Sound does not work in DOS with Chameleon Combo Card.

[Marcelo Martins]

Hello everyone,

I am new around here. I am looking for help from some of you old timers that might have experienced the same problem I am having.

I am running on an HP Pavilion 9680 which unfortunately has a questionable quality audio-modem combo card. It is a Rockwell Chameleon, which after installed, lists its audio drivers as RIPTIDE. I have no problems or complaints whatsoever in Windows, but the other day I decided to play some of my old DOS games which always worked on my previous computers, and to my surprise I cannot make the audio work in DOS at all.

These games require a lot of conventional memory, so I created a DOS boot floppy containing all the required drivers to load CD, sound, mouse.

All the drivers, including the RIPTIDE Audio Legacy drivers (for DOS) install fine. The games also run fine, but I tried all possible combinations of I/O addresses, IRQ and DMA you can think of for the audio driver and still no sound. I even tried a very simple DOS game, Commander Keen, which requires no setup on the game side, but no luck.

I know it is a long shot since these games are old and DOS is also pretty much fading on everyone's mind, but if you have any ideas I would love to hear them. Especially if you do have the same Chameleon card and can run DOS games with sound or just have sound working in DOS.

I am attaching the autoexec.bat and config.sys I am using below, maybe I am just missing something really simple.

Thanks all for your time and answers!!

Marcelo Martins
-----------------autoexec.bat-----------
@ECHO OFF
REM This is a DOS boot floppy for DOS games that
REM require lots of conventional memory

SET PROMPT=$p$g
SET TEMP=C:\windows\TEMP
SET TMP=C:\windows\TEMP
set path=c:\windows\command

REM The next loads the CDROM.

loadhigh c:\windows\command\mscdex /D:IDECD001 /L:D

REM The next line loads the Sound Driver.

loadhigh c:\windows\system\RipUtil /A220 /I5 /D1 /RI10 /unmute /RFF00h /KBVOL /V

REM The next line defines the Sound Blaster parameters for the card.
REM A is the memory address. 220 is the default.
REM I is the interrupt for the sound card. 5 is the default.
REM D is the DMA value. The default is 1.

set blaster=A220 I5 D1 T4

REM The next line loads the mouse driver.

set mouse=a:\imouse
a:\imouse\imouse

c:
cd
-----------------config.sys-----------
REM This is a DOS boot floppy for DOS games that
REM require lots of conventional memory

DOS=HIGH,UMB
buffershigh=10
fcbshigh=4
fileshigh=30
lastdrivehigh=Z
stackshigh=9,256

REM Defining Memory

Device=C:\WINDOWS\Himem.Sys /testmem:off
Device=C:\WINDOWS\Emm386.exe RAM

REM This is the CDROM device.

DeviceHigh=a:\OakCdRom.SYS /D:IDECD001
--------------------------------------