recommend getting a Soundblaster AWE64 or AWE32 on eBay. Even SB16 will do.

[Sylvander]

I wonder if DOSbox run within some Puppy Linux would provide the games with the OS environment they need?
Make the games think they have all they need including hardware?

I have DOSbox here within BoxPup.

See post #90 here (http://www.pcguide.com/vb/showthread.php?t=66929&page=4&highlight=DOSbox) for how I installed it with all it's necessaries.

[saphalline]

While it is perplexing that StarCraft has no sound on your new PC, I agree with Sylvander as far as setting up an alternate environment for your older games.

DOSBox is one of the best, and is found on numerous platforms. It was designed specifically to run old DOS games, not to produce a free version of DOS as an operating system like some other projects.

For anything new enough to run on Windows (at the expense of DOS) I use wine. It's a Windows interpreter for the Linux class of operating systems. Which means it has first base covered: IT'S FREE!! :cool:


As hardware marches ever onward, the old software is being orphaned. With so much emphasis on 64-bit operating systems lately (and with good reason!) and 4GB+ of RAM, our mighty desktops are increasingly not playing nicely with good older games. It is up to us to keep them alive! **cue dramatic music**