PCI cards via PCI-Express \ VOGONS

PCI cards via PCI-Express

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First post, by Malvineous

Posted on 2015-10-09, 07:23

Malvineous Offline

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Hi all,

I found a PCI-Express to 2x PCI device on DealExtreme and I'm wondering whether anyone here might know how it works?

It looks like the PCI-E card it comes with doesn't have any logic on it, but it just breaks out one PCI-E lane and puts it over a USB 3.0 cable. The other board seems to have some kind of PCI-E to PCI bridge chip on it. So I'm assuming you can't plug the PCI board into any old USB 3.0 slot.

I've seen other adapters like this one which just appear to mount a low-profile PCI card in a PCI-E slot, presumably using the same bridge chip.

If either of these are a direct hardware translation to the PCI-E bus (i.e. no drivers) does that mean you could put a PCI SoundBlaster card into a modern PC (one with only PCI-E slots) and be able to use it with SB16-compatible DOS games?

Reply 1 of 5, by alexanrs

Posted on 2015-10-09, 12:51

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Just beware that you can't even use a PCI SoundBlaster in DOS in late PCI chipsets, as they do not support a few features (mostly related to NMI and the DMA controller) needed by the SB16 emulation.

Reply 2 of 5, by swaaye

Posted on 2015-10-09, 18:52

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My X-Fi PCI hated being on the fake PCI of my Z68 motherboard. Lots of audio distortion and problems. I frequently needed to reboot to make get it working after sleep. That't basically the same as an adapter. Audigy 2 worked alright though.

Sound cards tend to make any sort of bus problems very apparent.

I would research the bridge chip they use.

Reply 3 of 5, by Davros

Posted on 2015-10-09, 19:07

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Fake PCI ?

Guardian of the Sacred Five Terabyte's of Gaming Goodness

Reply 4 of 5, by alexanrs

Posted on 2015-10-09, 19:11

alexanrs Offline

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Davros wrote:
Fake PCI ?

Bridged PCI would be a better name. It is not "true" PCI in the sense it is not native, but "faked" by a bridge chip.

Reply 5 of 5, by swaaye

Posted on 2015-10-09, 19:55

swaaye Offline

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Yes that's what I mean. It doesn't have the same properties as a native PCI bus and some cards do not work correctly. Bridge chips vary in quality too.

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