bristlehog wrote:

Here's my card and it for sure has DSP v. 2.02 and CT1336A bus chip. The reason for other cards failure must reside elsewhere.

You gotta do a little more testing. But if it works correctly then it seems that only Revision 6 cards are affected. Funny how this story keeps going...

EDIT: Actually one of DonutKing's cards sported a CT1336A, a 049151 marking and it was failing as well... The plot thickens...

The only difference between working rev05 and non-working rev04 and rev06 I can think of is that rev5 is using soldered smaller YM3812-F, and rev4/rev6 utilize a socketed YM3812 one.

bristlehog wrote:

The only difference between working rev05 and non-working rev04 and rev06 I can think of is that rev5 is using soldered smaller YM3812-F, and rev4/rev6 utilize a socketed YM3812 one.

We need more tests from you... As of now, it seems you have the only CT1336A equipped card that works correctly with the upgrade. I seriously doubt the OPL package has anything to do with it.

Yep, it seems I hurried too much to announce good news. I have tried some other games. CMS works everywhere, but Adlib and Soundblaster parts work almost nowhere.

As far as I have determined, Miles 3.x games (tried Wacraft 2 and Magic Carpet 2) work ok if Soundblaster SFX/Music is selected. Music and PCM sound are heard correctly. However, if I select Adlib or Generic OPL3 music in setup, Miles SS won't detect the hardware.

bristlehog wrote:

Yep, it seems I hurried too much to announce good news. I have tried some other games. CMS works everywhere, but Adlib and Soundblaster parts work almost nowhere.

As far as I have determined, Miles 3.x games (tried Wacraft 2 and Magic Carpet 2) work ok if Sounblaster SFX/Music is selected. Music and PCM sound are heard correctly. However, if I select Adlib of Generic OPL3 music in setup, Miles SS won't detect the hardware.

OK i was expecting that. Keep testing all the games you cam. Wolfenstein 3D would be nice for instance...

bristlehog wrote:

As far as I have determined, Miles 3.x games (tried Wacraft 2 and Magic Carpet 2) work ok if Soundblaster SFX/Music is selected. Music and PCM sound are heard correctly. However, if I select Adlib or Generic OPL3 music in setup, Miles SS won't detect the hardware.

Has anyone with a non-working card ever tested for port 220h vs. 388h? Seems as if the OPL2 doesn't listen to the latter port in this case.

Yes, that's the symptoms for me. Games that use 220h mostly work, ones who use 388h don't.

Can be easily determined using a Miles SoundSystem 3.x setsound.exe. When you select Sound Blaster for music, it works. When you select Adlib or Generic OPL3 synthesizer, it says 'XMIDI hardware not found'.

Here is corresponding MSS code:

1default_IO      LABEL WORD              ;Factory default I/O parameters
2                IFDEF ADLIBSTD
3                dw 388h
4                ELSEIFDEF SBSTD
5                dw 220h
6                ELSEIFDEF PROAUDIO
7                dw -1
8                ELSEIFDEF SBPRO1
9                dw 220h
10                ELSEIFDEF SBPRO2
11                dw 220h
12                ELSEIFDEF ADLIBG
13                dw 388h
14                ELSEIFDEF GENOPL3
15                dw 388h
16                ENDIF

HMI Sound Operating System only allows using 388h port for both Sound Blaster and Adlib, ending in no music heard.

Prince of Persia 1.3 wouldn't give neither sound effects nor OPL music if Sound Blaster is selected in setup.

---

Maybe if there was a TSR listening to 388h and redirecting to 220h (if it is possible at all), it would partially or fully solve the problem.

Sounds like the problem needs some real debugging. Maybe some other outputs also need to be in open-collector mode instead of push-pull output?

Does anyone know if original Creative chips work with problematic CT1336A cards? And happen to have access to oscilloscopes and logic analyzers?

I only have non-A CT1336 card with DSP 2.01 (IIRC), so I'd need a CT1336A card to see the differences. I don't have extra CMS chips or PAL/GAL chips (even though I have one old EEPROM programmer that could work).
In addition I have CMS chips soldered tight on SB 1.5, so I know how they work.

It seems some kind of test suite for SB/OPL2/CMS chips is needed to test their functionality and to assist in debugging with scopes and analyzers.
Any input how you think this kind of test suite should be made?

I can use C/Pascal/assembly to write this but I want to use freely available tools so everyone can modify/compile it. I will appreciate input what tools to use. Turbo C from Borland Museum might work?
At least the test suite should detect SB card presence (at 220h or perhaps at some other address as well?), DSP version, OPL2 chip precence at both 2x0h and 388h addresses.
Then it could output some OPL2 tones and CMS tones.

Note that without CMS chips SB 1.5 should hang when trying to access CMS chips. Same thing could happen on SB2 cards when PAL is inserted but CMS chips not.

Jepael wrote:

Does anyone know if original Creative chips work with problematic CT1336A cards? And happen to have access to oscilloscopes and logic analyzers?

The original Creative CMS upgrade does not work with CT1336A cards. Actually documentation for cards sold with CT1336A bus chip lack any CMS reference.

Wolfenstein 3D detects neither SB nor Adlib.

bristlehog wrote:

Yep, it seems I hurried too much to announce good news. I have tried some other games. CMS works everywhere, but Adlib and Soundblaster parts work almost nowhere.

So games that, on a CMS upgraded SB, detect the Sound Blaster and refuse to play CMS, like Prince of Persia, work fine with this version of the CT1336A?

Does it then act just like a original CMS / Game Blaster card and work with all the "difficult" CMS titles?

If by your 'difficult CMS titles' you mean games that are marked in GH's article as 'working only with original Game Blaster', I didn't test any of them.

The Adlib/Soundblaster part of my SB 2.0 definitely works (I have sound in Win98 and in Miles 3.x games), but 388h port is inaccessible. Miles 3.x games utilize 220h port to use OPL2 chip.

As for Prince, I have 1.3 version, which gives me neither music nor sound. But when I select Adlib as music I hear quiet clicks in a rhythm of Prince intro music. Believe me or not.

bristlehog wrote:

If by your 'difficult CMS titles' you mean games that are marked in your article as 'working only with original Game Blaster', I didn't test any of them.

The Adlib/Soundblaster part of my SB 2.0 definitely works (I have sound in Win98 and in Miles 3.x games), but 388h port is inaccessible. Miles 3.x games utilize 220h port to use OPL2 chip.

As for Prince, I have 1.3 version, which gives me neither music nor sound. But when I select Adlib as music I hear quiet clicks in a rhythm of Prince intro music. Believe me or not.

That was pretty much what other people were experiencing with their CMS upgraded CT1336A cards. I'm pretty much done looking into it. Like what Cloudschatze said, with the number of available CT1336 cards makes this a non-issue.

Was testing an OEM version of Aztech SG NX Pro, and pretty much the same symptoms: no music through 388h, only 220h gives me music. Weird clicks are heard when trying to play music through 388h. Is that what SG NX series are supposed to be?

bristlehog wrote:

Was testing an OEM version of Aztech SG NX Pro, and pretty much the same symptoms: no music through 388h, only 220h gives me music. Weird clicks are heard when trying to play music through 388h. Is that what SG NX series are supposed to be?

Install the card on the "far side" of the bus, away from other ISA cards, it tends to be disturbed easily by neighbouring cards if you don't.

Also it could be bad capacitors somewhere on the card, though not likely, as soundcards tend to be real champs when it comes to capacitor lifespans.

I had no any other cards installed at a time 🙁

Considering prices of old SBs - has anybody tried to build CMS card from scratch ? Even YM3812 + 2xSAA1099 do not look difficult.

In my opinion waiting for a CT1320 and just buying it is not a big deal. $40 to $80 is not really that much $ all things considered. Plus you can always sell it for about that much anyway so I do not see it as a waste of $ spent.

Depends where you live. Adding additional $ for shipping and $ for possible customs make it quite expensive (plus risk it is faulty one).
Having design ready I can have as much cards as I want 😀 Assuming chips are still available, of course.

PL is a EU member and next door to DE so there are plenty of CT1320s available. Re-building a CT1320 is very challenging: there are many components (and some are not that easily obtainable).

Examples: http://cgi.ebay.de/281194472247, http://cgi.ebay.de/251400836036