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Issues with ESS1868F playing midi in Windows98SE

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First post, by Kordanor

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Heyho!

After having used DOS on my machine so far, it was finally time to do some stuff on Windows 98SE. But while the soundcard worked fine in DOS, it seems to have issues in Windows.

In Windows itself Sound playbay is perfectly fine, this also includes playback of Midi.

But then I installed Hexen 2. And you can switch from CD audio (which works fine) to midi music, but that one doesnt play.
Next I installed Duke Nukem 3d. This worked fine under DOS, but under Windows only the Sound Effects work. Musik is mute (SoundBlaster+Adlib). If I select General Midi it works. But ofc that doesnt sound great.

I tried the standard drivers from Win98SE. I tried drivers from Vogons: http://vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?fileid=1870&menustate=0
And I tried to try the driver from PhilsComputerLab: https://www.philscomputerlab.com/ess-audiodrive-es1868.html however, this one didnt install (clicking on the exe does nothing, and doing it via device manager fails due to "essisa.cat" missing.

Any idea about what could be wrong here?

Reply 2 of 5, by Kordanor

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badmojo wrote on 2023-06-21, 23:33:

What resources did Windows assign?

DMA 1
DMA 3
IRQ 5
0220-022F
0388-038B
0330-0331

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I checked the BIOS and saw that DMA3 was not reserved for ISA. So I changed that. But it didnt have any impact.

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Reply 3 of 5, by Joseph_Joestar

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If you're using WDM drivers, you won't get FM synth, which seems to be what you want.

You need to manually install VxD drivers. Download 185xw95.zip from Phil's website, extract that somewhere, then go to Device Manager and use it to manually update the driver for both ESS AudioDrive entries.

PC#1: Pentium MMX 166 / Soyo SY-5BT / S3 Trio64V+ / Voodoo1 / YMF719 / AWE64 Gold / SC-155
PC#2: AthlonXP 2100+ / ECS K7VTA3 / Voodoo3 / Audigy2 / Vortex2
PC#3: Athlon64 3400+ / Asus K8V-MX / 5900XT / Audigy2
PC#4: i5-3570K / MSI Z77A-G43 / GTX 970 / X-Fi

Reply 4 of 5, by Kordanor

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Not sure why 95 instead of 98, but I just tried that one.
The exe is not doing anything, but as you mentioned I then used the device manager. With both entries I guess you mean the "Control Interface" and the "Plug and Play AudioDrive (WDM)"
After the Update the "WDM" in the description was gone. I restarted the PC for good measure, tried again...and...it changed my windows background picture which was empty before to this (screenshot)? Not sure if thats come kind of weird accident...
Anyways, tried Duke Nukem 3D again. And now it works!

Thanks a lot!

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Reply 5 of 5, by Joseph_Joestar

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Kordanor wrote on 2023-06-22, 10:58:

I restarted the PC for good measure, tried again...and...it changed my windows background picture which was empty before to this (screenshot)? Not sure if thats come kind of weird accident...

That looks like Active Desktop is turned on. If you turn it off, your desktop background should return to how it was.

Anyways, tried Duke Nukem 3D again. And now it works!
Thanks a lot!

You're welcome!

PC#1: Pentium MMX 166 / Soyo SY-5BT / S3 Trio64V+ / Voodoo1 / YMF719 / AWE64 Gold / SC-155
PC#2: AthlonXP 2100+ / ECS K7VTA3 / Voodoo3 / Audigy2 / Vortex2
PC#3: Athlon64 3400+ / Asus K8V-MX / 5900XT / Audigy2
PC#4: i5-3570K / MSI Z77A-G43 / GTX 970 / X-Fi

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