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ALS120 ISA Card - Music volume balance issues with older DOS games

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First post, by ChrisDOS

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Hey guys,

i recently put together a machine for some Win9x/DOS gaming:

Specs:
Compaq Deskpro EP/BS
Celeron 300A
128 MB RAM
Diamond RIVA 128 AGP
Generic ALS120 ISA Sound Card (OPL3, SB Pro, SB16)
Windows 95c

I've set up the system to boot into DOS 7.00, which is the way I prefer to play DOS Games.
The ALS120 DOS drivers work quite nicely, however my card's output volume isn't exactly balanced.

My Problem:

The Soundblaster effects are super loud while the FM music output is noticabely quieter.
Now the drivers come with a mixer which, in combination with a game's individual volume settings, makes this a non-issue for the majority of games i want to play on the thing (Doom, Duke3D, Blood, etc.).

However some earlier titles obviusly don't feature any volume settings at all (Wolf3D, Duke2, etc.) and also seem to completely ignore the mixer settings (apart from master volume), which for example leads to the digitized SB sound effetcs in Wolf3D being almost painfully loud when the master volume is set to max (to make the SB/AdLib music play at normal volume).

Now from what I've read so far the card isn't known to be great anyway, but it was hard enough to find an ISA card at a decent price at all and overall I'm actually happy with it, apart from the above issue.

I'm NOT an expert when it comes to sound card stuff so my question is simply: Does anyone have an idea if there's something I could do about that problem? (Especially regarding Wolf3D)

Thanks a lot!

(This forum has been incredibely helpful so far btw! 😀 )

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Reply 1 of 4, by zyga64

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Alhough I don't have ALS120 card, I had several ALS100 based cards. In one case I remember that setting volume to max (31) wasn't good idea. Value of 28 provided much better results.

Another observation (from photos). Second (high) DMA channel (for 16 bit) is normally 5 for most cases. On your second screen it is 0. Setting BLASTER variable for SB16 (in autoexec.bat) usually looks like this:

SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 H5 T6

I don't remember if initialization program sets its value automatically (after configuration), or should it be somewhere in autoexec.bat. If there is no such a position in your autoexec bat, you may check value of variable entering 'SET' alone and pressing enter in command line.

1) VLSI SCAMP /286@20 /4M /CL-GD5422 /CMI8330
2) i420EX /486DX33 /16M /TGUI9440 /GUS+ALS100+MT32PI
3) i430FX /K6-2@400 /64M /Rage Pro PCI /ES1370+YMF718
4) i440BX /P!!!750 /256M /MX440 /SBLive!
5) iB75 /3470s /4G /HD7750 /HDA

Reply 2 of 4, by ChrisDOS

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Thanks for the advice on the 28 volume! I tried it and I think it does in fact sound a bit cleaner.

I read somewhere on this forum that the ALS120 uses some tricks to accomplish 16-Bit output on lower DMA channels (the a4config utility only allows for numbers from 0 to 3 for the second DMA channel) and in any case I can confirm that 16-Bit output does work perfectly (for example in Duke3D).

Since the Card initializes itself via a program called "a4init.exe" in autoexec.bat I don't think there's any need for SET=BLASTER commands. I tried it nevertheless, no effect tho.

Still, my problem is that some older games (Wolf3D being the most prominent example) apperently ignore the card's mixer settings, which results in ditial effects being waaay to loud compared to music output. Is there anything one could do about that? (Again, I'm a beginner regarding audio related stuff.)

Reply 3 of 4, by ChrisDOS

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Quick update regarding this issue for everyone with an ALS120 (ALS110) ISA soundcard:

I found that all the volume issues are resolved by simply enabling the "3D sound" feauture of the card. Now obviously that makes everything sound kinda horrible by default but all you have to do is turn the effects to 0 in the "a4ini" file, resulting in a clean output.

With the 3D setting enabled games like Wolf3D and Duke 2 don't ignore the mixer settings, making this a pretty great and affordable DOS sound card with proper OPL3 support imo.

Reply 4 of 4, by nuno14272

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Oh man... I'm short on ISA soundcards, and i'm currently setting up a IBMGL300 (p166mmx) and i install a als120 sound card..

So this card is completly rubbish.... bad, as bad can be...

i've always used ESS1868/1869 outside the Sb16 world. I even have some opti931.. mi last build was a crystal...

but this card... awful...awful... the hiss, the noise, the interference.. and the fucking volume problem in DOS....i'm going to try this solution... and just for the sake of trying, because, this card is going to the trash bin, as soon as i get a new card..

1| 386DX40
2| P200mmx, Voodoo 1
3| PIII-450, Voodoo 3 3000

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