Motherboards that support SB emulation in dos (NMI)

[Tom McEwan]

I hate to ask such an awkward question in a group, but I'm in a bit of a jam
and wondered if anyone could help

I've got an SB Live 5.1 soundcard, and an SB audioPCI128/vibra128, and I'd
like to use the SB16 emulation they can supposedly do in pure dos mode.
However, my current motherboard (Asus A7N8X-X) doesn't seem to support
either one in dos, and all the symptoms point to the board not supporting
NMIs correctly, which are needed for emulation to work.

I'm thinking of buying a new motherboard (there are other reasons why I want
to get rid of this one as well, notably terrible radio interference), and
wondered if anyone can suggest a new board that they know will work with SB
emulation in dos, preferably from personal experience. I'd like to keep as
many of my other components as possible, so one that supports socket a AMD
cpus would be good, but not essential. Alternatively if anyone can say
which chipsets definitely do or don't support NMI sound blaster emulation it
would be useful - I gather nForce chipsets like the one I've got now
generally don't.

Thanks

Tom

[Ross Ridge]

Post by Tom McEwan
I'm thinking of buying a new motherboard (there are other reasons why I want
to get rid of this one as well, notably terrible radio interference), and
wondered if anyone can suggest a new board that they know will work with SB
emulation in dos, preferably from personal experience.

Unfortunately, it's a real crapshoot, and you're not likely to get much
feedback. Most people with newer motherboards use Windows XP where the
SB emulation doesn't use the NMI trick. The SB Live! SB emulation under
Windows 95/98/ME does use the NMI trick, so if some one has SB emulation
working on these operating system, it should also work on MS-DOS.

Post by Tom McEwan
Alternatively if anyone can say which chipsets definitely do or don't
support NMI sound blaster emulation it would be useful - I gather nForce
chipsets like the one I've got now generally don't.

I believe they all do, it's pretty basic functionality, but I can only say
authoratively that all Intel chipsets support it, since they're the only
company that pubically documents their chipsets anymore. The problem
is that there are plenty of places that motherboard manufactures can
screw it up in the BIOS or the design of motherboard, and they aren't
the least bit interested in supporting Windows 95/98/ME or MS-DOS anymore.

Ross Ridge

[Tom McEwan]

Anyone know if the Asus A7V600 can do it?