Have not tried other drivers. I was just helping James-F troubleshoot Supaplex, but now that I've given him some feedback, I thought he could try different drivers. 😀 First I'd like to confirm he is having the same issue, though. Thank you.

It's the kind of weird interaction that drives me up the wall, that's all.

Thank you!
I do too use ctmouse.
I have the serial and parallel port completely removed and disabled in the bios, so no serial mouse for me (I don't like the rubber dust eating ball).
I wonder if it'll show the same behavior with the ES1688.

James-F wrote:

Thank you! I do too use ctmouse. I have the serial and parallel port completely removed and disabled in the bios, so no serial m […]
Show full quote

Thank you!
I do too use ctmouse.
I have the serial and parallel port completely removed and disabled in the bios, so no serial mouse for me (I don't like the rubber dust eating ball).
I wonder if it'll show the same behavior with the ES1688.

Does that mean when you boot without a mouse driver it doesn't crash for you? As gdjacobs suggested, you can try different mouse drivers (though it's hard NOT to use ctmouse due to its convenient size!)

Yes, it doesn't crash without ctmouse.
I wonder if it's only with YMF cards.

James-F wrote:

Yes, it doesn't crash without ctmouse.
I wonder if it's only with YMF cards.

Good question, I couldn't get it to crash on my 486/Sound Blaster PC. Looking forward to your ES1688 test.

For the lack of a better place.
The cause of the freezing in supaplex is actually the PS/2 mouse, when I plugged my Serial mouse and loaded ctmouse, supaplex did not freeze.
Furthermore, the PS/2 mouse causes severe FM (OPL) music slowdown when I move it in CyberSphere Tunes Demo.

I'm going to investigate and solve this because god forbid the use of a roll mouse. 🙁
Let's just hope the motherboard is not the main cause.

James-F wrote:

For the lack of a better place. The cause of the freezing in supaplex is actually the PS/2 mouse, when I plugged my Serial mouse […]
Show full quote

For the lack of a better place.
The cause of the freezing in supaplex is actually the PS/2 mouse, when I plugged my Serial mouse and loaded ctmouse, supaplex did not freeze.
Furthermore, the PS/2 mouse causes severe FM (OPL) music slowdown when I move it in CyberSphere Tunes Demo.

I'm going to investigate and solve this because god forbid the use of a roll mouse. 🙁
Let's just hope the motherboard is not the main cause.

Interesting. That still doesn't rule out ctmouse as the culprit. For all we know, it could be a combination of ctmouse and a PS/2 mouse. It might go away with a logitech or ms mouse driver, as it goes away with a serial mouse.

If I think of it, I'll try tonight, unless you beat me to it and post here.

Out of curiosity, which PS/2 mouse are you using? I'm using the Logitech SBF96 PS/2 optical (white).

Same problem with MS or Logitech drivers.
Using SBF90, great mouse been working for years.

Not sure if related, but I remember that SoftMPU has a similar issue.

Maybe the same fix will work for you?

Problem: When using a PS/2 mouse, moving the cursor causes slow playback. Solution: Use a mouse driver that supports direct hardware access e.g. CuteMouse 2.0 (but not 2.1).

http://bjt42.github.io/softmpu/

Thanks Phil, it solved the slowdowns.
But Supaplex still freezes, I assume it's a problem with the game itself.

James, on my 486 I just switched from SB16 to an Aztech 2316-based card and the Supaplex crash still occurs with mouse driver loaded. I tried a native serial mouse, and it crashes. I tried a PS/2 mouse (using serial adapter) and it crashes. So I don't think the issue is related to serial vs PS/2. The sound card is actually a Packard Bell modem/sound combo card with Aztech and Crystal chips (and Yamaha YMF289B-S). I'm using Aztech 2316 DOS drivers. Here's a photo of the card:
Recommend me a Creative ISA card
Interestingly, this card is as quiet as the Audician (both are much quieter than the Vibra16S CT2800) and sounds nearly identical to the Audician.

clueless1 wrote:

I tried a native serial mouse, and it crashes.

But it does not crash with the Audician right?
Native Serial mouse works without freezing here.

My two Aztech 2316 are not here yet but when they arrive I plan to make a comprehensive review.

James-F wrote:

clueless1 wrote:

I tried a native serial mouse, and it crashes.

But it does not crash with the Audician right?
Native Serial mouse works without freezing here.

My Audician is in a PS/2-only system, so I can't test. It does crash with the Audician/PS-2 combo though.