First, the presence of the connectors are not related to the pcb version. I own a pile of Solo-1 cards and even same versions are differently populated.

The left card has no SB-Link connector soldered in and is also missing the amps, so it can only output line level (which is what you want anyway). Funny however that the right card, which has the amps and the SB-Link connector, is missing the wavetable header instead. 😁

Use the left one. You'll probably not need SB-Link and speaker-level output, but the wavetable option. You can also just add the missing components to either card.

derSammler wrote:

[...]Use the left one. You'll probably not need SB-Link and speaker-level output, but the wavetable option. You can also just add the missing components to either card.

Thank you for the answer and the advice.
I do not need the wavetable since I don't own any wavetable card, but it always can come handy.
To my knowledge sblink can come useful in dos...
Can you please explain me what it the speaker level output?
I just usually connect the speakers (cheap 2.0 speakers for my retro build) and set the volume from there and\or from windows\dos applications.

Nemo1985 wrote:

Thank you for the answer and the advice. I do not need the wavetable since I don't own any wavetable card, but it always can com […]
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Thank you for the answer and the advice.
I do not need the wavetable since I don't own any wavetable card, but it always can come handy.
To my knowledge sblink can come useful in dos...
Can you please explain me what it the speaker level output?
I just usually connect the speakers (cheap 2.0 speakers for my retro build) and set the volume from there and\or from windows\dos applications.

SBLINK are useful for motherboards that supports it. With speaker level outputs you can use passive speakers, speakers which don't contain an amplifier or use an external one.

Both my 1.1 and 1.2 cards are of the TTSOLO1-S type. I have soldered the SBLINK header on the 1.1 one and it's working just fine.

Can confirm that wavetable doesn't need presence of any other chips than the Solo-1 itself. I had a Terratec Solo-1 (can't remember whether it was -S or -NL) without wavetable header or any other stuff, just the bare minimum. Soldered on the header and it worked straight away 😀

While installing a Solo-1 in the Carry-1 mini PC, I made some discoveries based on the different Solo-1 cards that I have in my collection (which are all from Terratec, revisions 1.0, 1.1, and 1.2).

1. Solo-1 cards with no EEPROM chip have fixed resources. There's only a single base configuration and even when switching to manual mode, you can not change the resources. It's always IRQ 5, DMA 1, etc. Makes sense, as with no EEPROM, the card would have no way to store any user settings.

2. If you want WDM drivers and DOS support, you can actually do that. Install the non-WDM drivers first - this will install full DOS support (works already when pressing F8 and enter plain DOS mode, no need to load Windows). Then in the device manager, use "update drivers" and point it to the WDM drivers. This will replace the non-WDM drivers with the WDM drivers, but leaving the already installed DOS support intact.

Cool, thanks a lot for the tip! 😁
The TT-Solo was about the only modern audio card with FM that I was able to get working in Windows XP,
albeit with poor FM support, as it turned out. The WDM drivers of XP were to blame as it turned out later on.
Hardware wise the Solo-1 is pretty neat and trouble-free. It supports ESFM, that enhanced OPL3 compatible, doesn't it ?

Yes, it does. Works fine even in pure DOS. It was the last ESS chip with ESFM afaik, they dropped all that after the ES1938.

derSammler wrote on 2020-01-10, 16:40:

While installing a Solo-1 in the Carry-1 mini PC, I made some discoveries based on the different Solo-1 cards that I have in my collection (which are all from Terratec, revisions 1.0, 1.1, and 1.2).

1. Solo-1 cards with no EEPROM chip have fixed resources. There's only a single base configuration and even when switching to manual mode, you can not change the resources. It's always IRQ 5, DMA 1, etc. Makes sense, as with no EEPROM, the card would have no way to store any user settings.

2. If you want WDM drivers and DOS support, you can actually do that. Install the non-WDM drivers first - this will install full DOS support (works already when pressing F8 and enter plain DOS mode, no need to load Windows). Then in the device manager, use "update drivers" and point it to the WDM drivers. This will replace the non-WDM drivers with the WDM drivers, but leaving the already installed DOS support intact.

I just want use a Allegro/Maestro one. So using wdm driver will cover the basic sound and disable the DOS sound?
The mobo has ISA slot, i dont care about sb emualtion.

The WDM drivers don't even come with the files for sound in DOS (but they have other advantages and are more stable). But of course you will still get sound in DOS games if you start them from Windows. But if you need or want to boot into plain DOS, the sound card doesn't exist there when having installed the WDM drivers only.

derSammler wrote on 2020-01-12, 09:26:

The WDM drivers don't even come with the files for sound in DOS (but they have other advantages and are more stable). But of course you will still get sound in DOS games if you start them from Windows. But if you need or want to boot into plain DOS, the sound card doesn't exist there when having installed the WDM drivers only.

The idea of using wdm drivers is just to allow digital audio on daemon tools.

The idea of using wdm drivers is just to allow digital audio on daemon tools.

Sorry, but that just made me laugh. 🤣

Yeah, let's forget about all the advantages that WDM drivers offer; most important thing is of course that you can play your illegally downloaded ISOs with CDDA when using WDM drivers.

Apart from that, I don't see what the sound card drivers have to do with that. Digital read-out of CDDA is a feature of Windows 98 and must be supported by the optical drive. It's then just PCM data that is sent to the sound card. I have this enabled on my Pentium 200 MMX built and that certainly does not use WDM drivers for the sound card, as there are none for the installed ALS100+ (drivers are for Win95). It works anyhow...

Just for the sake 😅 of it: The TTSOLO1-SL VER1.2
- No wavetable
- No amp
- But SB-Link

🤣 great, here another version 😁

Here's 2 for the collection.

The ES1938MI is currently being used in an EPIA-ITX based project

I've done a little exploring of the different versions of the TerraTec ESS Solo 1 cards. These are the findings of the naming scheme:

The N seems to indicate the presence of the onboard amplifier ( aNplifier)
The S seems to indicate no amplifier ( Sans amplifier)
The L means SB-Link header present (Link)
No L means Wavetable header present

Models
TTSOLO1-S - Wavetable header, no SB-link, no amplifier
TTSOLO1-SL - No Wavetable header, SB-link, no amplifier
TTSOLO1-N - Wavetable header, no SB-link, Amplifier + EPROM
TTSOLO1-NL - No Wavetable header, SB-link, Amplifier + EPROM
128i PCI - retail version of TTSOLO1-S or SL. The 128i drivers include a software wavetable.
Gold-plated version of the TTSOLO1-N, possibly without EPROM and earlier PCB version missing holes for some headers.

The N and S version sometimes had extra audio headers, plus one for wiring in physical volume up/down switches (CN6)

If the EPROM is missing then the required card configuration settings can be loaded in DOS using ESSOLO.COM which reads the config from ESSOLO.INI. You can also use the ESSINIT.BAT script written by Kamerat to initialise the card with the settings you require.

With the ES1938S chip itself, it appears that early versions say "ESS" and "Solo-1" above the ES1938S part number. Later versions just have "ESS" in a different font, without Solo-1.
I currently have a card made September 2000 with a later chip and the ESSVOL.EXE program says it cannot find the Audiodrive when I try to set the mixer levels. On a card made August 1999 with earlier chip the ESSVOL.EXE worked fine with the card. Has anyone else found this? Possibly the chip might be reporting REV2 after the PCI PID/VID in Windows 98 setup log.

Action Replay wrote on 2022-06-23, 11:36:

I've done a little exploring of the different versions of the TerraTec ESS Solo 1 cards.

Interesting findings!

I have a TTSOLO1-NL VER 1.2. As you say, it has no wavetable header, but it does have an amplifier and a SB-Link header, and I'm assuming the EEPROM as well (not sure how to check for that). I haven't tested the card much, but it seemed to work fine in DOS and Win9x, with one caveat. I couldn't get the native 16-bit AudioDrive mode to work reliably in games which support that e.g. Tomb Raider and Heroes of Might and Magic 2.

Not sure if the Solo-1 dropped the AudioDrive functionality, or if I failed to configure something correctly. On the other hand, the SBPro mode works fine.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2022-06-23, 12:05:

Not sure if the Solo-1 dropped the AudioDrive functionality, or if I failed to configure something correctly. On the other hand, the SBPro mode works fine.

It is possible that they dropped the Audiodrive functionality. If you boot directly to DOS and run ESSOLO.COM (or load it in autoexec.bat) can you then run ESSVOL.EXE to set the mixer or does it say that it cannot find the Audiodrive?

Next to the text ES1938S on the chip itself is what looks like a 4-digit date code made up of a letter and 3 numbers, eg. H169. I am trying to decode these. What is the date code on your chip if you can see it? Later dates might have dropped Audiodrive support.

P.S. : The EEPROM is part U2, between the wavetable connector and the main chip, just above C2. Often made by ATMEL.

Action Replay wrote on 2022-06-23, 12:37:

It is possible that they dropped the Audiodrive functionality. If you boot directly to DOS and run ESSOLO.COM (or load it in autoexec.bat) can you then run ESSVOL.EXE to set the mixer or does it say that it cannot find the Audiodrive?

I don't have the card installed in any of my systems at the moment, but I do plan on running some more extensive tests on it soonish. When I do, I'll check that and report back.

Next to the text ES1938S on the chip itself is what looks like a 4-digit date code made up of a letter and 3 numbers, eg. H169. I am trying to decode these. What is the date code on your chip if you can see it? Later dates might have dropped Audiodrive support.

Too bad about the AudioDrive functionality. Have you tested that with an older Solo-1 model and did it work there? As for the date code, I think it's K040. Here's a pic of the card if it helps:

BTW, from what I remember, native ESFM also didn't work in DOS games which support that on my Solo-1 card.