DOS ain't dead - vsbhda v1.9

Japheth

Germany (South),
06.06.2026, 04:56

vsbhda v1.9 (Announce)

Hello,

a new version of vsbhda, the most important changes:

1. fixed a regression in v1.8 ( size DMA buffer < size SB buffer )
2. contains preliminary hdpmi v3.24

These changes make Open Cubic Player and game Redneck Rampage to work again.

https://github.com/Baron-von-Riedesel/VSBHDA/releases/tag/v1.9

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MS-DOS forever!

Laaca

Czech republic,
06.06.2026, 07:08

@ Japheth

vsbhda v1.9

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Thank you!

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DOS-u-akbar!

PCGamingTimeMachine

08.06.2026, 21:52

@ Japheth

vsbhda v1.9

Post reply

> Hello,
>
> a new version of vsbhda, the most important changes:
>
> 1. fixed a regression in v1.8 ( size DMA buffer < size SB buffer )
> 2. contains preliminary hdpmi v3.24
>
> These changes make Open Cubic Player and game Redneck Rampage to work
> again.
>
> https://github.com/Baron-von-Riedesel/VSBHDA/releases/tag/v1.9

Awesome to see! I'll pull these changes into the red book audio fork of VSBHDA some time next month.

Japheth

Germany (South),
05.09.2026, 05:25

@ Japheth

vsbhda v2.0

Post reply

Hello,

a new version of vsbhda has been released: https://github.com/Baron-von-Riedesel/VSBHDA/releases/tag/v2.0

Besides a few bug fixes the major changes are:

1. significant smaller default hardware buffer size. This reduces latency significantly, so the emulation feels like "real hardware". Also, the hardware buffer size is now configurable.

2. no samples rendered by the interrupt routine are dropped anymore, thus increasing emulation quality.

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MS-DOS forever!

RayeR

CZ,
09.09.2026, 06:46
(edited by RayeR, 09.09.2026, 08:34)

@ Japheth

vsbhda v2.0

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I found that with v2.0 compared to v1.8 I got more noisy/distorted sound in Future Crew Second Reality demo
http://rayer.g6.cz/1tmp/2ndreal.zip
(start by 2NDFIX.EXE and choose Soundblaster Pro stereo)
It's noticable in the beginning scene after subtitles when ships flies over before explosion. As I read that buffers was reduced in v2.0 maybe it needs manually tune /B for bigger value? Is it possible to adjust it at runtime or need to unload/load again?

EDIT: it's clearly noticable difference between choosing SB mono and SB Pro stereo from the playback beginning. While mono plays almost clear with occasional short pops the stereo is much more worse in v2.0. I tried to guess some /b [1-64] and /bp but not luck to find good values to reach at least the same result as with older v1.8.

EDIT2:
Surprisingly it helped to increase fs to 44k (default was 22k) by /f44100, /b has no effect...

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DOS gives me freedom to unlimited HW access.

Japheth

Germany (South),
09.09.2026, 12:56
(edited by Japheth, 09.09.2026, 13:08)

@ RayeR

vsbhda v2.0

Post reply

> EDIT2:
> Surprisingly it helped to increase fs to 44k (default was 22k) by /f44100,
> /b has no effect...

If increasing the rate does improve sound quality then /bp should help even more ( try /bp256) - and /b has of course no effect.

On my HDA system sound quality of the demo is better with v2.0 than with v1.8, clearly detectable within the first few seconds playing.

btw, do you happen to have a Creative card with chip CA0106:
- SB Life 24
- SB Audigy LS
- SB X-FI (SB0790)

or another SB X-FI PCI ( with chip EMU20K1 [non-titanium] ) card?

I'd need someone for a few tests and don't want to spent money ... :-D

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MS-DOS forever!

RayeR

CZ,
09.09.2026, 15:07

@ Japheth

vsbhda v2.0

Post reply

Yes, it seems abs.logical that higher fs needs more buffering. I just tried random to lower at 11k - no change but higher 44k helped,no idea why...
I still use the same SB Audigy1 at PCI IRQ5 (shared with other PCI peripherals). I'll try bp256, I tried max 32 or 64...

I'll look for some other SB cards, I think the newest I have is Audigy2 and also have some low-profile card that's not based on EMU10k line but something cheaper...

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DOS gives me freedom to unlimited HW access.

Japheth

Germany (South),
09.09.2026, 21:20

@ RayeR

vsbhda v2.0

Post reply

> Yes, it seems abs.logical that higher fs needs more buffering. I just tried
> random to lower at 11k - no change but higher 44k helped,no idea why...

The demo ( SB Pro, sound quality "high" ) uses a sample rate of 40.000 Hz. Perhaps the resampling code has a problem if sound is to be downsampled to 22.050 Hz.

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MS-DOS forever!

RayeR

CZ,
10.09.2026, 05:10

@ Japheth

vsbhda v2.0

Post reply

I tried /bp256 and no effect, seems to be something with resampling as you wrote. Do you also noticed difference between ver. 2.0 and 1.8/1.9?

For testing I can help with:
Sound Blaster Audigy LS PCI 2.1, CA0106 SB0570
Sound Blaster X-Fi SB0790 low-profile PCI
If I remember well both are capable to play under DOS with Mpxplay, I never tested them with SBEMU/VSBHDA.

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DOS gives me freedom to unlimited HW access.

Japheth

Germany (South),
10.09.2026, 09:10

@ RayeR

vsbhda v2.0

Post reply

> I tried /bp256 and no effect, seems to be something with resampling as you
> wrote. Do you also noticed difference between ver. 2.0 and 1.8/1.9?

I will have to check if downsampling has worsened. My test was with 44.1 kHz ( 22,05 not possible there ) - as already mentioned, then v2.0 was better than v1.8.

> Sound Blaster Audigy LS PCI 2.1, CA0106 SB0570
> Sound Blaster X-Fi SB0790 low-profile PCI

Both have CA0106 and hence are already "supported" by current SBEMU/VSBHDA.

"Supported" means: they are recognized and the emulator will install itself, but it can't work, because interrupt handling isn't correct - the "interrupt enable" register is queried/acknowledged instead of "interrupt status" register. The code is derived from MpxPlay, but MpxPlay doesn't use the sound hardware interrupt, so this program might actually work already...

I created an issue on GitHub/VSBHDA for the CA0106 cards: https://github.com/Baron-von-Riedesel/VSBHDA/issues/45

and will post an updated vsbhda there ASAP.

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MS-DOS forever!

RayeR

CZ,
10.09.2026, 14:34

@ Japheth

vsbhda v2.0

Post reply

OK, I'll try to physically find at least one of them and prepare test PC. You can send me some test version with debug prints or register dump tool like sblive.exe and I collect the logs... AFAIK as I read somewhere this sound chip should be very similar to common AC'97/HDA, no any EAX HW 3D sound like on EMUks...

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DOS gives me freedom to unlimited HW access.

Japheth

Germany (South),
10.09.2026, 20:19

@ RayeR

vsbhda v2.0

Post reply

> I tried /bp256 and no effect, seems to be something with resampling as you
> wrote.

I tried the demo now on a P3 system with a SB Life. It seems the program adjusts the sample rate to the system it's running on - now it supplies samples with 20 kHz. So the "downsampling theory" of mine turned out to be wrong.

However, what came into my mind: did you run vsbhda with T4 in the BLASTER environment variable? As you may know, there's a known problem running SB Pro stereo commands on a SB16, so it's recommended to let vsbhda emulate a SB Pro in such cases.

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MS-DOS forever!

RayeR

CZ,
12.09.2026, 05:58

@ Japheth

vsbhda v2.0

Post reply

I had set T6. When I changed to T4 (removed /f to let it set default 22kHz) then 2nd reality sound in SB Pro stereo mode plays at ~twice speed while SB mono plays at normal speed...

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DOS gives me freedom to unlimited HW access.

Japheth

Germany (South),
12.09.2026, 13:20

@ RayeR

vsbhda v2.0

Post reply

> When I changed to T4 (removed /f to let it set default 22kHz)
> then 2nd reality sound in SB Pro stereo mode plays at ~twice speed

I see. Try this ( v20a ): https://drive.google.com/file/d/1G7vDNNAwdrkdlMjf_Fhb8mPYsqY4O957/view?usp=drive_link

Be aware that the 2nd reality demo is one of those programs that change the SB Mixer to stereo mode, but forget to reset it to normal mode when exiting. This may give interesting effects ...

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MS-DOS forever!