More tests done with the "problem games" listed above. Tests were done on the PlatiniX 2E/333, 2.66GHz, YMF724 card with SB-link configured for 220, IRQ5, DMA1; MS-DOS 6.22 with himem.sys; no expanded memory/EMM386 used except as noted below. Results:

1. Games that work without any issues: Descent 1 (setup autodetect crashes, setup sound manually works, needs dos32a.exe to run instead of dos2gw.exe), Epic Pinball, Jill of the Jungle, Mega Man X, Prince of Persia, Sam&Max, Laura and the Dagger of Amon Ra

2. Work after some config work: Wing Commander 2 (without EMM386 only limited sound support: music+SFX work, speech no; with EMM386.exe all work including speech; also game runs too fast with default BIOS setup, but works at correct speed with CPU L1+L@ caches disabled)

3. Major issues:

a-Descent 2: setup can't autodetect sound, but can be set manually; doesn't allow testing of the sound settings though, unlike Descent1. In-game music works, but sound effects are absent. Tested with all available settings (SB, SBPro, SB16) same result.

b-Larry 1 (both the 1987 version and the 1991 rerelease): sound only through PC speaker. Can't figure out how to configure for anything else.

c-Dune: manually setup for SB and manually set IRQ to 5. GAme hangs at the "Cryo..." loading screen. Same happens with L1+L2 disabled. Needs hard reboot.

Police Quest 3 and Space Quest 1: both have the same issue (Sierra games). Manually set sound to SB in install program. Both games hang at loading with a blank screen and a mouse pointer in the middle. Need hard reboot. Same happens with L1+L2 disabled.

Testing the YMF744 with a KT133A-based motherboard (Abit KT7A). This motherboard does not have PC/PCI connector, but the datasheet states that it supports DDMA which is a valid method for setupds to set the board up for legacy sound. Using MS-DOS 6.22 with the same battery of tests (at least that was the plan).

However, at boot setupds states that it can't find a Yamaha board. The board is in, and configured in the BIOS to receive IRQ5. It is shown in the BIOS summary screen as "multimedia controller" (the motherboard doesn't have on-board sound and there are no other cards plugged in apart from the AGP VGA card). Still, setupds doesn't see it at all and refuses to initialize it.

Thus, I was unable to do any sound tests. And since the Aureal Vortex 2 card also failed to work properly on this motherboard Aureal Vortex 2 , I currently have no PCI sound cards that work reasonably in DOS with the KT133A chipset. Fortunately the motherboard has an ISA slot so it's not completely useless for DOS gaming.

I have a YMF724 working in my ABIT KT7-RAID with KT133 chipset in Real DOS 7.1
I also have a SB16 in there which Win98 doesn't pick up unless manually searching for it, it's a good combo.

stamasd wrote:

c-Dune: manually setup for SB and manually set IRQ to 5. GAme hangs at the "Cryo..." loading screen. Same happens with L1+L2 disabled. Needs hard reboot.

It has CPU speed issues linked with sound, so switching off cache may help. To run it with D-DMA needed: to run setup, then autodetect and only then to run the game itself.

The game "Quarantine" may to have issues. Needs slowdown.

Police Quest 3 and Space Quest 1: both have the same issue (Sierra games). Manually set sound to SB in install program. Both games hang at loading with a blank screen and a mouse pointer in the middle. Need hard reboot. Same happens with L1+L2 disabled.

Possibly initialization timings problem or resources issue. If the MB has, may be tried to rise delays for PCI, IRQ7, to set separate IRQs for SB and YMF native mode, to switch off more devices in BIOS, to remove resources assignment there for VGA and other, to use PCI slot without shared IRQ.

Imperious wrote:

I have a YMF724 working in my ABIT KT7-RAID with KT133 chipset in Real DOS 7.1

Can you tell me how you got it to work? I tested two KT133A motherboards with the YMF724, on both setupds says it can't find a yamaha card.

And another bit of weirdness, when I try to use instead the YMF744 card, the BIOS can't see it at all, does not assign an IRQ, does not report it present in the POST screen etc. This happens on both KT133A motherboards. The YMF744 card is tested good (I was worried it might have died since my previous tests, so when the above happened I put it back in a i845 chipset motherboard and it works there flawlessly).

stamasd wrote:

Imperious wrote:

I have a YMF724 working in my ABIT KT7-RAID with KT133 chipset in Real DOS 7.1

Can you tell me how you got it to work? I tested two KT133A motherboards with the YMF724, on both setupds says it can't find a yamaha card.

And another bit of weirdness, when I try to use instead the YMF744 card, the BIOS can't see it at all, does not assign an IRQ, does not report it present in the POST screen etc. This happens on both KT133A motherboards. The YMF744 card is tested good (I was worried it might have died since my previous tests, so when the above happened I put it back in a i845 chipset motherboard and it works there flawlessly).

I used a YMF744 on my Abit KT7E with success (modified SETUPDS so I could use DDMA mode with the 686B south bridge). Which KT133A motherboards are you trying to use?

stamasd wrote:

Imperious wrote:

I have a YMF724 working in my ABIT KT7-RAID with KT133 chipset in Real DOS 7.1

Can you tell me how you got it to work? I tested two KT133A motherboards with the YMF724, on both setupds says it can't find a yamaha card.

And another bit of weirdness, when I try to use instead the YMF744 card, the BIOS can't see it at all, does not assign an IRQ, does not report it present in the POST screen etc. This happens on both KT133A motherboards. The YMF744 card is tested good (I was worried it might have died since my previous tests, so when the above happened I put it back in a i845 chipset motherboard and it works there flawlessly).

I'll have a look tonight when I get home and then post the required information.

Kamerat wrote:

stamasd wrote:

Imperious wrote:

I have a YMF724 working in my ABIT KT7-RAID with KT133 chipset in Real DOS 7.1

Can you tell me how you got it to work? I tested two KT133A motherboards with the YMF724, on both setupds says it can't find a yamaha card.

And another bit of weirdness, when I try to use instead the YMF744 card, the BIOS can't see it at all, does not assign an IRQ, does not report it present in the POST screen etc. This happens on both KT133A motherboards. The YMF744 card is tested good (I was worried it might have died since my previous tests, so when the above happened I put it back in a i845 chipset motherboard and it works there flawlessly).

I used a YMF744 on my Abit KT7E with success (modified SETUPDS so I could use DDMA mode with the 686B south bridge). Which KT133A motherboards are you trying to use?

One is Abit KT7A, the other is a Chaintech with no model printed on it. I think it may be Chaintech 7AJA2. Here is a picture. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/107843342/chaintech.jpg (BTW on this motherboard the placement of the on-board audio CD-in connector is very poor as it physically prevents inserting a card with connectors in the lower part of the bracket in the second PCI slot - such as a sound card)

Ah, again modify PCI IDs? 😀

stamasd wrote:

One is Abit KT7A, the other is a Chaintech with no model printed on it. I think it may be Chaintech 7AJA2. Here is a picture. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/107843342/chaintech.jpg (BTW on this motherboard the placement of the on-board audio CD-in connector is very poor as it physically prevents inserting a card with connectors in the lower part of the bracket in the second PCI slot - such as a sound card)

Ah, again modify PCI IDs? 😀

Tried cleaning the PCI contacts of your sound cards?
Yes, this time I exchanged the ID of VIA 596 south bridge with the one for the 686 south bridge. Yamaha YMF7x4 Guide

I tried as I said I would. Unfortunately I had forgotten what a pig this was to get working, and after a few hours have gotten no where.

It did work previously though, as I remember using DSDMA after SETUPDS /S and all was good. This time however the computer just
reboots everytime DSDMA attempts to run. I tried all manner of different configurations, running YMFIRQ as well, nothing made any
difference. Basically I just get FM sound with no sound effects.
Last time I used it with the Dos 3dfx game Whiplash in pure dos and all worked ok. I have fitted a Radeon 9800xxl (cut down xt) since
but doubt that will be it, could be though.

Thanks all for your help. Unfortunately I'll be in an overtime crunch the rest of the week at the good ol' workplace so I won't be able to do any testing until sometime early next week.

The YMF744 card contacts are clean. It works as expected on Intel chipsets but isn't detected at all by the BIOS on either VIA chipset motherboards, in multiple PCI slots. Must be something weird about the card.

I'll try the modified setupds as soon as I have some time. @Imperious, that may be something you would need to get it going also.

So I found a few minutes and tested the modified setupds, and it works. But it's not perfect and the Yamaha cards definitely have some compatibility problems in DDMA mode on Via motherboards.
1. I had to set DMA channel to 0 in both setupds and in games, otherwise no sound.
2. Things that work: Doom, Duke3d both music and SFX
3. Things that kinda work: In Dune2 I get music and SFX but no voice.
4. Things that don't work: Xwing, The game doesn't run if I choose any sound option. It just hangs at a black screen - but it doesn't crash the computer, as it still responds to ctrl-alt-del. If I choose no sounds, the game runs but of course without sound.

stamasd wrote:

3. Things that kinda work: In Dune2 I get music and SFX but no voice.

If that SFX are done by DAC, then it's not sound card issue. Dune 2 may to need more free RAM.

Tertz wrote:

stamasd wrote:

3. Things that kinda work: In Dune2 I get music and SFX but no voice.

If that SFX are done by DAC, then it's not sound card issue. Dune 2 may to need more free RAM.

I have 610kB free conventional, plus plenty of XMS and EMS. The same setup on an Intel board gives me voice as well (I actually used the exact same CF card to test there).

BTW I did test one of these cards http://www.ebay.com/itm/4-Channels-5-1-Surrou … oAAAOSwymxVLpy2 (didn't buy it from this particular vendor, but it's the same card - there are several sellers it's avalable from at similar prices).

It is indeed a real Yamaha XG card, and works in DOS using DDMA. It doesn't have a PCPCI connector (nor a gameport, nor wavetable header), but I have a plan for a hardware mod for one of these cheap cards... stay tuned, I'm waiting for an order for some hardware to do the mod. In the meantime if your motherboard is DDMA-compatible you can try to use it for at least emulated SB and real OPL3 in DOS. In fact OPL3 should work even without DDMA. Think of it as a PCI AdLib card. 😀

The one difference I did notice compared to one of the full-featured YMF744 cards is that it tends to be picky as to which PCI slot it will work in. In some slots, no matter what I do I can only get sound from one channel, either R or L but not both. Go figure. Probably the low price is an indication of build quality. 😀

Thanks for posting about this cheap XG card, I might get one just for the fun of it.

Keep us posted as far as Your Modding goes.

stamasd wrote:

I have 610kB free conventional, plus plenty of XMS and EMS. The same setup on an Intel board gives me voice as well (I actually used the exact same CF card to test there).

maybe those sfx are done by FM

I did test one of these cards

Its CD may to have interesting too. (dreams) Win7 driver with FM suport, for example.

Imperious wrote:

Thanks for posting about this cheap XG card, I might get one just for the fun of it.

Keep us posted as far as Your Modding goes.

You're welcome. They are cheap and seem to be plentiful, many sellers on ebay and aliexpress. In fact I got mine from aliexpress a while ago but didn't get around to test it until now.

What I plan on doing is - the YMF744B has all the signals needed for a SB-link, MIDI in/out and gameport; they just aren't connected on this card.
The chip itself is in a LQFP128 package, with 0.5mm pitch pins. http://gd.tuwien.ac.at/opsys/linux/alsa/manua … aha/ymf744b.pdf
I have ordered some 0.5mm pitch flexible flat connectors, and will try to solder them directly to the chip's pins where the relevant signals are. Fortunately the pins I need are grouped together in 2 spots. For added mechanical stability I will use wider connectors and solder to adjacent pins as well, then just not connect those at the other end. I will then bring the relevant signals to a daughterboard that will sit above the main board and secured somehow to the bracket. I will cut a hole in the bracket for a DB15 connector for gameport/MIDI; also on the daughterboard I will place a PC/PCI header and a wavetable header.

It will take a while as the parts are coming from China, plus I'm going away on vacation next week.

Tertz wrote:

maybe those sfx are done by FM

Yes, I think they are by the way they sound.

stamasd wrote:

So I found a few minutes and tested the modified setupds, and it works. But it's not perfect and the Yamaha cards definitely hav […]
Show full quote

So I found a few minutes and tested the modified setupds, and it works. But it's not perfect and the Yamaha cards definitely have some compatibility problems in DDMA mode on Via motherboards.
1. I had to set DMA channel to 0 in both setupds and in games, otherwise no sound.
2. Things that work: Doom, Duke3d both music and SFX
3. Things that kinda work: In Dune2 I get music and SFX but no voice.
4. Things that don't work: Xwing, The game doesn't run if I choose any sound option. It just hangs at a black screen - but it doesn't crash the computer, as it still responds to ctrl-alt-del. If I choose no sounds, the game runs but of course without sound.

Have you tried disabeling the cache? I use the CPUCACHE utility included with Bret Johnson's SLOWDOWN utility: http://www.bretjohnson.us/