VOGONS


First post, by feipoa

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Has anyone had issues using an Asus VL/I-486SV2GX4 motherboard with an Audician32 plus sound card (Yamaha OPL3-SAx)? When playing wave or mp3 files in Windows 95 or NT4, all I hear is static. It sounds fine when playing midi files though. Control Panel doesn't show that there are resource conflicts. The resources are setup the same as on another computer which uses this sound card (IRQ5, I/O 220, etc). I pulled the Audician32 out of the 486SV2GX4 and put it in my other system which uses the Audician32, and the sound plays fine (on both cards).

Trying to play game music with the Audician32 in DOS fails as well. Any ideas how to fix this issue? I have a feeling that the solution is trivial, but it is escaping me.

Previously, I had an AWE64Gold in this system, which worked fine. I uninstalled all the Creative drivers before installing the Audician 32. Not sure if it matters, but the system uses an Am5x86 at 160 MHz in WB mode, 64 MB RAM, 1024K cache, Diamond Stealth 64 VRAM VLB 4 MB, Adaptec AHA-2842A VLB SCSI card, an ISA PCMCIA card with IDE cables to the PCMCIA 3.5" on the front case, and an ISA 8-bit serial card. I have a feeling the issue may be related to the VLB SCSI card when combined with this sound card. Not sure why though.

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Reply 1 of 10, by Tiido

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Does changing DMA channel help ? I have had trouble on some machines with DMA0, while 1 and 3 worked fine.

T-04YBSC, a new YMF71x based sound card & Official VOGONS thread about it
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Reply 2 of 10, by feipoa

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Oh, good suggestion. I'll try changing the DMA channel.

Something else I noticed on this board is that Windows 95 finds an LPT port and sets up resources for it, however, this motherboard board doesn't contain an LPT header anywhere. I also do not have a multi-I/O card installed. I wonder if the BIOS is reserving resources for the LPT anyway, anticipating that the user will install a multi-I/O card.

EDIT: There are also some DMA jumpers on the motherboard which are soldered shut on one location and note "factory set".

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Reply 3 of 10, by feipoa

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I changed DMA from 0/1 to 1/3, but the result was the same ----->static.

I am able to play effects sounds in DOS though. I previously had the wrong DMA # selected in the game setup. So in DOS, the Audician32 sound card works, but not in Windows 95/NT. Any more ideas? I don't see that the SB I/O address is shared, nor is IRQ 5.

Plan your life wisely, you'll be dead before you know it.

Reply 4 of 10, by feipoa

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I have since tried all sorts of DMA, I/O address, and IRQ settings. All work in DOS and all do not work in Windows. I tried removing my serial port card, but it didn't help. I suspect there is some sort of hardware incompatibility with my motherboard and this Audician32 or my motherboard-hardware combination and this Audican32. I guess I'll be putting my AWE64Gold back in. The problem with the AWE64G is the missing wavetable header. My problem with the Chill & Phill + Dreambaster S1 is that it sticks out the back end of the case. I don't really have the energy to make an internal bracket adapter for Chill & Phill.

The other option was to not use the Chill & Phill and to rely on the AWE64G's GM emulation. While that works in Windows 95, it does not seem to work in DOS. There have been reports that it works in DOS when using, e.g. Aweutil.com /s /EM:GM . This loads the synthgm.sbk file. When I try to run GM-only games, e.g. Abuse for DOS, I get errors and GM music does not play. I am finding this all rather frustrating.

The above seems like a problem that you all would have run into and solved by now. Please chime in if that is the case. Thanks!

Plan your life wisely, you'll be dead before you know it.

Reply 5 of 10, by Tiido

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There are several driver versions also. The stuff on the CD that the card came with is old and also has terrible softsynth in it. You'll want to use the driver from Yamaha's site (mirror here : http://www.tmeeco.eu/TKAYBSC/Win95.EXE ). Also in windows the SB side is not used, WSS side is instead and it uses two DMAs, one for playback, one for recording. Recording DMA is shared with SB playback. Static sound would be DMA problem for sure, that's the only way the card does any playback or recording, IRQ problem would result in small burst of sound and then nothing or endless repeat, IO issue would result in no card detected or complete inability to do anything. If mixer is able to adjust the noise you get then there's definitely no IO issue.

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 6 of 10, by feipoa

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I've tried the CD-provided driver as well as the later Yamaha drivers. The later Yamaha driver version I have, as indicated by Device Manager in Windows 95, is 4.06.2343 (OPL3SA.VXD). Device Manager claims its date is 4-21-1999.

I have tried all the DMA combinations, as well as tried different I/O addresses for the SB, WSS, MPU, CTrl, and Adlib settings.

I tried removing the PCMCIA ISA card reader and serial port card.

The static sound I hear when trying to play a wave of mp3 file is like a burst of continuous and loud static. You cannot make out any of the original sound file music from the speakers. I think the issue may be related to ISA wait state, delay, or some conflict between the S3 968 VLB graphics, SCSI VLB card, or IBM 10/100 ISA ethernet card. The ability to use L1 in write-back mode with VLB SCSI on a VLB/ISA-based motherboard is pretty rare, so I'm wondering if this has something to do with it.

Plan your life wisely, you'll be dead before you know it.

Reply 7 of 10, by Karm

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Where is your Soundcard located in your build? Near one of those vlb cards?
If it is working fine in DOS and give you statics in Windows , it is likely not a hardware but a software problem, espacially if it doesn't play any sound at all.
The wait states/delay etc. should also be a problem if your using it in DOS resulting in freezes and crashes probably.
I've got also a AMD 5x86 @160 using a Diamond Stealth 64 3240 on the same motherboard and tried nearly every possible BIOS setting combination, because of freezes related to my EWS 64 card. Win 95 was normally the more stable version.
Do you've got the opportunity testing the card in another machine, with Win95 and the same drivers?
Could you provide a picture of the card? Maybe it is possible to use a driver for the chip on it, instead of a driver for the card?
(I'm using the Crystal driver for my EWS in Win 3.1 for example)

Reply 8 of 10, by feipoa

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This is the card, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_L_1tvH1Ew

Tiido already pointed out that this card uses the WSS side in Windows, while in DOS, it uses the SB part. I'm not sure if there is a way to test the WSS side in DOS. Midi playback works fine in Windows. I mentioned earlier that I tried the card in another computer (MB-8433UUD) and wav playback in Windows worked fine with the same drivers.

I've tried different ISA slots and the card is currently in an ISA slot which is furthest away from the VLB slots.

...

SOLVED! Adjusting the ISA clock from 1/4 to 1/5 resolved the issue. Normally, I don't have issues running most ISA cards at 10 MHz, but it seems that the Audician32 plus is particularly sensitive to this. I'm running it at 8 MHz now.

Plan your life wisely, you'll be dead before you know it.

Reply 9 of 10, by Tiido

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I run my YMF71x card at 13MHz in my 386 and at 11MHz in my Pentium 1 and C2D machine, I didn't think higher speed would cause problems. I know at 16MHz the card no longer works. Good to hear you got it working.

You can test WSS in the SETUPSA utility, pressing W to test WSS (S for SB and F for OPL3)

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 10 of 10, by feipoa

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Perhaps it is just this particular motherboard which doesn't like running the Audician32 at 10 MHz? The AWE64Gold ran at 10 MHz just fine.

13 MHz is pushing it. Try DMA SCSI + TI486SXL2 with ISA and graphics at 13 MHz. I don't like going above 11.1 MHz on my PGA132-based system.

Plan your life wisely, you'll be dead before you know it.