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SBEMU: Sound Blaster emulation on AC97

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Reply 501 of 1208, by Arandy

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Hello,

first of all, I would like to thank all developers involved in this project. This is something I was looking for a long time.

I started testing it on a bizare mainboard I had aquired some time ago, a biostar G31-m4, here:

https://www.biostar.com.tw/app/en/eol/introdu … on.php?S_ID=502

with Intel G31 chipset and Socket 478.

For my experiments I just tried with a P4 2.4GHz first , and a 3.2GHz after. Ram tested was a single 256mb ddr2 pc4200 module and two 1gb pc6400 ddr2 ones.

I used a floppy with win98se dos files and sbemu files with jemmex replacing emm386.

The result seemed like a complete success...but one thing was odd.

Duke Nukem 3D, Doom2, The Day Of The Tentacle worked all fine.

HDAudio was detected and all worked well. all games were configure to adopt Sound blaster standard or Pro.

BUT!

As soon as I went back to A drive (boot drive) I got...nothing. Floppy A content was...gone!

I tested the system without sbemu and all drivers needed to run it, and floppy A was always readable with the correct content.

Now, I believe that something between all files needed to make sbemu working affects floppy drive reading after loaded. So system boots fine bus as soon as sbemu is loaded , floppy content is gone...empty or reading garbage.

Did any of you experinced an issue like this?

UPDATE:
the cultprit is "jsload qpiemu.dll"
just removing it makes floppy working fine again.

Last edited by Arandy on 2023-04-16, 10:22. Edited 2 times in total.

Reply 502 of 1208, by Arandy

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I think that this tool would be complete with MIDI software sinthetizer for DOS like:

https://github.com/Wohlstand/libADLMIDI
(adlmidi-dos32.zip)

and merge it into SBEMU.

I mean, can port 300-330 be trapped to employ a software midi syntetizer, with wavetable files support? The hardware (P4 Athlons XP and up) would be more than capable to handle it, I think.

It's like the one ring....one tool to rule them all! 😀

I know that I am dreaming....but what do you think?

Are there chances that It is doable?
😀

Reply 503 of 1208, by Demolition-Man

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I think that this tool would be complete with MIDI software sinthetizer...

That would be cool. And a complete mixer. What about CD-Audio? I hink its there, but muted.

Reply 504 of 1208, by RayeR

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Original sb live/audigy drivers used sound font files shared with windows drivers to emulate wavetable under dos, should be doable. I would be also happy enough with sending midi data to uart on gameport to feed my ext. dreamblaster...

Gigabyte GA-P67-DS3-B3, Core i7-2600K @4,5GHz, 8GB DDR3, 128GB SSD, GTX970(GF7900GT), SB Audigy + YMF724F + DreamBlaster combo + LPC2ISA

Reply 505 of 1208, by Kenpachi

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Gday,
Awesome progress Crazii, looking like most of the bugs are getting ironed out.
Update with the Dell M6400 (ICH9,IDT92HD) - no change (seems to stream audio fine, but no sound).
EDIT: will spend some more time on this one later.

Just bought an XPS M1210 (sbemu reports: ICH7, Unknown (83847680)) this HWID is for Sigmatel STAC9220...
No sound, Duke3D complains about DMA, both DMA 1 and 3 with everything disabled in BIOS).

Spent some extra time with the M1210 and happy to report it is working well using beta 2c.
Tested with:
Doom
Duke3D

What i did notice though, was that I was getting DMA conflict errors in duke3d setup after running mpxplay.

Reply 507 of 1208, by L4MD4

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Demolition-Man wrote on 2023-04-17, 18:06:

No chance with sbemu on my fastest Win98 PC (XP 2400+) .
AC97 onboard, but only loud noise. Hanging sound until restart.
Any ideas/suggestions?

Which version of SBEMU did you try?

When did the noise start, during SBEMU initiation or game initiation?

Does MPXplay work on your machine?

You might also include the "text" output of SBEMU.

Reply 508 of 1208, by Demolition-Man

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Which version of SBEMU did you try?

1.0 Beta2c.

When did the noise start, during SBEMU initiation or game initiation?

Right when the game starts.
Does MPXplay work on your machine?
I've never tested it, what exactly does it do?
Music player for cds?

You might also include the "text" output of SBEMU.

You mean that it could possibly be a different model of onboard sound? Does SBEMU recognize the different chipsets?
I'll submit that later.

Reply 509 of 1208, by Demolition-Man

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Specs:
Xp 2400+
Asrock K7VM2 Rev 3.01
512 MB RAM
120 GB HDD
Gainward FX5900XT

SBEMU starts normally. (Sorry for the bad picture quality)

Does MPXplay work on your machine?

Is does. Wave, MP3, MIDI.
Works even without SBEMU. How does this work? Does the MPXP player come with its own AC97 initialization?

The game starts, first no sound at all. After a short time the onset of noise. These are also getting louder. A soft restart is also possible for a short time, after which the system hangs.

I also noticed that a change to Iterrupt 5 is not possible. IRQ conflict. But there shouldn't be anything there. The AC97 ends in WIndows on interrupt 5, but before that? Interrupt 7 should also be completely free, as should the A220 address and the DMA 01.

Edit: Cleared IRQ5 under DOS, tried slowdown, but no change.
Heard the Prince of Persia theme song for 4 seconds on one of many attempts. 1 second in Doom, and two or three notes from Settlers II.Great success! 😉

That it also works on this PC is really not important. SBEMU massively upgraded two of my retro PCs without ISA slot, thank you very much.

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Reply 510 of 1208, by L4MD4

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Demolition-Man wrote on 2023-04-18, 11:34:

Asrock K7VM2 Rev 3.01

I think this is your chipset, VIA VT8375 (KM266).

Is does. Wave, MP3, MIDI.
Works even without SBEMU. How does this work? Does the MPXP player come with its own AC97 initialization?

SBEMU's audio initialization is based on MPXPLAY. If it works, then this provides a crumb of information.

I also noticed that a change to Iterrupt 5 is not possible. IRQ conflict. But there shouldn't be anything there. The AC97 ends in WIndows on interrupt 5, but before that? Interrupt 7 should also be completely free, as should the A220 address and the DMA 01.

Edit: Cleared IRQ5 under DOS, tried slowdown, but no change.
Heard the Prince of Persia theme song for 4 seconds on one of many attempts. 1 second in Doom, and two or three notes from Settlers II.Great success! 😉

To be clear, crazii is the SBEMU developer. I am just interested, in seeing the project flourish. I have only browsed the code and only vaguely understand audio cards (mostly from tweaking ASIO4ALL). If I am understanding you, slowing down your machine gave you some added audio. My "haphazard" guess is an audio buffer issue.

You might also provide your audio device hardware ID (edit previous post). I should have mentioned that before.

You could try other SBEMU versions. There is the VT8233 fix ( near the bottom of page 22):

crazii wrote on 2023-04-05, 10:13:
Good News! With the HP T5530, I fixed the bug for VT833 and now it's working - just overlooked a tiny bug. Tested with a few gam […]
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Good News!
With the HP T5530, I fixed the bug for VT833 and now it's working - just overlooked a tiny bug.
Tested with a few games all working, except that duke3d will freeze on exit, I don't think it's caused by SBEMU, probably VGA related, but I forgot to verify it without SBEMU, you guys can find it out.

SBEMU_VT8233_Fix.zip

Just back up and then replace SBEMU.EXE, with the downloaded one. I don't know if it will work. I think your chipset is some how related to the VT8235.

The older versions are on the first post. Testing them exposes a regression, if one works.

Reply 511 of 1208, by georgel

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L4MD4 wrote on 2023-04-19, 00:03:

To be clear, crazii is the SBEMU developer. I am just interested, in seeing the project flourish.

My prediction is this project reached its peak and is already overblown.

Reply 512 of 1208, by Bondi

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georgel wrote on 2023-04-19, 08:16:
L4MD4 wrote on 2023-04-19, 00:03:

To be clear, crazii is the SBEMU developer. I am just interested, in seeing the project flourish.

My prediction is this project reached its peak and is already overblown.

Don't think it's on the peak. There is still a lot to improve and add to this project. MIDI, old sound cards, 16 bit protected mode games support, and so on.

PCMCIA Sound Cards chart
archive.org: PCMCIA software, manuals, drivers

Reply 513 of 1208, by Stainlesscat

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georgel wrote on 2023-04-19, 08:16:
L4MD4 wrote on 2023-04-19, 00:03:

To be clear, crazii is the SBEMU developer. I am just interested, in seeing the project flourish.

My prediction is this project reached its peak and is already overblown.

Well since the project is open-sourced, i highly doubt this will stall. Anyone can contribute to the project and improve upon it.

Whether people help contribute or not is not a concern.

I'm just greatful this project even exists at all.

Reply 514 of 1208, by Demolition-Man

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You could try other SBEMU versions. There is the VT8233 fix ( near the bottom of page 22):

Way better! Thank you!
Still more bugy then on the other two machines .*
They or he should start now and maybe bring a fixed Beta2C. No, that would probably be asking too much. But you can see that it is possible.
It is a 1.0 besta2c version...

*Doom 1&2 Music is fine, strange echo effect on fx espacially gun shots.
Prince of Persia music is fine, but when the effects start, the trtrtrtrtrtr noise +lock is back
Some other games are completly fine.
Still testing...

Reply 515 of 1208, by L4MD4

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Demolition-Man wrote on 2023-04-19, 10:54:

Way better! Thank you!

Glad it worked.

Prince of Persia music is fine, but when the effects start, the trtrtrtrtrtr noise +lock is back

Does IRQ 5 (SBEMU) work for you, now? Maybe you've already tried these, but there are initialize options for P.O.P.. https://popuw.com/parameters.html

You could try forcing other card types (only with P.O.P. 1.0 and 1.3) and see what happens (adlib?).

Maybe, also try setting SBEMU as a different Blaster version and/or try the 44100 sample rate.

If you aren't already, it might help to test with the JEMEX NOEMS option.

Maybe as another test, you could use ver 1.0 or 1.3 with the P.O.P. STDSND option. Or just without SBEMU loaded (any version). It is likely a sound issue, but it might be good to eliminate other possible problems.

Reply 516 of 1208, by Demolition-Man

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Thx, Prince of Persia works now, my bad. 6. PC and forgot to change the IRQ to 7.
IRQ 5 is possible, will try this again, but only if i disable everything USB related.

If you aren't already, it might help to test with the JEMEX NOEMS option.

It`s my standard option.

I keep testing, but only half the games that ran before will run on this PC. Nevertheless thanks alot.
I have three DOS/WIN98 PCs with ISA slots and suitable sound cards, but I somehow enjoy testing the emulator. 😀

Reply 517 of 1208, by crazii

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RayeR wrote on 2023-04-09, 00:51:
I got the same behavior, sound plays OK. At bottom of screen there are printed a bunch of messages: trapcli pushf pop ax 0202 02 […]
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sledge wrote on 2023-04-07, 17:35:

Any ideas about this behaviour? Cubic Player / Open Cubic Player - music plays ok, but the screen is jumping like crazy (all modes) 😀

I got the same behavior, sound plays OK.
At bottom of screen there are printed a bunch of messages: trapcli pushf pop ax 0202 0202
isn't it some forgotten uncommented debug info from SBEMU? or is it from Cubic?
UPDATE: it comes from hdmpi32i.exe - contains "trapcli pushf pop ax %X %X". I think it could be disabled in source and recompiled, then would be a chance that cubic will run undisturbed.

Fortunately there are other module players that works fine: Impulse Tracker, Inertia Player, MikMod Player
More tested SW here http://rayer.g6.cz/hardware/sbemu.htm#TEST_TABLE

Thanks for the report, the debug message will be removed on next release 😁.

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Reply 518 of 1208, by Bruno128

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Test report for the latest version,
Realtek ALC888 @ VT8237A
MS-DOS 6.22
SBEMU ver.1.0beta3
Output:
Found sound card: Intel HDA
Real mode support: enabled.
Protected mode support: enabled.
OPL3 emulation enabled at port 388h.
Sound Blaster Pro emulation enabled at Adress: 220, IRQ: 7, DMA: 1

Games tested:

  • Duke3D: sound and FM music are OK. Reversed stereo in SB Pro mode.
  • Doom: sound and FM music are OK.
  • Disney’s Jungle Book: sound and FM music are OK. Once got random “FATAL exception in ring 0” lockup.
  • Prince of Persia (1.0): freeze on launch.
  • Prince of Persia 2: FM music is OK. “Digital sounds won’t be played because there is no extended or expanded memory available”. It doesn’t like JemmEx v5.84. Disabling NOEMS option doesn’t affect it.
  • Abuse (by Crack dot Com): significant lag and stuck audio samples.
  • Prehistorik: freeze on launch.
  • Supaplex: no sound and significant lag when running in “combined audio” mode, but sound and FM music are OK in “Adlib” mode. Some sound effects produce extra static noise. If you can’t reach the setup screen, edit SUPAPLEX.CFG content to “akmx” (no quotes) to change the mode manually .
  • Extreme Pinball (by Epic): sound and FM music are OK.
  • Dyna Blaster (by Hudson soft): freeze on launch.

Thanks for the new release! That software is a real game changer.
Edit: info update.

My builds: 1995 VLB, 2003 Acrylic
SBEMU compatibility reports