Soundblaster PCI 128

[SwampWitch]

Hello all. This may sound lame to some of you gamers, but I really need your thoughts. Just upgraded my system w/ Intel ca810e mobo. (W98se, 192ram, 433c) The board has Soundblaster PCI 128 audio. Now I can't get Strike Commander II to work. (My 13 year old is ready to rip the new board out! LOL) It said that I had to reinstall because the sound card had changed. Did that.. set new installation to 220-I7.. just like it is set in system - 3 times! Still will not work. Can't find info anywhere on why. This is about the last of the 'older' games that had still worked.. now it doesn't either. Any and all help is appreciated

Different subject: I remember reading somewhere about software you can put on a boot disk to 'slow' the processor down in order to play some of the real old games.. anyone know where to find such a thing?

Thanks!

[jadison]

to answer 1 of ur Q: http://www.sysopt.com/forum/Forum8/HTML/000592.html

-jd-

[Brydon]

I've got one of those sound cards and the sound is excellent but it seriously slows down your PC...do a benchmark with it set up and then do one with the card diabled in the devise manager and you will see what I mean. My key rate drops from 925k k/sec to 659k k/sec in RC5 and that is a serious performance hit.I have tried it in another two PC's and it does the same. Also if you cant find that cpu slowdown util e-mail me and I,ll send you one , moslo I think it is called.

[XT]

Good link withBoot disk info jadison! You could also try using Moslo, it will allow you to slow down your system <eats cpu cycles> and this will allow you to play almost any older game. Boot disk idea is still better tho. Just to let you know, the PCI 128 will not work correctly in pure dos mode, I know, I have one. Its basically a Ensoniq audio pci with different driversand dsp code. The ensoniq audio PCI and the Creative PCI 64 are exactly the same, sans drivers. Dos emulation is flaky at best, and your motherboard must have a certain chip on it to work in dos mode <NMI I believe> As always try updating the drivers... and good luck. Its a great card for windows with great midi support/ capaibility, but stinks in dos. The Perils of PCI

XT

[SwampWitch]

Sorry to take so long to get back. Thanks to all for all the info and ideas. Sure hate hearing that the pci 128 doesn't perform well in dos! I'm off to hunt down moslo right now in hopes of getting a few of the older games going.

Thanks again

[Faramir]

SwampWitch--I called Sound Blaster tech support a couple months ago and told them basically what you've just said and they insist their cards are backward compatible and should support all DOS games --- I dunno about that but whatever. Hopefully that moslo will work so let us know if it does. Also what I ended up doing was building a computer out of some spare parts (OLD stuff) P150 $5 sound card 2.1gb hd etc. and the old DOS games work fine on there