So I saw some old posts from like 10 years about this but, nothing recent that I could really comment on. There's an old NHL game I had as a kid, and It's been almost 30 years and I've still never truly got to fully play this game. I somehow doubt there's anything anyone can do for me, but I'm really at a midlife crisis and thought maybe something good would happen to me for once. Getting this game to work would be like, a miracle from god at this point!

The game is NHL 96 for PC. A game that is run through DOS. Now, I still have a disk for it from when I was a kid, I have all the files, but I've got no idea how to get it to install. After deciding hey, Ive not tried this in like 5 years, let's ask around and maybe someone can help. I'm disabled so mentally, I am a little slower than some people, but I'm very good with emulation/roms generally. Not a Dosbox pro though.

Anyway so, I've seen people install it simply through the Setup via dosbox but that doesn't do anything, the screen on Dosbox goes blank. And of course, the Autorun doesn't work because its a 16 bit game, on a 64 bit Operating system. I'm totally clueless on virtual Windows type things, and I really dont wanna have to learn some crazy stuff just to play a hockey game when there's tons of other similar hockey games I could load an emulator of like NHL 97/98 on Saturn.

I actually managed to find a small download of the installed game, with no setup or anything, just the game files. And when I type in 'Hockey' it actually perfectly starts the game. BUT just like when I was a kid, there's no sound! I have no idea how to adjust Dosbox sound settings, what commands to use, I read the readme, googled, and there was no list of commands to switch between types of soundblasters and whatnot. It shows the list of available sound cards to emulate but, no commands how to change them. Also, the crowd is totally black/nonexistant, it's like a hockey rink in space lol. So clearly graphics bug.

Am I hopeless or, is there some way this game will ever work properly? Is it just not worth it? Like it's a childhood dream to finally fully play it with sound but, it seems like I'd need to really invest time in learning how to use like a Windows 95/98 Emulator or something. I've never not been able to eventually get a game to work, I really never have issues on Dosbox like this but, I'm just so fed up with life, Idk. I figured Id try something rather than sitting here miserable drinking. Help if you can, thanks.

I think you usually set the sound card info in some files, like AUTOEXEC.BAT or CONFIG.SYS.

See this for an example: https://www.techguy.org/threads/solved-setting-sound-card-in-dos.443958/

But I have absolutely no idea what settings to use

old-games.com has the game and it is an easy install.

Managed to figure it out thanks to someone helpful on Reddit! This was the single hardest time I've ever had with a game. Feel free to remove this post if you guys want!

Edited January 27, 20242 yr by NotJustGamesThisIsMyLife
figured out issue