unable to initialize sound!! HELP PLEASE

[peterpiper70]

Have got my machine working great except I still can`t get no sound.I have an onboard soundcard and have installed what I believe to be the drivers from the install cd! When I try to change the soundcard in arcadeos.cfg to any other than zero I get the message
`unable to initialize soundcard, will be set to zero`
I decided then that maybe the on board sound was no good so I purchased a cheap hi-live sound card which it says is soundblaster compatible. Alas I have the same problem with this also.
So how can I tell where my problem lies?
Is the soundcard being recognised in dos?
Or does the problem stem from mame config somewhere?
could it be a problem in my bios settings?
Is it possible to test the card/s out in a dos environment to see if they are being seen?
your help is appreciated
regards
pete

[OSCAR]

In order for DOS to tell MAME that your soundcard is configured, you need a line like this in your autoexec.bat:

SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 T4  (this is just an example, your card/onboard requirements may be different).

You will also need a line in your autoexec.bat that loads the driver.  Another example:

c:\blaster\sbdos.exe /s


If you don't have a couple lines like the above in your autoexec, you will not get sound if you are booting into DOS.

[radiator]

SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 T3 P330 H6 E620
 |    |     |    |  |  |  |    |  |
 |    |     |    |  |  |  |    |  |_______ AWE 32 Only Parameter
 |    |     |    |  |  |  |    |__________ "High" DMA Channel
 |    |     |    |  |  |  |_______________ MIDI Port
 |    |     |    |  |  |__________________ Type of Card
 |    |     |    |  |_____________________ DMA Channel
 |    |     |    |________________________ Interrupt
 |    |     |_____________________________ Port Address
 |    |___________________________________ Environment Variable
 |________________________________________ DOS Command

but, you don't need to put all the settings in (you can get away with just the PORT, IRQ, and DMA)

[SirPeale]

...and just what kind of motherboard do you have?

[peterpiper70]

Thanks for replying guys. My m/b is a pc chips board with as I say,on board sound,video & lan.
My autoexec.bat has two mentions of setblaster in it
One has `rem` in front of it and the other has not.
How can I be sure that I have installed the correct dos drivers for the soundcard?
The pci card that I bought I have not been able to install any at all as the drivers on the cd that came with it tell me I can only install them from windows!!
Any way round this?
I am as lost  as ever despite your great help guys
regards
pete

[radiator]

hmmm, if its a newer soundcard, then it probably won't have any dos drivers...

try heading over to http://www.driverguide.com (login: drivers, pass: all), and see if you can get hold of a generic dos driver...

[peterpiper70]

What do u mean a generic dos driver?
What shoulfd i be looking for on there?
regards
pete

[radiator]

if the soundcard is soundblaster compatible, you might be able to get away with installing an old SB dos driver...

[peterpiper70]

Well it says on the bpx it is s/b pro compatible. When I searched in driverguide.com though I found nothing for soundblaster!!
Where would I find it?
regards
pete

[SirPeale]

Well it says on the bpx it is s/b pro compatible. When I searched in driverguide.com though I found nothing for soundblaster!!

Soundblaster Pro compatible, eh?  It does indeed sound like crap.

What's the make/model of the motherboard and the sound card.  With that info, perhaps we might be able to help.

[peterpiper70]

Okay here goes:-
The motherboard is a pc chips m810 , with on board ac97 audio and graphics card.
The modem is a HI LIVE pci sound card (manufactured by edio! it says on the box)
To point out something else, I have tried to install some soundblaster drivers but when they give me the option to point to the sound card at interrupts 220(recommended), 240, 260 & 280 if I try them all I get the error that there is no soundblaster card detected there on all 4!!
Thanks again
regards
pete
P.S.
If there is another sound card I can purchase that will fit a pci slot and work with my system I will do so. I just don`t wanna keep buying card after card that dont work!!