ESS AudioDrive ES1868F - drivers - and how do you disable the gameport / midi port? \ VOGONS

ESS AudioDrive ES1868F - drivers - and how do you disable the gameport / midi port?

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First post, by Mau1wurf1977

Posted on 2010-09-29, 22:10

Mau1wurf1977 Offline

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Hey guys I got two of these ESS AudioDrive ES1868F cards and was playing around with them last night.

Firstly they work really well. The seem to be SB Pro compatible.

I do have a driver disk which includes CWDINIT.EXE to initialise the card.

However I found that the card works even without running this application.

Anway the card has a Gameport / Midi port. When I run CWDINIT.EXE I get confirmation about the resources. It's the ususal 220 / 5 / 1 for Soundblaster cards but it doesn't say anything about 330 or game / midiport.

So I got my joystick to midi cable, hooked up a Roland module, started a game and the Roland plays fine.

So how do I disable the midi port (I would like to use a Roland MPU401 card and not have a conflict).

There are no jumpers on this card whatsoever.

I started CWDINIT.EXE with the /? option and I do get a heap of settings but nothing to disable the Gameport / Midi port.

Maybe my drivers disc is missing a configuration utility.

Last edited by Mau1wurf1977 on 2010-11-23, 20:49. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 1 of 9, by Mau1wurf1977

Posted on 2010-09-29, 22:42

Mau1wurf1977 Offline

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Ok I'm getting somewhere...

There is a CWDAUDIO.INI file which shows:

[PNP] WssIO=534 WssInt=5 WssDmaPlay=1 WssDmaCapture=0 SbIO=220 OplIO=388 OplInt=Disabled […]
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[PNP]
WssIO=534
WssInt=5
WssDmaPlay=1
WssDmaCapture=0
SbIO=220
OplIO=388
OplInt=Disabled

GameIO=200

4232IO=538
4232Int=Disabled

MPU401IO=330
MPU401Int=9

CDIO=Disabled
CDInt=Disabled
CDDma=Disabled

I changed 220 to 240 and it worked. It seems that whatever is in this file, gets written into the PnP rom when you launch CWDINIT.

Being a ini file, I guess the SETUP.EXE that's on this disk is meant to be run from W95 and maybe there you can disable the gameport / midiport.

Reply 2 of 9, by tikbalang

Posted on 2010-09-30, 11:52

tikbalang Offline

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CWD* looks like a crystal-based sound card to me. have a look at my ESS ISA drivers.

ESS PCI DOS Drivers
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Reply 3 of 9, by Mau1wurf1977

Posted on 2010-09-30, 12:05

Mau1wurf1977 Offline

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Thanks! I will try them right away...

Yes it's Crystal which was part of Cirrus Logic I believe.

My website with reviews, demos, drivers, tutorials and more...
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Reply 4 of 9, by Mau1wurf1977

Posted on 2010-09-30, 17:35

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Well that utility didn't work, but I managed to just move the MPU401 port to another address, so it won't conflict with my Roland MPU401 compatible card. All good!

My website with reviews, demos, drivers, tutorials and more...
My YouTube channel

Reply 5 of 9, by tikbalang

Posted on 2010-10-01, 04:46

tikbalang Offline

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i am surprised esstech made crystal based soundcards. there is no mention of it in their old esstech.com website (use wayback).

attached is a limited but handy crystal driver. i hope this helps.

ESS PCI DOS Drivers
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Reply 6 of 9, by Mau1wurf1977

Posted on 2010-10-01, 05:01

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Here is the drivers that came with my card!

And a pic of the card (I have 2, one is green, one is yellowish but otherwise they are identical).

The cards are good, but make a really loud pop noise when you reboot or at the start of some games. I head headphones on and it made my ears ring...

But for testing they are great as they don't need any drivers or initialization to get going.

Reply 7 of 9, by Jo22

Posted on 2016-07-14, 05:07

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Did you try "MPU401IO=disabled" or "MPU401IO=" (no statement) ?
No idea if this works, but maybe it's worth a try. You could also to try to remove both lines.

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