Interesting...

I have Pentium 1 MMX where i have a soundcard also with es1868f chip and i'm running Windows 95.
I used drivers from Phils Computer Lab website (he has a great review of the card as well) and everything worked out of the box. I did have IRQ conflict with soundcard's IDE interface in windows, but i just disabled it as i don't need it.

I have a minor issue that windows is unable to install gameport drivers (the next button after hardware detection just doesn't do anything for some reason) but it doesn't really matter for me right now.

So which drivers have you tried?

I've tried everything, from Microsoft in house cooked one, through slough over phil website (3.1, 95 and 98), Official latest from BTC website and even bunch from drivierguide.com after 2 days and total over 8 workhours with this nightmare I landed here. I've use this forum to get some info, but non were conclusive to my issues

Just a random quess: do you have another, different computer to try that sound card in?

Have you tried switching ISA slots?

Yup, even disabled COM and LPT ports to free IRQ still no dice

GigAHerZ wrote:

Just a random quess: do you have another, different computer to try that sound card in?

Unfortunately no, as this is the only one with ISA ports

I'm bumping this because I have a VERY similar issue:

earlier MMX 200MHz
Windows 98 SE
2x different ESS ES1868F's (with Dreamblaster S2 for General Midi).
--Can't get sound in Windows AND DOS games at the same time.

My problem is I need to have the ESSCFG/ESSVOL + SET BLASTER variables loaded in Autoexec.bat so when I boot into pure DOS mode (a la F8) I'll have sound. Also, some DOS games, when played inside Win98, won't give you sound unless you have at least the SET BLASTER variable in the autoexec (they don't seem to pull from Windows settings without that line). My problem is I can't seem to have pure-DOS sound working, AND get games to run inside WIndows 98 SE with sound... it's either-or.

When I have the above in Autoexec.bat (and I've tried SIX different sets of ESS drivers) several different things can happen depending on which driver I use:

Windows boot-up will hang with those values in the Autoexec - ONLY with certain ESSCFG.exe and/or ESSVOL.exe
Even booting into DOS can hang with certain ESS DOS drivers (I think they don't like the flavor of Win98 DOS 7.1 - the Install.exe from ESS shown in Phil's video won't even work in Win98 DOS sometimes!)
When I have Autoexec setup I can boot into pure DOS and get Sound FX + General MIDI music, I get NO sound in Windows then.
When I have NO settings (empty) Autoexec, I can boot into Windows and get games to have music, but NO sound in DOS then.

....so it seems like I can't find a compatible version of Windows PnP drivers (I've tried 6x different drivers manually installed as well...with a LOT of blue screens and having to boot safe mode to uninstall then try again...), and a version of DOS drivers which plan nice with each other and won't either A.) have the machine hang, or B.) ONLY let me have sound in either DOS or Windows (NOT both).

For comparison, I have a newer P3 800mhz with a super similar ESS ES1869F (using these same exact driver packages which are for 1868 and 1869) which lets me do that above and I had ZERO issues with it. It just works.

Dochartaigh wrote on 2020-03-25, 18:28:

For stuff that can interact nastily with Windows I just have a file '1.bat' in the root of my C: drive. In my case it starts DOS mouse and sound drivers. Maybe that would work for you? You need to remember to run it after booting into DOS, of course.

Or just use the file windows\dosstart.bat, which is there for that reason. It's even called automatically when you exit from Windows to DOS.

derSammler wrote on 2020-03-25, 20:15:

Or just use the file windows\dosstart.bat, which is there for that reason. It's even called automatically when you exit from Windows to DOS.

Oh I didn't know that, cool!

Oetker wrote on 2020-03-25, 19:05:

For stuff that can interact nastily with Windows I just have a file '1.bat' in the root of my C: drive. In my case it starts DOS mouse and sound drivers. Maybe that would work for you? You need to remember to run it after booting into DOS, of course.

It was the weirdest thing... like even when I was booting into DOS something in the Windows 98 config was messing with the DOS settings, and vice-versus.... never had that before.

Anyway, to update, I tried FOUR more drivers and finally found one which works both in Windows and DOS. Weird part is the guy who posted it here said it's proper Windows drivers for a non-WDM (i.e. VxD) version of the ES1868F drivers... which upon running the Windows installer it says it's for the ES1869F, AND the drivers it installs are WDM 🤣... But somehow it still worked. Of course after reboot the PnP asks me for a bunch of files which of course aren't in the folder of the driver I just installed...so I had to poke around the other 6ish ESS driver folders until I found the files it asked for...that mix and match of drivers/files might be what made it work (which sadly will be super hard to recreate if I ever have to do this again).

Dochartaigh wrote on 2020-03-26, 05:34:

It was the weirdest thing... like even when I was booting into DOS something in the Windows 98 config was messing with the DOS settings, and vice-versus.... never had that before.

Anyway, to update, I tried FOUR more drivers and finally found one which works both in Windows and DOS. Weird part is the guy who posted it here said it's proper Windows drivers for a non-WDM (i.e. VxD) version of the ES1868F drivers... which upon running the Windows installer it says it's for the ES1869F, AND the drivers it installs are WDM 🤣... But somehow it still worked. Of course after reboot the PnP asks me for a bunch of files which of course aren't in the folder of the driver I just installed...so I had to poke around the other 6ish ESS driver folders until I found the files it asked for...that mix and match of drivers/files might be what made it work (which sadly will be super hard to recreate if I ever have to do this again).

Hey sorry for bumping this, tried to PM Dochartaigh but forum won't let me "because I may have not been here for long enough" 🤣 ok.

I had the exact same problem. What drivers did you end up using that worked? ESS ES1868f that won't play music in Windows mode but will play in DOS mode.