in need of technical help.

essej on 23/2/2002 at 12:21

here's my problem :

underword 1 will run just fine (a little briskly, but just fine) on my system currently, but i won't get any sound. the options for turning sound and music on and off are available in my options menu, and i made sure both were set to "on", but there's just no noise.

i downloaded the dos driver for my sound card from the manufacturer. i attempted to set the blaster on both IRQs 5 and 7. i tried setting UW to use the sound blaster and the sound blaster pro. nothing at all. here's where my config.sys and autoexec.bat are at right now :

config.sys

DEVICE=C:\windows\himem.sys
DEVICE=C:\windows\emm386.exe on
DOS=HIGH,UMB
FILES=40
BUFFERS=40

autoexec.bat

@echo off
C:\picaud\setaudio.com /i7
set blaster=A220 I7 D1 T4
c:\pciaud\c3dmix.com
PATH=c:\windows; c:\windows\command
LH c:\windows\ctmouse.exe

now, the "pciaud" commands were added to the autoexec.bat by the install program for the sound card's dos driver. on the "setaudio" command, the /i7 flag forces the sb to be set on IRQ7.

anyone got any ideas, or require any more information? i've been ripping my hair out over this one for a couple of days now, and i'm at my limit. i need help.

Zerker on 23/2/2002 at 18:09

Well, probably the best way to go about it would be instead of switching around your sound card, change Underworld's IRQ settings and stuff. And usually you can only "Set blaster" if you actually have a sound blaster or compatible card. Is that exactly how the line is supposed to look for your card? Have you tested it with anything else?

But on to Underworld, try running uwsound. That allows you to change the Address and IRQ/DMA values that Underworld uses. It also lets you know if it detects your sound card.

Also, if you copied it from a CD, be sure that you took read only off all the files. It's easy to forget sometimes, and messes up UW's saving of settings.

essej on 23/2/2002 at 19:14

whoops. i tried to cover all of the things that were going to be asked in one fell swoop, but it looks like i forgot some of the obvious ones. sorry 'bout that. anyhow :

the uw files aren't attrib'd "read only", so that's not a problem. as far as whether or not the sound card is sb compatible, the dos driver install dropped that line in there at the same time it dropped the "pciaud" lines, so i'm guessing it belongs. i haven't tested the sound card with anything else in DOS (as i have nothing else to test with), but it works just fine in windows.

now -- on to the uwsound issues :

when i run uwsound, i am only presented with the option of affecting the I/O address, which is currently set to the default, the setting that matches the value in the "set blaster" line. further, i am not given the option of changing the DMA or the IRQs when running uwsound. it just isn't an option on the list. it does say that the Sound Blaster is detected, sure, but if i go back and run the uw1 installer again and select, say, an Adlib, it'll say that's detected, too, when i go back and run uwsound again. i've tested this numerous times.

so. that's where i am in all of that. any more suggestions?

essej on 23/2/2002 at 19:48

wow. i feel dumb now.

but hey! the problem's solved. how?

i just booted windows with a config.sys that enables emm386 and himem.sys. now when i right click on the uw exe, i can specify EMS finally. previously, i'd gotten a message telling me that no third party memory mangers blah blah blah, so i couldn't define ems.

now that i can, though, uw runs just fine. sound and all.

so. thank you for being around, all of you, 'causep poking through these messages is what gave me the idea in the first place.

Zerker on 25/2/2002 at 18:41

Great you figured it out! Now, one little clarification for Uwsound... for the regular sound driver, there is no need for IRQ and DMA, because the sounds are just FM Synth notes and what not. When you need to define IRQ and DMA is when you select the voice card settings (UW doesn't use recorded sounds for anything else, though UW2 does).