Koveras wrote on 2020-11-12, 20:26:

Do you mean this chip?

I have a card that has ES1688 chip together with ES968 chip which is used to supplement PNP features and needs to be properly initialized in CONFIG.SYS. If your card doesn't have that, it's probably non-PNP and you shouldn't worry about CONFIG.SYS at all.

EDIT: I have noticed that you've posted a complete photo of your card, I have somehow missed it. Yes, your card is non-PNP.

Indeed, as I said, that card is not PnP, so it should work without any fuss (at least mine does).

If you are using /I:7 chances are it's conflicting with the Parallel Port. Go to BIOS and disable LPT1 and/or set IRQ 7 and DMA 1 to Legacy Mode ISA in BIOS settings.

Alternatively find the jumper settings and set it to IRQ 5 instead, then modify autoexec to /I:5 and SET BLASTER to I5

appiah4 wrote on 2020-11-13, 11:27:

If you are using /I:7 chances are it's conflicting with the Parallel Port. Go to BIOS and disable LPT1 and/or set IRQ 7 and DMA 1 to Legacy Mode ISA in BIOS settings.

Alternatively find the jumper settings and set it to IRQ 5 instead, then modify autoexec to /I:5 and SET BLASTER to I5

Thanks mate!
Now it works 😀

I don't now why I have to initialize ESSCFG on every time when MSDOS starts. Entries in autoexec.bat don't work.
How my autoexec looks:

1C:\Mouse\Mouse.exe
2C:\ES1688\ESSCFG.EXE /A:220 /I:7 /D:1 /B:330 /J:E
3C:\ES1688\ESSVOL.EXE /V:12 /L:8 /W:12 /M:0 /C:12 /S:12 /A:0
4PATH=C:\WINDOWS;C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND;C:\ATACR;%PATH%
5mode con codepage prepare=((852) C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\ega.cpi)
6mode con codepage select=852
7keyb pl,,C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\keybrd4.sys

Ah, glad to help, enjoy!

I am looking forward to owning an exact copy of your ES1688 card, one of the best among the lot. That card, Edison Gold-16 (ES688 version) and the Terratec Gold 16/96 (ES1868) are my favorite ESS cards.

Can anyone get sound in Rambo 3 (Adlib option) using a ESS1868/9 card in Dos. Is this just one game that simply doesn't work with the card.

I think I've read somewhere that ESS cards have somewhat unreliable Adlib compatibility even though they really shouldn't as it just FM synth. Maybe some games call Adlib functionality in some weird way.

Hi everyone I am late to this thread but I also own ISA and PCI versions of ESS 1868 and 1869 1938 AudioDrive cards respectively and I loved the FM synthesizer on them. Recently I found that someone has made a SoundFont of the ESFM synthesizer and it sounds quite similar although not exactly the same.

Has anyone tried this ESFM SoundFont? https://dropbox.com/s/s7muqffctbty4ju/ESFM.SF2?dl=1

It's a 703 MB file though made by some Japanese guy, I use it in Virtual MIDI Synth and then load the SF2 file. Give it a try, the MIDI sounds really nostalgic with it, quite similar to the original hardware ESFM.

Paar wrote on 2020-12-18, 07:58:

I think I've read somewhere that ESS cards have somewhat unreliable Adlib compatibility even though they really shouldn't as it just FM synth. Maybe some games call Adlib functionality in some weird way.

It has very good adlib compatibility, but it's not an exact copy. It was made to do its own things (much more powerful than SBPro's OPL3) but be compatible with what Adlib did. There are some very minor differences in tone, especially of noise / high-feedback sounds. Later SoundBlaster cards had similar differences when they stopped using the original Yamaha OPL2/OPL3 chips and begin using their own clone instead.

There might be differences that are less minor, but I haven't run into them yet. I'd say it's very good at being Adlib and SBPro compatible.

xpclient wrote on 2021-04-11, 11:47:

Hi everyone I am late to this thread but I also own ISA and PCI versions of ESS 1868 and 1869 AudioDrive cards.

Btw has anyone tried this ESFM SoundFont? https://dropbox.com/s/s7muqffctbty4ju/ESFM.SF2?dl=1

It's a 703 MB file though made by some Japanese guy, I use it in Virtual MIDI Synth.

There are no PCI ES1868/69 cards.

bloodem wrote on 2020-11-13, 06:52:

badmojo wrote on 2020-11-13, 06:43:

Why /I:7? 5 is more commonly used. And what sort of system are you running this bad boy in? If it's "modern" (PIII for example) then you might need to jump into the BIOS and set aside the relevant IRQ for your card so that nothing else grabs it.

IRQ 7 is actually more compatible. For example, in a game like Gods, some sounds are missing when using IRQ 5, however, on IRQ 7 all sound samples are working.

Whoo. I have been banging my head against this for months, i.e. why is Gods dropping bits of digital playback in the intro music..? I was indeed using IRQ 5. Just switched to IRQ 7 on my PAS16 and guess what? Flawless playback... Never knew that not using IRQ 7 could result in such side effects... Who needs LPT anyways 😀

Thanks!

I've literally just found one of these cards in our pile of WEE-waste at work, hence searching and finding this thread. It's a Compaq spare 247428-001. Looks pretty basic, no headers, jumpers or joystick port - just a CDROM audio in socket and some prongs to attach the PC speaker. Whether I use it or not, it needs saving 😉.

I have a bunch of different ESS based cards. I think is my favorite of the bunch, an Edison Gold 16. I still haven't been able to get the IDE CDROM interface to work, which is bummer... 🙁

ESS Edison Gold 16 IDE setup (help me troubleshoot)

appiah4 wrote on 2021-04-12, 09:37:

xpclient wrote on 2021-04-11, 11:47:

Hi everyone I am late to this thread but I also own ISA and PCI versions of ESS 1868 and 1869 AudioDrive cards.

Btw has anyone tried this ESFM SoundFont? https://dropbox.com/s/s7muqffctbty4ju/ESFM.SF2?dl=1

It's a 703 MB file though made by some Japanese guy, I use it in Virtual MIDI Synth.

There are no PCI ES1868/69 cards.

My bad. The ISA is ES1868 but the PCI card is ES1938. After all these years, forgot the model. 😊 Anyway, has anyone given the ESFM SoundFont a try? I found it pretty decent.

Can anyone tell me what J6 connector from the image in the topic is for?
Wrong image reference
Is that PC speaker? Also what AuxB volume control in 1868 card is?

darkpilot wrote on 2021-05-09, 12:53:

Also what AuxB volume control in 1868 card is?

AuxB controls the volume of the daughterboard attached to the card's wavetable header.

Thanks for the information.
Do you also know what J6 connector is for?

Ok looks like its Hardware Volume Control Connector.
Confirmed by screwdriver.

Today Unisound fixed my Doom II sound issues with the ES1868. Excellent tool/driver/magic thing.

Hello. I don't think i have a problem, but more of a query. Hence why i am going to post this in this thread rather than create a new one. I have an OEM ISA PnP ES1869F card which seems to be functioning fine. I have a dual bootup setup - Windows 98SE, and pure DOS. I have set it up just fine under Windows 98SE via the OEM VxD drivers. Now for DOS, i can't seem to change any of the settings/parameters in the ESSCFG utility that is used in my autoexec.bat (even by using the ! command - complains of an incorrect parameter). And on bootup, ESSCFG says ES1869 is configured by PnP or ICU. Luckily my ES1869F card seems to be configured correctly for use (IO:220 I:5 D0:1 D1:3 MPU:330 J:E), and games seem to find/work fine on it just fine: music, sound effects, and external MIDI wavetable. Tried the usual suspects, Doom, Duke 3D, Lemmings, Keen 4, few others - no issues (unless anyone can think of any other games to try?). So my question is, do i really need to include the ESSCFG in my autoexec.bat still if its correctly configured by default? I currently include it just to confirm/show it configuration on bootup, along with the ESSVOL settings. So the section in autoexec.bat looks like:

C:\AUDIODRV\ESSCFG.EXE
C:\AUDIODRV\ESSVOL.EXE /v:8 /l:0 /w:8 /m:0 /c:8 /s:8 /a:8 /p:0
C:\AUDIODRV\ESSVOL.EXE

Let me know guys, thanks! 😀

Thanks for your time.

CU_AMiGA wrote on 2022-06-19, 23:26:

Hello. I don't think i have a problem, but more of a query. Hence why i am going to post this in this thread rather than create […]
Show full quote

Hello. I don't think i have a problem, but more of a query. Hence why i am going to post this in this thread rather than create a new one. I have an OEM ISA PnP ES1869F card which seems to be functioning fine. I have a dual bootup setup - Windows 98SE, and pure DOS. I have set it up just fine under Windows 98SE via the OEM VxD drivers. Now for DOS, i can't seem to change any of the settings/parameters in the ESSCFG utility that is used in my autoexec.bat (even by using the ! command - complains of an incorrect parameter). And on bootup, ESSCFG says ES1869 is configured by PnP or ICU. Luckily my ES1869F card seems to be configured correctly for use (IO:220 I:5 D0:1 D1:3 MPU:330 J:E), and games seem to find/work fine on it just fine: music, sound effects, and external MIDI wavetable. Tried the usual suspects, Doom, Duke 3D, Lemmings, Keen 4, few others - no issues (unless anyone can think of any other games to try?). So my question is, do i really need to include the ESSCFG in my autoexec.bat still if its correctly configured by default? I currently include it just to confirm/show it configuration on bootup, along with the ESSVOL settings. So the section in autoexec.bat looks like:

C:\AUDIODRV\ESSCFG.EXE
C:\AUDIODRV\ESSVOL.EXE /v:8 /l:0 /w:8 /m:0 /c:8 /s:8 /a:8 /p:0
C:\AUDIODRV\ESSVOL.EXE

Let me know guys, thanks! 😀

Thanks for your time.

It's probably because your BIOS is an ISA Plug and Play BIOS. So (when everything works) it and Windows cooperate over the ESCD information flashed into the BIOS chip and it correctly configures your sound card even when booting directly to DOS mode. If you were doing this on a VLB 486 or early Socket 4/5 Pentium or similar with no such BIOS support, you would either have to use ESSCFG or 'restart in MS-DOS' mode from Windows 9x, since Windows 9x takes over the role of configuring ISAPnP devices by talking to the hardware directly if there is no BIOS support.

The ISA Plug and Play BIOS support was required for the "Designed for Windows 95" logo program, I believe, so it caught on quite quickly.