"Unable to load Virtual Music User Bank" message with SoundBlaster32 and AWE32 cards To obtain the best possible sound, Virtual Music software uses a special feature that takes full advantage of the SoundBlaster AWE32 sound card. It does this by loading our special user banks into the AWE32 card's memory chip (DRAM) at the time the game starts. This feature works great on the earlier "full featured" models of the AWE32 cards, but on many of the newer models, you'll get that "Can't load user bank" error message, and you won't be able to start the game. The reason you're having this problem is quite simple. Creative Labs removed the 512 KB DRAM chip from certain "Value Edition" and "PnP" versions of the AWE card. If you’re getting that error message, most likely it’s because your card doesn’t have any memory where the user banks can be loaded. The Virtual Music installation detects that you have an AWE, and tries to set up the user banks, but it can’t detect the presence of the necessary memory. There are two ways you can correct the problem. The first one is to add memory to your sound card. (See the card’s documentation for instructions on how to do it.) This will cost you about $80.00 and seeing you probably choose this card because of it's lower cost and you haven’t needed the memory up to now, it’s probably not worth it. The second one is our preferred solution. You can edit the VMUSIC.INI file to turn off the special AWE feature. Here’s how:
- Windows 3.1x: Launch a DOS shell by opening the Main Program Group and clicking on MS-DOS Prompt.
Windows 95: Click on Start-Programs-MS-DOS Prompt from the Taskbar menu .
· Note: The following step assumes Quest for Fame is installed to the default directory of C:\VMUSIC\QF2. - Type CD \VMUSIC\QF2 and press the Enter key.
· Note: The following step assumes that MS-DOS is the operating system. If you receive a message "Bad command or File Name" in the next step upon hitting the enter key the operating system is probably PC-DOS. This can be verified by typing VER [Enter]. If the system is running under PC-DOS substitute "E" for "EDIT" .
- Type EDIT VMUSIC.INI and press the Enter key.
- Find the line that reads OutputDevice=AWE32 (this should be the second line from the top). Change this line to read:
OutputDevice=SoundBlaster - Next, find the line that reads Type=OPL3AWE (it will be near the bottom of the file, under the heading [VMSB]). Change the line to read:
Type=OPL3 - Save the File and exit the editor.
- From the DOS prompt type EXIT [Enter] to return to Windows.
- Try the game. Everything should work fine!