YMF744B-R in Tecra 8100 question \ VOGONS

YMF744B-R in Tecra 8100 question

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First post, by Kurasiu

Posted on 2016-03-24, 18:13

Kurasiu Offline

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Hey everyone,
I recently picked up, for a quite cheap price, a Toshiba Tecra 8100 notebook. It features the Yamaha DS-XG YMF744B-R sound card. Installed Win98SE, configured it and everything's fine, expect for sound in DOS.

Here's the thing - no matter what I do, the DOS driver (setupds.exe) will always configure the legacy SoundBlaster device at IRQ 11, which is extremely problematic, as, so far, no game seems to properly recognize the hardware and play sounds. The FM synth music works just fine, but the sounds are a real pain. I tried several of them (Monster Bash, Bioforge, Wacky Wheels) - the games either don't have that high IRQ to choose in the setup (the highest in Bioforge is 10), while the others simply cut sounds, or don't play some at all.

Tried to disable serial/modem/parallel ports in BIOS, use the patched MAME drivers (sadly, there's an DOS4GW exception upon running it), manually change the lines in ds.ini, or fiddle around with the setupds configuration tool, but nothing worked (when I changed the IRQ from INTA# to ISA or S-IRQ, it simply spit out an "Could not detect Interrupt at IRQX" error, for any IRQ I choose). Running DSDMA.exe somewhat works... but some games downright restart the PC, when I run it.

What's funny is that the legacy sound device in Windows control panel seems to be assigned to IRQ 5, DMA 1, and it actually works... for the DOS games that can be ran under Windows (Wacky Wheels, for example, both the sounds and the music works. Can't test Bioforge, as it simply crashes during initalization). The control panel tool also shows IRQ 5 in the DOS box legacy device options.

I'm stumped so far. Anybody has a clue for this one?

Reply 1 of 10, by TheDosPlace

Posted on 2016-03-24, 20:12

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I used to set up piles of these back in about 2001.... I *vaguely* recall there being a "legacy isa" option in the irq configuration in the bios. You could try fiddling with/activating that..

^Dave from TheDosPlace
http://www.facebook.com/TheDosPlace

Reply 2 of 10, by Kurasiu

Posted on 2016-03-24, 20:35

Kurasiu Offline

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Thank you for the reply! Unfortunately, it seems that there's no legacy isa option in the BIOS. The only two BIOS pages have the following options:

(full view)

The manual clearly states the IRQ10 could be used as a sound system interrupt, though I'm unable to change it to anything, but 11.

Reply 3 of 10, by Kurasiu

Posted on 2016-03-24, 23:29

Kurasiu Offline

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Well, now that's something - I snooped around the net, looking for other problems like mine, and stumbled across a little TSR program, called SwapIRQ.

And guess what - after setupds init I ran it and swapped IRQ 11 with 5, and both Wacky Wheels and Bioforge have both sounds and music playing (Monster Bash only has some difficulties initalizing the AdLib, but that's probably my fault, as I messed around with the adresses in the setupds, sounds are working just fine) So my question is - why is setupds stubbornly assigning IRQ11 to SB hardware, when 5 is clearly available?

Reply 4 of 10, by h-a-l-9000

Posted on 2016-03-24, 23:54

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Datasheet:
> YMF744B (DS-1S) is a high performance audio controller for the PCI Bus.

Did you try to set the 'PCI BUS = IRQ11' in the BIOS to something else?

The legacy sound device may be working because it has some emulation going on.

1+1=10

Reply 5 of 10, by kanecvr

Posted on 2016-03-25, 00:03

kanecvr Offline

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I have the exact same problem with yamaha PCI DS-DX cards (IFM-724). SetupDS refuses to let me change any hardware settings which angers me greatly. I'll try googling this SwapIRQ you mentioned. Do you perhaps have a download link for it?

Reply 6 of 10, by Kurasiu

Posted on 2016-03-25, 08:48

Kurasiu Offline

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@h-a-l-9000
Sadly, I can't change the PCI IRQ value, as, no matter what I set in the config options, this particular option never gets highlighted.

kanecvr wrote:
I have the exact same problem with yamaha PCI DS-DX cards (IFM-724). SetupDS refuses to let me change any hardware settings which angers me greatly. I'll try googling this SwapIRQ you mentioned. Do you perhaps have a download link for it?

Here you go, my friend 😉. At first some kind of a message popped up, but after reloading the page it downloaded just fine.
I disabled the serial port in BIOS, and using the swapirq /i11 /i5 directly after running setupds, and it seems to work. Currently I'm out for Easter holidays, but I'm going to test more stuff when I return.

Give me a shout if this software also worked in you case, kanecvr. 😀

Reply 7 of 10, by h-a-l-9000

Posted on 2016-03-26, 02:54

h-a-l-9000 Offline

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Well, that's it then - the YMF is a PCI device, and obviously PCI only gets IRQ11 assigned on this system (INTA = IRQ11). The SwapIRQ should do its job, unless you got another PCI device on INTA you want to use simultaneously.

1+1=10

Reply 8 of 10, by Kurasiu

Posted on 2016-03-30, 21:12

Kurasiu Offline

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h-a-l-9000 wrote:
Well, that's it then - the YMF is a PCI device, and obviously PCI only gets IRQ11 assigned on this system (INTA = IRQ11). The SwapIRQ should do its job, unless you got another PCI device on INTA you want to use simultaneously.

Right. I returned today and tested it with several other DOS titles, including Anvil of Dawn, Albion, System Shock and Commander Keen 5 - all of them worked perfectly, with sound and music, after using SwapIRQ. 😉

Reply 9 of 10, by nforce4max

Posted on 2016-03-31, 00:26

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kanecvr wrote:
I have the exact same problem with yamaha PCI DS-DX cards (IFM-724). SetupDS refuses to let me change any hardware settings which angers me greatly. I'll try googling this SwapIRQ you mentioned. Do you perhaps have a download link for it?

Does your card have SBlink? IF so and if the mainboard you are using you can find a cable. SBlink is there for ISA dma for pci sound cards.

On a far away planet reading your posts in the year 10,191.

Reply 10 of 10, by cragger89

Posted on 2022-06-19, 15:47

cragger89 Offline

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Hi guys,

Do any of you have the SWAPIRQ app downloaded so they can share it? I cannot find this anywhere and am very interested in using it on a Tecra 8100 I have with the same issue as the OP.

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