VOGONS


Reply 20 of 34, by Ozzuneoj

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I have a couple of PAS16 cards here and I can't seem to figure out how to get the midi output working to my MT32 or SC7. What port do these cards use for midi, and do I need to do anything extra to make it work? I'm just testing them in Windows 98SE, which includes drivers for a ton of MediaVision cards and both of mine install without problems when using the Add New Hardware wizard.

One is a Logitech IXW-PAS16LL (a Soundman of some kind, with no CDROM interfaces), the is a MediaVision Pro Audio Spectrum 16 IXW-PAS16 with an SCSI interface.

Digital sound and OPL3 music work perfectly in Windows with both cards.

EDIT: Sorry, I just realized that this thread was actually in the DOSBox forum. I saw all the MediaVision info and assumed it was in Marvin. 😮

Now for some blitting from the back buffer.

Reply 21 of 34, by dr.wily

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Hello !

I have a media Vision pro Audio Wavetable (650-0152-51). The FCC ID is IXW-JAZZWAVE. There are 3 majors chip on the board :

- a JAzz16 mvd1216b
- a spectrum mva416
- an ICS2115v

Scan of this soundcard :

http://wellby.dyndns.org/dnl/img/pro-audio-wave.jpg

I can't find the good DOS driver. PAS16 driver can't detect the card at installation. There is a specific driver for this soundcard or the PAS16 driver should works ?

Thanks

Last edited by dr.wily on 2017-07-30, 12:12. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 22 of 34, by gdjacobs

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The Jazz 16 chipset has it's own drivers.
http://www.vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?file … 418&menustate=0

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Reply 23 of 34, by dr.wily

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gdjacobs wrote:

Thanks ! It works flawlessly ! PCM and FM sounds great, but I don't know how to use wavetable. There is a specific driver for the part of this sound card ?

Reply 24 of 34, by gdjacobs

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The wavetable is usually exposed as a MIDI device. In game setup, it's usually listed as General MIDI, Waveblaster, Sound Canvas, etc.

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Reply 25 of 34, by dr.wily

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Yes, but the card has a midi daughterboard connector. If the wavetable part of the card share the same MPU-401 adress how to use both wavetable and midi daughterboard at the same time ?

EDIT : tested with game and choose MPU-401 for music device.. Result : no music, but I have sound effects.

Reply 26 of 34, by gdjacobs

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MIDI is a multi drop bus protocol. Multiple MIDI devices can be connected to the same bus and combined via an audio mixer. This card may have onboard RAM which allows you to upload .WFB soundfonts (the Hynix chips which I can't quite read). Hopefully the ICS Wavefront 2115 synth engine is able to initialize without any external utility. I'd play around with the mixer first.

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Reply 27 of 34, by dr.wily

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gdjacobs wrote:

MIDI is a multi drop bus protocol. Multiple MIDI devices can be connected to the same bus and combined via an audio mixer.

Yes I know that. I use an AWE32 whith 3 synthetiser at the same time (with Cakewalk) Emu, OPL and Waveblaster and it give good result : http://wellby.dyndns.org/dnl/mix-new.mp3

Here, the audio mixer is only related to OLP FM. Maybe it possible to change midi mapper by DOS environment variable...

gdjacobs wrote:

This card may have onboard RAM which allows you to upload .WFB soundfonts (the Hynix chips which I can't quite read). Hopefully the ICS Wavefront 2115 synth engine is able to initialize without any external utility. I'd play around with the mixer first.

No RAM, only ROM on this card (chip on the left corner). When I play midi on MPU-401 device there is no sound.

Reply 28 of 34, by gdjacobs

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Hmm... First you need to determine if the onboard wavetable is initialized and responding. It might be connected behind a MUX or into an aux on the mixer chip, or it might be uninitialized. I think you'll need to go into RE mode. Got an oscilloscope?

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Reply 29 of 34, by Osprey

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I just learned today that the great Aureal Semiconductor Inc., the ones behind A3D and the awesome Vortex cards, was formerly Media Vision, makers of the Pro Audio Spectrum 16. It's no wonder that Aureal seemingly came out of nowhere and knew all of these advanced audio techniques, because they didn't actually come out of nowhere. It's rather symmetrical that Media Vision was ahead of the game, produced sound cards that were in some ways better than Sound Blasters and yet were bankrupt by Creative, only to rise out of bankruptcy as a new company named Aureal, which was also ahead of the game and produced sound cards that were in some ways better than Sound Blasters and were once again bankrupt by Creative.

Reply 31 of 34, by align_left

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I did not see any option to disable the amp, but did use the drivers for the Media Vision Pro Audio 3D.

Are there other drivers out there?

Like @dr.wily I also did not get the wavetable to work under DOS. Other sound cards with the ICF Waveforce (TBS-2000, Waverider) does come with a initialization program which I don't have.

So if there anyone can help, I would appreciate it!

Reply 34 of 34, by Jo22

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fire_lizard wrote on 2024-03-06, 15:53:

I wonder how much effort could it take to implement PAS16 in 86BOX

Me, too. It was such a hassle free soundcard, I think. Never had to worry about SB related issues, like most users had to.

The PAS16 setup seemlessly matched that of Windows 3.x and MS-DOS 6.x, even!
It looked as if it was legit part of the bundle.

The PAS16 also had great OS/2 support.
The then-new OS/2 2.x MMPM package supported it out-of-box.

The Trantor SCSI controller was being recognized, too. Good for hassle free CD-ROM support.

And because PAS16 had a Sound Blaster emulation, it was ideal for Win-OS/2, too.

The PAS16 side could be being available to OS/2 and modern multimedia applications (the video player or PowerMOD),
while the SB side could do simultaneously serve DOS applications and Win-OS/2.

Really, this was a good configuration and allowed for multi-tasking.
DOS and Windows world was all about Sound Blaster standard, anyway.

And the SB 1.5 emulation was good enough for this.
Edit: I mean, while OS/2 was taking care of all the multimedia stuff.
I know that quite a few Windows and DOS applications could make good use of 16-Bit Stereo at 44.1 or 48 KHz.
That's why there's a Windows Sound System sound card/standard (WSS), among other things.

In fact, Creative 's older SNDBLST.DLL "driver" of the Windows 3.0 days was looking for an traditional 8-Bit Sound Blaster, such as SB 1.x/2 or SB Pro.

The default drivers of Windows 3.1x were same here, the Thunderboard support was even specifically being listed!

And so the SB emulation provided by the Thunderboard chipset was being absolutely period-correct here (it was spot-on, so to say).

It even used the same standard configuration that SB 2/SB Pro had used, normally.

I mean, there was nothing extra that could potentially have confused any software.
The Blaster variable was short and uncluttered, as expected by software of the time.

And because Thunderboard was mono (digital sfx, OPL3 was stereo),
the "bug" with audio being played on just one channel (left or right) wasn't noticeable.

(I had this issue with the game "ATC: Air Traffic Controller", which seems to be related to "TRACON for Windows". Both use SNDBLST.DLL.)

Edit: The Thunderboard (or Thunder Board) side of the PAS16 also had an enhanced DSP for its time (it hides it true features until it's being asked twice AFAIK).
Things like auto-init DMA were features rather to be expected by an SB 2.

That's why I think the TB is somehow between an SB 1.5 and SB 2.
It also explains why some sources said it had SB 2.0 emulation (DSP 2.01 is needed for auto-init DMA on a true blue Creative SB card).

By contrast, a true SB 1.x may or may not have had that feature, depending on the DSP version installed.
It depends whether it had been upgraded or not.

So it really would be a start to add Thunder Board emulation to, maybe.
In its standalone form, it used to be the official companion card for the original PAS model, also.

The original Media Vision Thunder Board utilities could be used to test such an Thunder Board emulation.
They may use certain features (a small superset) not found on a Creative's Sound Blaster card.

http://vogonsdrivers.com/index.php?catid=40

Edited. My apologies for this long posting. I was basically thinking out loud here.

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