VOGONS


First post, by ruthan

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Hello,
im trying experimenting with CT Live! and Audigy cards which are working fine in Win98Se, but not in Dos - have tried its SB 16 emulation driver, is loaded but is not working, so perhaps there is other working cards?

Modern board i mean Core i architector or AMD970 etc.. its possible to make WIndows98SE working on them, so pure Dos is next step.

Im old goal oriented goatman, i care about facts and freedom, not about egos+prejudices. Hoarding=sickness. If you want respect, gain it by your behavior. I hate stupid SW limits, SW=virtual world, everything should be possible if you have enough raw HW.

Reply 1 of 28, by cyclone3d

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The Live! and Audigy cards will not work in DOS on newer chipsets.

You may be able to get a Yamaha YMF7x4 board working in DOS.

See here:
YMF744+DSDMA+DOS+P965(and other PCIe chipsets)=success

Or maybe an ESS Solo-1 based card.

Yamaha modified setupds and drivers
Yamaha XG repository
YMF7x4 Guide
Aopen AW744L II SB-LINK

Reply 2 of 28, by ruthan

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If is problem at the side of Sound card but main board. Because i can make (have) Audigy working on Core 2 Duo too..

Im old goal oriented goatman, i care about facts and freedom, not about egos+prejudices. Hoarding=sickness. If you want respect, gain it by your behavior. I hate stupid SW limits, SW=virtual world, everything should be possible if you have enough raw HW.

Reply 3 of 28, by Kamerat

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Yes, it's a motherboard issue. If you want the best DOS support with a Core 2 based rig you should go for a motherboard based on a chipset from VIA. ESS Solo-1 or parhaps an ALS4000 might work on the latest VIA chipset for the Core 2 and the Audigy also (but the SoundBlaster PCI/Live!/Audigy series needs an ugly TSR). Yamaha YMF7x4 with running with the DSDMA TSR works in my experience on most chipsets with native PCI support, but it got some issues with games sometimes hangs on exit and it requires EMM386 just like SB PCI/Live!/Audigy series.

DOS Sound Blaster compatibility: PCI sound cards vs. PCI chipsets
YouTube channel

Reply 4 of 28, by ruthan

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For me also intel chipset is fine - at least 865 with my Conroe865PE board.

What are exactluy TSR and DSDMA TSR? Is there soemthing like diag utility or feature in specs to check if would be MB compatible with PCI DOS soundcards?

Im old goal oriented goatman, i care about facts and freedom, not about egos+prejudices. Hoarding=sickness. If you want respect, gain it by your behavior. I hate stupid SW limits, SW=virtual world, everything should be possible if you have enough raw HW.

Reply 5 of 28, by Jo22

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ruthan wrote:

What are exactluy TSR and DSDMA TSR? Is there soemthing like diag utility or feature in specs to check if would be MB compatible with PCI DOS soundcards?

In simple words, a TSR is a little background program. Device drivers in DOS are usually TSRs, too.
They can be called by DOS, put to sleep and, later-on, awakened again (they stay in memory all the time).

DSDMA.EXE is the name of a utility/driver thing that enables Distributed DMA (D-DMA) for certain sound cards.
Distributed DMA is a technique to -more or less- emulate the ancient ISA-DMA over the old PCI bus.
Technical details are described here.

"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel

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Reply 6 of 28, by Baoran

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I was just recently thinking of trying similar pci cards on asus striker II extreme motherboard and this thread made me wonder if it is a good idea. Does that motherboard have too new chipset when it comes to that emulation?

Reply 7 of 28, by Kamerat

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ruthan wrote:

For me also intel chipset is fine - at least 865 with my Conroe865PE board.

Yes, Sound Blaster PCI/Live!/Audigy works on boards on the ICH5 southbridge, but that's the last one for Intel.

ruthan wrote:

Is there soemthing like diag utility or feature in specs to check if would be MB compatible with PCI DOS soundcards?

Not that I know of, but you can have a look at the spreadsheet listed in my signature or ask in the forum.

Jo22 wrote:

DSDMA.EXE is the name of a utility/driver thing that enables Distributed DMA (D-DMA) for certain sound cards.

Not quite. The Yamaha DSDMA TSR is a replacement for motherboards not supporting DDMA or PC/PCI. In DDMA mode the Yamaha YMF7xx PCI series (and some other PCI sound cards) runs without any TSR, you just need to initialize it. You can often enable Sound Blaster support by just modifying some PCI registers.

Baoran wrote:

I was just recently thinking of trying similar pci cards on asus striker II extreme motherboard and this thread made me wonder if it is a good idea. Does that motherboard have too new chipset when it comes to that emulation?

Nvidia chipsets are not very good for PCI sound cards under DOS just like Intel boards with ICH6 or newer. Yamaha YMF7xx or Aureal Vortex might work.

DOS Sound Blaster compatibility: PCI sound cards vs. PCI chipsets
YouTube channel

Reply 8 of 28, by Baoran

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I do have some other motherboard options for testing the sound cards for emulation. For example I could use one that has VIA K8T800Pro/VT8237 chipset if that works better.

Reply 9 of 28, by Kamerat

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That's a much better option. It will work with Sound Blaster PCI/Live!/Audigy and probably ESS Solo-1 and Avance Logic ALS4000 too. The Solo-1 is really nice for DOS use.

DOS Sound Blaster compatibility: PCI sound cards vs. PCI chipsets
YouTube channel

Reply 10 of 28, by ruthan

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Yes, Sound Blaster PCI/Live!/Audigy works on boards on the ICH5 southbridge, but that's the last one for Intel.

The Yamaha DSDMA TSR is a replacement for motherboards not supporting DDMA or PC/PCI. In DDMA mode the Yamaha YMF7xx PCI series (and some other PCI sound cards) runs without any TSR, you just need to initialize it. You can often enable Sound Blaster support by just modifying some PCI registers.

Im trying to figure out what is wrong with newer board.. So its difference in some PCI registers values or adresses? Would be really nice to have some utility to test if some card could work with some board before buy such card, some old cards are quite expensive..

Im old goal oriented goatman, i care about facts and freedom, not about egos+prejudices. Hoarding=sickness. If you want respect, gain it by your behavior. I hate stupid SW limits, SW=virtual world, everything should be possible if you have enough raw HW.

Reply 11 of 28, by ruthan

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After i fixed EMS boot issue with my HP Z400 sc1366 X58 Xeon X5660 (6core) machine thanks to this forum.

This machine is much faster and newer (CPU is from Q1 2010, AES instruction and VT-x and VT-d are supported, its not bad for 20$ CPU:) than old Core 2 Duo - even with slow DDR3 1333 ECC RAMS it could do - 2300 / 12000 single / multicore score in Geekbench 3, fore example Core i7 4770S - do 3500 / 13000 and Core i7 5960X - 3500 / 25000 and Core i7 8700k - 4500 / 24500..

What is best on this machine, it has primary GPU slot selection in HP Bios, so i can use old and new GPU depends on OS, even Windows 10 with Geforce 730 are running well not this HW.

I tested PCI Audigy Card (Creative Audigy SB0160) - WIn98 compatible one, with this board in pure Dos 7.0 and at least something is working.. so this is most modern board where i was able to make pure Dos.

Im still at the start of debug, im able to way sound with Blood setup.exe - when i set music card - General Midi or Sound Blaster - test sample is plaing when, when i try to set Sound card - its not working for now, same as execution of game - im getting FM chip not find error message..
I tried Doom 2 - no sound with Sound Blaster and Warcraft 2 Demo - not sound card detected.
Sample is playing in XMS and EMS386 mode (SB if driver is not loaded successfully - see below)

I will now try to experiment with SBINIT parameters and other games.
Update: Hmm other games no success.

My SB settings in XMS mode driver is loaded successfully:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/3to3uvvpwekej1s/Aut … ttings.jpg?dl=0

Driver message:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ycrcnlkpgj8x4jh/Goo … Loaded.jpg?dl=0

In EMM386 i got this driver loading error, autoexec code is the same.

Driver error:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/m0gzji5ye3tcxln/EMM … Loaded.jpg?dl=0

Im old goal oriented goatman, i care about facts and freedom, not about egos+prejudices. Hoarding=sickness. If you want respect, gain it by your behavior. I hate stupid SW limits, SW=virtual world, everything should be possible if you have enough raw HW.

Reply 12 of 28, by gdjacobs

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I wouldn't count on DOS PCI port trapping to work on any modern motherboard. The PCI bus is usually bridged over PCIe these days which has resulted in further loss of legacy functionality.

Having said that, try Rayer's patch to see if NMIs can be enabled.

All hail the Great Capacitor Brand Finder

Reply 13 of 28, by ruthan

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For now i need some clarifications to SB emulation driver:

1) Its ctsyn.ini used for pure Dos too, or only for for Windows 98 DOS mode?

2) Its ctsyn.ini used during every boot or once to generation of autoexec file lines?

3) What means PCIport and PCIIRQ parameters in ctsyn.ini? I have =0 for both.

4) In Creative documentation is that Himem and EMM386 are needed for SB emulation driver,
but im getting that driver is successfully loaded in my XMS.. I dont understand it - its possible to use XMS and EMM386 together.

5) What incomplete config file is meant in that EMM386 driver loading error above?
Its really strange because im quite sure that SB emulation lines are same for XMS (working) and EMM386 (loading with error) config branches.

My config files and drivers are here:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/xl2lkwqoyj5s5un/Win … Packed.zip?dl=0

As i wrote good sign is that at least Blood game setup is able to play music samples on this machine - with XMS/EMS (even with error above) boot option for SB, General midi and Adlib. So some way how to force make machine to play sample in Pure dos exist..

Here is Rayers utility output, if you not work it works good:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/fbasg9jdihe2drn/Ser … Output.jpg?dl=0

I already was in contact with Rayer, because of Core I SB emulation, that was dead case, but lets hope than SC1366 would be better.

About this utility should be started in autoexec before or after SB driver is loaded?

Im old goal oriented goatman, i care about facts and freedom, not about egos+prejudices. Hoarding=sickness. If you want respect, gain it by your behavior. I hate stupid SW limits, SW=virtual world, everything should be possible if you have enough raw HW.

Reply 14 of 28, by gdjacobs

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I'm not sure why the driver claims it's operating with only HIMEM, although it could only be raw access that's initialized. AudioPCI/SB Live/Audigy cards use EMM386 to trap raw hardware resources and reroute them to the PCI device, so EMM386 is required for SB emulation.

All hail the Great Capacitor Brand Finder

Reply 15 of 28, by ruthan

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I was able to make EMS386 boot branch to load SB emu driver, by change EMS like to this:
DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\EMM386.EXE 16384 D=64 FRAME=E000 /I=B000-B7FF RAM // Im getting some RAM/ROM warning during boot with it.
From here: https://www.wcnews.com/chatzone/threads/p1-an … nd-part-2.2902/
Im not sure what that code means, if some adress remaping or limiting maximal ammount of memory. I had 64 MB set by himemx, as changed it to 16 MB - because it could be too much but nothing changed.

That SB driver loading Config error is probably bad coding, i didnt changed ctsyn.ini and now its loading, - something like else branch for any other error = Config error..

But results is still the same, only application which is able to detect some sound / music device and play the sound is Blood and Duke3D setup.exe wizzards and its detect only music card - SB / General midi and Adlib - all these are working the setup. Sound card detection is not working - im getting some generic DMA is not working or DMA conflict error.

I have tried quite few older games, but their setups are not able to detect soundcard or i can set it in setup, but game is silent. I tested Doom II, Legend of Kyrandia, Hexen, Dungeon Master, Dune 2 etc..
Else Blood / Duke3D where setup is able to play the music, when i set no sound and only music, is still get sound related errors during game starts.

I tried multiple combination of Autoexec SB settings - IRQS, DMAs etc.. not all but quite few, but until i will understand how ctsyn.ini is working, im not sure, if it matters.. Maybe config params are ignored, when CTsyn.init is used, because i have tried some info utils from drivers folders and it reports driver info related to ctsyn.ini data not autoexec data.

Result is still same there is not HW limit to play Audigy samples in pure Dos on such machine, at least once app can do it, but there are some SW/ drivers issues.

Im old goal oriented goatman, i care about facts and freedom, not about egos+prejudices. Hoarding=sickness. If you want respect, gain it by your behavior. I hate stupid SW limits, SW=virtual world, everything should be possible if you have enough raw HW.

Reply 16 of 28, by gdjacobs

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That sounds like game over to me. I'm thinking the south bridge simply isn't compatible due to certain functionality required by the SB emulation scheme being removed.

All hail the Great Capacitor Brand Finder

Reply 17 of 28, by Srandista

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I recently bought Terratec sound card with ESS Solo-1 chip, since according to this topic it should work on my quite modern 775 board with VIA VT8237S southbridge. Will be testing it shortly. I would read through that topic on your place, maybe you'll find information about exact card, which you need for sound in DOS, or you'll find, that's it not possible on your board.

Socket 775 - ASRock 4CoreDual-VSTA, Pentium E6500K, 4GB RAM, Radeon 9800XT, ESS Solo-1, Win 98/XP
Socket A - Chaintech CT-7AIA, AMD Athlon XP 2400+, 1GB RAM, Radeon 9600XT, ESS ES1869F, Win 98

Reply 18 of 28, by ruthan

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Srandista wrote:

I recently bought Terratec sound card with ESS Solo-1 chip, since according to this topic it should work on my quite modern 775 board with VIA VT8237S southbridge. Will be testing it shortly. I would read through that topic on your place, maybe you'll find information about exact card, which you need for sound in DOS, or you'll find, that's it not possible on your board.

775 is still safe, its working even with Audigy, SB Live! even in my machine, progress would be something more modern.. In that linked thread is for someone is working Yamaha 744 on X58, i will try it later too, i never had this card, there seems to even be some Windows 7 drivers.
I can confirm that AMD970 AM3 is dead end too, Windows 98 are working, but pure Dos doesnt, at least with Creative cards..

Last edited by ruthan on 2018-06-29, 00:59. Edited 1 time in total.

Im old goal oriented goatman, i care about facts and freedom, not about egos+prejudices. Hoarding=sickness. If you want respect, gain it by your behavior. I hate stupid SW limits, SW=virtual world, everything should be possible if you have enough raw HW.

Reply 19 of 28, by appiah4

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Aztech PCI 168 is probably what you need.

Aztech_PCI168.jpg

ESS Solo-1 is great but it doesn't play nice with 'modern' boards. PCI 168 seems to work with pretty much anything that has a PCI port, according to a comment on Amoretro.

Hello, […]
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Hello,

It would be worth mentioning that this chip includes a real OPL3. Furthermore, this card (as the only one I know) even on the most modern chipsets * without * native PCI bus (eg Intel Z97) ​​under Windows 98 Sound in DOS applications play.

Greetings,
Eric

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