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My PAS and YMF cards produce garbage noises instead of proper playback.

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First post, by Yuuker

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I was wondering if anyone had any issues getting these two sound cards cards, a Pro-Audio Spectrum 16 and a YMF7x-opl3sa based card to run on fast cpus (100mhz+).

I initially was running a 100mhz Dx4 rig and my PAS16 seemed to be producing really distorted, staticy sounds whenever an effect was played. (To the point you couldn't even make out the proper digital sound). I thought maybe the card was speed sensitive so i tried my Generic YMF7-19 card and it seemed to do the exact same thing. Duke 3D's test program is a great example where if i do the sound-effect test i can't hear anything other then garbage noise.

FM doesn't seem to be affected.

The curious part is if i re-configure my board for a DX2-66, all the issues mysteriously go away, for both cards.
Wish i got a chance to record some samples, but my ATX-AT converter broke so i'm sitting untill a new one gets in.

I did want to try to get my hands on a Creative card to see if that made a diffrence. I can't tell if i just have two speed sensitive cards, or my motherboard is acting screwy with anything over a DX2.

Any thoughts?

Reply 1 of 5, by Jo22

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Did you install both a PAS16 and an other sound card at the same time ?
That doesn't work too well, I'm afraid. I once tried that with an SB16.

The PAS16 uses the AdLib/OPL base address 388h for its native part, too.
During init of mvsound.sys, this can cause noise on a generic OPL3 card.

A re-init of the other card can fix that sometimes.
The OPL3 on the PAS16 itself is not affected, since the card's circuitry is taking care of it.

Edit:

Yuuker wrote:

FM doesn't seem to be affected.

Oops. I missed that part. So the card causes noise during PCM/Wave playback ?
I onlly noticed this on a Pentium 133 when EMM386 was enabled.
If that's not your issue, make sure that the PAS16's IRQs/DMAs are all set as "legacy ISA" in
CMOS (if your 486 has such options). Also make sure your PSU has -5v (if you do use a modern ATX PSU).

Last edited by Jo22 on 2018-03-01, 03:08. Edited 1 time in total.

"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel

//My video channel//

Reply 2 of 5, by Yuuker

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Jo22 wrote:
Did you install both a PAS16 and an other sound card at the same time ? That doesn't work too well, I'm afraid. I once tried tha […]
Show full quote

Did you install both a PAS16 and an other sound card at the same time ?
That doesn't work too well, I'm afraid. I once tried that with an SB16.

The PAS16 uses the AdLib/OPL base address 388h for its native part, too.
During init of mvsound.sys, this can cause noise on a generic OPL3 card.

A re-init of the other card can fix that sometimes.
The OPL3 on the PAS16 itself is not affected, since the card's circuitry is taking care of it.

Edit:

Yuuker wrote:

FM doesn't seem to be affected.

Oops. I missed that part. So the card causes noise during PCM/Wave playback ?
I onlly noticed this on a Pentium 133 when EMM386 was enabled.
If that's not your issue, make sure that the PAS16's IRQs/DMAs are all set as "legacy ISA" in
CMOS (if your 486 has such options). Also make sure your PSU has -5v (if you do use a modern ATX PSU).

No, both cards where tested one at a time. PSU has -5, the sounds play back at proper speed (Since i hear a lack of -5 causes speed issues on the PAS).
There are Jumpers on the PAS itself, i might need to check those.

Still wouldn't explain why the generic YMF-card suffers the same issues though. Those should just work 😕

Reply 3 of 5, by Jo22

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Yuuker wrote:

There are Jumpers on the PAS itself, i might need to check those.

Some of the jumpers define the cards ID. You can have up to 4 (or were it 8 ?) installed in a single PC.

Yuuker wrote:

Still wouldn't explain why the generic YMF-card suffers the same issues though. Those should just work 😕

Yes, I think they should. I have little experience with them, though, so I can't give any advice on them. Sorry. 🙁

"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel

//My video channel//

Reply 4 of 5, by Tiido

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Perhaps the ISA speed is too high, on my 486 I could set the ISA speed and pretty much all sound cards stopped working on it at about 13MHz point (66/5) but 11 (66/6) and lower worked, but that board had lots of options around ISA speed. Too fast speeds didn't function even with wait states added. While things like video cards usually really like the higher bus speeds, lesser things often don't...
I haven't had many issues on Pentium and newer with the YMF cards at least, only on VIA based chipsets DMA doesn't work when DMA0 is used and on one P4 machine with PCI to ISA bridge sound playback wasn't always very stable. None of those machines offered the level of flexibility that the 486 does though.

T-04YBSC, a new YMF71x based sound card & Official VOGONS thread about it
Newly made 4MB 60ns 30pin SIMMs ~
mida sa loed ? nagunii aru ei saa 😜

Reply 5 of 5, by Jo22

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The PAS16 should be able to handle circa 12MHz, since that was the speed of my 286.
(It was dated/made '88, when CPU/FSB speeds often were still in sync with ISA).

"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel

//My video channel//

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