That's very strange... I'm scratching my head. Could it because you're using himemx/jemm386? I use only himem + emm386, sometimes jemmex alone.

Unfortunately I do not have any mobo with ICH on hand to test it out. There is a YMF744 guide thread that you could further seek help from though.

No, for this test I have reverted to plain Himem+Emm386.

I will do some additional tests before posting in that thread.

I have posted details of all my testing in the YMF744 guide thread. I really hope someone will be able to help me.

Have you tried loading EMM386 with the NOEMS option?

Yes, I have tried pretty much every option including NOEMS.

I do have an update: I actually do have audio using dsdma. But its only in DOOM, almost every other game or audio application crashes when I run them after dsdma. Thats why I didn't realize it was actually working.

From @ruthan's list in the YMF744 Guide thread, it's clear that only games like DOOM which use Miles Sound System work with dsdma, all others give problems. But the bigger problem for me is that all my audio applications like opencp and mpxplay crash after running dsdma.

I think I'm going to revert back to my Audigy as it has better compatibility on this PC than the YMF744. With the Audigy, all my games and audio applications have sound. I only have noise/distortion when playing MODs, but that is a far less a problem than what I am facing with the YMF744.

Try using 3.16 DOS drivers from Phil's site.

If I remember correctly, dsdma.exe from that version is the most compatible.

Just a thought, have you ever run memtest86 to make sure the rams are ok? Cos it could just be ram issues.

I have a YMF744 card working on an i815 motherboard (Guillemot Maxi Sound Fotissimo on a Compaq EN-SFF) but to be honest with you I do not recall what kind of black magic I had to revert to (modified drivers vs normal drivers, ddma vs dsdma, etc) in order to make this work, but I will find out and get back to you.

Note: I got the card's FM and SB Pro emulation working in Win98, Win98 Command Prompts and Win98 Reboot to MS-DOS. I did not get it working in MS-DOS 6.22 or anything.

appiah4 wrote on 2020-06-15, 14:00:

I have a YMF744 card working on an i815 motherboard (Guillemot Maxi Sound Fotissimo on a Compaq EN-SFF) but to be honest with you I do not recall what kind of black magic I had to revert to (modified drivers vs normal drivers, ddma vs dsdma, etc) in order to make this work, but I will find out and get back to you.

Note: I got the card's FM and SB Pro emulation working in Win98, Win98 Command Prompts and Win98 Reboot to MS-DOS. I did not get it working in MS-DOS 6.22 or anything.

Oh please, let me know. Even though I am using Win98SE DOS , it will still be useful to know how you got it to work.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2020-06-15, 13:09:

Try using 3.16 DOS drivers from Phil's site.

If I remember correctly, dsdma.exe from that version is the most compatible.

I just tried these drivers, but they did not make a difference. I think I have to accept the fact that for this particular motherboard and BIOS, DDMA does not work and DSDMA works terribly. So I have no other option but to revert to Audigy, as it atleast works, even if it doesn't sound that great. I would be happy to be proven wrong, since I have already purchased the YMF744 card, but after extensive testing for the past few days, I feel very doubtful. By the end of the day, I will be be putting the YMF744 card into storage, and putting the Audigy back in.

There's one more thing you can try, if you haven't already - running games under the Win98 DOS prompt.

This will also give you access to a very nice software wavetable for General MIDI which sounds superb in Doom and such. I'd suggest trying that with the 1040 Windows drivers before giving up on the card for good.

enaiel wrote on 2020-06-15, 18:00:

I just tried these drivers, but they did not make a difference. I think I have to accept the fact that for this particular motherboard and BIOS, DDMA does not work and DSDMA works terribly. So I have no other option but to revert to Audigy, as it atleast works, even if it doesn't sound that great. I would be happy to be proven wrong, since I have already purchased the YMF744 card, but after extensive testing for the past few days, I feel very doubtful. By the end of the day, I will be be putting the YMF744 card into storage, and putting the Audigy back in.

Hmmm... those are very weird issues, and they actually remind me of an YMF724 card that I had, which was actually malfunctioning. Are you sure your new card is OK? I tested my good YMF cards in A LOT of motherboards and never encountered issues (especially not with 440BX / i815 chipsets). 440BX supports DDMA and SB-Link and the i815 boards that I tried worked great with DSDMA.

@Joseph_Joestar

This is a DOS only machine - don't intend to run Win98. The card is not a total writeoff - I'm sure it will come useful in a future build.

@bloodem

I highly doubt it's malfunctioning. It came in pristine condition in a sealed bag from the same seller on eBay that @PhilsComputerLab bought his from. I'm more inclined to believe that my motherboard and BIOS are at fault here .

bloodem wrote on 2020-06-15, 19:57:

Hmmm... those are very weird issues, and they actually remind me of an YMF724 card that I had, which was actually malfunctioning. Are you sure your new card is OK? I tested my good YMF cards in A LOT of motherboards and never encountered issues (especially not with 440BX / i815 chipsets). 440BX supports DDMA and SB-Link and the i815 boards that I tried worked great with DSDMA.

Yeah me too, I have 2 YMF744s and tested them on a wide range of motherboards, from 440BX to ICH9, VIA, SiS etc. Out of the 35 boards I tested, only the nForce boards are not working, plus 1 of the "normal" ones, which is an HP xw4200 P4 with i925x + ICH6, setupds just hung up. Unfortunately I do not have a board with ICH1 (have a couple of i815 boards but the south bridge is ICH2) so can't really say about it.

enaiel wrote on 2020-06-15, 22:10:

I highly doubt it's malfunctioning. It came in pristine condition in a sealed bag from the same seller on eBay that @PhilsComputerLab bought his from. I'm more inclined to believe that my motherboard and BIOS are at fault here .

I'm very sorry that it didn't work out for you mate, as the Yamaha is really a very good card and I love it a lot. If you have another PC, perhaps can just perform a test to make sure it is ok before putting into cold storage?

kalohimal wrote on 2020-06-16, 00:20:

I'm very sorry that it didn't work out for you mate, as the Yamaha is really a very good card and I love it a lot. If you have another PC, perhaps can just perform a test to make sure it is ok before putting into cold storage?

Hey, it's not your fault I bought the YMF744 card! I did my research and saw the glowing reviews, and the fact that it had a genuine OPL3 chip sealed the deal. It's unfortunate that it doesn't work in my PC, but that's nobody's fault besides its motherboard and BIOS! I don't have another retro PC I can try this on at the moment. I'm sure paired with a motherboard that supports DDMA, it will be pretty awesome.

Many thanks to you and @keenmaster486 for all your help in the debugging all the issues I faced. Vogons is a real friendly, helpful and knowledgeable community!

enaiel wrote on 2020-06-16, 02:18:

kalohimal wrote on 2020-06-16, 00:20:

I'm very sorry that it didn't work out for you mate, as the Yamaha is really a very good card and I love it a lot. If you have another PC, perhaps can just perform a test to make sure it is ok before putting into cold storage?

Hey, it's not your fault I bought the YMF744 card! I did my research and saw the glowing reviews, and the fact that it had a genuine OPL3 chip sealed the deal. It's unfortunate that it doesn't work in my PC, but that's nobody's fault besides its motherboard and BIOS! I don't have another retro PC I can try this on at the moment. I'm sure paired with a motherboard that supports DDMA, it will be pretty awesome.

Many thanks to you and @keenmaster486 for all your help in the debugging all the issues I faced. Vogons is a real friendly, helpful and knowledgeable community!

Were you ever able to update the BIOS ? If you don't have floppies, you can always use a VM and virtual floppy drive . I can do it for you if you do not have a VM handy, just link or attach the BIOS update .

darry wrote on 2020-06-16, 02:25:

Were you ever able to update the BIOS ? If you don't have floppies, you can always use a VM and virtual floppy drive . I can do it for you if you do not have a VM handy, just link or attach the BIOS update .

Oh, yeah, I finally found a floppy that hadn't been used in 20 years, and miraculously it still worked. But unfortunately, the new 2.04 BIOS is completely indistinguishable from the old one, except for the version number.

I finally received the screws for the VGA port on my GF2, so I thought I'd give it a shot. I forgot to check for bad caps, and POP! A capacitor exploded! Will have to recap and then try again.

I also tried to run both the Audigy and the YMF744 cards at the same time, thinking I would get best of both worlds: authentic OPL3, working audio, plus two joystick ports. I changed the address and IRQ, disabled DMA and MPU on the Yamaha. I could get FM output on both cards, which I solved by setting synth vol to zero on the Audigy. But I'm still facing a lot of issues:

No matter which way I try - line out of Yamaha into line in of Audigy, or vice versa, I cannot for the life of me get sound from one card in the output of the other.

Also most games besides Doom simply crash with both cards in even though I've changed or disabled everything in the Yamaha.

Any suggestions of what else I can try? Anyone having experience running 2 sound cards at the same time in DOS?

enaiel wrote on 2020-07-13, 13:28:

I finally received the screws for the VGA port on my GF2, so I thought I'd give it a shot. I forgot to check for bad caps, and P […]
Show full quote

I finally received the screws for the VGA port on my GF2, so I thought I'd give it a shot. I forgot to check for bad caps, and POP! A capacitor exploded! Will have to recap and then try again.

I also tried to run both the Audigy and the YMF744 cards at the same time, thinking I would get best of both worlds: authentic OPL3, working audio, plus two joystick ports. I changed the address and IRQ, disabled DMA and MPU on the Yamaha. I could get FM output on both cards, which I solved by setting synth vol to zero on the Audigy. But I'm still facing a lot of issues:

No matter which way I try - line out of Yamaha into line in of Audigy, or vice versa, I cannot for the life of me get sound from one card in the output of the other.

Also most games besides Doom simply crash with both cards in even though I've changed or disabled everything in the Yamaha.

Any suggestions of what else I can try? Anyone having experience running 2 sound cards at the same time in DOS?

Running multiple ISA cards under DOS or Windows is possible .

Running multiple PCI cards under Windows is possible.

Running multiple PCI cards under DOS, while theoretically possible, may cause issues if one or more of them uses TSR software that does not play nice with SB compatible devices being present .

Besides that, in your specific scenario, having the Audigy TSR trying to listen on Adlib port 388h and trap what gets written to it while you have another device (the Yamaha card) essentially doing the same might be part of the issue . With ISA cards that usually just works, but the software emulation being used by the Audigy TSR adds variables to the equation.

Assuming you are running your tests under real mode DOS, I would try to get it all working with each card separately (removing the other from the system). Once you know both can work separately, I would try with both cards in the system, but only initializing one of them . If this works, you will at least have the option of selectively running only the card you want for the game you want to play . Using an external mixer or audio switcher would likely be useful then .