Revolter wrote on 2019-01-17, 00:24:

An update to my ESS Solo-1 compatibility list: […]
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An update to my ESS Solo-1 compatibility list:

• Added Descent to Undermountain - the sound engine is the same as with Descent 1 & 2 (it even uses the same test MIDI file);
  
  Added Earthworm Jim 1 - the sound engine is apparently identical to the EWJ2;
  
  Removed Wing Commander: Privateer - the problem turned out to be the RAM size (severe audio glitches may occur with >16Mb). Otherwise works perfectly with standard TDMA mode, and I have completed this game and its expansion from start to finish like that without a hitch;
  
  Quarantine is now compatible - patched/later versions of the game (I'm using the European edition - the one with the choice of languages upon start-up) work great with DOS/32A and a very specific slowdown level. The main problem with this game for me was that it's been constantly and randomly crashing, despite the perfectly working sound. Turns out the crashes only occur when the slowdown is too high - as in <25 FPS. I'm now using "Throttle.exe -c 6" command instead of "-c 7", and it didn't crash once ever since, and the Sound Blaster setting also works like it should. Success! Also the 1.0 version crashes no matter what, and the Demo version works perfectly even with TDMA and without DOS/32A;
  
  Turrican II is now compatible - the problem was a broken scene release. With proper version everything now works. Note that the sound init is speed-sensitive.

Only 2 games to go - if it is even possible 😀 I'll still try, though.

Hi there,

I am currently struggeling on the "muted" mpu401 interface of my ess-solo1 on i815e
...don't know why but the midi-music is barely audible, but it's there. I have to figure out where this came from...

I will also make a new approach on that compatibility-matrix you mentioned before. The machine has a ALI-Chipset and a K6-2/450.

Two other very problematic games:
- Rampage
- JimPower (combined Adlib/SFX Soundengine)

I checked the essfinit.bat again.

It's best to get the ESS on irq7 much better then on irq5.
With a combination of irq7 and "cpucache off" I got some games working. (Pinballdreams2/Pinballfantasies)

Issues:
- Turrican2 does work with "111" DMA Mode but the game freezes my machine after some minutes of gameplay 🙁
- Tyrian2k does sound scratchy/oversteered for the six, but it's working.
- JimPower has no sound at all regardless what settings.

Doc

But it seems I have not setup the MPU correctly. I can't here Dreamblaster Board on my MPU401 Interface.
That worked with the ESSOLO.SYS. Perhaps I did something wrong?

dr.zeissler wrote on 2021-04-26, 13:01:

Hi there,

I am currently struggeling on the "muted" mpu401 interface of my ess-solo1 on i815e
...don't know why but the midi-music is barely audible, but it's there. I have to figure out where this came from...

Hi, dr.zeissler,

Are you 100% sure it is not a hardware problem? Is the MPU-401 volume OK on other motherboards with different chipsets? Does adjusting the volume in DOS audio mixers from ESS change anything? Which operating systems you're experiencing this on? You're using the waveblaster header, correct?

dr.zeissler wrote on 2021-04-26, 21:37:

With a combination of irq7 and "cpucache off" I got some games working. (Pinballdreams2/Pinballfantasies)

Great! Nice find regarding the IRQ7 trick.

dr.zeissler wrote on 2021-04-26, 21:37:

- JimPower has no sound at all regardless what settings.

Do you mean Jim Power: The Lost Dimension in 3D? That's strange: it worked equally correct for me in TDMA, WBDMA and PC/PCI modes just now. Although this was a quick test with default DOS setting of CPU working at 37.5% of power, and I haven't tried running the game full speed.

dr.zeissler wrote on 2021-04-26, 21:37:

- Turrican2 does work with "111" DMA Mode but the game freezes my machine after some minutes of gameplay 🙁

That's interesting -- after how many minutes, exactly? I remember playing for the duration of ~10 several times, there were no problems. Which slowdown methods are you using, and on which exact CPU?

dr.zeissler wrote on 2021-04-26, 13:01:

- Rampage

Which one do you mean? The 1988 game only has PC Speaker, AFAIK, and the "modern remake" of 1997 is a Windows game.

BTW, I've since switched to a different i815 motherboard - one that has PC/PCI header, so it's now 100% compatibility (the Solo-1 is an absolute legend even in this use-case!) for me and I won't be maintaining the list any longer, unfortunately. I'll update it once more with the last batch of games tested:

Star Trek: The Next Generation - A Final Unity - WBDMA/Win - borderline playable (noticeable sound craclking throughout the game - but I managed to complete it without going insane 😀)
Vigilance on Talos V - WBDMA - borderline playable (slight sound skipping)
Interpose - WBDMA - infrequent quiet pops
Flies: Attack on Earth - N/A (sounds fine in Windows, but there's no FM music in Windows with WDM drivers; in DOS the FM plays fine, but sound doesn't work in any mode)
Dyna Blaster - N/A (it crashes with SFX enabled in any mode)
Aladdin - N/A (while it doesn't crash or anything - there is severe sound and music skipping, too much to enjoy the game)
Last Rites - WBDMA

dr.zeissler wrote on 2021-04-26, 21:37:

It's best to get the ESS on irq7 much better then on irq5.

Generally - yes (I recently found a 1992 game "Hooray for Henrietta" that only outputs digital samples with IRQ7 on our card), but there is at least one exception: Quarantine 🙁 For some reason it hates IRQ7 and doesn't start with sound, while running perfectly fine with IRQ5...

I'm trying to make use of the essinit.bat but it doesn't seem to do anything on my system. Pciset runs and seems to set the values, but when I check with essolo.com nothing has changed.

I am using an SIS530 motherboard (a GA-5smm) which has the 1938s built in so I wondered if that was the problem, but I did some digging and it is supposed to have the same vendor and device ids as the actual card. Also, the pxi2errl utility reports the device is present.

I've played with the batch file a lot, trying various values for IRQ and DMA but none of them seem to "stick."

Any idea why or what to do?

I really just need to be able to change the IRQ from the default of 5 and editing the essolo.ini file has no effect.

Lazer42 wrote on 2021-05-19, 01:07:

I'm trying to make use of the essinit.bat but it doesn't seem to do anything on my system. Pciset runs and seems to set the valu […]
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I'm trying to make use of the essinit.bat but it doesn't seem to do anything on my system. Pciset runs and seems to set the values, but when I check with essolo.com nothing has changed.

I am using an SIS530 motherboard (a GA-5smm) which has the 1938s built in so I wondered if that was the problem, but I did some digging and it is supposed to have the same vendor and device ids as the actual card. Also, the pxi2errl utility reports the device is present.

I've played with the batch file a lot, trying various values for IRQ and DMA but none of them seem to "stick."

Any idea why or what to do?

I really just need to be able to change the IRQ from the default of 5 and editing the essolo.ini file has no effect.

Did you load ESSOLO.SYS? It seems that file is responsible for routing the IRQ to the desired one.

However, the card works best (more stable) if it could be made to actually take up IRQ5.

Lazer42 wrote on 2021-05-19, 01:07:

when I check with essolo.com nothing has changed

You're supposed to only use the batch file with PCISET, completely omitting the essolo.com (also make sure it's not in your autoexec.bat). What probably happens in your case is: you're initiating & setting the card up the right way, but then resetting the settings back to default by running the original driver.

Revolter wrote on 2021-05-19, 14:58:

Lazer42 wrote on 2021-05-19, 01:07:

when I check with essolo.com nothing has changed

You're supposed to only use the batch file with PCISET, completely omitting the essolo.com (also make sure it's not in your autoexec.bat). What probably happens in your case is: you're initiating & setting the card up the right way, but then resetting the settings back to default by running the original driver.

Hmmm, I did think of that but it didn't seem to be the case. For one thing, I didn't use the essolo.sys in config.sys, which is what I understood changed the settings (over essolo.com). I was thinking essolo.com was really just reporting what essolo.sys had configured.

Either way, I did try two things. First, I've tried entirely omitting either the .sys or the .com in the config/autoexec and running games using only the PCISET batch file, but the games don't seem to recognize that a card exists when I do that. I understand that being able to just use PCISET to "initialize" the card is the idea, but it's not working when I try it, including if I set a BLASTER variable.

Second, the main reason I was trying to do this was so I could run an SB16 in the computer along with the ESS Solo, using the SB16 as the default at 220/5/1 for most games and the Solo at 240/whatever/whatever for games which were triggering my card's particularly bad DMA bug. The problem is that I couldn't get the ESS to use an IRQ other than 5 so the CT2230 could have it. I was able to change everything else by editing the ESSOLO.INI file, but the IRQ doesn't respond to that file - so in any event, after trying to set a different IRQ on the ESS with the batch file and then using the SB16's DIAGNOSE utility to try to assign the SB16 to IRQ 5, it still says IRQ 5 is unavailable.

I've struggling with ESS SOLO-1 and Abit KT7a. On my Asus P3B-F when I set the card in bios to IRQ 7, it shows up at IRQ 7. No problem there.

But with Abit KT7A whatever I set in bios, it shows the IRQ what I se right at boot but in DOS the damn IRQ is ALWAYS at 5. Whatever I do, it's always 5.
I don't want it to be in 5 because Gravis Ultrasound is there.

Hunted down PCISET -program and tried the batch but it didn't work at all.

edit: figured it out, dont load essolo.sys

Srandista wrote on 2019-03-15, 12:46:

Well, it turns out, that it's a incompatibility issue with newer version of VIA VT8237S chipset on SATA2 revision of the board. Today I finally swapped the board for 775Dual-VSTA with older VT8237A chipset, which I bought recently, and everything started working immediately. I'm getting sound in DOS, XP and also in 98 now. Hopefully I will find 4CoreDual-VSTA in future, and for sure will test this on it as well. SATA2 isn't important for me in the slightest, HDDs from that time couldn't even saturate SATA1, but missing sound in 98 was real showstopper for me.

Which driver did you use? On a motherboard with the VT8237S the Windows 98 driver version 4.12.01.1165 as found on Phil's computer lab website would not start. However installing a newer driver, 5.12.01.3047 specifically, solved the issue. There's also an issue with the ES1938 DOS driver on Phil's computer lab website which lacks ESSOLO.INI. I've attached both working drivers (DOS and Windows 98) to this post: Re: ESS 1938 under DOS

Those are WDM drivers however. I specifically wanted to use VxD drivers, which I was not able to get working with 4CoreDual-SATA2. Anyway, doesn't really matter tho, since I replaced SATA2 board with VSTA one and on it, everything works as I want to. Thanks for the testing however, it's much appreciated.

I did not have any luck with a Solo 1 connected via SB-Link to my QDI Platinix2 (P4 845 based system).

My PCI-based bridges are as follows (PCISniffer):
8086_2440 - 82801BA ISA Bridge LPC
8086_244E - 82801 PCI Bridge

I ran the PCISET commands in autoexec as follows:

1pciset 1969 125D 41 10111111 00010000
2pciset 1969 125D 40 11111111 01111111
3pciset 1969 125D 52 00000001 00000010
4pciset 1969 125D 51 01100111 00000010
5pciset 1969 125D 50 00011100 00000000
6pciset 1969 125D 61 11111111 00000000
7pciset 1969 125D 60 11110001 00000000

Most important is register 52, where I change the last three digits to 010 to enable PC/PCI (SBLink) mode.

The set blaster variable was also declared as follows SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 T4

Checking with ESSOLO.COM shows "TDMA Mode" selected.

Running Turrican2 causes a system crash (black screen) if configured to run with this sound configuration (otherwise loads and runs fine).

There is no "PNP OS Installed" in the BIOS, but disabling ACPI is possible (APM mode), and setting IRQ 10 to "reserved" causes the card to run on IRQ5 at boot time.

Anyone have any suggestions? Also, is it possible to run PCISET in a less verbose mode?

One thing I think I'm going to try is hooking up my Yamaha 724 just for a sanity check, to make certain the SBLink header on this motherboard is in fact operational, because I have used my Yamaha with SBLink on a different board before successfully.

Thanks

I am realy lost trying to get dos sound with my terratec ess solo-1, my Southbridge is a VIA VT8237A and the board is an Asus K8V-VM. I have tried multipal windows drivers and different dos drivers but no matter what i try i am unable to get the card detected in dos, it works fine in windows. I have been unable to change the setting of the dos driver even after editing the essolo.ini and deleating out the config.sys entry.
I am at a loss with pciset and the bat file as i have no idea of how to use them. If someone could point me in the right direction it would help a lot.

vermillion wrote on 2021-12-23, 20:05:

I am realy lost trying to get dos sound with my terratec ess solo-1, my Southbridge is a VIA VT8237A and the board is an Asus K8V-VM. I have tried multipal windows drivers and different dos drivers but no matter what i try i am unable to get the card detected in dos, it works fine in windows. I have been unable to change the setting of the dos driver even after editing the essolo.ini and deleating out the config.sys entry.
I am at a loss with pciset and the bat file as i have no idea of how to use them. If someone could point me in the right direction it would help a lot.

Try disabling PnP OS and reserving IRQ5 and DMA1 in BIOS.

vermillion: I would be nice to tell as with error you are getting.. also info, if you tried with EMM386 or not etc.

appiah4 wrote on 2021-12-23, 20:31:

vermillion wrote on 2021-12-23, 20:05:

I am realy lost trying to get dos sound with my terratec ess solo-1, my Southbridge is a VIA VT8237A and the board is an Asus K8V-VM. I have tried multipal windows drivers and different dos drivers but no matter what i try i am unable to get the card detected in dos, it works fine in windows. I have been unable to change the setting of the dos driver even after editing the essolo.ini and deleating out the config.sys entry.
I am at a loss with pciset and the bat file as i have no idea of how to use them. If someone could point me in the right direction it would help a lot.

Try disabling PnP OS and reserving IRQ5 and DMA1 in BIOS.

PnP os is disabled and i have tried with IRQ5 in legacy mode but there is no option to reserve DMA in the bios that i can see

ruthan wrote on 2021-12-23, 21:05:

vermillion: I would be nice to tell as with error you are getting.. also info, if you tried with EMM386 or not etc.

If i reboot into dos or F8 at start and select command prompt i get audio drive not found. I have not tried with EMM386, would that make a difference in detection.
I have tried the dos driver and hex edited the essolo.ini but none of the settings change. When the driver loads it states it is in Tdma mode and sees the IRQ of the card but i can never get the driver to load the audio drive.
Edit
I have tried this in Autoexec.bat
SET BLASTER=A220 D1 I5 T4
LH C:\SOLO1\ESSOLO.COM
C:\SOLO1\ESSVOL.EXE /v:10 /l:0 /w:10 /m:0 /c:10 /s:10 /a:10 /p:0

and this in Config.sys
DEVICE=C:\Windows\HIMEM.SYS
DOS=HIGH,UMB
DEVICE=C:\Windows\EMM386.EXE NOEMS

If i add
DEVICEHIGH=C:\SOLO1\ESSOLO.SYS
To config.sys the system freezes on reboot.

vermillion wrote on 2021-12-23, 20:05:

I am realy lost trying to get dos sound with my terratec ess solo-1, my Southbridge is a VIA VT8237A and the board is an Asus K8V-VM. I have tried multipal windows drivers and different dos drivers but no matter what i try i am unable to get the card detected in dos, it works fine in windows. I have been unable to change the setting of the dos driver even after editing the essolo.ini and deleating out the config.sys entry.
I am at a loss with pciset and the bat file as i have no idea of how to use them. If someone could point me in the right direction it would help a lot.

vermillion wrote on 2021-12-23, 21:43:

If i reboot into dos or F8 at start and select command prompt i get audio drive not found. I have not tried with EMM386, would t […]
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If i reboot into dos or F8 at start and select command prompt i get audio drive not found. I have not tried with EMM386, would that make a difference in detection.
I have tried the dos driver and hex edited the essolo.ini but none of the settings change. When the driver loads it states it is in Tdma mode and sees the IRQ of the card but i can never get the driver to load the audio drive.
Edit
I have tried this in Autoexec.bat
SET BLASTER=A220 D1 I5 T4
LH C:\SOLO1\ESSOLO.COM
C:\SOLO1\ESSVOL.EXE /v:10 /l:0 /w:10 /m:0 /c:10 /s:10 /a:10 /p:0

and this in Config.sys
DEVICE=C:\Windows\HIMEM.SYS
DOS=HIGH,UMB
DEVICE=C:\Windows\EMM386.EXE NOEMS

If i add
DEVICEHIGH=C:\SOLO1\ESSOLO.SYS
To config.sys the system freezes on reboot.

Loading ESSOLO.SYS high may not be a good idea. Try using DEVICE instead of DEVICEHIGH to see if system still freezes. I don't think PnP OS is a problem as personally I always keep that enabled for multibooting with more modern OSes.

You may try reserving IRQ5 (or maybe DMA1) from BIOS if another device is taking it. However, from my personal experiences, IRQ/DMA reserving only works as intended on older chipsets. On newer chipsets, even though it will indeed move devices away from the problematic IRQ/DMA, it does not really fix the issue as what doesn't work remains not working. You probably need to swap or reinstall whatever PCI devices you installed to find out which device/slot caused the conflict.

The ideal way is to find a slot combination that'll eventually make your sound card take IRQ5. ESSOLO.SYS may be omitted if that's the case.

LSS10999 wrote on 2021-12-24, 00:32:

Loading ESSOLO.SYS high may not be a good idea. Try using DEVICE instead of DEVICEHIGH to see if system still freezes. I don't t […]
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vermillion wrote on 2021-12-23, 20:05:

I am realy lost trying to get dos sound with my terratec ess solo-1, my Southbridge is a VIA VT8237A and the board is an Asus K8V-VM. I have tried multipal windows drivers and different dos drivers but no matter what i try i am unable to get the card detected in dos, it works fine in windows. I have been unable to change the setting of the dos driver even after editing the essolo.ini and deleating out the config.sys entry.
I am at a loss with pciset and the bat file as i have no idea of how to use them. If someone could point me in the right direction it would help a lot.

vermillion wrote on 2021-12-23, 21:43:

If i reboot into dos or F8 at start and select command prompt i get audio drive not found. I have not tried with EMM386, would t […]
Show full quote

If i reboot into dos or F8 at start and select command prompt i get audio drive not found. I have not tried with EMM386, would that make a difference in detection.
I have tried the dos driver and hex edited the essolo.ini but none of the settings change. When the driver loads it states it is in Tdma mode and sees the IRQ of the card but i can never get the driver to load the audio drive.
Edit
I have tried this in Autoexec.bat
SET BLASTER=A220 D1 I5 T4
LH C:\SOLO1\ESSOLO.COM
C:\SOLO1\ESSVOL.EXE /v:10 /l:0 /w:10 /m:0 /c:10 /s:10 /a:10 /p:0

and this in Config.sys
DEVICE=C:\Windows\HIMEM.SYS
DOS=HIGH,UMB
DEVICE=C:\Windows\EMM386.EXE NOEMS

If i add
DEVICEHIGH=C:\SOLO1\ESSOLO.SYS
To config.sys the system freezes on reboot.

Loading ESSOLO.SYS high may not be a good idea. Try using DEVICE instead of DEVICEHIGH to see if system still freezes. I don't think PnP OS is a problem as personally I always keep that enabled for multibooting with more modern OSes.

You may try reserving IRQ5 (or maybe DMA1) from BIOS if another device is taking it. However, from my personal experiences, IRQ/DMA reserving only works as intended on older chipsets. On newer chipsets, even though it will indeed move devices away from the problematic IRQ/DMA, it does not really fix the issue as what doesn't work remains not working. You probably need to swap or reinstall whatever PCI devices you installed to find out which device/slot caused the conflict.

The ideal way is to find a slot combination that'll eventually make your sound card take IRQ5. ESSOLO.SYS may be omitted if that's the case.

Tried with DEVICE but still freezing. I can get the card to take IRQ5 no problem without the essolo.sys file but the audiodrive not found is always recurring. i have two pci slots and have used both trying all combinations of reserving IRQ's. I also cleaned my autoexec.bat and tried:
@ECHO OFF
C:\DRV\ESS\PCISET\PCISET.EXE 1969 125D 41 10111111 00010000 > NUL
C:\DRV\ESS\PCISET\PCISET.EXE 1969 125D 40 11111111 01111011 > NUL
C:\DRV\ESS\PCISET\PCISET.EXE 1969 125D 52 00000001 00000000 > NUL
C:\DRV\ESS\PCISET\PCISET.EXE 1969 125D 51 01100111 00000001 > NUL
C:\DRV\ESS\PCISET\PCISET.EXE 1969 125D 50 00011100 00000000 > NUL
C:\DRV\ESS\PCISET\PCISET.EXE 1969 125D 61 11111111 00000000 > NUL
C:\DRV\ESS\PCISET\PCISET.EXE 1969 125D 60 11110001 00000000 > NUL
SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 T4
But system freezes on reboot.
I think it may be a dma issue but there are no options in the bios to change this.

Edit
I have also tried my Fortemedia FM801-AU card and this is working, and is on the same blaster settings but the sound is poor ( low and with slight interference) so would that mean not a dma issue for the ess solo.

Just checked my files, ESS Solo-1 should work with EMS too.