Windows 98 CD audio "tick" \ VOGONS

Windows 98 CD audio "tick"

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First post, by TheOligopolist

Posted on 2016-12-21, 00:37

TheOligopolist Offline

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Hi everyone.

I recently got a Compaq Deskpro EN PIII machine that I have installed Windows 98 on.
Everything is working well accept for games that use red book CD audio. While playing a game with CD audio there is what I can only describe as a noticeable performance tick. Every 12 seconds the game will pause for half a second. As soon as the music playback is stopped either via in game settings or just removing the CD this tick goes away.
I've tried various DMA modes, turning off auto insert notifications, switching around IRQ settings but nothing has had any effect.
The computer has an integrated SoundMAX sound chip. I'm waiting on delivery of an Aureal Vortex sound card that I'm hoping will improve DOS game sound compatibility and it may also help with this problem, but I don't know.
Have any of you encountered a similar problem? Grateful for any ideas. Thanks.

Reply 1 of 4, by TheOligopolist

Posted on 2016-12-21, 03:16

TheOligopolist Offline

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nvm fixed it

The problem was caused by the Cyberdrive CDRW drive I had installed. I swapped it out for a standard CD-ROM drive and the tick went away.
The Cyberdrive seems to be functioning perfectly fine in every other respect, must be some odd conflict somewhere or something.
Also, I noticed I posted this in the wrong sub-forum. Sorry about that.

Reply 2 of 4, by Jorpho

Posted on 2016-12-21, 03:23

Jorpho Offline

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Often things like this will be caused by unexpected entries in the "Upperfilters" and "Lowerfilters" registry keys. Google will tell you more.

Swapping out the CD-ROM drive will indeed pretty much solve that problem as the new drive will not have the corresponding keys in the registry.

Reply 3 of 4, by TheOligopolist

Posted on 2016-12-21, 03:58

TheOligopolist Offline

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Jorpho wrote:
Often things like this will be caused by unexpected entries in the "Upperfilters" and "Lowerfilters" registry keys. Google will tell you more.

Swapping out the CD-ROM drive will indeed pretty much solve that problem as the new drive will not have the corresponding keys in the registry.

That's good to know, thank you.
I'll be upgrading the hard drive soon so I'll see how the problematic drive works with a fresh install of windows and I'll keep that in mind.