Virtual W98 and Creative SB 5.1 soundcard

[richardcav16]

I am currently running a W7 Professional platform.

From a bygone age I have a Creative SB 5.1 sound card with game port, for which there are no drivers from XP on.

I also have the MS Force Feedback Pro joystick, which requires a game port connection.

Clearly the sound card is not recognised in W7 although it is physically installed. (I never removed it)

I appear to have successfully installed the Virtual Windows 98 machine.

My question is: Will the sound card be recognised in Virtual W98 and with '98 drivers installed, allow me to connect and use the joystick?

Any help and guidance would be appreciated.

Many thanks.

 

[Nelviticus]

No it won't be recognised. With desktop virtualisation software like Virtual PC and Virtual Box the virtual machines are presented with fake, emulated hardware. If you're using Microsoft's Virtual PC then no matter what 'real' hardware you have your Win98 machine will think it has a Creative Labs Sound Blaster 16 sound card, a DEC 21140A network card and an S3 Trio 32/64 PCI video card (at least those were the devices for Virtual PC 2007, they might have changed slightly for the new version).

If you really want to use that sound card you could set your PC up to dual boot (see this guide) but decent sound cards are extremely cheap nowadays. If your motherboard doesn't already support 5.1 sound you could buy a modern SoundBlaster for peanuts.

Regards

Nelviticus