Re: ESS Canyon

Posted on 2023-10-20, 06:00

by

by LSS10999

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Yup, that's the one, the Canyon3d. I know pretty much nothing about it other than what's on DosDays. It's one of the last cards that was made by ESS (at least that's listed on DosDays), and has some interesting advanced features for the era. If it has some nice advanced features along with their …

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Re: ESS Canyon

Posted on 2023-10-20, 00:46

by

by LSS10999

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

How good or bad are these? I was curious and bought one (diamond monster sound). I love the early ESS cards so I’m curious to see their later model. What do you guys think about these, if you’ve tried them? Any interesting features or things to note/avoid? If you're referring to MX400 (Canyon3D …

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Re: The Soundblaster DSP project

Posted on 2023-10-15, 13:44

by

by LSS10999

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I believe such test worth to be done, because as I understand it - the test you've done is on average higher performance of the MCU than just 2 times. So, it's good we see what happens in 6T mode, i.e. with just 2 times the speed, especially with the clicking problem. Also, @Maelgrum stated many …

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Re: The Soundblaster DSP project

Posted on 2023-10-15, 11:08

by

by LSS10999

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

can you say how much faster STC12C5A60S2 compared to regular 8052 MCU in "6T" is in that case? I just wonder what are the speed limits when those problems start to emerge. Also, thank you for giving so much good details about STC chips and how and with what programmers they can be used. EDIT: For …

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Re: The Soundblaster DSP project

Posted on 2023-10-15, 07:56

by

by LSS10999

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I've finished testing with STC12C5A60S2. 1. The internal XRAM indeed got in the way. After setting the EXTRAM bit in AUXR (8Eh) and now it works fine -- the DSP can be detected. For this MCU, adding this line below into "reset_handler" as part of the init sequence is enough. There's no need to …

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Re: The Soundblaster DSP project

Posted on 2023-10-15, 02:21

by

by LSS10999

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

No problems to change timer configuration, if it is needed. Single cycle clicks on fast MCU, that is interesting - is there any noticeable difference? For STC90C58RD+ in 6T mode timer configuration will definitely need to be changed and tested. For STC12C5A60S2, the timer does not need to be …

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Re: The Soundblaster DSP project

Posted on 2023-10-15, 01:56

by

by LSS10999

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

have you tried with putting that MCU in "6T mode"? if it's still working are the"clicks" still there, because it was previously said that higher speed maybe will eliminate the problem? I haven't. According to the datasheet its timer will also operate at 6T if set to that mode, so MIDI will not work …

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Re: The Soundblaster DSP project

Posted on 2023-10-14, 13:38

by

by LSS10999

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Just managed to finish some experiments on my CT2950. Replaced the original DSP chip with a PLCC44 socket and put my own MCU in it, using the just-released DSP code. It did not work at first -- probably some part of the socket was not soldered properly, so I redid it and eventually got it working …

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Re: No sound in few MS-DOS games using Sound Blaster CT4170 Vibra

Posted on 2023-10-14, 04:16

by

by LSS10999

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

There is no real reason to use IRQ 10 for SB, many games don't support it well. Not to mention that the DOS/4GW extender doesn't support IRQs higher than 7. I had that experience with my CT2290 before (it does not have jumpers for IRQ/DMA). Some games like Wolf3D would crash with the card …

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Re: help getting sound on DOS from a ESS sound card

Posted on 2023-10-12, 02:50

by

by LSS10999

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The Allegro dropped ESFM (ESS's OPL3 compatible (and enhanced) FM implementation), but that doesn't mean no DOS support at all. You should try to isolate the problem first: - Try with a minimal setup: have only the absolute minimum hardware installed and try a fresh DOS install or even just a boot …

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Re: The Soundblaster DSP project

Posted on 2023-10-11, 06:59

by

by LSS10999

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

MIDI/ UART is not needed for this test and I guess you know it. I know. Just not sure how higher clock one could use. Most classic-complaint 8051 MCUs tend to max out at 30-35MHz, with higher operation performance achieved by using fewer clock cycles. Some very modern 8051 MCUs have internal …

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Re: The Soundblaster DSP project

Posted on 2023-10-11, 06:39

by

by LSS10999

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

For testing of theory that latency of DSP is related to single cycle DMA clicking why don't you overclock the DSP to some extent by replacing its crystal (the newer MCUs will even not be overclocked in relation to their maximum clock frequencies) or providing an external clock (from oscillator)? …

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Re: The Soundblaster DSP project

Posted on 2023-10-11, 01:15

by

by LSS10999

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

two reasons - way to analyze the presence of the 'clicking' issue, as well get much higher quality analog output instead of 30 years old one. The DOS Days article on SB16 has a section regarding some kind of "noise" issues, which suggested the cause being the different DACs being used. Though I'm …

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Re: The Soundblaster DSP project

Posted on 2023-10-07, 10:30

by

by LSS10999

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Tiido wrote on 2023-10-07, 09:11: The UART is for MIDI which is 31250baud and that can be divided exactly from the 24MHz already present. For regular COM port stuff you do want a 11.0592 or some multiple of that. That's good to know.

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Re: The Soundblaster DSP project

Posted on 2023-10-07, 09:09

by

by LSS10999

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Most compatible will be classic 24MHz mcu. I see the Oscillator crystal connected to the 8052 MCU is 24MHz, on all my SB16 cards, but is that really the speed, because here: https://web.archive.org/web/20100103134333/http://8052.com/tuttimng.phtml it's explained that it depends on how many …

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Re: The Soundblaster DSP project

Posted on 2023-10-07, 04:38

by

by LSS10999

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Two more NOPs can be added, and source recompiled )) From the 4.13 disassembly, all the double NOP occurrences are the same, with only the last MOVX instruction different in direction (read or write). mov r0,#0 ; 1332 78 00 x. nop ; 1334 00 . nop ; 1335 00 . movx a,@r0 ; 1336 e2 b or mov r0,#0 ; …

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Re: The Soundblaster DSP project

Posted on 2023-10-06, 15:11

by

by LSS10999

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

So i did a execution trace of interrupt handler = its ~94 cycle execution trace of command 0x14 execution path is ~174 cycle In total it is 268 cycles - even in most optimistic case - we out of bounds (> 250) Hmmm... I wonder if it's possible to configure the 8052 to run in faster modes (6T or even …

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Re: "Bios Patcher" questions

Posted on 2023-10-05, 18:14

by

by LSS10999

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

If you're trying to patch AMI BIOS, you can use version 6.0 alpha 15 and there is option to remove this annoying "www. ROM. by..." message. This is from "help": "/l - skip displaying www. ROM. by logo in BIOS (useful for some AMI)". But this doesn't work on Award/Phoenix BIOSes for sure. And not …

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Re: "Bios Patcher" questions

Posted on 2023-10-05, 05:52

by

by LSS10999

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

13.New Freq in Setup open : not found. for skip this step press "s" or any another key for continue... 14.Set "Y" as default on exit: for skip this step press "s" or any another key for continue...s Speaking of BIOS Patcher, does anyone have backups of all the latest files on rom.by? I tried …

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Re: The Soundblaster DSP project

Posted on 2023-10-04, 05:38

by

by LSS10999

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

that's kind off-topic here, but probably just custom-modified card by someone and then it was sold and ended up with you, because 5 years ago it was posted here "I de-CQMed my AWE32 PnP CT3990...!": https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=62&t=57746 and such modification became popular among the …

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