dr.zeissler wrote:

That would be nice 😀 Thx!

Tried it out and think I had about the same results as you. Got sound FX from a couple of older games, Wolfenstein 3D, The Game: Winter Challenge and Space Quest IV (cache off), I think theese use single cycle DMA. In Doom, Descent and Epic Pinball I got no digitized sound. Sound card ran in TDMA mode.

Thank you!
The OPL-Emulation sound VERY! good to me and it seems to work for lots of dosgames, intros, demos, cracktros, but sfx/digisound seems to have much more issues, that should be a proboem according to the fast processors that are used on that board (S370>500Mhz).
Do you have a better solution for me? A better PCI-Card instead? This ESS was the best for me so far.

dr.zeissler wrote:

Thank you!
The OPL-Emulation sound VERY! good to me and it seems to work for lots of dosgames, intros, demos, cracktros, but sfx/digisound seems to have much more issues, that should be a proboem according to the fast processors that are used on that board (S370>500Mhz).
Do you have a better solution for me? A better PCI-Card instead? This ESS was the best for me so far.

For cards with good FM synth and working digitized sound there's the YMF7xx PCI cards running with the DSDMA TSR (can be a bit flaky, computer looses disk accsess when you exit a game sometimes, so you got to reboot).

Other options has bad and/or emulated FM synth, like the Sound Blaster PCI/Live!/Audigy, Ensoniq AudioPCI, Aureal Vortex and Forté Media FM801-AU.

I didn't knew that it was flaky, I never had that problem (though I did'nt use that function that munch but every time I did, I did not encounter problems)

Deksor wrote:

I didn't knew that it was flaky, I never had that problem (though I did'nt use that function that munch but every time I did, I did not encounter problems)

It can have something to do with my setup, when in game it's stable, it's only when I quit the proble occurs. Last rig I had my YMF744 installed were an i965P based one.

Mine has a BX chipset, maybe the BX chipset behaves better with this ?

Deksor wrote:

Mine has a BX chipset, maybe the BX chipset behaves better with this ?

Yeah, I guess you run it without any TSR as the BX chipset support DDMA. 😀

I'm using the SB_link connection, aka PC/PCI. (the DDMA works too though), but I still have to use the "setupds" program to initialize the card.

Oh I thought that you were saying that setupds was a tsr, now I understand X)

I only have a YM744B, I do not own a YM724. I'll test these drivers for it. http://www.vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?fileid=693

dr.zeissler wrote:

I only have a YM744B, I do not own a YM724. I'll test these drivers for it. http://www.vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?fileid=693

Try this instead if that one lacks the DSDMA TSR.

Thank you. I did some tests and the ym74x is a good card indeed, but the solo1 is much more compatible.
The dostools of the yamaha card need a tsr and that tsr needs emm386 loaded. on my machine no ems-window is possible, so I had to go for "noems" option. I ran into lot's a random shutdowns, hangs, reboots... I changed it back to the ess-solo1 but I have to admit, that the fm-sound is really crisp and clear on the yamaha! but none of the games that did not work with my solo1, did not work either with the ymf74x.

I put one just recently arrived dreamblaster-S2 on the solo1 and played some raptor with full general-midi music and sb-pro soundblaster sfx 😀 Very nice!

I did not get the Dreamblaster S2 to work within windows98se. I'll have to checkout the manual. There must be some tricks to get it work. If I install the old vxd-driver there is a "ess-dos-comptiblit entry". Within the base-adress 330 is already used by it. I think I will have to go for the WDM-Drivers.

Greetings
Doc

Here is some stuff to test. Everything works nearly 100%, some minor issues are tolerated.
Software that has greater issues (not playing sound at all, stuttering gfx/scrollers, wrong colors, lock-ups are stored in _error)

The other software is a bit categorized. Very beautiful stuff.

The machine I use to test this is:
FSC SCOVERY XS S.370 PIII/600 FSB 133
MB D1215 ChipsetI810/i815 using the onboard gfx-chip (32MB via Bios)
ESS-SOLO1 PCI-Soundcard
ONLY HIMEM

Let me know what you think and please test your own PCI-Soundcards and GFX-Cards against this stuff.

Greatings
Doc

Most later dosgames use a kind of "standard-sound-framework". Two major player seem to be "miles?" and " 3drealms?"
Games that use the "miles?" soundcard-setup work just fine with opl and digi-sfx, but the "3drealms?" soundcard-framework never works!

e.g.
WWF4 = miles = works just fine
DN3D,SW, BLOOD = 3drealms, no sound at all 🙁

I searched for patches of the soundframework for pci-soundcards, but I just found nothing 🙁

Does anyone have a suggestion for me?

(beside that there is a "tandy-driver" that perhaps can be used with a dac on lpt1 to get some sound out of the games)

I guess you had a look at bristlehog's thread.

I don't know what game WWF4 is, but do you got sound FX in the game itself or only in the setup program? In my experience some games, like Warcraft II which also use Miles, you get sound FX in the setup program but not in the game itself with certain PCI sound card setups.

For DN3D the general-midi music works with my ess-solo1 and dreamblaster-s2 upgrade. But SFX does not work due to a reported DMA-Conflict,
but there is no real DMA-Conflict, it's only the problem of the "3D-Realms-Sound-engine" used in lot's of games combined with a PCI soundcard and a fast PIII-600.

For all games with that specific "sound-engine" neither setup, nor the game itself is working. I alway get a "DMA-Confict".

I tested the DN3DPCI-Soundcard-Fix on this, but this does not help for the reported DMA-Conflict 🙁

Use a Windows port of Duke Nukem 3D or get a motherboard with VIA chipset.

Thx, this could be an option, but not for sw3dfx... (same sound-engine for dos and dosglide)
There are really lot's of dos-games with that specific sound-engine, perhaps a pci-soundcard-fix would be a BIG deal.

Are there any PCI sound cards that DON'T require EMM386? It's just the 3DFX version of Nascar Racing 2 won't run with emm386 🙁

ESS Solo1 does not require EMM386, but the SB-Part is not detected by some Dosgames, OPL Music is everywhere, that's really nice.
It would be a KILLER-PCI-SOUNDCARD if the SB-issues can be fixed in dos.

Kamerat wrote:

Use a Windows port of Duke Nukem 3D or get a motherboard with VIA chipset.

by the way, the win-port seems to use the dos-sound-options so no digisound either 🙁