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Recommend a PCI Sound Card for DOS

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Reply 40 of 127, by Kamerat

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dr.zeissler wrote:
First attempt: Creative PCI 128 - Does not work at all, no sound under plain Dos, no Digi, no Adlib, no nothing. Glx does not fi […]
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First attempt: Creative PCI 128
- Does not work at all, no sound under plain Dos, no Digi, no Adlib, no nothing. Glx does not find it, setblaster does not find it.

Second attempt: ESS-Solo1
- Win31 driver installs the Dosdriver, Adlib is working everywhere, Digi is working in all Demos/Intros but only in very view games. GLX finds a SBpro and works really fine, setblaster finds it, Win3x is working fine.

What happens when you try to initialize and load the TSR for the Creative PCI 128?

I don't think you gonna get the Solo-1 to work very well in DOS on your motherboard, it seems more compatible with a wider range of VIA chipsets with TDMA or DDMA modes.

DOS Sound Blaster compatibility: PCI sound cards vs. PCI chipsets
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Reply 41 of 127, by Deksor

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I got pinball fantasies working with sound on my pentium 2 with the YMF724 using the SB_link.

The only issue was that the sound had a noise, but that was due to the cpu's speed. Desactivating the caches fixed it

I didn't play with it a lot, but for all that time since I made it work correctly under dos, I did not have any issues with every games I've tried under dos 7.1

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Reply 42 of 127, by dr.zeissler

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cpucache on/off via software does not work with emm386 loaded, before that I have to figure out how to get qemm386 loaded, or go for himem only instead. afaik my d1321 does not have an "sb-link".

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Reply 43 of 127, by gerwin

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dr.zeissler wrote:

cpucache on/off via software does not work with emm386 loaded

Try the program in my signature with commands 'SetMul L1D' and 'SetMul L1E'.

--> ISA Soundcard Overview // Doom MBF 2.04 // SetMul

Reply 44 of 127, by dr.zeissler

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Thx for that tool. It detects my chipset, but I can only change the state of the L1 cache and it does not help at all.
Changing the PCI Slot does not help, Himem only, or with EMM and Qemm without "Ram" does not help either.

Interesting is, that if I choose "Adlib" in PinballDreams 1+2 or Pinball Fantasies I always get the Digisounds, but they don't
sound very nice, there is a sort of "crackeling-noise" that 's louder in PB-Fanatsies, but PD1 and 2 are "OK".

I think I'll have to test another PCI-Card because the AD1885 does not work at all under plain dos.

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Reply 45 of 127, by dr.zeissler

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I changed it back and made a second attempt to go for the 128PCI, but no way, driver loads, no errors, but no sound at all, no fm no digi.
the "test-prg" says "no sb found", that's stupid. I also get an error when loading windows with this card, I can't figure out what the massage
"says". So I changed back to the solo1 and it works way better.

Doom1 is working fine out of the box. Doom2 with the same! configuration does not play digi, only the FM.
WWF4 and MortalKombat2 are working fine YES!
Spear3d is also working yeah!

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Reply 46 of 127, by melbar

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gerwin wrote:

PC/PCI using a Physical SB-LINK connection:
I have seen it supported on the AWE-64 and ESS Solo-1 soundcards.

gerwin wrote:

Valnar: The Yamaha YMF-724 would be a good choice provided you get a compatible motherboard, right?

It is a good choice indeed, IMHO the best PCI based SB-Pro emulation including genuine OPL-3 FM music. It lacks a bit on the general midi music support for pure dos: It can use an external midi device through the joystick port if you have one, but has no header for a daughterboard midi device.

According what i've seen here on vogons, the YMF-724 and the ESS solo-1 are the only pci soundcards with sb-link interface, right?

Why are there 'ESS solo-1' cards with and not with both of these useful features...
http://www.pc-schnulli.de/hardw/skpci/trskpci.html
1) sb-link interface = yes, wavetable header = no
2) sb-link interface = no, wavetable header = yes

Better would be a pci card with both features: Best compatibility through PC-PCI & good Midi music through a wavetable board.

Edit: Maybe let's shift this topic to sound...

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Reply 47 of 127, by Deksor

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dr.zeissler wrote:

Interesting is, that if I choose "Adlib" in PinballDreams 1+2 or Pinball Fantasies I always get the Digisounds, but they don't
sound very nice, there is a sort of "crackeling-noise" that 's louder in PB-Fanatsies, but PD1 and 2 are "OK".

Isn't the game using the OPL3 as a DAC ? I think I heared that there was some tweaks allowing you to play waveform files on the original Adlib though this is ressource hungry (at least for period correct hardware) and that like you said, it doesn't sound really clean.

@melbar
This may sound odd, but to me, YMF7x4's biggest issue is ... that it's "only" sb pro compatible at best which means that you only have 8 bit/22KHz audio at best (or if this can be avoided, I'd like to know how). Sure it doesn't sound terrible and this could be said to most sbpro clones that spread over the 90's, but to me it's a shame that there was no good alternative to the Sound Blaster 16 for sfx when you know how bad some of them can be and that creative's PCI card aren't as compatible as this one like this topic shows us. Maybe the AWE64 pci could be considered on the same level, but then, with that card you don't have sbpro compatibility nor real OPL3 just like the ISA one I guess. If it had SB16 compatibility, to me this would be THE ultimate sound card

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Reply 48 of 127, by gdjacobs

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melbar wrote:

According what i've seen here on vogons, the YMF-724 and the ESS solo-1 are the only pci soundcards with sb-link interface, right?

Also cards with the FM801 chipset and some Crystal Semi based cards. I believe there were a handful of Soundblaster 16 PCI cards that also had PC/PCI headers but I'm not sure.

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Reply 49 of 127, by Kamerat

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melbar wrote:
Why are there 'ESS solo-1' cards with and not with both of these useful features... http://www.pc-schnulli.de/hardw/skpci/trskpc […]
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Why are there 'ESS solo-1' cards with and not with both of these useful features...
http://www.pc-schnulli.de/hardw/skpci/trskpci.html
1) sb-link interface = yes, wavetable header = no
2) sb-link interface = no, wavetable header = yes

Maybe the the SB-LINK header interferes with some wavetable boards? Sometime I will try to solder an SB-LINK header to one of my Terratec boards, both my Dreamblaster S1 and X2 stays clear of it.

gdjacobs wrote:
melbar wrote:

According what i've seen here on vogons, the YMF-724 and the ESS solo-1 are the only pci soundcards with sb-link interface, right?

Also cards with the FM801 chipset and some Crystal Semi based cards. I believe there were a handful of Soundblaster 16 PCI cards that also had PC/PCI headers but I'm not sure.

Trident 4DWave-NX also does PC/PCI and some of ESS other chipsets like the Maestro-1. Never heard about Sound Blaster 16 PCI with PC/PCI, I think all of them were Ensoniq design.

DOS Sound Blaster compatibility: PCI sound cards vs. PCI chipsets
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Reply 50 of 127, by Scraphoarder

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keenmaster486 wrote:

Doc,

I've noticed that you've resurrected a few old threads... I recommend that you make new threads instead since necroposting is kind of annoying.

Personally i find it usefull to keep relevant replies/topic in one thread instead of making new ones regardless how old it is. Newer understood the angst for "Necroing" and why its not wanted. When i search an answer to and find it better with fewer hits with much info than a bunch of threads with few replies. Of course if it gets to big and off topic it can be problematic. I just got off topic 😊

Reply 51 of 127, by dr_st

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Scraphoarder wrote:

Personally i find it usefull to keep relevant replies/topic in one thread instead of making new ones regardless how old it is. Newer understood the angst for "Necroing" and why its not wanted. When i search an answer to and find it better with fewer hits with much info than a bunch of threads with few replies. Of course if it gets to big and off topic it can be problematic. I just got off topic 😊

The main reason is relevance. When you bump a thread that's 5 years old, a lot of the information in the earlier posts may be completely irrelevant, outdated, wrong. The mixture of old and new can confuse anyone reading through it now (especially if they do not immediately notice the date differences).

If the thread has been going on at a steady pace for several years, it is not as bad as if it's been forgotten and resurrected. Then it usually won't even be called 'necroposting'.

The other thing is that many people have opposite preferences to yours - they would rather have many short thread than one long one. It is often easier to navigate many short threads with specific topics, than a very long one that starts as something focused but ends up becoming very broad. Good luck finding the specific answer to your question by reading through 100 pages of tangential material.

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Reply 52 of 127, by Stiletto

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For example. Due to the thread bump, melbar quoted gerwin's and valnar's posts from 2008. May not have even realized he was doing it. Those posts are 10 freaking years old.

It's just good netiquette to not do that, Scraphoarder.

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do the Fandango!" - Queen

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Reply 53 of 127, by Scraphoarder

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Stiletto wrote:

For example. Due to the thread bump, melbar quoted gerwin's and valnar's posts from 2008. May not have even realized he was doing it. Those posts are 10 freaking years old.

It's just good netiquette to not do that, Scraphoarder.

I agree years is a strech, but i see some excuse to reply on a 3 month old thread. Would be better to leave a link to the old post in a new one if its too old.

Reply 54 of 127, by Stiletto

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Scraphoarder wrote:
Stiletto wrote:

For example. Due to the thread bump, melbar quoted gerwin's and valnar's posts from 2008. May not have even realized he was doing it. Those posts are 10 freaking years old.

It's just good netiquette to not do that, Scraphoarder.

I agree years is a strech, but i see some excuse to reply on a 3 month old thread. Would be better to leave a link to the old post in a new one if its too old.

Agreed.

Even though I'm against necroposting, I've never thrown a fit about a reply on a 3 month old thread. A 3 year old thread which hasn't been active in three years, I have.

"I see a little silhouette-o of a man, Scaramouche, Scaramouche, will you
do the Fandango!" - Queen

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Reply 55 of 127, by dr.zeissler

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Terratec ESS-Solo1 PCI Soundcard with PIII>500

I own this card and in my opinion it is the best soundcard if you still want to have music and sfx in older dosgames
and your machine has no isa-slot any more or a dos-compatible onboard-sound.

It has the ESS1936 chip and only need the "essolo.sys" loaded in the config.sys and the "essolo.com" in the autoexec.bat.
I think there is also a mixer tool for dos available.

Beside that, the solo1 has win9x wdm-drivers and also vxd-drivers. The vxd-driver also installs a "dos-compatible-device" in
the win98se device-manager. I still do load "essolo.sys" and "essolo.com" over config.sys/autoexec.bat before win98 boots up
and I have opl-sound and sfx in dos-games and dos-demos wihle running windows98se.

But there are some issues with some dos-games and their sounddrivers that I did not understand.

Prince1:
Prince of Persia runs fine in plain dos. I have opl-music and sfx. Fantastic!

Prince2:
I have opl-music and speech, but it stops/hangs after a view spoken lines in the intro 🙁

Pinball-Dreams 1/2/Fanatsies:
No way to get SB-Support. I only hear knack, knack, knack. 🙁
Adlib is working indeed, but sounds "scratchy" 🙁
Beside that, LPT-Dac also sounds "scratchy" 🙁

Epic-Pinball:
No sound at all 🙁

Pinball-Illusion:
No sound at all 🙁

Pinball Extreme:
Seems be be OK for me 😀 Don'T know why all the other Pinball games have these problems 🙁

Shadow-Warrior(Normal and 3dfx-Version):
Argh, I can't get any sound or music in this game, that's very bad 🙁
It uses some sort sound-engine that duke3d uses, BUT duke3d has the support for a DAC that could perhaps help me
getting sound and music in shadow-warrior?

Blake-Stone:
Runs fine, I have sound and music. Fantastic 😀

Biomance:
Somtimes Sound and music is detected, mostly not. 🙁

Lot's of cool Demos/Intros with either opl-music and/or disgisound run great.
Never got the working with another PCI-Card with a machine that fast 😀
Therefore still the best PCI-Soundcard if you target dos as well.

Is it possible to get even more games working with it?
Is there any option of "patching" shadow-warrior to recognize my Solo1 or getting LPT-Dac feature like in Duke3d?

Greetings
Doc

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Reply 57 of 127, by dr.zeissler

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Fujitsu-Siemens D1215 (ultra-small-edition) I'll take a picture of it.

Not my picture, but the same machine.

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Reply 58 of 127, by Kamerat

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I think the chipset of your motherboard might be the problem, looks like it got som kind of i815. For good DOS compatibility with the Solo-1 i suggest a motherboard with a VIA chipset or the i440BX (or a motherboard with PC/PCI connector). I might try out my Solo-1 in a Fujitsu-Siemens PC I got in my house that got the same kind of motherboard.

DOS Sound Blaster compatibility: PCI sound cards vs. PCI chipsets
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