deksar wrote:

how can I see what are free IRQs and which ones are in use, on my system?

Did you check Device Manager in Windows?
If you need instructions, check
https://www.techrepublic.com/article/understa … -in-windows-98/
and scroll about halfway down the page for the part about Device Manager.
Figure C shows the window where you can display IRQ's -- put the dot next to where it says "Interrupt request (IRQ)."

When the sound card's IRQ changes to 9 or 10, is there something other than the printer that takes IRQ 7 and pushes the sound card onto something else? The printer should be able to share IRQ 7 with sound.

What does your autoexec.bat file look like?
Is there a SET BLASTER line?

Hi skitters, many thanks for your prompt and detailed reply!

I have attached the IRQs list, it seems IRQ 7 is empty, and that should be perfect for dos-gaming, as few DOS game titles such as Prince of Persia requires IRQ7. I'd like to move the soundcard (This is an onboard card on IBM), to that IRQ.

My autoexec.bat:

1C:\ESSAUDIO.COM -BLASTER
2@ECHO OFF
3SET DIRCMD=/A/O:GNE/P
4SET TMP=C:\WINDOWS\TEMP
5SET TEMP=C:\WINDOWS\TEMP
6SET PROMPT=$p$g
7SET PATH=C:\WINDOWS;C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND
8keyb tr,,C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\keybrd2.sys /id:179
9LH C:\cmouse.exe /P

Windows 98 outputs the following values during boot:

1ESS PCI AUDIO DOS Device Driver, Version 2.30D
2Allegro-1
3c:\C:\ESSAUDIO.COM -BLASTER
4
5ESS PCI Audio DOS Device Setup Utility
6Current PCI IRQ: 9 PCI IO Base: 7800
7DMA Mode is VIA DDMA
8
9SBPro Game Settings:
10SB IO=220h IRQ=9 DMA=1
11MPU401 Disabled
12Game Port Disabled

Thank you!

skitters wrote:

deksar wrote:

how can I see what are free IRQs and which ones are in use, on my system?

When the sound card's IRQ changes to 9 or 10, is there something other than the printer that takes IRQ 7 and pushes the sound card onto something else? The printer should be able to share IRQ 7 with sound.

It seems there is no printer port in the IRQs list? I have disabled Serial and Paralel ports in BIOS, to free-up some IRQs, I won't be using those ports at all anyway.

I notice in your bottom picture that it's set to Basic Configuration 0000 on the Resources tab.
Try using the dropdown box to set to a different configuration
and see if that lets you use IRQ 7 instead of IRQ 9.

I don't really know how ESS drivers work for DOS, but it's possible the main card is on IRQ 9 while the emulation, if it were enabled, would be on IRQ 7 or IRQ 5 (similar to what an SBLive might do).

You may need a SET BLASTER= line in the autoexec.bat

When I downloaded a collection of PCI ESS drivers from
http://www.vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?file … =60&menustate=0
the readme.txt for the ES1989 mentioned adding lines including lines to the autoexec.bat such as

LH C:\ESSAUDIO.COM
:: SET BLASTER=A220 D1 I5 T4

as well as a line to config.sys that varied with the card.

You say you have an ES1930S, so there may be differences, but I think you'd need a SET BLASTER line in there.

Where did you get your drivers? I don't see any drivers for the ES1930S at vogonsdrivers.

Only "Basic Configuration 0000" exists there. There isn't any another option under the dropdown box there.

It's actually ES1930/ES1989 Driver. Downloaded from:
http://ps-2.kev009.com/pccbbs/commercial_desk … op/d89z10us.exe

Readme text:
http://ps-2.kev009.com/pccbbs/commercial_desk … op/d89z10us.txt

Defining values like "SET BLASTER=A220 D1 I5 T4" doesn't really change the actual values I've posted here during Windows 98 boot post. I'll give it an another try then,
Thanks.

Edit: I've added "SET BLASTER" line into autoexec.bat file to set it as IRQ 7, however as it's seen on the attached screenshot, the IRQ didn't change, still remains as 9.

It looks like you might have to set the IRQ's at the time you run the setup.
Does running essaudio.com manually allow you to change any settings?

skitters wrote:

Does running essaudio.com manually allow you to change any settings?

Essaudio.com outputs: "STOP USING THIS IN A DOSBOX!" - weirdo..

How to try if it allows changing settings? Tried booting in MS-DOS mode but I have no idea what switch should I use to test it.

Many thanks!

As far as I remember the TSR uses an INI file which can be edited using a hex editor to change values. This applies to all ESS PCI audio drivers (Solo/Maestro/Allegro).

The INI file is not readable by text editors as it actually contains raw hex values in little endian regarding I/O, IRQ, DMA, MIDI, FM, etc.

The ESSAUDIO.INI in the ES198X package of VOGONS drivers starts with these bytes:
20 02 01 00 88 03 05 00 01 02 30 03
Apparently these are SB Pro settings values stored in little endian. From left to right:
20 02: I/O Port 220H
01 00: DMA Channel 1
88 03: FM Port 388H
05 00: IRQ 5
01 02: Gameport 201H (can be disabled by setting it 00 00)
30 03: MPU-401 330H (can be disabled by setting it 00 00)

I'm not sure about the remaining parts (which contains mostly 00H with some values).

^That was really interesting! Indeed I remember opening it with Edit/Notepad, it was unreadable.
I'll be trying Hexing that when I arrive home today after work.
Thanks.

Any luck with this?
I was not able to change the IRQ number by editing the ini file.

ahtoh wrote:

Any luck with this?
I was not able to change the IRQ number by editing the ini file.

Did you edit it using hex editor? Plus, have you checked if the IRQ in question has been taken by another device? In many cases, for example, if you want to let Sound Blaster (legacy audio) use IRQ 5, the PCI card must take IRQ 5 as well.

If so, you might need to take out all your expansion cards, install it one by one, move cards to different slots if the IRQ got taken, until the IRQ is "naturally" no longer taken. Most often, at least from my experiences, on modern motherboards, the IRQ settings in BIOS would only result in cosmetic effects and cards would still refuse to work even if the IRQ appeared to be no longer occupied anymore.

The hard part would be in case of AGP/PCIe video cards taking the IRQ you needed, which is hard to resolve due to no other slots to spare. Trial and error is needed (involves installing cards in specific order, resetting BIOS PCI configurations, etc.) to get such resolved.

Yes I used hex editor.
IRQ5 is free

The problem is actually not the IRQ but the fact that I have no sound in DOS games.
I just thought it could be related to not-default IRQ

As it is now the IRQ is set to 9 but there is no Sound (BLASTER environment var is set to IRQ 2)

ahtoh wrote:

Yes I used hex editor. IRQ5 is free […]
Show full quote

Yes I used hex editor.
IRQ5 is free

The problem is actually not the IRQ but the fact that I have no sound in DOS games.
I just thought it could be related to not-default IRQ

As it is now the IRQ is set to 9 but there is no Sound (BLASTER environment var is set to IRQ 2)

IRQ 2 and 9 are the same line, although it's irrelevant here.
You can't just reserve IRQ5 in BIOS. It's the opposite. You'd want to make sure the ESS audio card actually takes IRQ5. Try looking for a PCI slot that does it.
Also, make sure you don't have any other ESS PCI driver directories in your PATH variable (that you might have been running a TSR from the wrong path).

By the way, some old programs were hardcoded to use IRQ 5 or 7 and DMA1. Having a non-standard IRQ or DMA would crash the game. Wolf3D was such example. Back then I had a CT2290 that would default to IRQ10 and DMA3 without running DIAGNOSE to manually configure IRQ and DMA (that card does not have physical jumpers for configuring those), and Wolf3D would not even run at all, although other games work just fine with this non-standard configuration.