Which Windows?

kolderman wrote on 2020-05-03, 20:31:

Which Windows?

Windows 98SE, but I used it with my previous motherboard, and I don't remember having any problems with it.

Also, for some reason, I seem to remember it crashing once on my current system when too many sounds were playing.

What sounds are being repeated? Music or effects? Are you selecting Adlib for music?

kolderman wrote on 2020-05-03, 20:49:

What sounds are being repeated? Music or effects? Are you selecting Adlib for music?

It's any sound. Any one of the sounds repeat, if there are too many, it seems.

I was going to discount this, but it seems that it randomly locks up too, even when there aren't exactly any sounds playing.

It only happens when the digital sound is active, too.

Duke Nukem 3D doesn't seem to like it either. (Even when I try to get around it with a Sound Blaster 2.0 setting.)

Maybe I should fall on the adage:

"If it's old electronics, change the capacitors."

My SB16 is from 1992, I believe.

Use Doom 95 executables ?

T-Squared wrote on 2020-05-03, 19:57:

First I kept having crashes in Windows when starting it up or playing it. I realized it had to do with IRQ and DMA conflicts, and had to force their arbitrary use through the BIOS for my SB16 (CT1740). (i.e. "IRQ # & DMA # used by ISA" options in the BIOS.)

Everything would be hunky-dory, except now I have a slight sound problem that breaks the immersion.

A section of the last sounds that played are being repeated (similar to what happens when the game crashes), and then they gradually go away.

This is clearly due to conflicting resources. What is your SETBLASTER and what does CTCM show? Also, you do not use that BIOS settings, as your SB16 is a PnP card and you can't block the IRQ/DMA it is to use from PnP. If you wish to set its PnP resources, you run CTCU in DOS.

Besides, it's generally a good idea to tell people about the rest of the hardware, not just the sound card.

Sorry about that. I figured I'd be giving too much info, and that the problem was simpler than resource conflicts.

My SET BLASTER is "A220 I5 D1 H6 T6"

The SB16 card isn't plug and play. It's a 1992 SB16.

Also, CTCM doesn't show anything, while CTCU says that it "cannot be run under Win95 or Win3.1 DOS box".

I have:

Windows 98 SE (Usual OS) / Windows XP (For other programs that require it + rare internet surfing)
nVidia GEForce FX 5500 (For mid-2000s games)
ExpertColor S3 Virge (For VFX1 Headgear + clear-picture MS-DOS gaming)
Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS (For MIDI Keyboard I/O + mid-2000s games and movies, because I have a 4.1 surround sound system)
Hauppauge WinTV (44371) Card
VFX1 VIP Decoder Card (Cable-attached to ExpertColor Card)
SB16 CT1740 (For MS-DOS Gaming + FM Synth MIDI Playback + Joystick Port)
Etherlink 3C509B-TP ISA PNP Ethernet Card (For Zandronum on Win XP)

Checking the Device Manager System Resource Report didn't show any conflicts.

Well... not for the sound card.

I'm assuming it's normal for lots of devices to have the same IRQ? (i.e. IRQ 9 for multiple ACPI devices, or IRQ 10 for the Video Card and VGA graphics driver?) I don't see any problems with the DMA usage.

So far, nothing suggests a conflict.

If you want, I can post the report here.

EDIT: Even Jazz Jackrabbit doesn't like it.

If you have two devices sharing the same resource (IRQ or address) then that ís a conflict by definition. So no, you should not have multiple devices using the same address or IRQ. You should try to assign each device their own. Sometimes also swapping cards to a different PCI slot can change the IRQ it uses. You can also check the screen right before your pc boots to see what IRQs are assigned to the detected devices (but it is very brief, you may need to take a picture of it).

(Previously contained System Report. No longer necessary.)

I don't want to want to put all my eggs in one basket, but I think I may have fixed it...

I swapped 2 of the cards around (Only two, because the rest needed to stay in their places due to size and possibly hard-coded restraints):

nVidia GEForce FX 5500 (Stayed because AGP card)
ExpertColor S3 Virge (Stayed because it's part of the AGP/PCI video card swap feature)
Hauppauge WinTV (44371) Card
Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS
VFX1 VIP Decoder Card (Cable-attached to ExpertColor Card) (Stayed because ISA, and too big for bottom slot)
SB16 CT1740 (Stayed because ISA, and too big for bottom slot)
Etherlink 3C509B-TP ISA PNP Ethernet Card (Stayed because of size constraints on motherboard)

I turned off the IRQ for the USB ports (I don't know why they're needed), which is what I've read other people doing when they have problems with resource conflicts.

and finally, I installed the P2B chipset software utility: https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/P2B_MB/HelpDesk_Download/ (I didn't want to do this, because the last time I tried, with my previous motherboard, it seemed to install a copy of each already-existing device file, and actually severely bogged down the system so much that I had to reinstall from scratch.)

It seems to have added some logical devices that weren't there before, and everything seems stable now. Doom II has no choppy sound, doesn't crash randomly, and Duke Nukem 3D starts up just fine. I haven't exactly tested Jazz, but I could probably assume that it works just as well.