Everything looks fine in CTCU, however by running the Diagnose.exe I can hear sound on 8 & 16 bit sounds, but no synthesized music at all. Also there is sound in some DOS games, but not all of them, for example - there is sound in Pinball Illusion, but there is no sound in Dune 2, both games say they're using a "Sound Blaster 16" - both have sound, but only one has music, the other one doesn't, that's very strange to me. I've tried with and without the MFBEN jumper - that made no difference.

PS. A friend just found an AWE64 Gold CT4390 so I'll try getting it tomorrow and I'll test with it, I hope the problem get fixed miraculously 😀.

My SB 32 PnP would not work right until I installed the Windows 3.1 drivers. There was some TSR included on them which made it miraculously work, maybe that's your case too.

aleksej wrote:

Gyro, which revision is your AWE64 Value? If you have CT4520 then you can try this.
http://awe64flash.chat.ru/
In some rare cases CT4520 firmware may be corrupted. This util designed to restore it.

Cool!
Makes me wonder if it is possible to flash SB16's and AWE32's in a similar way. I think one of my CT2940's got its firmware corrupted. Two other dead on arrival SB16's and a dead SBpro2 are also just lying here BTW.

I did flash a soundcard before, it was a Crystal CS4232 based card. The benefit of flashing it was to change its PnP resource affinity. As to force it to IRQ 7.

Okay. I've got the CT4390, made a S/PDIF connection and I get music from some games I didn't got music out of with the CT4520 (for example - Lotus), however the music is working on some games through the S/PDIF, but from other games it doesn't - it's working through the analog outputs (for example - Pinball Illusions). I don't get what settings should I use so everything gets through the S/PDIF, any ideas?

Pinball Illusions is tracker game and also used CD Audio tracks. Lotus is FM.

The version of Pinball Illusions that I have is some kind of rip, because there's no CD required for it to run. Also - it has music and sound playing from the analog (left/right) audio outputs of the CT4390, but nothing comes out of the S/PDIF.

Lotus plays music and sound through the analog outs and through the S/PDIF.

Dune 2 plays only sound through the S/PDIF and only music through the analog outs.

Anyway - I read (in the last 2 days) somewhere that the AWE64 Gold is supposed to be able to output all sound and music directly through the S/PDIF out, but I'm unable to make it do so, and that's why I asked if anyone knows how to do it.

wysiwyg wrote:

Anyway - I read (in the last 2 days) somewhere that the AWE64 Gold is supposed to be able to output all sound and music directly through the S/PDIF out...

That's correct concerning the EMU8000 and CQM (FM-synthesis) output, but you're limited to 44.1 kHz for PCM-sample playback through S/PDIF, which is the input sample-rate for the interface chip.

Does Pinball Illusions offer the same "MAXIMUM" (44.1 kHz) sound-quality setting (via SETSOUND) that Pinball Fantasies does? If so, try selecting this and see if you get anything through the S/PDIF output.

> west

A dim lit messageboard corner contains small group of dedicated downgraders discussing blasphemous themes. Weird devices are scattered everywhere, cables you never saw previously protrude out. Your arrival seemingly remains unnoticed.

Wysiwyg the male newbie is here.
5u3 the male oldbie is here.
Gerwin the male oldbie is here.
Filipetolhuizen the male oldbie is here.
Mau1wurf1977 the male l33t is here.
Cloudschatze the male member is here.

>
Wysiwyg says, '... and that AWE64 Gold is sending sound through S/PDIF in DOS 6.22!'

>
Cloudschatze says, 'Sure, as long as the output has 44.1 Khz sample rate.'

> eyepop
Your eyes practically pop out of your head!

> cast summon parus
You draw upon the powers granted by dark gods.
PARUS arrives suddenly!

> blend
You attempt to blend in with the surroundings.

Here's the specific quote from the AWE64 Gold manual:

"The digital audio signals from the SPDIF Out jack contain audio output from the EMU8000 wavetable chip mixed with digital voice playback if the playback is in 16-bit stereo mode, 44.1 kHz CD quality."

This may be totally unhelpful, but in order to hear the FM/CQM from the S/PDIF, don't you have to run AWETUIL /S in your autoexec.bat?

If the music is from a CD Audio track, you will never hear it through the S/PDIF of any ISA based AWE card. You will need a PCI Sound Blaster Live! or some card with the 2-pin CD S/PDIF header.

There could be a theoretical (unproved) solution to CD-Audio problem. Like, connect something like this:

Two wires to CD-ROM drive S/PDIF output, one wire to molex +5v. Optical port of the bracket would work that way.

Then you take something that accepts both RCA (from AWE64 Gold) and Toslink (from bracket) S/PDIF input, and hope that both inputs will work simultaneously.

Nothing else yet about 64Gold ?? Did anybody seek some decision SPDIF problem? Is it possible to patch 44,1 kHz limitation? It would be great to get any voice sound without lock frequency!

Does anybody know about AWE64 chipset pinouts? If there is/are some link(s) or somebody has datasheet it would be great. I have interest if it has digital in channel which is not used on any AWE64 revision.
Thanks for any possible information.

http://www.soomal.com/doc/10100001633.htm
See?
There are a lot of great large pictures. This prototype revision has DIGITAL CD IN (S/PDIF TTL) and DIGITAL IN on its daughterboard (S/PDIF COAX). It's clear that AWE chip hasn't many digital in channels and this goal is reached by another logic chips which can transmit or mix digital in signals from different sources. But I want to say if AWE64 chip has its own different S/PDIF OUT channel (it's clearly seen on AWE64 CT4520, spdif out contact is directly connected to AWE chip) maybe it has at least one its own S/PDIF IN channel also. Therefore looking for Creative CT8903 datasheet. Has anybody? Or link to download? Thank you!

AFAIK Creative labs policy was to refrain from publishing any hardware datasheets. Just programmer's guides, and probably a datasheet on SB/SB-Pro compatibility for use by companies that wanted to add licenced SB compatibility to their sound cards.

That is why there is so much speculation on their chipsets, and a lack of good data.

Oops. I'm afraid that a crown is too large for Creative, hanging on ears!
I really was unkind to Creative strategics when I bought PCI X-Fi and found that DDL/DTScon doesn't work. If you buy it will install only three times! And DTScon is working only in Vista! In XP there is DDL only. I want to say this is a piggish trick. I found men, they were solidary and we solved this problem together. Now there are free unlimited installations of DDL and DTScon packs in Windows XP! And let Creative swallow it.

OK, I'll try to seek it by a probe wire connected to some spdif source. Will take CT4520 for this. Even if I'll burn it is not hard to find CT4520. In Moscow a lot of CT4520s for only $2-$8.
Of course if this chip has eeprom unit which tunes (enable/disable) parameters I may never find necessary contact. Will see.

Sorry to bump an old thread, but I Googled this problem, and wonders of wonders, it brought me here. I did try the method of deleting all the CFG config files I could find and then running CTCM again, and it seemed to work.

EDIT: Yikes, this should probably be moved to the 'new' sound forum. I should also point out that I had to add CTCM to my autoexec.bat to make sure the problem stayed fixed.

Moogle! wrote:

Sorry to bump an old thread, but I Googled this problem, and wonders of wonders, it brought me here. I did try the method of deleting all the CFG config files I could find and then running CTCM again, and it seemed to work.

EDIT: Yikes, this should probably be moved to the 'new' sound forum. I should also point out that I had to add CTCM to my autoexec.bat to make sure the problem stayed fixed.

Oh my GOD, thank you thank you thank you!!!

I had my DOS system just built and with this AWE 64 Value I cannot make that midi works. We tried a lot, we tried to change config and autoexec, the CD ROM of the AWE 64 doesn't configure correctly these files, and so after days of search we finished in this thread. OMG the important part was to load the CTCM.EXE on autoexec, so (I don't know why) system can load the variables on the AWE 64 (and expecially this H620 port).
After make diagnose.exe run, it found the DRAM where the wavetable is, it tested it succesfully, and finally after setted all correctly, midi is working!!! When I make run Transport Tycoon and finally hear the midi running I was so happy wow!

It is important now to understand, I write HERE for all of you my autoexec.bat and config.sys lines so all of us can understand and see how make work this nice audio card!!!

in autoexec.bat these are the sound lines:
SET CTCM=C:\WINDOWS
SET SOUND=C:\PROGRA~1\CREATIVE\CTSND
SET MIDI=SYNTH:1 MAP:G MODE:0
SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 H5 P330 E620 T6
C:\WINDOWS\CTCM.EXE

and in the config.sys these are the other lines:
DEVICEHIGH=C:\PROGRA~1\CREATIVE\CTSND\DRV\CTSB16.SYS /UNIT=0 /BLASTER=A:220 I:5 D:1 H:5
DEVICEHIGH=C:\PROGRA~1\CREATIVE\CTSND\DRV\CTMMSYS.SYS

I really hope all of the users can find this thread now!

I will update other thread where they ask help for midi problems on this nice audio card!

THANKS A LOT!!!

mmmmmm I think I run faster than it need.

Unfortunately every time I reboot If I run the Transport Tycoon game I had no midi.

The only way that I make it work is to run everytime the DIAGNOSE.EXE program and after all detections midi works.

I don't know why my AWE 64 work so bad, and I don't know how to fix this problem.

I will read other threads, this is the only way I can take to fix the problem.

Anyway, the card is working, the midi and the effects works, but it's like everytime I had to "wake up" the Wave Table...mmmmm

Ok guys, I finally made it.
I read a lot and finally found what missed before.
The string in the autoexec.bat to load the aweutil /s.

Only in this way AWE an load in hardware the midi wave table and then be ready for the games.

Now that all is working (I tried reboot, I tried shut down system to restart at all) I will put here the images of my autoexec.bat and config.sys to help all of you lost in this quite difficult configuration:

PS: I remember that I am working in Dos 7.1 under Windows 98 SE modifying the dosstart.bat so the system everytime boot in DOS and no Windows. (IF I need to go to Window 98SE I simply write the WIN command).

Here we go! If you have other questions I will answer! 😀