alexanrs wrote:

Kahenraz wrote:

One thing to note is that hard drive/SSD performance is very slow when running under protected mode DOS relative to real-mode which runs at a much higher speed. I could never figure out why or how to work around it.

Have you tried something like UIDE (which replaces the BIOS's int13h services with its own UDMA-aware cached version)?

I did not. I've since sold one board and the other is in a box somewhere.

I have a p4 board from an ATM that has 2 ISA slots (or is it 3? I can't remember atm)... I checked this morning and it has the W83628g bridge, so I guess there isn't any point saving it for an isa/p4 setup, right?

keropi wrote:

I have a p4 board from an ATM that has 2 ISA slots (or is it 3? I can't remember atm)... I checked this morning and it has the W83628g bridge, so I guess there isn't any point saving it for an isa/p4 setup, right?

I haven't worked with retro hardware in a while but I seem to remember windbond chips being a bad thing. Though there's no harm in testing it to be sure.

You won't be able to get DMA or bus mastering from newer boards with ISA slots but I've had the experience that FM synthesis and midi cards like the Roland SCC-1 work just fine.

keropi wrote:

I have a p4 board from an ATM that has 2 ISA slots (or is it 3? I can't remember atm)... I checked this morning and it has the W83628g bridge, so I guess there isn't any point saving it for an isa/p4 setup, right?

Before throw your mobo to trash, try the utility that popfuture posted before in DOS mode, to see if it can enable DMA lines in your specific case. We just checked is possible to enable DMA lines in some motherboard with Winbond driven ISA slots too.

http://www.flaterco.com/kb/ISA_chipsets.html

EBay seller, 2012: About the Intel D845GECL: "I've done extensive testing with these and they're absolutely flawless as a retro board.... This motherboard supports ISA Bus Mastering for DMA (Direct Memory Access); this means it is compatible with old DOS-era sound cards. I've tested it personally with a Gravis Ultrasound, SB16, AWE32, and AWE64."

That was MY auction! 😁

I will test it at some point, the board has 3xISA slots , 4xPCI and 1xAGP. I can't see a model/make on it, just REV.B1 marking.
Thanks for the info.

Hi gyus,
After a few months and a lof of sending e-mails I have sent in the world I got an answer from iBASE today. They said me they do not believe that MB865-R does not support ISA DMA. They adviced me to disable CPU L1 & L2 in BIOS (this information is on VOGONS forum too) but i does not help. I asked him for last fw of BIOS. The new one is H2J-C1A-0312. I reflashed it and my SB AWE32 finally works flawlessy now! My old BIOS was H1D-C1A-0310. There is Winbond 83627 instead of ITE8888 and ISA DMA works too!
In the BIOS there is needed to set these features but you know them of course:
DMA-1 and DMA-5 assigned to Legacy ISA, IRQ-5 assigned to Legacy ISA and Memory Hole at 15-16M Enabled. After then it works.

I have other problem. I can not to install MS DOS 6.22 on SSD disc Samsung 840 Pro formated on FAT16 in advance by Partition Magic or formated with the format.com during instalation of DOS itself. There an error can "unable FAT16". Any ideas? Thank you.

Whenever formatting something for DOS I always do it this way:
1- Use FDISK to partition
2- Run FDISK /MBR to make sure the MBR is fine
3- Then format the partition with FORMAT.COM

But honestly on a machine like that the DOS mode of Win9x is a better bet - FAT32 + LBA48 support and better memory management.

Glad to hear you got it working. Would you mind linking the update firmware?

Rabanik wrote:

I have other problem. I can not to install MS DOS 6.22 on SSD disc Samsung 840 Pro formated on FAT16 in advance by Partition Magic or formated with the format.com during instalation of DOS itself. There an error can "unable FAT16". Any ideas? Thank you.

Your partition table values are screwed. You first need do an MBR zeroing on it with something like windows "diskpart clean". then you will connect it to your target machine and do the partitioning there.

Never ever use new post-Vista tools to do MSDOS partitioning, them don't align partitions and set values as how DOS expect them. Never ever partition your disk in a different machine and then plug it already partitioned in your target, because DOS and some bioses don't like that, and if you have one of these bioses which use "Large" translation mode instead the more widespread LBA mode, boot will fail. Always try to first zero fill MBR, then reboot and finally partition your drive in the target. This ensures correct translation drive values will be always used, and this will make DOS happy.

Said that, i recommend you using a normal small HDD instead an SSD for your DOS task. SSD access in DOS will be always slower than HDD access because how SSD works and is internally organized, which BIOS/DOS isn't aware. 512 block size vs 4K block size, alignment problems and all sort of sorcery that you will need to set up only to get your device pretty underused.

Hi. Thank you for the answer about formatting SSD disc. I have another problems:
1) When I turn on the computer and I start the game I do not hear a sound again from my AWE32 (I thought the problem was solved with a new fw of BIOS above but it appears it is not) When I turn off the computer and then turn on the computer again the sound (SFX) works. Any ideas? Every settings in the BIOS etc. was kept. BIOS battery is OK. Sometimes works everything sometimes helps the turn on/off the computer.
2) I have on my AWE32 PnP/CT3980 a daughterboard Yamaha DB50XG. It works well with games Doom 1+2, Duke Nukem 3D, Warcraft 1 etc. choosing of General MIDI/Sound Canvas. When I want to choose for music SB16 for expamle in Dungeon Master 2 I do not hear a music. Where is the problem? With the DB50XG on AWE 32? When I put DB50XG from AWE32 away the music in the Dungeon Master 2 works. The same problem with "no music" and DB50XG on AWE32 is for example in Dungeon Master 1 too. Do exist some commands in AUTOEXEC.BAT for discarding of DB50XG? For Example I changed SET MIDI=SYNTH:1 to SET MIDI=SYNTH:2 (I have seen this settings with WaveBlaster II) but it does not work too. What does mean other settings as MAP:E and MODE:0?
Thank you.

Kahenraz wrote:

If you want a small form factor with a peppier CPU but with full ISA support, try and find a D845GECL. There are some on still e […]
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If you want a small form factor with a peppier CPU but with full ISA support, try and find a D845GECL. There are some on still ebay.

The following photo is SIMILAR to my board. There are a number of listings on ebay of 845GL/854GL, etc. Some have winbond chips some do not. They all appear to be custom PCBs for various solutions so you compatibility might be a hit-or-miss.

I've owned two D845GECL motherboards and they are ideal for building an older retro computer where you want the extra processing power of a Pentium 4 but still have the use of your favorite ISA sound card.

These models are OEM industrial motherboard built by Intel for use by Siemens and are comprised of high quality parts. These particular boards I owned were used in France's "La Poste" postal service kiosks which eventually made their way to Hong Kong to be recycled.

I've done extensive testing with these and they're absolutely flawless as a retro board and is very compatible with QEMM for allocating lots of UMBs for TSR loading. There will be plenty of memory available for your favorite games.

This motherboard supports ISA Bus Mastering for DMA (Direct Memory Access); this means it is compatible with old DOS-era sound cards. I've tested it personally with a Gravis Ultrasound, SB16, AWE32, and AWE64.

Tested with Pentium 4 2.66Ghz and 3.06Ghz processors-- they work great!

One thing to note is that hard drive/SSD performance is very slow when running under protected mode DOS relative to real-mode which runs at a much higher speed. I could never figure out why or how to work around it.

On my P4 I used:

Scythe Shuriken Rev.B Quiet Low Profile CPU Cooler
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?It … N82E16835185097

For those looking to buy a P4 heatsink, you may be able to still find a Zalman CNPS7000B-Cu or variant. These are good coolers too:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?It … N82E16835118119

Here is a photo of the Scythe:

From what I can recall, Windows 98SE will run blazingly fast on a good Socket 478 P4, so this seems like it may be a good option. Hardest part would be finding a decent graphics card though. I'd probably disable the onboard if at all possible, throw in a Voodoo 3 for DOS and Win9x stuff, and a PCI Radeon 9xxx of some description for DX8 games. Maybe I'd use the third PCI slot for a soundcard with A3D or something too, though I'd have to find a way to secure it without a bracket.

I thing there is no problem with ISA DMA support. This informations is confirmed from the manufacturer too. I am mainly interesting in why AWE32 + DB50XG = no music as I wrote above.
I tried it again tturn the computer off/on and it works again. My computer plays with me 😀

Does exist some command in AUTOEXEC.BAT for discarding of DB50XG and play midi direct from main sound card? For Example I changed SET MIDI=SYNTH:1 to SET MIDI=SYNTH:2 (I have seen this settings with WaveBlaster II) but it does not work too. What does mean other settings as MAP:E and MODE:0?

Other question about SB Audigy 1. This sound card has a PC speaker header on the board. Does work this PC speaker under MS DOS? I hing this feature works only under Windows. I wired the Audigy's header with the motherboard and no sound. When I put the cable onto SB AWE32 everything works. Thanx.

hyoenmadan wrote on 2016-02-14, 15:17:

Anything with ITE IT8888x bridge will work good enough for ISA Sound applications, with DMA support and all that.
Anything with Winbond W83628x bridge will be a hit or a miss, as these chips don't offer DMA support as a regular feature. There are some motherboard who wire some support from the main chipset (Intel 845/65 only), and will work for ISA sound applications, you really can't tell it without testing them.

Hi all. Newbe here trying to build a retro pc. I kept all my old soundcards and my old 500gb IDE with all my games from way back when. I found this board on ALiexpress that says it has an ITE IT8888x bridge. It has 3 ISA sockets so my SCC1, GUS Ace, and AWE32 should work perfectly!! Has anyone tested this board out?

CYSMBD-G41-ISA +3 ISA +4PCI slots +1PCIe +6 COM-

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32892452763.h … 3c00xYP3xt&mp=1

I hate to be a Debby downer, but i doubt a G41 board has ISA DMA. You can't get DOS sound effects without it.

It has ICH7 south bridge, which is somewhat DOS and Win9x friendly, but ISA DMA is not supported since ICH5. ITE IT8888 bridge is supposed to emulate DMA, but I doubt that many (if anyone) actually bothered to implement that support in firmware on late motherboards.

Very interesting. I would like to test one of those boards but not sure I would want to take a $200 gamble.

The ITE8888 bridge does give some hope though.

And it is Chinesium, so that probably makes it even more likely to have crazy compatibility like that.

edit:
This board has been discussed before. It doesn't support ISA DMA.
945ISA Motherboard - DMA... not working?

fosterwj03 wrote on 2022-02-19, 19:49:

I hate to be a Debby downer, but i doubt a G41 board has ISA DMA. You can't get DOS sound effects without it.

Ok. I thought that boards with the an ITE IT8888 ISA Bridge were ok for compatibility. What alerted you that the board doesn't have ISA DMA.

Thanks,
MM

MannyMania wrote on 2022-02-20, 04:00:

Ok. I thought that boards with the an ITE IT8888 ISA Bridge were ok for compatibility. What alerted you that the board doesn't […]
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fosterwj03 wrote on 2022-02-19, 19:49:

I hate to be a Debby downer, but i doubt a G41 board has ISA DMA. You can't get DOS sound effects without it.

Ok. I thought that boards with the an ITE IT8888 ISA Bridge were ok for compatibility. What alerted you that the board doesn't have ISA DMA.

Thanks,
MM

The person in the thread I linked to bought one and ISA DMA did not work.

Did it get mentioned that these are big boards, maybe 3 or 4 inches longer front to back than "full" ATX boards people might have previously dealt with. You might have trouble fitting them to some "full" cases. Even if you get it on the motherboard tray, you might find the drive bays or something not giving it enough overhead clearance. Then you're either looking for some very short RAM modules or deleting your internal bays. It's not un-doable, just you need to take it into account in the beginning, not several case purchases and much frustration later.