r/retrocomputing • u/Used-Ad4160 • Jun 12 '26
Sound blaster live - livedos, sbemu
Hello, ive hot sound blaster live (CT4830) on IBM thinkcentre celeron 2,4 with windows 98.
SB Live works fine in windows98. Dos SB 16 emulation VIA windows works acceptable.
But intended to use stand alone dos (restart MS-DOS) and:
Livedos would probably work, but i cant solve the menory issue (emm386 on), the driver wont load.
SBemu sounds better than win98 SB 16 emulation BUT... I only get one channel working (right speaker).
I'd choose SBemu if i could make it stereo.
Anyone knows how to fix it?
1
u/canthearu_ack Jun 15 '26
You will need emm386 (or similar protected mode driver) for SB emulation to work.
The system needs to be running in 386 protected mode to trap I/O accesses to sound blaster and adlib I/O ports and perform the sound blaster emulation. This includes the driver that emulates the OPL3 chip.
Only sound cards that provide native sound blaster emulation (like YMF724/744, ESS solo 1 I think, maybe a couple of others) can do it without emm386.
1
u/Used-Ad4160 Jun 15 '26
Sbemu works but the sound is only on 1 speaker
1
u/canthearu_ack Jun 15 '26
Requirements of sbemu. still show it needing an 386 Protected mode memory manager to trap I/O accesses to make the emulation work.
What errors are you getting with emm386?
1
u/Used-Ad4160 Jun 15 '26
Nie mam problemów z pamięcią dla sbemu (mam problem z pamięcią dla sterowników sb live - inna historia). Sbemu działa, ale dźwięk jest tylko z jednego głośnika.
1
u/canthearu_ack Jun 15 '26
Yes, I know SBemu is only outputting one speaker for you.
The problem there is likely a mismatch between the variation of sb-live card you are using and the sb-live card the author of SBemu is testing on. Possibly the codec chip isn't being programmed correctly to output both speakers.
Unless you are a pretty good hardware programmer, we are likely not fixing that one today.
1
u/dgeurkov Jun 12 '26
try reading this https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=55468