First post, by ruthan
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- Oldbie
From my experience especially in case of multi boot machines (special HW for one of OSes) not ever have enough PCI-e/PCI/ISA slots.. or cant use some otherwise suited MB, because of slots location / count design.
This post is work in progress and its often updated, time of last edit is in footer, major updates are described in following posts, TBD - means to be defined its just placeholder for work in progress...
PCI-e to PCI, PCI to ISA back plates / bridge or how to name them, should be solution.. So i want to discuss here:
1) Its back plates and bridges are proven for which client PCI-e/PCI-ISA cards?
2) My wet dream is able to use ISA sound card on board with PCI only slots or PCI sound card on PCI-E only machine in DOS.. so far i tried only PCI-E to PCI and its working Win98+ well, but not with DOS. Maybe someone was successful with PCI to ISA?
3) Slots counts enhancers - PCI to PCI, ISA to ISA, PCI-E to PCI-E etc.
4) What solve space problems, some case mods, external cases, cable enhancers etc..
5) Proven products links and experience
6) Compatibility online sheet matrix.
7) If there are some developers, some testing utilities or some enhancers to improve compatibility.
8) How is possible that in PCI-E era, we not more heard about IRQ problem, its better PCI-E architecture, or better OS architecture, or both?
9) I saw somewhere here some photos of special telecommunication MBs and back plates with zillions of slots with special case format (there was special board with CPU) and was quite new i thing skylake, but i forgot machine keyword to find it.. maybe someone know magic keyword => search for PICMG 1.0 backplane, or SBC
I personally only 2 cheap pci-e to pci devices with Asmedia chip.. and for one even older version, when new version has enhanced compatibility.
Here are my client cards testing results and link to eBay - look at tabs - PCIetoPCIadaptersCompatibility and PCIE-toPCI-Chipsets
Today i was quite suprised that 1 of them working even for PCI videocard as primary for Dos (details), DOS network card is working too.
Solutions:
ISA to ISA
Malvineous: Look at this threadwhere an industrial backplane was connected to a normal motherboard with a passthrough cable, so that all those slots were available for use with the normal motherboard? This lets you add many more ISA slots to a machine that already has ISA slots. Interestingly the early IBM PCs sold with an extension box that looked like another PC (used the same size case), only it had no disks in it and it was just a bunch of ISA slots. You could use this if you wanted to plug more than eight ISA cards into the machine, but it was a bit of an expensive solution so very rare to see now.
Most modern MBs with ISA:
DFI G7S620-N - Intel 865G / Intel ICH,5, P4 only (there is some unofficial Core 2 bios - im not sure about its state)- https://www.dreamhardware.com/mb-g7s620-n-int … 050g-19149.html manual -If im not wrong Parus and Tiido have this MB and confirmed that ISA sound is working.
Portwell RUBY-9719VG2AR - intel G41 / ICH7R (up to Core 2 Quad) - https://www.portwell.com.tw/download/sbc/cata … y-9719vg2ar.pdf There is Fintek F85226FG bridge - which supports ISA DMA, but you have to enable it throug some Tiido utility (link) and SB16 is working.
MSI MS-98A9 - intel Q77 - http://ipc.msi.com/product/pages/ipc/MS-98A9.html - PCI to ISA bridge iTE IT8888G ISA DMA is not supported - so no sound card
DFI HD620-H81- intel H81- https://www.dfi.com/Product/Index/305 - PCI to ISA bridge iTE IT8888G - ISA DMA is not supported - so no sound card
USB to ISA
Rayer: USB low-level programming is pure HELL. Don't expect that anybody will program a DOS driver for it. It's not just writing a friver for the peripheral but you also must have driver for USB controllers that exists in many form (XHCI/EHCI/UHCI/OHCI) and USB hubs... no no.. And it would be still only a half of work the second half will be writting a TSR/monitor that captures legacy access from games and convert it to calls for your USB driver).
PCI to ISA
More info not solution:
Malvineous: Putting ISA on PCI is not really possible without a custom device with drivers. The PCI bus is not just a faster version of ISA, it is completely different and has significant changes to address shortcomings in the ISA bus. For example the ISA bus has dedicated lines for each supported IRQ number, but the PCI bus only has four interrupts called A, B, C and D. The motherboard routes these to actual IRQ numbers, usually with each slot using a different IRQ. This is why IRQ conflicts with PCI cards can often be solved by moving them to a different slot. The card might still use interrupt B, but that will be routed to a different IRQ in a different slot. If your ISA card uses IRQ 5, you might not even have that available on your PCI slot.
The PCI bus also does not support DMA in the same way that ISA does, and this is why early PCI sound cards used the SB-Link cable. It was a way of routing a tiny part of the ISA bus onto the PCI card, so that the card could still respond to ISA DMA requests required for Sound Blaster compatibility. After the Pentium 4, the DMA facility was completely removed from hardware so Sound Blaster compatibility is not electrically possible after this point and must be emulated via software.
PCIe to PCI
Info not solution:
Malvineous: PCI-E has changed yet again, and everything - port addresses, interrupts, and memory accesses - is sent in packets a bit like Ethernet. After the packets are decoded they are similar enough to PCI that there are bridge chips around that will let you plug PCI cards into PCI-E slots.
Possible solution untested:
- PCI-E 1x to 4x PCI-E Long slot - 15$. it make sense for some low bandwidth devices - as let say sound cards or some network cards
Solutions:
Asmedia - AMS1083 - compatibility details are in my sheet - CIetoPCIadaptersCompatibility (same document as above)
Basic specs.
P17C9X - i guest that is Pericom chip (maybe PI7C9X110? maybe PI7C9X111SL, maybe other.. )
- NICs, Videocards are working even in Dos, otherwise lots of cards are working even soundcards in Win98+ plus on PCIe only MB, not so far sound in DOS (it would be big breakthrough).
There could be more variants and revisions of this chipsets / risers - i have probably older revision, new one has this description:
Support MAC Apple system .USB cable has been improved. PCI-E version also improved! Support innovative sound 0610,0350,0460,0090, RME DIGI96 / 8 PAD, RME9632 other high-end sound card, telephone recording card and other PCI devices. Product Compatibility better after the update.
Could someone tell us, if this sound support things can help with DOS sound card compatibility or they are just some modern stuff?
Startech with Pericom- PI7C9X111SL probably newer chip:
https://www.startech.com/eu/Cards-Adapters/Sl … r-Card~PEX1PCI1
I found some Pericom datasheets here:
PI7C9X110 - http://pdf1.alldatasheet.com/datasheet-pdf/vi … /PI7C9X110.html // 2007
PI7C9X111SL - http://pdf1.alldatasheet.com/datasheet-pdf/vi … X111SLBFDE.html // 2010
PI7C9X118SL - https://www.diodes.com/assets/Datasheets/PI7C9X118SL.pdf // 2017
There are some Express card to 2x PCI adapters for laptops:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01F3FM0G8/ref=psdc … 4_t1_B00KZHDSLQ // Looks like that PCB is some with Pericom PCI-E adapters
There are at least 2 MBs were are these integrated (thx to Rayer):
GA-Z170-HD3 - intel Z170 - https://www.gigabyte.com/us/Motherboard/GA-Z1 … 0-HD3-rev-10#sp // ASM1083 bridge
- others with Z270: GA-Z270M-D3H, GA-Z270-HD3P - both have 2 slots
- Z370 - Z370 HD3P - slot
FUJITSU Mainboard D3446-S - intel C236 - Socket-1151 (Skylake / Kabylake) https://sp.ts.fujitsu.com/dmsp/Publications/p … DS_D3446-S.pdf/ Pericom PI7C9X118SL bridge (2017)
GA-Z97P-D3 - https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-Z97P-D3-rev-10#ov]GA-Z97P-D3 there are similar GA MB even with 3x PCI (GA-Z97-D3 abd GA-H97-D3)- Bridge is ITE - IT8892E . I have this one, tried lots of sound cards with it and best what i was able to squeeze from it is working FM + Adlib with ALS 4000 - but i have cheapest ALS 4000 variant - on board are very few components in comparision with proper ALS 4000 boards (i dont know for sure its this Sound Card would work even with older MBs).
Bridge itself is exactly the same as on Rayes GA-P67A-D3-B3, where Yamahas 724/744 and Aureal V1 are working fine, there is something else wrong..
GA-X79-UP4 - https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-X79-UP4-rev-10#ov has 1x PCI too, but it Motherboard Block Diagram is not bridge at all, and on board is not too.
PCI to PCIE
Info not solution:
Malvineous: .. expensive ones (adapters) that will plug PCI-E cards into PCI slots. I would like to try this to get USB 3.0 support on a PCI-only motherboard, since there are not very many (if any) PCI cards that have true USB 3.0 support, however the adapters are currently more expensive than it is worth for this.
PCIe to PCIe
Possible soluton PCI-E x16 to 8x PCI-E 1x) untested - Model: SQKZ-P8
- i need to find better listing, but this could be PCI-E x16 to 8x PCIe x1 adapter mother card
If someone will find better photo, or decipher main chip name and specs just tell me.
Possible solution form Dell J222N DELL RISER BOARD LF PCI-E R815/R810 P: //untested
https://www.ebay.com/itm/J222N-DELL-RISER-BOA … buMYR:rk:2:pf:0
LPT for Sound Blaster emulation: - simply not possible too slow..
- as you can know its used for Serdashop OPL2/3LPT, but its only FM + Adlib and it not support too much games and even needs patching of games executable..
Malvineous: The LPT port is too slow for this. There are sound devices (Covox etc.) that can produce digital sound via LPT but the quality is very poor and they have very high CPU usage because there is no DMA. The reason why the popular sound cards were ISA at the time was because DMA allowed sound effects to be played with enough CPU power left over to run the game itself.
Adding PCI Sound cards support on modern MB with PCI slots:
Just info - Theory:
Tiido: For MB without PS/2, LPT and/or COM ports there's usually no SuperIO chip either and thus no LPC bus use is necessary. Mod involves locating the LPC DMA request line, severing it, soldering a wire to the trace and then to the bridge that one day I'll make. It might be possible to share the DMA line so that SuperIO chip can still do DMA but I'm not sure if timings permit it.
Possibility to capture PCI sound requests on very modern MBs, this is not possible on MBs on with LPC (they go straight to LPC along with bunch of other accesses. )
Lack of 8259 (PIC) and 8237 (DMA controller) on their usual addresses would be the first good sign. I don't think PIC will ever disappear, DMA controller does serve no purpose on modern hardware though and that is the most important thing for sound in DOS games.
SBC - format special boards
- there are some special PICMG / SBC boards (i dunno for what there are intended some switchboard stations?), or how to name it.. which have zillions of slots and support modern CPU boards (1150+1155) like this (thanks for info to Cyclone3D):
https://www.icpamerica.com/wsb-h610-picmg-1-0-sbc/
https://advdownload.blob.core.windows.net/pro … 80910102743.pdf
j^aws
With PICMG 1.0 board, and with it, you are limited by the fastest PCI GPU card. With a PIAGP board, you are limited by the fastest AGP GPU card. With a PICMG 1.3 board, you are limited by the fastest PCI-express GPU card. In these cases, you are also limited by the functionality of the PCI-ISA bridge chip and their variants to provide ISA DMA.
There even PCI-E/PCI/ISA combo PICMG 1.3 boards
like Axiomtek FAB100
But we need someone with real experience with them, to tell:
A) If ISA DMA sound cards is really working in pure DOS?
B) If PCI sound cards are working?
C) If Dos, Win98, Linux, WinXP, Win7.. WIn10, MacOS (hackingtosh) etc is working on them fine too?
D) Cases for them.
E) Power supplies and cables for them? => At least some seems to use standard ATX PSUs.
F) Prices of all this stuff.
G) Are standard CPU coolers compatible with these CPU cards?
Im old goal oriented goatman, i care about facts and freedom, not about egos+prejudices. Hoarding=sickness. If you want respect, gain it by your behavior. I hate stupid SW limits, SW=virtual world, everything should be possible if you have enough raw HW.