AWE32 and SW60XG together - not working \ VOGONS

AWE32 and SW60XG together - not working

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First post, by ratfink

Posted on 2012-01-23, 17:49

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So I finally got my awe32 out of the cupboard it had lived in for 5 years since I bought it and found it didn't fit the case I had. Model CT2760. I have it set up in 98 using the default Windows drivers. What I'd like to do is have a setup like this:

AWE32 provides SB16 digital sound, OPL FM, AWE32 music, sound font midi

GUS ACE provides GUS sound and music

Vortex2 holds a DB50XG for GM/XG midi, and optionally provides SB Pro digital sound if need be.

The motherboard is a GA5AX, so 2 ISA slots only.

I found I could not get FM music in DOS games, with the Vortex2 in place. I don't think it was playing on the Vortex2, but the cuplrit looks like the Vortex2's insistence on setting the blaster variable. So out comes the vortex2.

Next the GUS starts playing up. I ensured the awe32 was on a different irq/dma and the GUS was at 260, not used by the awe32. I get various crashes, now wondering if the GUS has died.

So I try SW60XG plus AWE32. If I play a midi file in Windows, I can get it to play on the XG card fine, and yes it's at 300 whereas the AWE32 is at 330. But I cannot get dos games to use midi at 300, they just use the awe32 and sound like crap.

Any ideas here? I'm using the sb16/awe32 driver download from creative's site afaik.

Reply 1 of 6, by AdamP

Posted on 2012-01-23, 18:09

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Which games are you trying? Some games have resource configuration.

Have you tried disabling the AWE32's MPU-401 emulation?

Also, I assume you mean the emulation is at 330? The AWE synth is usually at 620.

Are you using Windows 98's drivers or Creative's drivers?

I think you can have more than one BLASTER variable as well, though I've never tried it.

Did you make sure the AWE32, the Vortex 2's, and GUS's SB emulation were all at separate resources?

Reply 2 of 6, by ratfink

Posted on 2012-01-23, 18:20

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I'm using the games setup.exe, for this testing I am using heretic and warcraft1.

Yes I meant the emulation is at 330.

I'm probably using 98's drivers, though I do seem to have an sb16 directory.

When I had the other cards in, there were no conflicts as far as I could see, it was something like:

awe32 was at 220, irq 5, dma 3, midi at 330

vortex2 sbpro resources were 240, irq7, offhand I don't recall the dma but there was no conflict

I don't think the gus ace does sb emulation - it's meant to run alongside sb's.

Reply 3 of 6, by AdamP

Posted on 2012-01-23, 18:36

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I assume you're setting the games up for MPU-401 General Midi at port 300? Or is there only a driver selection and no resource configuration?

Did you disable the Vortex 2's MPU-401 emulation?

Reply 4 of 6, by ratfink

Posted on 2012-01-23, 18:49

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Yes, selecting GM and then the port, 300 or 330.

I didn't disable the vortex2's midi port, but moved on to the sw60xg.

With just the awe32 and an sw60xg in the slots [ie. no other sound cards], I don't see able to get games to use the sw60xg. It's at 300, I tell the games that in their setup program, and yet they still seem to play music through the awe32 even though that's supposed to pick up midi at 330. Or at least, that was my understanding.

Reply 5 of 6, by AdamP

Posted on 2012-01-23, 19:50

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I'm probably clutching at straws here, but:

Do the games have a Wave Blaster driver? If so, try that.

Else, try installing the Microsoft MPU-401 driver and reboot.

Reply 6 of 6, by ratfink

Posted on 2012-01-23, 21:05

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shouldn't be that, i've been running with other different cards in this system [ews64xl+gus ace for example] without needing to.

i've tried changing the awe32 "sb16 or awe32" resources to a simpler basic configuration. after that i found device manager claiming an unknown device was at 240 [where the gos would be trying to be if it was there]. rebooted and its gone, so i wonder if this was to do with the awe32 consuming resources i wasn't aware of. will try the gus again to see if that works now.

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