Here's how to get DMII to work on high end PC's

[Alkene]

Hello everyone!

I've been a longtime lurker and have enjoyed this excellent site for quite some time. Many thanks to the webmaster for preserving the legacy of Dungeon Master!!!!

Here's my humble contribution:

After much strife and struggle, I've once and for all figured out a solution to getting Dungeon Master II (and Dungeon Master for that matter) to work WITH SOUND on high end PC's.

The solution does require a small, but worthwile investment, however.

Here's the important specs of my system:

Pentium III 600MHz
128 mb RAM
NVIDIA Geforce2 GTS (Creative Labs)
Sound Blaster LIVE!
Microsoft Intellipoint Explorer (USB) optical mouse

Just to get this out of the way: DMII (with sound) will NOT work with a Sound Blaster LIVE!. This sound card is alive in Windows...but DEAD in DOS ;) The DOS emulation software is AWFUL for several reasons. First, it requires a protected mode driver to work (eg. EMM386 or equiv.) and except in the most basic simple cases, doesn't provide that great sound reproduction anyway. This poor emulation driver has been the nemesis of many a classic gamer. One notable example is its inability to work with old Ultima games (notably Ultima VII - the Black Gate and Serpent Isle). Creative Labs HAS been contacted - the offical word is that they DON'T plan on releasing new DOS SB16 emulation drivers. Ever. This has angered Ultima fans to such a great extent that there is a Windows port of Ultima VII in progress to get it to work with sound.

So where does that leave us? Quite simply, you CAN'T get DMII to work with a Sound Blaster LIVE!. So how do we work this? We install a second sound card!!! It sounds STRANGE! But it IS possible to have TWO sound cards installed on a single computer!

Here's what I did:

I dug up an old Sound Blaster AWE64 (ISA - VERY important to have ISA). If you don't have an old one sound card (Sound Blaster, Sound Baster Pro, Sound Blaster 16, Sound Blaster AWE32, Sound Blaster AWE64 - I'd stick with the Creative Labs part and DON'T get a PCI sound card - we want compatibility!) you can probably purchase one at a used computer store for about $10. Install the card on your system. Both cards will work in Windows with seperate drivers. Infact - the drivers for the SB Live are smart! They recognize that a more compatible DOS sound card exists, turns off the DOS sound emulation driver, and lets the legacy card handle all the DOS sound requests (in a DOS window).

Speaker setup: I have some nice surround speakers, and honestly didn't relish the idea of having to swap speaker plugs from the SB Live! to the AWE64 everytime I wanted to play DMII. Here's how you get around this: Run a cable from the Line Out port of the AWE64 to the Line In port of the SB Live!. Make sure you adjust the Line In/Out volumes in the sound mixers in Windows. Leave your speakers plugged into the SB LIVE! Presto! No need to swap cables!

An IMPORTANT note. You will NOT hear sound from the AWE64 with the above cable configuration by booting DIRECTLY to DOS (eg. hitting F7 before Windows starts and using the menu to boot to DOS). You have to boot to Windows, then select "Restart in MS-DOS mode" on the shutdown menu. For some reason, the SB LIVE! Line-In functionality WON'T work unless you boot to Windows first. I guess the Windows driver "turns on" the SB LIVE!.

Install the DM2 patch. Contrary to what the readme.txt file says in the patch package, I've found that my AWE64 only works by setting the sound configuration to "Sound Blaster 16". The recommendation of the readme.txt to set "Sound Blaster" or "Sound Blaster Pro" for AWE32 or Sound Blaster 16 cards doesn't work for me. I get MIDI, but no digital in the game. Selecting "Sound Blaster 16" got me both MIDI and digital sound.

For some reason, my Geforce2 GTS video card doesn't like the SVGA graphics in the intro. I had to install the VGA configuration to get the game to work.

Another thing to watch out for: DMII doesn't work with USB mice! The game will SEEM to work for awhile...but after about 20 minute of playing, the mouse will go crazy and the keyboard will cease to function. I had to configure my MS-Intellipoint Explorer Mouse to use the PS/2 port instead of the USB. Works great once you do this.

With the above configuration I've been able to play DMII on my high end PC for hours WITH SOUND, without any problems!!!

I hope my suggestions work for some of you..and have fun!!

Regards,

Alkene

[ChristopheF]

Hello Alkene,

It IS possible to play Dungeon Master II with sound, with a Sound Blaster Live! sound card, using Creative DOS SB16 emulation.
Download the bootdisk on the Downloads page for this purpose.

However, Dungeon Master does not work in this configuration, and will still require an old good ISA sound blaster card.

Christophe

[Alkene]

Thanks Chistophe!!

I've already tried this...seems that there much be somthing unique about my system compared to yours..the bootdisk doesn't work for me.

Thanks!!!

Alkene

[Pete-o]

Thank alot! Your the boot disk works like a charm. I still have no sound but I can play the game. Still working on sound. I haven't got a clue how to find out what I have for a sound card.

[Daniel Gustafsson]

Great explanation, but another problem is that many new computers and motherboards don't have any ISA slots. It is still possible to get motherboards today with ISA but they are fading away.

/Daniel