First post, by weriov
Hi everyone,
I'm having some trouble getting a PAS 16 Rev F (Studio) set up correctly in my IBM 5170 under DOS 5.0, and I'm hoping for some pointers from people much more experienced and knowledgeable than I. I know these cards are notoriously finicky, and I'm sure there's something simple I'm doing wrong, but I'm not sure what it is.
A little background: I bought this board several weeks ago in (stated) working condition. Having done a quick jumper check with reference to the nerdlypleasures write-up (http://nerdlypleasures.blogspot.com/2017/01/a … -crown-pro.html), I gave the edge connector a quick cleaning and popped it into an open slot. I then installed the driver/software package downloaded from VogonsDrivers (the Studio-specific version, with MVSOUND.SYS v3.23); everything seemed in order and the sound tests all worked as expected, so I was off to the races. Unfortunately, after trying a couple games (both with native PAS support and in SB mode), there wasn't any audio output at all. So, I went back to the installer, fiddled with a couple different DMA/IRQ combinations (both for the native PAS and for SB emulation), and re-tested; still nothing. After a little reading, I got wise to the CUSDIAG utility and popped in there; none of the audio test samples would start at all. At that point, I pulled the board, spent a decent while trying different jumper combinations for base address and IRQ, and finally hit upon a combination that would yield something in the way of audio in the diagnostic utility.
So, here's what's working:
- 8-bit native-PAS playback in CUSDIAG
- 8-bit SB playback in CUSDIAG
- Music and SFX playback in games that use SB mode
- Music and SFX in a game that has native PAS support (Civilization 1 with SOUND.EXE driver program)
Now, here's what I can't get to work properly:
- 16-bit native-PAS playback in CUSDIAG (the audio is extremely distorted and gets stuck in loops)
- FM-synth playback in CUSDIAG (when I start to play a sample, I hear a couple random notes tripping over each other, then some silence, then a couple more random notes, etc. - never anything coherent or melodic)
- Volume control (in the diagnostic utility, I can set the volume to "medium" or "high", but they're miles apart from each other in actual gain, and any attempt at fine control between the two extremes yields no result)
- At "full volume", gain is so high that sound is extremely distorted, even with speakers turned all the way down
- The PAS.EXE utility, in either text or GUI mode (attempting commands in text mode yields complaints about syntax, even though I'm almost positive I'm interpreting correctly, and attempting to start GUI mode results in Runtime Error R6003)
Here's what I've tried to do about the above:
- Remove other cards in the PC down to the bare minimum (VGA card, IDE controller, and the PAS - no help)
- Move the PAS to a different slot (no change)
- Try every 16-bit IRQ/DMA combination listed in the manual - 10/5, 11/6, 12/7 (no change in results, good or bad, between the different combinations)
- Reset all jumpers to default values per documentation and try to use that way (no luck - the card doesn't seem to like being jumped at the "default" IRQ of 5 and won't output anything at all unless I jump it to IRQ 7)
- Install different versions of the PAS software/driver package, including a package that uses MVSOUND v3.24 (no change)
- Read up on similar instances where possible (the only thread I could find that really seemed to mirror my issues is here, at Pro Audio Spectrum 16 problems, but there didn't seem to be a concrete solution)
- Pray hard to tech gods of unknown provenance and efficacy
Does anyone know of anything else I might try here?
Thanks!