The SB Pro might have separate joystick hardware, made with 558 quad timer and accompanying analog components to make it work. Can you verify this by looking at your card?

It might have incompatible value of timing capacitors, but other than that, it should be as usable as any other joystick hardware made with 558 timer. On my SB they have added a bypass capacitor directly over 558 chip pins, it seems to be a manufacturing-time hack to make it work more reliably.

It should not have any speed compensation though. Only later cards like GUS has that, it only controls the level to compare the timing capacitors. Lower voltage, faster charge time through joystick pot, higher voltage, slower charge time through joystick pot.

All ISA Sound Blasters with the exceptions of those using Vibra chips, have NE558 timers on them. The SB 1.0-2.0 and SB Pro 1.0 use through-hole chips, the SB Pro 2.0 and the 16, AWE32 & AWE64 all use surface mounted chips. Even some early SB Live! cards have the 558.

I think the capacitor bridging the NE558 on your SB is probably a factory reworking to fix an unreliable trace.

Errmm....is there an option to increase the latency of the 8-bit ISA slot's I/O in the BIOS? Then, if available, does increasing the latency of the 8-bit I/O Recovery Time (I set mine to 8 in my P200 S7 system) solve this problem?

And I also assume that you have tried turning off the "Turbo" button as well as disabling the internal cache too? I had erratic joystick problem when I was using the CH Pro Throttle and F-16 Combat Stick in my P133 system once when I was playing Dynamix's A-10 Tank Killer. Disabling the internal cache helped to run the joystick setup smoothly.

Unfortunately I do not have a SBpro 1.0 to test it out with Out of this World. Perhaps others who have this card may help? I wonder if this problem is present in all SBPro 1.0 cards?

Malik wrote:

Errmm....is there an option to increase the latency of the 8-bit ISA slot's I/O in the BIOS? Then, if available, does increasing the latency of the 8-bit I/O Recovery Time (I set mine to 8 in my P200 S7 system) solve this problem?

And I also assume that you have tried turning off the "Turbo" button as well as disabling the internal cache too? I had erratic joystick problem when I was using the CH Pro Throttle and F-16 Combat Stick in my P133 system once when I was playing Dynamix's A-10 Tank Killer. Disabling the internal cache helped to run the joystick setup smoothly.

Unfortunately I do not have a SBpro 1.0 to test it out with Out of this World. Perhaps others who have this card may help? I wonder if this problem is present in all SBPro 1.0 cards?

No latency settings in the BIOS.

I think I fixed it by setting the sound rate in the configuration program to 5kHz instead of 10kHz. Lester now seems to move properly.

However, should I speak too soon, Lester's movement is jerky when moving to the right. Using the PC Speaker or No Sound options gives a smoother movement. At Adlib or Sound Blaster 5kHz, it is playable, but at 10kHz, it is not. I will hook up my Disney Sound Source and see whether it is any better.

Great Hierophant wrote:

However, should I speak too soon, Lester's movement is jerky when moving to the right. Using the PC Speaker or No Sound options gives a smoother movement. At Adlib or Sound Blaster 5kHz, it is playable, but at 10kHz, it is not. I will hook up my Disney Sound Source and see whether it is any better.

Update : disabling the internal cache eliminates the jerkiness in Lester's movement with the 5kHz Sound Blaster option. 10Khz is still unplayable with joystick.