jesolo wrote:

I'm interested to see how you free up enough resources for all the sound cards (unless you don't utilise them all at the same time).

I always disable serial and printer ports. That frees up some resources. If you're a PS/2 keyboard / mouse user and don't need USB, disable that as well. But I prefer a USB mouse and using USB storage, so I leave it enabled.

Sound cards you don't want to use under Windows 98, easy, just disable them in device manager. It won't take up any resources AFAIK.

philscomputerlab wrote:

I always disable serial and printer ports. That frees up some resources. If you're a PS/2 keyboard / mouse user and don't need USB, disable that as well. But I prefer a USB mouse and using USB storage, so I leave it enabled.

Sound cards you don't want to use under Windows 98, easy, just disable them in device manager. It won't take up any resources AFAIK.

Yes, but strictly from a pre-USB based machine (i.e., Pentium 1 or below) why plug in a sound card if you do not want to use it?
I guess two sound cards in one PC is fine since one can then play around with available resources, especially where you want one card for Sound Blaster compatibility and perhaps another one for MIDI (or just a GUS).
But, more than two sound devices? Would this be necessary?
I'm excluding a real mode MPU-401 MIDI interface since one can then easily disable the sound card's MIDI port.

Look, personally I stick with a single sound card, and at the most, a sound card together with a Roland MPU401.

But a typical scenario could be that someone wants to have an Aureal Vortex 2 for Windows, but under DOS use a Sound Blaster / PAS / GUS, whatever.

So under Windows, you disable all the ISA cards. And under DOS, you just initialise the ISA card. That way you have the best of both worlds.

Not saying this is what should be done, but you asked for tips to do with resources. That's one thing you can do 😀

I know I'm looking at it from a very different perspective than most then. I see it as not being used in pure DOS, I care more about genuine OPL3 than MIDI and maybe I should just keep some of my ideas to myself 🤣. Anyways... For my SE440BX-2 build I will probably use a YMF719-S combined with a Vortex2 anyways. I thought about using a Turtle Beach Santa Cruz instead of the Vortex2 which meant Sensaura, then after discovering the YMF-724 also supported Sensaura and real OPL3 it just seemed like a very interesting option.

I am having a little trouble finding which version of DirectX the Vortex2 has 100% support for. 6.0/7.0? Judging by driver dates I'm guessing 7.0.

squareguy wrote:

I care more about genuine OPL3 than MIDI...I thought about using a Turtle Beach Santa Cruz instead of the Vortex2 which meant Sensaura, then after discovering the YMF-724 also supported Sensaura and real OPL3 it just seemed like a very interesting option.
I am having a little trouble finding which version of DirectX the Vortex2 has 100% support for. 6.0/7.0? Judging by driver dates I'm guessing 7.0.

I love how well my TB:Santa Cruz works, the OPL3 is emulated just like the Vortex2 though. Sensaura works very well and will piggy back on A3D 2.0 games to use their provided geometry buffer for occlusions. I have yet to hear a game that it fails to work in. The CS4630 is the only DSP Sensaura is 100% accelerated on, not sure how much of a difference this actually makes though.
DirectX 6.1 was the last one Aureal compiled their Win98 drivers on, and 7.0 in the Win2k betas. The Microsoft provided 2560's use DX7 as well.

I actually did a video on the YMF724. It works very well, not 100% sure about the XG Synth in real DOS, but I seem to remember an option for it in the installer.

HighTreason: interesting review. Thanks for that link and video.

ZanQuance: I am trying to decide between the Vortex2 and Santa Cruz now hehe.

squareguy wrote:

ZanQuance: I am trying to decide between the Vortex2 and Santa Cruz now hehe.

Santa Cruz for now, at least until I finish writing the new drivers. Then Vortex2 all the way!

I talk about these cards a bit here : http://nerdlypleasures.blogspot.com/2013/03/1 … am-machine.html, I hope some information there will be useful.

Great Hierophant wrote:

I talk about these cards a bit here : http://nerdlypleasures.blogspot.com/2013/03/1 … am-machine.html, I hope some information there will be useful.

Great info! thank you for the link!

Great Hierophant wrote:

I talk about these cards a bit here : http://nerdlypleasures.blogspot.com/2013/03/1 … am-machine.html, I hope some information there will be useful.

Nice writeup, however there is a slight error here:

The advanced 2.0 effects were supported in games like Half-Life, Hexen II, Quake III Arena, SIN, & Unreal Tournament. 3.0 was in development but not released before Creative bought Aureal, Soldier of Fortune may support it.

The A3D 3.0 SDK was released publicly on 02/25/00 and is implemented fully in Star Trek: Voyager – Elite Force. To hear A3D 3.0 you need either the 2048 or 2050 beta drivers, however due to the annoying speaker swap bug, these drivers are less than ideal for playing. You'll know it's working if you can hear the ship hum and forcefield on the right as soon as the first mission starts, with the 2041's you do not have these extra sounds present.

I really like this sound card.
I'm using these sound cards in the same PC:
SBLive with VXD drivers
Vortex2 SQ2500
Yamaha Waveforce 192XG
All these sound cards have their own a3d.dll file in the Windows/System folder.
So, if you also like to use more than one of these, you would need to swap them before starting an a3d game.

Reverb on the Yamaha card behaves different (better) compared to SBLive & Vortex2 (Thief: The Dark Project).
In a3d games the Positional Sound is much better on the Vortex2 SQ2500 (in Headphone Mode).

System Shock 2 (a3d 1.x & EAX supported):
Playing System Shock 2 with headphones on a Vortex2 is a pleasure, and may drive you crazy. 😀
On the Vortex2 I can perfectly hear what's above and what's below me (Headphone Mode).

With the SBLive I firstly thought it is better, because you get reverb.
But positional sounds are so bad, it destroys the atmosphere in this game (Headphone Mode).

With the Yamaha you get Sensaura Sound whitch give's you a3d positional sound and reverb together,
it is definitively much better than the SBLive.

In Unreal the flies come really close to your ears, on the Yamaha card, which is nice.

But the Yamaha drivers are buggy and far away from perfect.
==========================================================================================
Incomplete list of sound cards with Yamaha YMF-7x4 chip:

Yamaha YMF724/744/754 soundcards, from yamaha/labway/nec/aopen/hoontech/chaintech/addonics

Asong SoundWorld

Yamaha YMF-724:
Yamaha Waveforce 192XG ( WF-192XG )
SoundMax SP-724 Yamaha 724 Sound Card , SOUNDMAX 3D SOUND
Labway Xwave 576

Yamaha YMF-744:
AOpen AW744 Pro

Yamaha YMF-754:
Labway XWave 6000
Hoontech SoundTrack i-Phone Digital XG
==========================================================================================
useful threads:
Re: Yamaha WaveForce 192XG infos and drivers
Yamaha YMF-724 DOS Sound Blaster Setup Assistance Needed
==========================================================================================
drivers:
VXD drivers "v. 4.07.1040 (DirectX7 Certified)" for Windows9x support Sensaura sound.
http://www.yamaha.co.jp/english/product/lsi/download/
http://www.vogonsdrivers.com/index.php?catid=39
==========================================================================================
Power YMF:
I recommend you to use this tweaker.
You can use the downloadable high quality 4.61 MB wavetable bank with this.
With PowerYMF, it is possible to turn on high quality 44.1 kHz samplerate converter mode.
MIDI banks editor is included.

supported chipsets:
Yamaha YMF724
Yamaha YMF740
Yamaha YMF744
Yamaha YMF754

They gave it for free with a registration key:
http://web.archive.org/web/20080419134607/htt … f/download.html
http://web.archive.org/web/20080517100641/htt … g.com/powerymf/

Wow, great information falloutboy! Thank you very much!

From my tests in real DOS, I found the PCI YMF724, with SB-Link enabled, more compatible than the YMF71x on an ISA bus. The YMF724 was also more compatible in DOS than the YMF744 and YMF754 cards; IIRC, it could be used with older drivers in DOS...

j^aws wrote:

From my tests in real DOS, I found the PCI YMF724, with SB-Link enabled, more compatible than the YMF71x on an ISA bus. The YMF724 was also more compatible in DOS than the YMF744 and YMF754 cards; IIRC, it could be used with older drivers in DOS...

Yeah, and I think it even works with disabled CPU caches. Which I haven't seen at other PCI sound cards.

falloutboy wrote:

j^aws wrote:

From my tests in real DOS, I found the PCI YMF724, with SB-Link enabled, more compatible than the YMF71x on an ISA bus. The YMF724 was also more compatible in DOS than the YMF744 and YMF754 cards; IIRC, it could be used with older drivers in DOS...

Yeah, and I think it even works with disabled CPU caches. Which I haven't seen at other PCI sound cards.

It's a great card - I've even managed to get the YMF724 to work with Intelligent MIDI games using SoftMPU:

Re: SoftMPU project needs your help! (game & sound card testing)
Re: SoftMPU project needs your help! (game & sound card testing)

ZanQuance wrote:

squareguy wrote:

I care more about genuine OPL3 than MIDI...I thought about using a Turtle Beach Santa Cruz instead of the Vortex2 which meant Sensaura, then after discovering the YMF-724 also supported Sensaura and real OPL3 it just seemed like a very interesting option.
I am having a little trouble finding which version of DirectX the Vortex2 has 100% support for. 6.0/7.0? Judging by driver dates I'm guessing 7.0.

I love how well my TB:Santa Cruz works, the OPL3 is emulated just like the Vortex2 though. Sensaura works very well and will piggy back on A3D 2.0 games to use their provided geometry buffer for occlusions. I have yet to hear a game that it fails to work in. The CS4630 is the only DSP Sensaura is 100% accelerated on, not sure how much of a difference this actually makes though.
DirectX 6.1 was the last one Aureal compiled their Win98 drivers on, and 7.0 in the Win2k betas. The Microsoft provided 2560's use DX7 as well.

Sorry, just so I am clear on what you said. Are you saying that the Turtle Beach Santa Cruz sounds good in A3D 2.0 games that you have tried? I might just swap the Santa Cruz in until you get your drivers done. Any ETA on that? I mean are we talking months or years?

Thanks for the info.

j^aws wrote:

From my tests in real DOS, I found the PCI YMF724, with SB-Link enabled, more compatible than the YMF71x on an ISA bus. The YMF724 was also more compatible in DOS than the YMF744 and YMF754 cards; IIRC, it could be used with older drivers in DOS...

Problem is, not all boards have SB Link unfortunately, some chipsets support DDMA, but i found some compatibility problems. Dune 2 does not work well with Yamaha YMF724 cards.

carlostex wrote:

j^aws wrote:

From my tests in real DOS, I found the PCI YMF724, with SB-Link enabled, more compatible than the YMF71x on an ISA bus. The YMF724 was also more compatible in DOS than the YMF744 and YMF754 cards; IIRC, it could be used with older drivers in DOS...

Problem is, not all boards have SB Link unfortunately, some chipsets support DDMA, but i found some compatibility problems. Dune 2 does not work well with Yamaha YMF724 cards.

Yeah, SB-Link should've been more prevalent, but from what I've read, it was Creative themselves that abandoned it and went for a software emulation approach.

Was Dune 2 using DSDMA or SB-Link? I don't have a setup ready to test now, but I can pencil it in for sometime in the future.

My Asus TX-97XE has no PC/PCI connector so DSDMA. If it had PC/PCI i could have spared my YMF-718.