🚀 go-pugleaf

On Mon, 20 Apr 1998 09:07:20 GMT, Jon@suffolk.lib wrote:
>On Sun, 19 Apr 1998 08:47:44 +0100, Colin Price
><Colin@nospam.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>>In article <354057ed.4240100@newshost.li.net>, Jon@suffolk.lib writes
>>>>>Kate & Andrew wrote in message <01bd620d$12c5ed20$b97438cb@katrinaa>...

>>>>>>I've got a few questions regarding running my sound blaster in Dos games,
>>>>>>while running Windows 95.

>>>>>>I want to play a few games (such as Transport Tycoon) but when I run the
>>>>>>computer in Dos Mode, the sound blaster will not work.

If it's jumper and stay, you're A for away.

If it's Plug-n-Play, it barks and wags a tail... 
...but can be house trained   ;-)

>>>>Kate and Andrew - you need to have the appropriate driver(s) in
>>>>autoexec.bat (probably line will start SET BLASTER= followed by various
>>>>parameters). 

The Set Blaster statement loads no software and takes up no memory
that isn't already allocated to Command.com's environment anyway.

Some cards require a bit more than this; they either need TSR's
(resident drivers) YUK YUK YUK or they need a PnP wake-up call.

Some PnP cards that need to be woken up need the full ghastly PnP
manager treatment; Creative's pay-more-for-less-compatibility cards
are about the only ones I know of that need this, and even then,
usually only if the mobo doesn't have a PnP BIOS.

Other PnP cards use a small non-resident .com or .exe to wake them up,
and this can be used at any time, rather than embedded in Config.sys

Background; PnP requires cards to remain inactive until the PnP
manager "calls" them to ask them what they are, what resources they
want.  Then the PnP manager assigns the cards resources according to
what isn't used by something else.  That's the difference between
"jumperless" (settings persist after set in software) and PnP.

In the case of a modern system, the PnP manager is either the BIOS PnP
extension, the operating system (Win95/98/?NT5) or both.  If you have
a recent mobo, it may have PnP - but these days there's often a
setting in CMOS PCI setup (careful here) that is Y/N for "PnP
operating system in use".  If set to Yes, the BIOS PnP doesn't do
anything; if set to No, it wakes up the cards.

As Win95 exclusive DOS mode is *not* a PnP OS, you may have joy by
enabling this setting (i.e. "PnP OS = No").  Else a common dodge is to
go into Win95 GUI (which wakes up the PnP cards) and from there, go to
exclusive DOS mode (Shutdown, Restart in MS-DOS mode) without using
hard reset or power off - the card may continue to work this way.

>>>Pardon me, Colin, but I suspect that this may not work.  Some DOS
>>>games just don't run properly from a DOS box.

Very few, actually; I can only think of Jill of the Jungle, Jill Saves
the Prince, Accrua Soccer CD and IndyCar Racing 2.

In fact, some work better in GUI than DOS mode, depending on the sound
card and RAM.  Although you need to reduce default SmartDrv to get
Duke Nukem 3D to run in 8M RAM in DOS mode, from within the GUI it
runs fine!  Also, games that require EMS get in the GUI without the
need for "Emm386.exe RAM" etc.

>I've found that Win95 is very quirky when it comes to running games in
>a DOS box.  Most, but not all of the time, I'm able to get them
>running with a little tweaking (e.g. reset screen resolution, avoid
>shortcuts).  But for non-techies, it can actually be easier to get
>those DOS drivers loaded and just run their games from pure DOS mode,
>a la Power2Play.

YMMV, hugely, and often by system.  If you have a PC where DOS apps
that run 800x600 crash the GUI's SVGA drivers, you might share the
experience you mention.  If you have a PC with a "soft" sound card,
perhaps a PCI one at that, you may find the GUI works better.