VOGONS


First post, by Trigger58

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Hello everybody,
i am new here and have a question about how to configure an old ISA ESS 1688F Soundcard in DOS.

The card is a NON PNP ISA card and has many jumpers on it.

I configured it as below:

SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 P300

With this settings i get sound with dos games but for a few games i miss something there.

I don't have a manual or something else so i don't know the commands to configure SYNTH (MIDI) or the Joystick

The MIDI works only through the Joystickport and is ENABLED on card. Windows 98 SE find the MIDI or MPU-401.

For a better explain i will give you an example:

If i try to setup "Eye of the Beholder 3" under DOS then i get an error about a missing DSP and i can't get it to work. The EOB3-Setup won't let me setup the sound. Every card i choose don't work.

Now i try exact the same SETUP with Windows 98SE in a Dos-Window and now i the EOB3-Setup finds a card with DSP if i choose "Soundblaster Pro/SB16" and i can successfull ends the setup.

If i reboot the pc and boot into dos the the game has full sound.

Does anybody knows the exact entry for the AUTOEXEC.BAT?

AND

How do i setup the MPU-401?

best regards from germany 😀

Reply 1 of 5, by wbc

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Couldyou please post a photo of your sound card?

You can try to locate the jumper named "Auto-configuraion" or "Jumperless", set it to ON and try UNISOUND to configure the card from the DOS, it seems to work with ES1688.

--wbcbz7

Reply 2 of 5, by Trigger58

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Thanks for the driver.

I read the information.txt inside the UNISOUND.ZP and i hope i will get it to work. This sounds all really complicate for me 🙁

Here is the picture of my card.

The attachment 20221004_153724.jpg is no longer available

I hope her is someone that own the same card. I tried so many different options but i can't get the MPU-401 to run. I ever get an error that the system can't find an MPU-401 but this card should have one.

Reply 3 of 5, by wbc

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it's FORMOSA INDUSTRIAL COMPUTING, INC. CINAACTION SC1630 according to FCC ID on the card's top and Total Hardware '99: https://www.arvutimuuseum.ee/th99/i/E-H/52078.htm

--wbcbz7

Reply 4 of 5, by Trigger58

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Yippiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeh

Finally i got a success 😁

I took these dos drivers:

https://www.vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?fil … 372&menustate=0

These drivers are working like a charm. The drivers i used were the originals from the driver disk. These drivers are bullshit. I tried to get the MPU-401 to work since 2 weeks. Read tons of comments and forum threads. Here too but i never thought, that the original drivers are crap.

After installing the drivers from the link above and ran the esscfg.exe from this package, the driver found the MPU-401 immediately and i could set the parameters. Now all works fine under Dos and Win98.

The only thing i wanna know is how i can change the X2GS WaveTable outputs. I read something about changeable GM-, GS- and MT32-Mode. I found these Zip-File here

Can I use DreamBlaster X2 for MT-32 emulation

But i don't know if these works with the new X2GS i bought 4 weeks ago. I tried these GM.BAT, GS.BAT and MT32.bat but i can't here a different if i start Monkey Island 1.

Any idea were the problem is?

BTW thanks you all for helping me out 😀

Reply 5 of 5, by Trigger58

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All done now 😁

After i got the right driver and could configure the Soundcard with the right ESSCFG.exe, i could set the MPU-401 IRQ to 7 and the I/O-adresse to 330. The volume was set with ESSVOL.exe. I set all to 15 (only Mic was set to zero)

To hear the great new sounds with Monkey Island, i needed a Tool to slowdown the game on my P-III 450 Mhz. I use MOSLO v132 to slowdown the game.

the command is:

moslo /35 monkey.exe r

moslo --> is the tool

/35 --> means 35% of the max speed

monkey.exe --> the gamefile --> you have to write the full filename otherwise you will get an error

r --> is the command for monkey.exe to use MT32 Sound

For Loom i needed the MT32-Patch. After i installed that, i could use the same r command for the loom.exe.
Eye of the Beholder 3 found the card too, after installing the right driver and configured like i wrote above. Now i can setup 2 cards for sound output. Now i use the X2GS WaveTable (MT32, MPU-401) for digital Music and the Soundcard for speech and other effects. This sounds really great now.

Finally i am happy with the result.

Now i can setup every game with for me the best sound i like.