VOGONS


Reply 40 of 486, by schmatzler

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LSS10999 wrote:

Fortemedia FM801
It uses a proprietary technology to ensure compatibility, but it's not as compatible as ESS' TDMA. It uses about 1.8K of base memory, but many programs would crash with runtime errors or something, especially on my K8T890-based motherboards.

I can confirm that some games don't like the FM801's emulation.

While I can play games like Commander Keen 4 just fine and without any problems, Terminal Velocity won't even start, Descent I produces a very loud hissing sound in SB Pro mode and loops every sample after the first one played in SoundBlaster mode.

I can also play Schleichfahrt with the FM801 and it works well, the voices sound like 11KHz though, and they don't do that on an SB Live.

It's better than no sound at all and I just tested it because I don't have an alternative, since the SB Live! doesn't run on my new motherboard (GA6VXC74X), but for the future I've ordered an Aztech MMPro 16III. I last used that card back in the 90s, but I remember that it had excellent SoundBlaster compatibility.

"Windows 98's natural state is locked up"

Reply 41 of 486, by LSS10999

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I'm not certain about AU8830 right now... long ago I tested a Montego (AU8820) and was able to get DOS audio working properly on G31/P31 (ICH7) including digital audio, but with my current Montego II (AU8830) and a G41 motherboard (also ICH7) I could not get it working under FreeDOS 1.2. Even after loading the driver, programs still cannot see the presence of a Sound Blaster. The only thing the TSR made functional is the attached NEC XR385 daughterboard (MIDI 330H). FM appeared working but it was too quiet to be heard.

I'm using the driver from this post which allows using INIFILEDIR to locate the ini file (similar to this one, I think)... and testing it with the DIGPAK/MIDPAK development kit (DMKIT150) which is capable of testing both digitized audio and FM/GM music configurations. But now I'm not certain of the exact requirement needed for Sound Blaster Pro emulation itself to be usable.

EDIT: For some reason when I checked the IRQ assignment in HWiNFO I found that the chipset's PCIe Graphics Root Port is always assigned to the IRQ line of the installed Montego II, though I cannot 100% trust the tool as similar tools tend to be inaccurate, and in my past experiences reserving resources in BIOS usually has no effect in getting things working.

Reply 42 of 486, by vvbee

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schmatzler wrote:
LSS10999 wrote:

Fortemedia FM801
It uses a proprietary technology to ensure compatibility, but it's not as compatible as ESS' TDMA. It uses about 1.8K of base memory, but many programs would crash with runtime errors or something, especially on my K8T890-based motherboards.

I can confirm that some games don't like the FM801's emulation.

While I can play games like Commander Keen 4 just fine and without any problems, Terminal Velocity won't even start, Descent I produces a very loud hissing sound in SB Pro mode and loops every sample after the first one played in SoundBlaster mode.

My fm801 runs the shareware versions of descent and tv on a via mvp3 without fail.

Reply 43 of 486, by Srandista

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Because of this topic, I bought Terratec sound card with ESS Solo-1 chip recently, since it should work on my quite modern 775 board with VIA VT8237S southbridge. Will be testing it shortly.

But I have one additional question. Did somebody test that card with some wavetable attached on such a modern board? I would like to buy DreamBlaster X2, and since it's not something cheap, I would like to know, that it will work after I will receive it.

Socket 775 - ASRock 4CoreDual-VSTA, Pentium E6500K, 4GB RAM, Radeon 9800XT, ESS Solo-1, Win 98/XP
Socket A - Chaintech CT-7AIA, AMD Athlon XP 2400+, 1GB RAM, Radeon 9600XT, ESS ES1869F, Win 98

Reply 44 of 486, by ruthan

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Some data from my experimenting:
Audigy and SB !Live - Windows 98 compatible ones - are working with Conroe865, intel 865 chipset in pure Dos 7 (Windows 98 one).
Audigy and SB !Live - Windows 98 compatible ones - with AMD970 - AM3 - not working in pure DOS.
Audigy and SB !Live - Windows 98 compatible ones - on Core i Hasswell/ Broadwell boards Z97 i have Gigabyte board with PCI slots, i dunno, how are connected- not working in pure DOS.
Audigy and SB !Live - Windows 98 compatible ones - on X99 + PCIe to PCI controller - i tried it to be sure - not working in pure DOS.
On all board where is writing that pure dos audio is not working, i successfully tested that audio is working in Windows 98 (yeah even on X99:)

Now im trying Audigy -compatible one with Win98 on X58 boards.. Details are in other thread (included config and driver files):
Re: PCI Dos sound card which is working with modern motherboard, exists?
I managed to SB emulation driver to get loaded in EMM386 mode, but not have working sound in all games, except Blood / Duke3D setup utility - where testing sample for Music card playing fine and all - Adlin, Soundblaster and General Midi emulation mods are working.. bad everywere else sound is not detected or is not working, i dunno what is so especial on this setup utility, i tried even modern Quake 1, but all no sound.. Classic games like Warcrafts, Doom.. nothing and even Blood and Duke, where music card is detected, and se no sound for sound card, cant start after setup is saved with some related errors..

Someone mentioned modified driver for Y744, could you provide it and some tutorial how to install driver in DOS? I recenly bought AOPEN AW744L II Yamaha XG.

There is lots of -abbreviations. could you explain for normal mortals: // Add some legend to spredsheet
TSR
DDMA
DSDMA
TDMA

+ add info if there is some testing utility how to test them without buying and testing sometimes quite expensive (shipping is not your friend) sound cards to test.
It would be nice to have something like, utility which you output which sound cards will and will not working on certain MB.

Last edited by ruthan on 2018-11-23, 21:20. Edited 2 times in total.

Im old goal oriented goatman, i care about facts and freedom, not about egos+prejudices. Hoarding=sickness. If you want respect, gain it by your behavior. I hate stupid SW limits, SW=virtual world, everything should be possible if you have enough raw HW.

Reply 45 of 486, by ruthan

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Im trying to make Yamaha744 on Z97 board with 2 PCI slots, so far Music is working, sound effect dont, details are here:
Re: Yamaha YMF7x4 Guide

Im old goal oriented goatman, i care about facts and freedom, not about egos+prejudices. Hoarding=sickness. If you want respect, gain it by your behavior. I hate stupid SW limits, SW=virtual world, everything should be possible if you have enough raw HW.

Reply 46 of 486, by gdjacobs

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ruthan wrote:
There is lots of -abbreviations. could you explain for normal mortals: // Add some legend to spredsheet TSR DDMA DSDMA TDMA […]
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There is lots of -abbreviations. could you explain for normal mortals: // Add some legend to spredsheet
TSR
DDMA
DSDMA
TDMA

DDMA - Distributed DMA
A technology whereby the PCI controller on a computer redirects access requests for ISA bus resources to a PCI card through the PCI bus.

PC/PCI
A technology whereby access requests for ISA bus resources are redirected to a PCI card through a special 5 pin header. Also referred to as SB-Link.

TSR - Terminate and Stay Resident
A background program for DOS, often used to provide driver functionality.

  • DSDMA - A TSR from Yamaha to enable YMF-PCI sound cards to emulate a Sound Blaster hardware interface in software.
  • TDMA - A technology where the drivers of ESS PCI sound cards emulate a Sound Blaster hardware interface in software.

All hail the Great Capacitor Brand Finder

Reply 47 of 486, by ruthan

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Thanks for explanation.

Im old goal oriented goatman, i care about facts and freedom, not about egos+prejudices. Hoarding=sickness. If you want respect, gain it by your behavior. I hate stupid SW limits, SW=virtual world, everything should be possible if you have enough raw HW.

Reply 48 of 486, by PARUS

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ruthan, why do you try so hard with Live/Audigy cards? Don't you beleive that it says many times ago about PCI DMA (DDMA)? Do you want to check it yourself? You will not get anything new. DDMA is working on up to: Intel ICH5, VIA VT8237, SiS 964.

Reply 49 of 486, by ruthan

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PARUS wrote:

ruthan, why do you try so hard with Live/Audigy cards? Don't you beleive that it says many times ago about PCI DMA (DDMA)? Do you want to check it yourself? You will not get anything new. DDMA is working on up to: Intel ICH5, VIA VT8237, SiS 964.

From report what is working, i not clear which new chipsets were tested.. especially X58 is not typical desktop pc board chipset, so i want to try it. Live! / Audigy is great card for other OSes, still have drivers even for Windows 10..

Im old goal oriented goatman, i care about facts and freedom, not about egos+prejudices. Hoarding=sickness. If you want respect, gain it by your behavior. I hate stupid SW limits, SW=virtual world, everything should be possible if you have enough raw HW.

Reply 50 of 486, by Srandista

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It doesn't really matter, that it's not typical desktop board chipset. It comes after ICH5 southbridge and therefore DDMA is not supported on it.

Socket 775 - ASRock 4CoreDual-VSTA, Pentium E6500K, 4GB RAM, Radeon 9800XT, ESS Solo-1, Win 98/XP
Socket A - Chaintech CT-7AIA, AMD Athlon XP 2400+, 1GB RAM, Radeon 9600XT, ESS ES1869F, Win 98

Reply 51 of 486, by gdjacobs

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DDMA is not required for SBINIT. Still, this combination is far from a guarantee of success.

All hail the Great Capacitor Brand Finder

Reply 52 of 486, by PARUS

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ruthan, do you understand the words UP TO? You may test millions newer chipsets and you will not get anything as I said.

I know that you want to build ultimate all-in-one machine. And I like it, really. But remember what you can do and what you can't. I advise to forget about emu10k on new chipsets in DOS. You just spend your time and make headache. You will not get result.

Reply 53 of 486, by ruthan

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PARUS wrote:

ruthan, do you understand the words UP TO?

Well i do, but unless i will see results - in form of matrix like this:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1cvhr6 … K4l0/edit#gid=0
where is tested every chipset with particular card type, i will exploit my benefit of doubt.

By the way, my result is not total disaster.. Blood / Duke setups.. was capable play the music, its interesting how it is possible.. there is very small change, but theoretically someone could write for wrapper - address remapper to make more games working, in my eyes it make at least sense as project like Adlib on LPT port, which is supporting maybe 10 games and as quite expensive.

I heard in the past lots of urban legends about that something is not possible and i did for someone crazy thing like Windows 98 on X99 board or XP on Z370.
I case of X58 i finally won with Yamaha 744, but problem is that this card has not drivers for modern OS - except Linux, so there is still room for something better, i now i could use 2 sound cards + mixer board, but im greedy gamer.

Im old goal oriented goatman, i care about facts and freedom, not about egos+prejudices. Hoarding=sickness. If you want respect, gain it by your behavior. I hate stupid SW limits, SW=virtual world, everything should be possible if you have enough raw HW.

Reply 54 of 486, by PARUS

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You're a hero. I wouldn't do it for midi in several games.
How do you think about Windows 98/ME on these modern boards? OK, in DOS we can take YMF7x4 (DSDMA) or Vortex2 and they will work with 90% games. And how about Win98? You can find AGP-to-PCI adapter https://pp.userapi.com/c849336/v849336835/b0f … QwPAmoqZuRs.jpg for video cards. But chipset driver??? HDD, USB etc

I also have built the "all-in-one" machine but it has Windows98 support and even ISA bus. It's 865 chipset. Now I want to try one of 945/31/41 boards with ICH7 bridge, it also supports Win98 but no ISA DMA and DDMA 🙁, therefore only YMF/Vortex will work. I know only one ICH7 based mobo which has ISA and LPC DMA. It is Portwell RUBY-9719VG2AR http://www.tmeeco.eu/BitShit/RUBY-9719VG2AR.jpg and it requires hardware (as on this picture) and software rework for proper DMA support.

My current "all-in-one" build is
i865
CPU Core2
RAM 4GB (512MB for W98 via burnmem.sys)
AGP HD3850 (XP, 8.1)
PCI FX5700LE (98, DOS)
X-Fi (XP)
Live! (98 and mixer for DOS)
ISA sound

Reply 55 of 486, by Tiido

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That motherbard is mine 😜

It only requires software to run (to set up IO ranges, IRQ and DMA are not a problem), the wire seen on the photo was an experiment to see if any LPC bus DREQ line works or a specific one (and any work, no need for specific ones).
Software is here : http://www.tmeeco.eu/TKAYBSC/RUBYISA.EXE
Readme : http://www.tmeeco.eu/TKAYBSC/RUBYISA.TXT
Screenshot : http://www.tmeeco.eu/TKAYBSC/RUBYISA.PNG

Last edited by Tiido on 2018-07-02, 17:18. Edited 1 time in total.

T-04YBSC, a new YMF71x based sound card & Official VOGONS thread about it
Newly made 4MB 60ns 30pin SIMMs ~
mida sa loed ? nagunii aru ei saa 😜

Reply 57 of 486, by ruthan

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How do you think about Windows 98/ME on these modern boards? OK, in DOS we can take YMF7x4 (DSDMA) or Vortex2 and they will work with 90% games. And how about Win98? You can find AGP-to-PCI adapter https://pp.userapi.com/c849336/v8493368 ... oqZuRs.jpg for video cards. But chipset driver??? HDD, USB etc

- Windows 98 is proven to run on everything up to Z170 for Intel, i personally did Z97 and X99 +5960X, AM3 is also not problem. Ryzen is for now dead end and i dont know nobody who tested Z270 or Z370 test (i should be very similar to Z170).. If you care about pure DOS and sound within you could get up to X58 - there are at least 2 users - include me, which could confirm that it is working from Pure Dos up to Windows 10, Linux and even Hackingtosh is possible with them. I can say that Z97+ - is dead end for pure Dos audio for now, i didnt tested but someone sayin that Yamaha SB would work on anything with native PCI slots - it means that H/Z 6x/7x and maybe even 8x will work.
- Z170 board had not Bios IDE mode - you need some knowledge from rLoew or external controller- he know how to do it.. 4 months of MSFN history are lost some there is no link..
- from X99 above, i also hit 1 stuppidity, but BIOS for 32 bit OSes, which dont give fuck about them and you have only for example 1 GB or 1.5 GB free memory f[or them available, is just but address space mapping - i had that problem with MSI board, Gigabyte and Supermicro boards are proven ok and as probably all other but i cant guarantee it.. - i would avoid MSI and Asrock.
- i also met some X99 / X58 board, which has not more PCI-E v1 cards, compatibility.. MSI X99 - after only 920 MB ram fix for 32 bit, there lots PCI-E v1 compatibility, 1 X99 from Gigabyte is not working with ATI PCI-E v1 cars.. HP O.E.M X58 board, when Geforce 7 card is used from boot is everything very, very slow.. last Nvidia Geforce 7 firmware used, last HP bios used.
- there is some myth than PCI-E is not working with Windows 98, its working for GPUs and Network card at least, if there is driver
- last officially supported GPU are Geforce 7xxx and ATI X300 - X850, i would recommend ATI because of with Nvidia afaik not working Dosbox W98 dosbox fullscreen - that is Nvidia driver bug, there also problem with 512MB Nvidia cards - you need rLoew paid patch. More modern cards works - with Russian bear driver, but only 2D.
- must have is IDE disk controller - or at least Sata controller (AHCI) set to IDE mode and even than for full speed you need paid patch from rLoew, native IDE controller are ok
- chipset drivers - to put it simple you dont need them, Linux also working without vendor specific drivers, you could have some unknow devices because of MB, but there not esenssial for any SW execution.. Its sample as integrated LAN, Soundcards etc - there are simple not driver for them for old OSes, but its not blocking anything..
- USB is good to have board with some USB2 ports, after than you could try Maximus decim drivers, on AMD970 and one you mine Z97 board they worked, otherwise you need PCI USB2 controller, for PCI-E boards also PCIe-PCI controller.. Its everythine good to have on board more USB controllers from multiple vendors - bigger chance to find some Windows 98 ports.
With PS/2 mouse + keyboard you could live without USB at all, only good thing in Windows 98 are flashdrives (its not Windows 98 native, but its USB drivers dependend) - only FAT32 and USB soundcards - if you dont have PCI soundcard..
- its good to have board with Primary GPU slot selection for multiple GPUs, new one for modern OSes - only Gigabyte has such feature, otherwise you need to have old GPU as primary and for modern OS something what is called dual GPU stunt (just annoying configuration way how to make for modern OS not primary GPU working..).. Nvidia / Nvidia combination means some additional problem with modern OSes ATI/Nvdia its bettter.. You cant have 2 different Nvidia drivers version active at same time (same path problem) and Windows is trying to make it happens - install drivers for every device.
- HDD / SSD if you use Grub bootloader you could have everything on more disk.. Dont forget enable DMA for HDD or you will suffer with 3-4 MB/s transfer rate. Disk controller has to have Windows 98 driver (VIA / Micron), or you need paid rLoew patch for bigger speed.
- Network card - if you are ok with 100 MB/s - Intels, Realteks card are working, i have found one 3com PCI - Gigabit card capable of Windows 98.. and even one Broadcom PCI-E - but its ATX Windows 98 shutdown, what is common issues with newer boards - you have to shutdown it manually.
- RAM - im using HimemX to limit memory to 512 MB for installation, later to 1024MB and 64 MB for Pure Dos, rLoew has patches for even more than 1 GB for Windows 98 - paid - 10/20$ something like than..
- it strongly recommend to use PS2 mouse and keyboards

Windows 98 installation:
- i recommend use USB for it, formatted like USB-FDD, copy installation files there, run setup with parameters to dont test anything, parameter "/p i" are essential.
You really dont need any long tutorial for make Window 98 installation flash, just need basic autoexec/config and bootable USB flash with Dos - same as for Bios upgrades etc..
- after 1 restart you get memory error, there is time to install HimemX.exe and patch IO.sys (w98iopat.exe once - it will fix safe mode) for more than 512 MB Ram
- from there is everything normal..
=> now its hammer time - messing with drivers to make all working. - I recommend often create partition image from modern Windows.. You could hit classic Windows 98 IRQ conflict hell, Windows condom error(protection error) - its same as on old MBs.
- device for XP and newer, will just unknow or device without driver and its good to disable them in device manager - i mean Sound card or GPU for modern OS

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Im old goal oriented goatman, i care about facts and freedom, not about egos+prejudices. Hoarding=sickness. If you want respect, gain it by your behavior. I hate stupid SW limits, SW=virtual world, everything should be possible if you have enough raw HW.

Reply 58 of 486, by PARUS

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Yeah, I know almost all you just have said. Maximum nVidia GPU is Ti4600 AGP4X. Ti4800 and Ti4800SE have DOS bug already. I did all these tests many times except newer motherboards.
HimemX is not best choice, afaik it doesn't work with standard himem.sys, I use burnmem.sys+himem.sys. Yes, usually Win98 is working with 1024 limited and sometimes even 2048. But not always, in other cases you must limit RAM to 512.
If a board has not Primary Video Selection it is not a choice for multiboot, it's really terrible!

Reply 59 of 486, by ruthan

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PARUS wrote:

HimemX is not best choice, afaik it doesn't work with standard himem.sys, I use burnmem.sys+himem.sys. Yes, usually Win98 is working with 1024 limited and sometimes even 2048. But not always, in other cases you must limit RAM to 512.

HimemX has any problems with Himem.sys, because its just replacer, if understand it correctly, its Freedos version of himem.sys, so i was probably tested upside down.
But pleas post your burnmem.sys configuration lines, its good to have some alternative, i wouldnt be surprised if some my game incompatibilities would be HimemX.exe problem, its worth to try..

Im old goal oriented goatman, i care about facts and freedom, not about egos+prejudices. Hoarding=sickness. If you want respect, gain it by your behavior. I hate stupid SW limits, SW=virtual world, everything should be possible if you have enough raw HW.