Hardware: SB16 + wavetable daughterboard, on an Athlon based mobo (Gigabyte GA-7IXE4).
Game: Dark Forces, sound setup utiltiy. I select General Midi, port 330, and attempt to test the music. It locks up the machine. (I've tried 2 different working SB16 cards.)
Other tests: Running other "general midi, port 330" games causes no problem. Megamid also runs fine.
Strange. 😕
Don't those boards have builtin sb16 pci something, at least my old athlon gigabyte board had that, might be conflicting in some horrible way.
Tried slowing down the machine? IIRC some LucasArts games have trouble with GM on fast CPUs.
@Harekiet, I have double-checked both the BIOS and the board itself, and there is no onboard sound.
@5u3, unfortunately the slowest Athlon/Duron CPU I have to hand is an Athlon 900. (I am currently using an Athlon 1000.) Ideally I guess, I would need to retest this situation using a much slower Athlon, or a Duron CPU.
Perhaps I'll look out for a cheap & slow Athlon/Duron CPU on ebay, for additional testing purposes.
Thanks. 😀
No need to buy a slower Athlon. Just unlock your current one with the "pencil trick" and set it to 500 MHz. Deactivate L1 and L2 cache.
My guess: it is the SB16 hardware.
Using a genuine SB16+DB for music with lucasarts Tie-Fighter (Collectors CD): Very disturbing delays when a track changes, and it changes often. Can not remember if it also locked up the system entirely.
Using many other brands of soundcards I could always enjoy lucasarts games without any such troubles.
wrote:My guess: it is the SB16 hardware.
I've tried the SB16 in a different mobo - a slower Intel 440BX, Pentium 2 @400mhz rig. It works OK.
So, I think it could be the speed of the Athlon CPU which is the problem. Or it could be something wrong with the Athlon-based mobo. I'm debating whether to try @5u3's "pencil trick" technique to slow down my current Athlon 1000 CPU, or whether to grab a cheap Duron CPU from ebay...Might be an idea to get a cheap Duron CPU, because that way I've always got a slower CPU on hand, if ever I need one. 😀
wrote:I've tried the SB16 in a different mobo - a slower Intel 440BX, Pentium 2 @400mhz rig. It works OK.
Very Possible it is the CPU or Mobo, but the test above does not define a SB16 to be working OK. Since they are never really OK. If they were OK I would have mine installed instead of shelved 😉
wrote:wrote:I've tried the SB16 in a different mobo - a slower Intel 440BX, Pentium 2 @400mhz rig. It works OK.
Very Possible it is the CPU or Mobo, but the test above does not define a SB16 to be working OK. Since they are never really OK. If they were OK I would have mine installed instead of shelved 😉
Hehe! Yes, that's a good point. You are correct. The SB16 + DB combo isn't a particularly good one. 😉
