What chipset does that system have? Edit: (Nm, just looked it up. You will need DSDMA) /edit

Are you running setupds /s to initialize the card before running setupds to go into the configuration?

The stock setup with DSDMA is supposed to automatically load DSDMA if a DDMA or PC-PCI compatible chipset is not detected. Show us the contents of your autoexec.bat file

If I remember correctly, there might also be an issue with FreeDOS with some hardware. I seem to remember it had something to do with some soundcard not working properly.

I've tried it both ways, running SETUPDS before SETUPDS /S and vice versa in messing around with it, same result.

I hope it's not just some general incompatibility with FREEDOS, there's no floppy or CD drive on the thing and the storage is some weird flash card that I've never seen before. If I had to use 6.22 I don't know how I'd get any files transferred to it (or even get 6.22 on there at all), even just to get USB working in DOS. I spoze I could use some linux live USB to boot into it and just manually copy the USBDOS tool over.

Thanks for checking it out. Here's the FDAUTO.bat

@ECHO OFF
set DOSDIR=C:\FDOS
set LANG=EN
set TZ=UTC
set PATH=%dosdir%\BIN
if exist %dosdir%\LINKS\NUL set PATH=%path%;%dosdir%\LINKS
set NLSPATH=%dosdir%\NLS
set HELPPATH=%dosdir%\HELP
set TEMP=%dosdir%\TEMP
set TMP=%TEMP%
set BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 H5 P330
set DIRCMD=/P /OGN /Y
set COPYCMD=/-Y
set OS_NAME=FreeDOS
set OS_VERSION=1.3-RC4
set autofile=C:\FDAUTO.BAT
set cfgfile=C:\FDCONFIG.SYS
alias cfg=edit %cfgfile%
alias auto=edit %autofile%
alias reboot=fdapm warmboot
alias reset=fdisk /reboot
alias halt=fdapm poweroff
alias shutdown=fdapm poweroff

if not exist %dosdir%\bin\vinfo.com goto Only8086
vinfo /m
if errorlevel 3 goto Support386
if errorlevel 2 goto Support286

:Only8086
if "%config%"=="2" goto END
MEM /C /N
goto FINAL

:Support286
if "%config%"=="3" goto END
LH FDAPM APMDOS
CTMOUSE
MEM /C /N
goto FINAL

:Support386
if "%config%"=="4" goto END

LH FDAPM APMDOS
rem LH SHARE
rem if EXIST %DOSDIR%\BIN\DOSLFN.COM LH DOSLFN

REM NLSFUNC %dosdir%\BIN\COUNTRY.SYS
REM DISPLAY CON=(EGA),858,2)
REM MODE CON CP PREP=((858) %dosdir%\CPI\EGA.CPX)
REM KEYB US,858,%dosdir%\bin\keyboard.sys
REM CHCP 858
REM MKEYB UK

CTMOUSE

SHSUCDX /QQ /D3
REM LH SHSUCDHD /QQ /F:FDBOOTCD.ISO
DEVLOAD /H /Q %dosdir%\BIN\UDVD2.SYS /D:FDCD0001
REM DEVLOAD /H /Q %dosdir%\BIN\UIDE.SYS /H /D:FDCD0001 /S5
SHSUCDX /QQ /~ /D:?SHSU-CDR,D /D:?SHSU-CDH,D /D:?FDCD0001,D /D:?FDCD0002,D /D:?FDCD0003,D

MEM /C /N
SHSUCDX /D

:FINAL
if not exist %dosdir%\bin\fdnet.bat goto NoNetwork
call %dosdir%\bin\fdnet.bat start
if errorlevel 1 goto NoNetwork

REM Custom networking stuff

:NoNetwork
if exist %dosdir%\bin\fdassist.bat call %dosdir%\bin\fdassist.bat

if exist %dosdir%\bin\welcome.bat call %dosdir%\bin\welcome.bat

:END

Pretty sure the original drive is using a 44-pin IDE connector. The same connector used in older laptops.

The DSXGDOS installer, which is the one that includes DSDMA is supposed to be installed from within Windows and it should set everything up properly.

I can always run the installer from a computer here and zip up the resulting DOS stuff but it might be a few days before I have a chance to do that.

Looking at the package from philscomputerlab, you will want to call the LOADTSR.BAT from FDAUTO.BAT.
You probably also want to have the directory where those files are included in the PATH statement as I am pretty sure DOS4GW is needed. The default install does something like copy it to the root of C:, then delete it after it runs DSDMA. Adding the folder to the PATH should work just as well and be simpler.

I did find a post about FreeDOS. Looks like SoftMPU will not work with it. Pretty sure there was some other stuff that doesn't work with it either.

It would make sense if that flash card was just an IDE I guess, it'd make it easy to copy stuff if I needed to.

I'll try setting the YMFDOS folder as PATH and letting the autoexec run everything it as it boots. I also found a 512 ram stick on eBay, so I can just use a size that doesn't freak it out instead of limiting it from a larger size. Might remove a variable that way.

Failing all that I guess I'll research how to install dos 6.22 in a virtual machine and copy it over to the flash card. It looks like as long as I can get USBDOS working after it's installed there's not really a disadvantage to just using the real thing for what I'm trying to do.

I'd be grateful if you felt like trying to package up those files when you get a sec just to try them, I have a feeling that's where the ones philscomputerlab hosts came from though.

cyclone3d wrote on 2021-05-29, 06:28:

Pretty sure the original drive is using a 44-pin IDE connector. The same connector used in older laptops. […]
Show full quote

Pretty sure the original drive is using a 44-pin IDE connector. The same connector used in older laptops.

The DSXGDOS installer, which is the one that includes DSDMA is supposed to be installed from within Windows and it should set everything up properly.

I can always run the installer from a computer here and zip up the resulting DOS stuff but it might be a few days before I have a chance to do that.

Looking at the package from philscomputerlab, you will want to call the LOADTSR.BAT from FDAUTO.BAT.
You probably also want to have the directory where those files are included in the PATH statement as I am pretty sure DOS4GW is needed. The default install does something like copy it to the root of C:, then delete it after it runs DSDMA. Adding the folder to the PATH should work just as well and be simpler.

I did find a post about FreeDOS. Looks like SoftMPU will not work with it. Pretty sure there was some other stuff that doesn't work with it either.

Looks like your instincts were correct in thinking FREEDOS was the problem. I got MS-DOS 6.22 on there and music and sound works!

So there's that.

The lack of FAT32 support is really killing me now, though. From what I can tell using a flash drive to copy files back and forth is going to be impossible now. Even if I get USB working in DOS I haven't had any luck getting Windows 10 to see a FAT16 flash drive to load files onto in the first place. Is there some better solution to transferring files back and forth from a Windows 10 pc to a DOS pc?

Thanks again for your help!

You can always use a Windows 98SE boot disk and do a
sys a: c:
command to make it use the Windows 98SE version of DOS and FAT32 will work. This is probably the simplest solution and there isn't really a downside. If running Windows 3.1, you will need to run a patch if you want to run Windows 3.1 with Windows 98SE DOS.

That being said, I am using a CF card adapter on the 486 I am using along with Windows98SE DOS and Windows 3.1

I did have to fdisk and format the CF card with the 486 machine because it would freak out on the 486 if I partitioned and formatted it with my Windows 10 machine, even if I was running Windows 98SE DOS on the 486.

As long as you set the flash drive up with 2GB partitions, it should work with FAT16 just fine... if it is a CF card anyways. I have heard of at least one SSD that didn't like FAT16 .

I was using a USB 2.0 CF adapter with my Windows 10 machine but recently got a USB 3.0 adapter for my Windows 10 machine. Both work just fine. I just wanted the faster speed of the USB 3.0 adapter.

The only thing I have found when using a larger CF card on a 486 is to hook the CF card up to a machine that will correctly autodetect the drive parameters and then enter them as a user setting on the 486 if it doesn't detect the parameters correctly.

cyclone3d wrote on 2021-06-02, 02:26:

You can always use a Windows 98SE boot disk and do a sys a: c: command to make it use the Windows 98SE version of DOS and FAT32 […]
Show full quote

You can always use a Windows 98SE boot disk and do a
sys a: c:
command to make it use the Windows 98SE version of DOS and FAT32 will work. This is probably the simplest solution and there isn't really a downside. If running Windows 3.1, you will need to run a patch if you want to run Windows 3.1 with Windows 98SE DOS.

That being said, I am using a CF card adapter on the 486 I am using along with Windows98SE DOS and Windows 3.1

I did have to fdisk and format the CF card with the 486 machine because it would freak out on the 486 if I partitioned and formatted it with my Windows 10 machine, even if I was running Windows 98SE DOS on the 486.

As long as you set the flash drive up with 2GB partitions, it should work with FAT16 just fine... if it is a CF card anyways. I have heard of at least one SSD that didn't like FAT16 .

I was using a USB 2.0 CF adapter with my Windows 10 machine but recently got a USB 3.0 adapter for my Windows 10 machine. Both work just fine. I just wanted the faster speed of the USB 3.0 adapter.

The only thing I have found when using a larger CF card on a 486 is to hook the CF card up to a machine that will correctly autodetect the drive parameters and then enter them as a user setting on the 486 if it doesn't detect the parameters correctly.

Huh, I must've misread something somewhere, I formatted an 8Gb partition to FAT16. That's probably why is wasn't working.

Could you tell me more about the windows 98 boot disk thing? Is that essentially upgrading a DOS 6.22 installation to the version of DOS windows 98 uses by using that SYS command to copy system files off the boot disk? I googled around and wasn't able to find out much about it.

Yeah, that is pretty much what you will be doing. I copy the other files from the boot disk and from the RAM drive that it extracts other stuff to to a folder on the C: drive as well as the versions of those programs will be newer as well.

I am also using HIMEM, EMM386 and SMARTDRV from Windows ME.

I'm so very sorry for bumping this, but I have the same computer, same Yamaha sound card, same struggles. I've been trying some of the suggestions seen here, I can get DSDMA to start, but I still can't get sound effects to work: after initializing the card with SETUPDS, the sound blaster options are still greyed out.

I can get games like Doom to start up with the sound card settings matching what's been initialized, the music works, but no luck with sound effects. What could I be doing wrong?

What order are you loading the stuff for the sound card in?

I'm curious as to the setup of one of these so now I have one on the way.

It could have to do with a specific version of Setupds or something. I'll post back when everything arrives and I have the chance to set it up.

Yes, a troubleshooting buddy! Once you have your stuff I'll be curious to how things go. At the moment, I'm trying to get DOS 6.22 installed on this machine so that I can try to see if the FreeDOS installation is part of the problem, but getting it done right is difficult. I'll keep trying in the meantime.

Alright, a little bit of progress. I have DOS 6.22 installed (finally, that was a bit of a tricky one) so that I can remove that potential driver factor. I have a few different DS-XG installers: some of the SETUPDS.EXEs can't seem to force the card into the settings that I want, even when it's reporting that it has. However, one of them actually does move the IRQ. The card wants to default to IRQ 10, and refuses to move to IRQ 5, so IRQ 7 is the interrupt of choice at the moment.

Doom will not start up if SFX are enabled, even with DSDMA running. It hangs when DOS4GW is starting. Next things I need to try are limiting the visible RAM and converting the EXEs using DOS32A. More to try.

SUCCESS!!

I tooled with this for the last several days and I FINALLY got it to work. Some of these steps may not be necessary but I'll detail everything I did.

OS: DOS 6.22, not FreeDOS. This took some doing so I can post repro steps if needed.
DOS32a: used this to convert the Doom.exe.
SETUPDS: I allowed it to default ro IRQ 5.
DSDMA: executed.
Memory management: I replaced HIMEM.SYS with HIMEMX.EXE and limited the memory to 65536. I think this was the key.

Loaded up Doom and lo, the sound effects are working! So happy right now, I have a ton of DOS games to install!

I will share tomorrow my CONFIG/AUTOEXEC for initializing the YMF744 here. The steps order is sensitive, but I'm able to fully init the card and even have it work on IRQ7, which some games prefer. It works with almost all games except a very few. I use DOS6.22 with standard HIMEM, but I also use BURNMEM.SYS to limit memory to 64MB too, which is needed by many DOS programs and Windows itself (3.1 and 95).

Great card! Fantastic DOS support. The only thing I miss with it is drivers for Win3.1.. just for completeness 😅 On Win95 it rocks with XGMidi!

Hi - I've been running into similar problems trying to get my Labway A301-G50 (YMF724F-V) running in DOS 7.0 (paired with Windows 98 SE) on my AMD-756 based board. This board supports DDMA. However, as others have stated here, when launching SETUPDS, 8-Bit sound is greyed out, and I can't change any of the assignments. 16 Bit sound and FM work fine. If I try to launch DSDMA, it crashes and restarts my machine. If I try to launch LOADTSR, same thing. If I use HIMEMX with /MAX=65536, I can get DSDMA to run - but then attempting to run SETUPDS again will cause it to freeze while launching. After this sequence - attempting to setup / configure any DOS game sound results in a memory error. If I don't use DSDMA or HIMEMX, I can get further than that - but then setting up the sound card in ROTT, for example will tell me I have a DMA conflict. IRQ for the card is set to 11 during boot, I have it set to 5 (SET BLASTER) in Autoexec.bat. It reflects as 5 in SETUPDS as well, although it is greyed out. Since others here have had success with DOS 6.22, is it reasonable to believe DOS 7.0 is incompatible in this case? I'd rather not format my HDD so I can install 6.22.

Can you boot from a USB floppy? My guess is yes. You can test DOS 6.22 with that.

Thanks for the advice. Actually having issues with my floppy drive & disks? maybe they are too old. I tried several and even swapped the drive. Good news is I have a working Zip Drive and disks so will try your recommended approach booting from a Zip disk. Thanks!

You can probably also boot from a USB stick. Should be able to use Rufus to make a bootable USB stick... I think.

I know it will do freedos but haven't tried using a MSDOS floppy image with it.