First post, by Limpem
Hello everyone,
I am new to this forum, so I hope I am posting this in the right board.
Currently I am working on a second socket 7 retro dos 6.22 gaming build.
The core system is an Olivetti M4 P75S.
I upgraded it with a pentium 200 Mhz, 64mb ram, Voodoo 3 2000 pci, 3com isa network card and a Creative AWE64 Gold CT4390.
Everything is working great, except for the midi music in games.
Every game I play I hear a plopping sound instead of a bass-drum.
I figured the AWE64 might be broken, so I tried it in another system: No sound problems at all.
I tried another AWE64 in the same system (which I know has no issues) and the sound problem still persisted.
So the card isn't the issue.
In windows 98 the problem is there as well, so I don't think it is a driver issue (I did reinstall the dos drivers to reset everything back to defaults nevertheless).
Removing all other system devices like network card, and voodoo didn't solve the problem. Neither did changing the dma channels.
Next thing I tried was an IBM MWave card to see if this card would have the same issue... It does!
My conclusion was that it is an issue with the motherboard (perhaps bad caps although they look fine).
When I use a pci sound card there is no issue at all, but since the MB lacks a sb-link connector and it's main use will be dos-gaming this isn't a good alternative.
However, the strange thing is:
If I select the Adlib as a midi playback device in game setups (like warcraft 2 for example) there is no plopping sound at all!
If I select the Sound Blaster Pro 1.0 the problem is barely audible (but still slightly there).
If I select General Midi I only hear the plopping drums and no other music (on my other socket 7 system there is no sound output at all if I select this mode).
This makes me wonder if the problem might be solvable by using a different soundcard instead of replacing the motherboard, system case and power supply.
Does anyone out here have an idea what is causing this issue, and if I might be able to solve it by using a different isa soundcard (like a YMF719 based card for example).
Unfortunately I have no room to add another card to the system, so a different sound card will have to replace the AWE64 Gold.
Thanks in advance! 😁
430HX/P1 233MMX/64MB/S3VirgeDX,Voodoo1SLI(King Shaman)/AWE32
440BX/CelTualatin1400/512MB/Banshee, PowerVR PCX2/AWE64Gold
645DX/P4Northwood 3,5Ghz(Oc)/512MB/Voodoo5500/Vortex2
875P/P4EE 3,4Ghz/1GB/GeforceFX5950/Audigy2ZS
Z97/i3-4370/16GB/GeforceGTX960/X-Fi