I think it's not the IRQ it's the DMA especially the high-dma that causes these issues.
Games with early sb-support do work fine on ess-solo1 with i845 or older. They require I5/7 and only DMA1.

That's perhaps why PinballDreams2+PinballFantasies do work with "adlib" but not with "soundblaster".

I thing that its emulation SB Pro T4/T5, that is 8bit (lowdma) so there shouldnt be high dma at all its for 16bit cards. I know that somehow some games (Blood) are able to use it 16bit (or at least setup look like) on these card to, but only some.. or i dont fully understand how it works. Cards with have full SB16 emulation usually have in set blaster T6 (SB16) a also HX parameter for High DMA.

Made a little batch file for setting up the Solo-1 with the PCISET utility (just rename it with a .BAT extension), no need for ESSOLO.SYS/COM. I think most of the IRQ settings only applies when running the card with serialized IRQ over a PC/PCI connection. As confiugered now it sets the Solo-1 into TDMA mode, SB I/O 220h, SB DMA 1, MPU I/O 330. If viewed under Windows use the Terminal font. Don't expect any magic from this file.

Card without drivers, i wonder for what it is good for? I know there some modern program, which have only sound card stacks.. and maybe some music programs.. but as far i understand it, it will work with games, am i right?

ruthan wrote:

Card without drivers, i wonder for what it is good for? I know there some modern program, which have only sound card stacks.. and maybe some music programs.. but as far i understand it, it will work with games, am i right?

Yes, it works with games and since ESSOLO.COM mostly ignores the settings in ESSOLO.INI it can be somewhat useful when you want to run other configurations than the default one. You can also enable and disable FM, SB, MPU and joystick separately.

Kamerat wrote:

Made a little batch file for setting up the Solo-1 with the PCISET utility (just rename it with a .BAT extension), no need for ESSOLO.SYS/COM. I think most of the IRQ settings only applies when running the card with serialized IRQ over a PC/PCI connection. As confiugered now it sets the Solo-1 into TDMA mode, SB I/O 220h, SB DMA 1, MPU I/O 330. If viewed under Windows use the Terminal font. Don't expect any magic from this file.

Kamerat, hey, some of the "problematic games" now work fine with Intel ICH2 if the DMA emulation is set to one of the WBDMA modes (101, 110 or 111)! THANK YOU!!!

Namely those are: Earthworm Jim 2, Quarantine 2, Crusader: No Remorse. Duke Nukem 3D outputs SFX in the setup program and starts fine sometimes, but it always freezes the computer at certain point. I will later report with the full list of tested games.

So here is the list (note that I haven't tested every idTech 1 and Build game - just several of each to get the impression):

1idTech 1 games                           (Windows, WBDMA) /in DOS use DOS/32A
2Build games                              (Windows)
3Aladdin
4Alien Rampage                            (Windows, WBDMA)
5Bioforge                                 (WBDMA)
6Brutal: Paws of Fury                     (Windows)
7Carmageddon                              (Windows, WBDMA)
8Chu Liuxiang Chuanqi: Xuehai Piaoxiang   (Windows)
9Crusader: No Remorse                     (WBDMA)
10Crusader: No Regret                      (WBDMA)
11CyberMage: Darklight Awakening           (WBDMA)
12Death Rally                              (Windows) /skips and crackling, borderline playable
13Deep Red                                 (Windows, WBDMA)
14Descent                                  (Windows, WBDMA)
15Descent 2                                (Windows, WBDMA)
16Descent to Undermountain                 (Windows, WBDMA) /skips or cracles, borderline playable
17Dreamweb                                 (Windows, WBDMA)
18Dune 2                                   (Windows, WBDMA)
19Dyna Blaster
20Earthworm Jim                            (WBDMA)
21Earthworm Jim 2                          (WBDMA)
22Epic Pinball                             (Windows) 
23Extreme Pinball                          (Windows)
24Flies: Attack on Earth
25Hi-Octane                                (Windows, WBDMA)
26Homey D. Clown                           (WBDMA)
27IndyCar Racing 2                         (Windows, WBDMA) /in DOS sounds end abruptly 
28Interpose                                (WBDMA) /infrequent quiet pops
29Jazz Jackrabbit                          (Windows) /slight crackling      
30Kingdom At War                           (Windows) /audio is a bit noisy
31Kome Bumb                                (Windows, WBDMA) /in DOS slight skips and crackling
32Last Rites                               (WBDMA)
33Legend of Kyrandia 2                     (Windows, WBDMA)
34Legend of Kyrandia 3                     (Windows)
35Lion King                                (Windows, WBDMA) /in DOS sounds end abruptly
36Magic Carpet                             (Windows) /audio is a bit noisy
37One Must Fall: 2097                      (Windows) /slight crackling
38Pacific Strike                           (WBDMA)
39PC Rally                                 (Windows) /audio is a bit noisy
40Quake                                    (Windows, WBDMA) /in DOS sounds end abruptly
41Quarantine                               (WBDMA) /use DOS/32A
42Quarantine 2: Road Warrior               (WBDMA)
43Raptor: Call of the Shadows              (Windows, WBDMA) /in DOS use DOS/32A.EXE
44Rayman                                   (WBDMA) /sounds end abruptly
45Rise of the Triad                        (Windows, WBDMA)
46Screamer 2                               (WBDMA)
47Silverball
48SlipStream 5000                          (Windows, WBDMA) /crackling in intro and menu
49Star Trek - A Final Unity                (Windows, WBDMA) /borderline playable due to sound crackling)
50Strike Commander                         (WBDMA)
51Super Star Wars                          (Windows, WBDMA) /in Windows audio is a bit noisy
52Terminal Velocity                        (WBDMA)
53Terminator: Future Shock                 (Windows, WBDMA)
54Terminator: SKYNET                       (Windows, WBDMA)
55The Elder Scrolls 2: Daggerfall          (Windows, WBDMA)
56The Need For Speed                       (Windows, WBDMA)
57Trial By Magic                           (Windows, WBDMA) /in DOS slight crackling
58Turrican 2                               (WBDMA)
59Ultima 8                                 (WBDMA)
60Vigilance on Talos V                     (WBDMA) /borderline playable due to sound skipping

61Wing Commander: Armada                   (WBDMA)
62Wings of Glory
63X-COM: UFO Defense                       (Windows, WBDMA)
64X-COM: Terror From The Deep              (Windows, WBDMA)

What all of this means:

1) These are the games I know of that do not output digital sound (correctly, without crashes/freezes/jerky performance, or at all) in pure DOS 6.22 on the ESS Solo-1 ES1938S card (this is a pretty large family of desktop and integrated cards, so it may also be valid for Allegro, Canyon-3D and other chipsets) in its native TDMA mode on an Intel 815+ICH2 motherboard.

2) If not otherwise stated - the game runs perfectly fine in the specified mode.

3) By "Windows" I mean the built-in Windows Millenium Edition WDM driver for ESS Solo-1 ES1938S.

4) By "WBDMA" I mean the additional compatibility mode made available during the card's initialization routine thanks to Kamerat and his wonderful easy-to-read batch file. For this list I used the "111" value - as it has less artifacts and is slightly louder for some reason than the other values (101 and 110). Note: the value "100" does nothing useful compared to TDMA.

5) The games that do not have any comments beside them - simply do not work properly with this card (they either do not even start, or are unplayable with digital sound enabled due to jerky animations, speed issues or other woes) despite my workaround attempts that worked for other games.

So now it's only 5 games that don't work out of about 200 I've tested 😁 That is quite an improvement from 69!

Very nice Revolter. I had nearly written off the WBDMA modes, but never did any extended testing of them.

Its WBDMA ESS-Solo 1 specific or it could help other cards?

Revolter: Is always good to add some info to not working games too, where is problem. Someone could figure out how to fix such problem, after testing lots of games with lots of cards on modern machine, i developed quite fixing skill.. I recommend minimal test everything in EMS and Realmode (Himem.sys, dont start EMS at all) if card enable it test it with both IRQ 5/7. If you get some runtime error 200 or 6003 or divide overflow that is generally fixable. I never fixed anything by using DOS32A, but i fixed very few games or its warning by using newer version od DOS4GW.. If have are using HMI*386 libraries you can try to use library from other game - newer / older.. same with some *.ovl and *.drv drivers. And there are other tricks.

ruthan wrote:

Its WBDMA ESS-Solo 1 specific or it could help other cards?

Some PCI sound cards got some other (TSR less) modes than the standard DDMA and PC/PCI modes. Crystal got it's CCLS and CCLX. Forté Media FM801-AU got it's "Legacy modes" that might be some sort of WBDMA modes. Avance Logic ALS4000 got WBDMA and WSDMA (Write snoop DMA). Trident 4DWave got it's "Trident proprietary DMA snooping mechanism" as stated in the datasheet.

Kamerat wrote:

Some PCI sound cards got some other (TSR less) modes than the standard DDMA and PC/PCI modes. Crystal got it's CCLS and CCLX. Forté Media FM801-AU got it's "Legacy modes" that might be some sort of WBDMA modes. Avance Logic ALS4000 got WBDMA and WSDMA (Write snoop DMA). Trident 4DWave got it's "Trident proprietary DMA snooping mechanism" as stated in the datasheet.

Thanks for info, so any major players.. except ESS Solo1, from modern as possible retro machine perspective.

This batch file with pciset-utility does not solve any of my problematic game-engines.
The only thing that helps is using WDM-Drivers within win98se. sorry guys.

dr.zeissler wrote:

This batch file with pciset-utility does not solve any of my problematic game-engines.
The only thing that helps is using WDM-Drivers within win98se. sorry guys.

Which motherboard have you tried this on? Did you check the other values (101, 110)? Are you sure you've changed the right value? Check the picture for exact location.

Right I did not test the WBDMA modes...but I will do this test shortly... Thx!
It will be tested on i845gv and on i815e...

Testing with "100";"101";110";"111"
- Pinball Dreams2
- Pinball Fantasies
Result: Before "tack, tack, tack" now: "garbage: aoiafvhninbv"

Testing with "100";"101";110";"111"
- Extreme Pinball
Result: Before "nothing at all" now: "nothing at all"

Testing with "100";"101";110";"111"
- Duke3d
- Blood
- Swarrior
Result: Before "DMA/IRQ conflict" now: "DMA/IRQ conflict"

Testing with "100";"101";110";"111"
- Turrican2
Result: Before "nothing at all" now: "nothing at all"

So as you can see, this does not change anything for me. I am going to play these games within Win98se and the WDM-Drivers dated from 2000.
Turrican2 does not work at all (because it requires only himem), ExtremePinball sound is cratchy on Win9x. PinballDreams2/PinballFantasies
do not work on Win9x, but they do work with "adlib" and throttle. But they do not sound as good as with GUS or a Sb16, but they do work.

I can confirm that ESS Solo 1 is working with 4CoreDual-VSTA MB -VIA 880 Ultra / VT8237A chipset /Southbridge in pure Dos, didnt yet mess with WBDMA.. Im running with JEMM, because im unable to make EMM working (freeze on EMS line, regardless of IDE/SATA / Bios setting). ESSsolo.com print out IRQ7,A220 DMA1, P330 settings. WIn98 game are working too, i didnt test WIn98 Dos mode, but i discovered that there is some legacy device in device manager - there was detected A240, i changed it to A220 to better compatibility, no problem.

I have same problems as other with Doom II + Blood - music only, no SFX, i know that it was already reported but its still suprising that these high profiles games are not compatible Doom II is on of "most important" Dos games..

What is working (i did test only few games): Warcraft I + II, Dungeon Master I, Golden Axe.

Ok i have tested ESS Solo 1 + VIA 880 Ultra with some games are added results to my sheet (last collumn):
https://docs.zoho.com/sheet/published.do?rid= … 04bf92a9209e034

I didn yet fiddle with WBDMA, but .. i would say that Aureals and Yamahas are better choices for pure DOS, ESS SOLO 1 make sense probably only when you need to assemble Core 2 Quad machine Via chipset in comparison with some i865 board which supports only Duo Core, also there are "Frankenstein" Asrock MB with PCI-E (all Gen2 cards are supported up to Geforce 730), and AGP and PCI videocards its better that i865 boards for multiboot.. but i would say that X58 is much better for multiboot.

From results ESS Solo 1 is not bad card with VIA chipset, lots of games are working, but with others cards even more game are working even on newer chipsets and there is also issues that with VIA 880 ultra, im only able to use JEMM386 and QEMM, EMM386 freezing at start even with IDE HDD.. so im glad that i tested it, but is not some ultimate hidden gem.

ruthan wrote:

I didn yet fiddle with WBDMA

But that is the whole point: the WBDMA trick makes this already decent card the best PCI solution for DOS games compatibility (in my opinion). Much less games are prone to freezing or crashing on startup like with Aureal cards, no EMM386 requirement and lack of wavetable header of Yamaha's, drivers are not throttling-sensitive like Creative's. And for those games that do not work still - there are always the WDM drivers shipped with Windows ME (they also enable the wavetable header in Win9x). Have you read the comments above?

Doom and other idTech 1 games work in both DOS (via WBDMA + DOS32A) and Windows (via WDM).

By the way, I've since found out that Death Rally demo version works fine for some reason. One Must Fall 2097 is also good in Windows, but only if you can run your CPU slow enough concerning real speed (300Mhz tops I think), so that you could slow it down to 486 level with Throttle.exe. I've already played through the whole game like that and finished it 😀

Revolter wrote:

But that is the whole point: the WBDMA trick makes this already decent card the best PCI solution for DOS games compatibility (in my opinion). Much less games are prone to freezing or crashing on startup like with Aureal cards, no EMM386 requirement and lack of wavetable header of Yamaha's, drivers are not throttling-sensitive like Creative's. And for those games that do not work still - there are always the WDM drivers shipped with Windows ME (they also enable the wavetable header in Win9x). Have you read the comments above?

Well, i dont care about Win98, its running fine even on much faster machines. I wanted to test default driver settings at first and after if i would have time later with WBDMA. Reports are actually mix bag - Kamerat - wrote dont expect too much, for you its working (i dunno with which values), dr.zeissler reporting that its the same..

ruthan wrote:

Reports are actually mix bag

Not at all: Kamerat told us he hadn't tested the WBDMA modes, and dr.zeissler had reported about the games I've already listed as not working in DOS even with WBDMA (the Pinball series works in Adlib mode, so they are non-problematic in my book).