"Crusader Certificated" PCI Sound cards?

D

Dazzy

New member
    I have upgraded my mobo from VIA 693A to Intel 815EP, so I lost the great DOS gaming support from VIA onboard audio. Unfortunately, Intel does not provide any DOS driver for its onboard audio controller. Neither does Realtek, the onboard audio codec manufacturer. My friend sent me a CMI8738 PCI sound card, but I can't hear any sound in the Crusader install config program with respective DOS driver installed. I have no idea whether there is something wrong with the driver settings or just  the driver does not support Crusader. In DOSBox 0.65 under Windows XP, the game is running too slow. So it's not an option.
    Now I am planning to buy a PCI sound card for the Game's sake. Here are the choices provided by my local vendors: SB PCI64, SB PCI128, SB PCI512, and Yamaha 724. Which one should I choose, or any tips to make the CMI8738 work? Thanks!
 
Does the sound work while in DOS Box? Have you tried upping the cycles to make it run faster?
 
Both sound cards work fine under Windows XP, and DosBox of coz. As no need to keep 2 cards running I have disabled the onboard one.  I've read through DosBox docs and also guides on this forum.
My PC spec:
Intel C2 1G
Intel 815ep
256 SD RAM
GF2 MX400 with 32M SDRAM
CMI 8738
Windows XP SP2
It seems that closest spec named in the replies to the Dosbox guide is a P3 1G, runs well with 12000 to 14000 cycles. I tried using D-Fend. No scaler, fullscreen,samplerate 11025, high priority. Frameskip is set to 3, unacceptable for me to get it greater than 3. 3000~5000 cycles, smooth sound, slow graphic update. 5000 above sound became choppy. Increasing cycles to 12000~14000 didn't help against slow graphics and choppy sound. CPU occupation rate had been already 100%. According to the docs, it's meaningless to increase cycles any higher. It's far better to play in DOS without sound, playable at least. So DosBox is not an option for me.
In order to hear alarms triggered by sensor/citizen and other exciting sound effects, I badly need a working sound card under DOS. I assume SB Live and AUDIGY/AUDIGY 2 are also certificated by DEEP, but they are not available due to budget restriction.
 
Try installing the sound patch, then set up the soundcard again... Try every option to see if it works.
 
There is no patch available for No Regret. The slowdown.com in DEEP seems to have conflicts with CMI8738 dos driver. Regret won't start with slowdown.com staying in the memory, crashed with report "Dos interrupt error".
As to the dos driver, very few docs are related. All I can get from the readme file is how to explicitly define those I/O, FM, MPU ports using setaudio.com. Nothing about the C3Dmix.com. There is also a file called epicfix.exe with the following discription:
"EPIC DOS games patch program

  We found that there are some EPIC DOS games can not detect PCI
audio. This is due to these games using instruction loop as time
counter not a real constant period. In high speed CPU PC, the loop
time become shorter. That is reason that games can not detect PCI
audio. If you meet this problem, please run patch program to fix.
All of fixed files will backup to *.old."

I assume it's not related to No Regret. Nevertheless, I run it, and nothing changed.
I still like the idea to purchase one of those confirmed "Crusader capable" cards.
 
Try not running the slowdown.com file, you don't require every single file included with DEEP.

About the soundcard -- Yes, that'd be a good option too.  ;D
 
After doing some background research, I find some useful remarks on native DOS compatibility from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ensoniq
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ensoniq_AudioPCI
Nothing about the YMF724 yet, though I think it kind of non-sense to require a Windows OS to get its DOS driver installed.
So I decided to buy an SB PCI card. Once again I fell for the "a few dollars more, much better sound quality" temptation to obtain an SB Live! Value. Better sound quality indeed and greatly boosted volume. I have to turn it down a bit to prevent deafening myself.
I have never enjoyed breaking glass so much before. ;D
 
well i tested DEEP with SB Live and it works pretty good. ALso Audigy2 and SB16 were tested. Some SOundBlaster Compatible soundcards were tested as well and they were all ok and worked pretty good.

didn't try YMF related cards, so i'm not sure what's the problem with it. If you are getting SB card than you shouldn't have any troubles running the sound in DEEP. If you have any, write here, i'll try to help.

-Cyb
 
Dazzy link said:
I have never enjoyed breaking glass so much before. ;D
Click to expand...

Whenever I play a Crusader game, I have to always shoot the glass, because I love the sound effect so much.
 
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