VOGONS


First post, by 95DosBox

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member

Has anyone done any confirmed testing of
PCI or PCI Express Sound Cards for DOS Sound Blaster Sound Effects working on Intel Sandy Bridge Z68 or newer chipsets?

If any please list on which Intel or AMD modern chipset.

Sandy Bridge came out 2011 so anyone who's gotten anything 2011 or closest to 2011 on AMD or Intel chipset with a working PCI or PCI Express sound card in DOS games for Sound Blaster voice or sound effects or even MIDI effects please list the sound card Name and Model and what computer chipset you've tested this on. Also list any special drivers or config.sys or autoexec.bat configuration needed to make it function properly.

I'm hoping there might be one PCI or PCI Express sound card with any luck that could possibly be made to work on modern chipsets.

The quality of the voice effects isn't an issue as long as it can play back Sound Blaster effects in DOS.

If it can do MIDI effects in DOS on a modern chipset please list as well as this might be useful even if sound effects are non existent.

Reply 1 of 22, by digger

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

As far as I know, chipsets from that generation and onwards supported neither SB-Link nor Distributed DMA (DDMA). At least one of these would be necessary for a PCI sound card to provide full hardware compatibility with Sound Blaster cards. Adlib hardware compatibility can be achieved in a PCI card without such things, but Sound Blaster DAC support required one of the aforementioned way to support ISA DMA over PCI.

So it seems that in the case of more modern chipsets, you are limited to the following options wiht regards to full Sound Blaster compatibility (FM + DAC):

* Some kind of Sound Blaster emulator for DOS that supported modern sound devices, even on more modern motherboard chipsets (a universal one, that has yet to be written, would pretty much be a holy grail)
* Drivers for AC'97, HD Audio and/or certain specific PCI sound cards, which would work with games that supported standard modular sound drivers, such as Miles/AIL, DIGPAK, or Sierra's DRV format
* Game-specific patches to support AC'97, HD Audio and/or certain specific PCI sound cards
* Running FM thorugh an Adlib-compatible PCI card and using a Covox Speech Thing and/or a Disney Sound Source on the parallel port for games that support such devices for digital audio
* Just giving up on running the games natively and resign to running them under DOSBox. Although for the heavier 32-bit protected mode games at the end of the DOS era, that might not give the best performance.
* Building a secondary ISA-based system for your retro-gaming needs

Did I leave any options out?

Seriously though, if the community could come together and develop a comprehensive open source Sound Blaster emulator for DOS that supported AC'97, HD Audio, USB audio and perhaps some specific popular PCI sound cards (Sound Blaster Live!, Ensoniq AudioPCI, etc), while also working in modern systems, accounting for timing differences and such, that would be awesome. 😀 It would then also be nice to have it distributed with FreeDOS.

Reply 2 of 22, by cyclone3d

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++

A Yamaha YMF7x4 based card (724, 744, or 754) should work with the DSDMA TSR.

You will get SB sound and OPL3 in DOS and MIDI in Windows and MIDI through a DOS command prompt in Windows 9X.

See my sig for my repository of the drivers.. modified and DSDMA - I did not make any of the modified drivers, just put them all in one location because the thread they were all in was horrible to try to search through to find them.

I don't have a system set up right now to test Z68 or newer that has a PCI slot. If anybody else that has one of these cards and a system with z68 or higher with a PCI slot setup that could do the test it would be very helpful.

You aren't going to find a PCIe card that can do that.

Yamaha modified setupds and drivers
Yamaha XG repository
YMF7x4 Guide
Aopen AW744L II SB-LINK

Reply 3 of 22, by LSS10999

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

Aureal Vortex series cards should be able to work under DOS on ICH6 or later, although compatibility isn't very good (apps and games might crash) and those cards tend to have non-authentic FM.

From what I have tried, MIDI daughtercards (such as NEC XR385) can also work under DOS with it, if you have one installed.

Though you'll still need DOSBox for some early, CPU sensitive games, as DOSBox is often better compared to CPU slowdown utilities. For modern DOS games (provided DOSBox could accurately emulate the instructions), you might need to tweak the DOSBox settings to enable some advanced capabilities, and consider using cycles=max as opposed to cycles=auto.

EDIT: It seems you're trying to run it on Z68 which doesn't have native PCI (only those start with B or Q do, up to Q77)... this might prevent the use of any legacy capabilities on PCI audio cards (even on Windows/Linux) if the PCIe-to-PCI bridge of the motherboard isn't configured for subtractive decoding...

Reply 4 of 22, by 95DosBox

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member
digger wrote:
As far as I know, chipsets from that generation and onwards supported neither SB-Link nor Distributed DMA (DDMA). At least one o […]
Show full quote

As far as I know, chipsets from that generation and onwards supported neither SB-Link nor Distributed DMA (DDMA). At least one of these would be necessary for a PCI sound card to provide full hardware compatibility with Sound Blaster cards. Adlib hardware compatibility can be achieved in a PCI card without such things, but Sound Blaster DAC support required one of the aforementioned way to support ISA DMA over PCI.

So it seems that in the case of more modern chipsets, you are limited to the following options wiht regards to full Sound Blaster compatibility (FM + DAC):

* Some kind of Sound Blaster emulator for DOS that supported modern sound devices, even on more modern motherboard chipsets (a universal one, that has yet to be written, would pretty much be a holy grail)
* Drivers for AC'97, HD Audio and/or certain specific PCI sound cards, which would work with games that supported standard modular sound drivers, such as Miles/AIL, DIGPAK, or Sierra's DRV format
* Game-specific patches to support AC'97, HD Audio and/or certain specific PCI sound cards
* Running FM thorugh an Adlib-compatible PCI card and using a Covox Speech Thing and/or a Disney Sound Source on the parallel port for games that support such devices for digital audio
* Just giving up on running the games natively and resign to running them under DOSBox. Although for the heavier 32-bit protected mode games at the end of the DOS era, that might not give the best performance.
* Building a secondary ISA-based system for your retro-gaming needs

Did I leave any options out?

Seriously though, if the community could come together and develop a comprehensive open source Sound Blaster emulator for DOS that supported AC'97, HD Audio, USB audio and perhaps some specific popular PCI sound cards (Sound Blaster Live!, Ensoniq AudioPCI, etc), while also working in modern systems, accounting for timing differences and such, that would be awesome. 😀 It would then also be nice to have it distributed with FreeDOS.

I actually recommend also including the C-Media CMI 8738 chipset. This also comes in a PCIe card format and works properly in Windows 98SE. If this particular card could do the DosBox sound emulation in Real DOS it would actually bridge the gap between ISA to PCIe in one shot.

If USB DOS drivers could extract from Windows 95B USB the ability for USB devices to function in real DOS you could then use any cheap USB sound card to output the DOSBOX audio emulation.

I recommend placing any necessary emulation code to be compatible with HimemX since this still works on modern computers up to Coffee Lake. Using Himem.sys or EMM386 causes issues on modern chipsets that I won't get into but it won't work.

As for needing any secondary ISA system I already have these (several dozen) and a bunch of mint condition 8088 XT motherboards never used with the original 5 pin DIN plug. It's about bringing the retro emulation to the modern age where modern day components including a downclocked 800 MHz Coffee Lake can be utilized to power it completely fanless and won't break down either. I also have hundreds of 286, 386, 486 CPUs but I won't get into the hoardish amount of legacy technology I have saved up.

cyclone3d wrote:
A Yamaha YMF7x4 based card (724, 744, or 754) should work with the DSDMA TSR. […]
Show full quote

A Yamaha YMF7x4 based card (724, 744, or 754) should work with the DSDMA TSR.

You will get SB sound and OPL3 in DOS and MIDI in Windows and MIDI through a DOS command prompt in Windows 9X.

See my sig for my repository of the drivers.. modified and DSDMA - I did not make any of the modified drivers, just put them all in one location because the thread they were all in was horrible to try to search through to find them.

I don't have a system set up right now to test Z68 or newer that has a PCI slot. If anybody else that has one of these cards and a system with z68 or higher with a PCI slot setup that could do the test it would be very helpful.

I'm trying to avoid entering 9X to enable the emulation. In fact you can use 9X to run Sound Blaster emulation with DOSBOX and Munt98. You can probably find the Munt98 Thread I wrote on how to do it. A Coffee Lake will properly handle the DOSBOX and MUNT CPU demands even on a single core.

However I would like to try a pure DOS PCI or PCIe sound card to just do the "digital / voice" effects only if possible. The MIDI portion isn't as important if a PCI or PCIe MPU-401 could be designed to handle that portion.

PCI slots are still found on Z68, Z77, Z87, Z97, Z170, Z270, Z370. It's just there are less motherboards making them at the moment which is why eventually a PCIe sound card solution or USB sound card solution in DOS will be the next level of sound emulation to need to occur.

Running 9X on modern systems is actually quite difficult that it will turn off newbies from going this route which is why a pure DOS method would drastically simplify things.

cyclone3d wrote:

"Yamaha YMF7x4 based card (724, 744, or 754) should work with the DSDMA TSR".
The question is does the DSDMA TSR load properly on Z68 or newer. Anything that requires EMM386 will not function on modern chipsets starting at SkyLake confirmed. As for Haswell/Broadwell I haven't had the chance to see. Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge if I recall can still handle EMM386.

Are there any specific Yamaha YMF7x4 model names you actually have used and how modern was your chipset that you tested the PCI sound card? I will tell you that SB Live's DOS SB Emulation will not work and neither will the Ensoniq PCI or SB 16 PCI.

cyclone3d wrote:

You aren't going to find a PCIe card that can do that.

If any of those Yamaha PCI cards will work then it's a matter of either adapting this card to a PCIe form and the same DOS drivers will hopefully work. Also you can though not recommended use a PCI to PCIe adapter to put the Yamaha PCI card into and do the same test before doing a physical Yamaha PCIe prototype.

Reply 5 of 22, by 95DosBox

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member
LSS10999 wrote:

Aureal Vortex series cards should be able to work under DOS on ICH6 or later, although compatibility isn't very good (apps and games might crash) and those cards tend to have non-authentic FM.

Which specific model Aureal Vortex PCI sound cards have you tested in real DOS?
And which DOS games worked on it to generate the digital voice or sound effects?
The FM or MIDI isn't essential at the moment if a PCIe MPU-401 could be designed to deal with that separately.

LSS10999 wrote:

From what I have tried, MIDI daughtercards (such as NEC XR385) can also work under DOS with it, if you have one installed.

Could you explain more about this daughtercard. Does this insert into the Aureal Vortex sound card? And what drivers (Config.sys, Autoexec.bat, TSRs) need to be preloaded for it to work properly in real DOS.

LSS10999 wrote:

Though you'll still need DOSBox for some early, CPU sensitive games, as DOSBox is often better compared to CPU slowdown utilities. For modern DOS games (provided DOSBox could accurately emulate the instructions), you might need to tweak the DOSBox settings to enable some advanced capabilities, and consider using cycles=max as opposed to cycles=auto.

This might be true but modern chipsets can now drop down to 800 MHz. Previously it was 1600 MHz. I will attempt to get BIOS manufacturers to try and include further downclocking potential to 400MHz, 200MHz, 100MHz, 66MHz, and 33MHz if this is somehow possible. I don't think below 33MHz will be achievable.

But if you take into account the CPU utilization requirements of DOSBOX itself combined with MUNT it will actually kind of act like a slowdown utility in hardware mode.

LSS10999 wrote:

EDIT: It seems you're trying to run it on Z68 which doesn't have native PCI (only those start with B or Q do, up to Q77)... this might prevent the use of any legacy capabilities on PCI audio cards (even on Windows/Linux) if the PCIe-to-PCI bridge of the motherboard isn't configured for subtractive decoding...

What do you mean by native PCI? Are you saying PCI slots don't function the same as in the 386?

The last DOS SB emulation sound card that I did test that worked properly was on a Pentium 1 relic. But it depended on Himem.sys and EMM386 which no longer function properly since SkyLake and possibly as early as Haswell.

At the moment you can still find PCI slots from Z68 to Z370 and AM4 for AMD users. These are quite rare to find as time goes on which is why eventually an adaptation of a PCI chipset that works in DOS to a PCIe card form will be its salvation. I believe the PCIe slot will still be around 10 years from now after the PCI slot has gone extinct.

Reply 7 of 22, by 95DosBox

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member
chinny22 wrote:

Is there any PCI express cards with native dos drivers? hacked or otherwise?

Chinny22, I have not tested any successfully yet (hacked or otherwise). Finding legacy PCI sound cards that will work properly on modern chipsets would be the first step in testing. Then looking for the same chipset and testing it on a PCIe modified version.

PCI cards that could work properly with HimemX to load any essential drivers without needing EMM386, HIMEM.SYS or other memory managers to function would be the more likely candidates for testing on modern chipsets. If you know of any such cards that you've tested I would consider testing those myself and report back the result.

The best bet at the moment is using a PCIe card in 9X to do the sound output but I'm hoping a DOS capable one exists even if the audio quality isn't the best.

Reply 8 of 22, by LSS10999

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie
95DosBox wrote:

Which specific model Aureal Vortex PCI sound cards have you tested in real DOS?
And which DOS games worked on it to generate the digital voice or sound effects?
The FM or MIDI isn't essential at the moment if a PCIe MPU-401 could be designed to deal with that separately.

AU8820 (Montego A3DXstream) was the one I tested working, on a P31 board, both digital voice and sound effects in some games (I mainly tested Wolf3D and Terminal Velocity at that time). FM quality isn't good, though.

I once attempted running AU8830 (Montego II) on a G41 board, but probably due to some PCI resource issues or configuration error, I wasn't able to get that working (only the MIDI daughtercard worked), but it should in theory work if configured properly.

95DosBox wrote:

Could you explain more about this daughtercard. Does this insert into the Aureal Vortex sound card? And what drivers (Config.sys, Autoexec.bat, TSRs) need to be preloaded for it to work properly in real DOS.

NEC XR385 is a Wave Blaster compatible daughtercard that you can just plug it into the PCI audio card's wavetable header, and it'll work (you'll be able to hear music if you configure the game to use General Midi 330h), without any additional configuration.

95DosBox wrote:

This might be true but modern chipsets can now drop down to 800 MHz. Previously it was 1600 MHz. I will attempt to get BIOS manufacturers to try and include further downclocking potential to 400MHz, 200MHz, 100MHz, 66MHz, and 33MHz if this is somehow possible. I don't think below 33MHz will be achievable.

But if you take into account the CPU utilization requirements of DOSBOX itself combined with MUNT it will actually kind of act like a slowdown utility in hardware mode.

I don't think I could actually underclock the CPU to the point of being retro-friendly on modern boards. Some Socket 370 boards allows me to underclock the FSB to 66Mhz from 133Mhz, allowing me to play the problematic games (e.g. Thor's Hammer Trilogy) while retaining the ability to use Windows 9x/XP at high performance.

Most CPU slowdown utilities (such as Mo'Slo) could not reduce the reported clock speed to match the slowdown target, and this can cause issues with some games that have behaviors tied to reported CPU clock speed. In such cases, using Mo'Slo would also slow down aspects that shouldn't be slowed. (Thor's Hammer Trilogy was unfortunately one such example. With Mo'Slo, while it could make gameplay behave properly, it also slowed the title and menu screens which don't need to be slowed to the point of taking forever to complete)

95DosBox wrote:

What do you mean by native PCI? Are you saying PCI slots don't function the same as in the 386?

The last DOS SB emulation sound card that I did test that worked properly was on a Pentium 1 relic. But it depended on Himem.sys and EMM386 which no longer function properly since SkyLake and possibly as early as Haswell.

At the moment you can still find PCI slots from Z68 to Z370 and AM4 for AMD users. These are quite rare to find as time goes on which is why eventually an adaptation of a PCI chipset that works in DOS to a PCIe card form will be its salvation. I believe the PCIe slot will still be around 10 years from now after the PCI slot has gone extinct.

Only PCHs starting with B or Q provided PCI slots on its own (thus native PCI) for a while, others did not, and instead used PCIe-to-PCI bridges to provide PCI slots.

The last chipsets known to natively provide PCI were B75 and Q77. Starting from 8 Series, the PCH stopped providing native PCI slots completely.

Subtractive decoding on the PCIe-to-PCI bridge is required to enable the ability to access legacy resources (which are always below the PCI card's base I/O address). Otherwise, the audio card's legacy functionality (such as FM synth @ 388h) will not function, even under Windows or Linux.

I don't know much about AMD chipsets, but PCI audio cards never worked under DOS with AMD chipsets since 700 series. You can successfully load TSRs, but games still won't be able to detect the card at all, which probably indicates a lacking of subtractive decoding on the PCI slots (native or not), so games couldn't "see" the emulated Sound Blaster.

Reply 9 of 22, by Revolter

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member
LSS10999 wrote:

Most CPU slowdown utilities (such as Mo'Slo) could not reduce the reported clock speed to match the slowdown target, and this can cause issues with some games that have behaviors tied to reported CPU clock speed. In such cases, using Mo'Slo would also slow down aspects that shouldn't be slowed.

This thing should do the trick: http://www.oldskool.org/pc/throttle/DOS/

Chipset throttling is much smoother and more effective than Mo'Slo and the like, but the CPU speed should be ~800 Mhz or less for best results.

Celeron 800, 512MB, GeForce2 MX, ES1938S/DB S2, Windows ME/DOS 6.22

Reply 10 of 22, by LSS10999

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie
Revolter wrote:

This thing should do the trick: http://www.oldskool.org/pc/throttle/DOS/

Chipset throttling is much smoother and more effective than Mo'Slo and the like, but the CPU speed should be ~800 Mhz or less for best results.

I recalled having tried that utility before on a VIA chipset (K8T890 Socket AM2), but the game in question was still not behaving properly (it was already problematic enough for slowdown utilities to work with it after all). I need to look for an utility to check the TSC clocksource values and such to see if this utility can really reduce the reported clock speed after throttling (that is, programs can actually see the CPU as being e.g. 500MHz), if I intend to try that again.

However, since this is relatively off-topic I'm not going to discuss too much about this here (different slowdown utilities have their own pros and cons anyway).

Reply 11 of 22, by ruthan

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

95DosBox: I dont know why people keep you in the dark, i would bet that at least someone of them, know these..

Look here:
https://docs.zoho.com/sheet/open/8mn7n8efd4da … 04bf92a9209e034 - second tab at the bottom is chipset compatibility, in first tab you have so called "bad" compatibility - look at X5810 results its probably closest to H68 from tested combinations.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1cvhr6 … K4l0/edit#gid=0 - more chipset and cards and info if it works at all, not compatibility details..

As you can at least with H67 you can have fully working FX+FM Dos sound cards, with Z97 - only FM, but its probably not too much chipset thing like PCIE to PCI bridge implementation. Some Chipset X7X chipset MBs still have native PCI implementation, some X6X too, but if is not Wikipedia wrong Z68 is not once of them:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_c … ipsets#LGA_1155

So as i wrote it depends on PCIe to PCI bridge.. and if something would work is Aureal V1 - 8820 or AurealV2 - 8830 better but more expensive there are variants with digital sound out and its better for 3D Sound in WIn98+, same as Yamaha 724 / 744 (744 is on H67 crackling for some reason 2 cards tested).. you can get lucky with ALS 4000, others i strongly doubt, or only FM+Adlib.

Here are drivers and confing packages prepared for multiple sound cards branches and multiple sound cards in system - you can have some card for EMS and other for Realmode etc:
X58/i865/V880 - Yamaha7x4/AurealV1/2 pure Dos7.1- compatibility list/research/ultim. drivers configs, WIP- gurus needed // Just search for "euro" to get right to download links.. its embedded in lots of fast as possible machines info

Dont forgot report results, you can write comments in seconds linked sheet.

Im old goal oriented goatman, i care about facts and freedom, not about egos+prejudices. Hoarding=sickness. If you want respect, gain it by your behavior. I hate stupid SW limits, SW=virtual world, everything should be possible if you have enough raw HW.

Reply 12 of 22, by digger

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie
LSS10999 wrote on 2018-11-04, 15:50:

Subtractive decoding on the PCIe-to-PCI bridge is required to enable the ability to access legacy resources (which are always below the PCI card's base I/O address). Otherwise, the audio card's legacy functionality (such as FM synth @ 388h) will not function, even under Windows or Linux.

That PDF file that you linked to, 33.Oxford_Legacy_Address_Ranges.pdf, has apparently completely disappeared from the Internet. I found references to it in Element14 and Farnell URLs posted in a few forums, but all those links are dead now. The Internet Archive did not have a backup of it.

Does anybody still have a copy of that document named 33.Oxford_Legacy_Address_Ranges.pdf? The topic of Subtractive decoding interests me, because I'm wondering if there is a way to add a second LPT port in the form of a PCI Express card, and have it be accessible from DOS, preferably through the legacy port (278h for LPT2), but otherwise just via some alternative I/O port, with perhaps some TSR to redirect LPT2 calls to it.

Reply 14 of 22, by ruthan

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

2 quick notes to this paper:
1) Its about Parallel and serial ports and i dunno how these are related to PCI devices
2) There are boards with both PCI and PCI-E where is still Dos sound working, so there are exception, maybe is PCI bus connected directly to CPU, without PCI-E to PCI bridge.. for intel its up to ICH10 from my experience -X6x amd X7x chipset and X58 and X79 chipset are still ok.. Or there is some other workaround.

Im old goal oriented goatman, i care about facts and freedom, not about egos+prejudices. Hoarding=sickness. If you want respect, gain it by your behavior. I hate stupid SW limits, SW=virtual world, everything should be possible if you have enough raw HW.

Reply 15 of 22, by digger

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie
mihai wrote on 2022-01-17, 01:00:

see attachment!

Once again, the community came through. Thanks for sharing this, mihai! 😃

I uploaded it to the Internet Archive.

And ruthan, yes, this particular document talks about parallel and serial ports, but the exact same limitation would apply to any de-facto hardware standard that exclusively claimed a specific I/O base address back in the day, such as Adlib and Roland MPU-401.

As for the contents of the document, this last paragraph in particular:

There is a fundamental reason why subtractive decode, which works for PCI devices, cannot be used for PCI Express devices. In mo […]
Show full quote

There is a fundamental reason why subtractive decode, which works for
PCI devices, cannot be used for PCI Express devices. In modern system
architectures, such as those using ICH7 (Intel I/O Control Hub 7) or
ICH8, the PCI‐PCI bridge and PCI Express root ports reside on the same
bus (Bus 0). This effectively means that either port can use subtractive
decode, but not both. In fact, to support current PCI legacy devices, it is
the PCI‐to‐PCI bridge which uses subtractive decode and PCI Express
root ports are hard‐coded as positive‐only decoders. For this reason, it is
impossible to map PCI Express devices such as the OXPCIe840 to use a
standard address range.

If I interpret this correctly, then parallel and serial ports on PCI Express cards would not be able to offer hardware-level compatibility in DOS mode, but "regular" (legacy) PCI cards might, if...

  • ...they are inserted directly in a legacy PCI slot (so not through some kind of PCI to PCI Express adapter thingie)
  • ...the PCI slot is linked to a PCI‐PCI bridge that uses subtractive decode (which, if I understand correctly from other posts here, is not a guarantee, at least not on more recent motherboard chipsets, even if they have legacy PCI slots, correct?)

So by extension, it would be impossible to design a PCI Express sound card that could provide hardware-level Adlib or MPU-401 compatibility. Correct?

At least this made it clear that in the absence of ISA slots, we should stick to legacy PCI (not PCIe) cards if I want to add a parallel port or Adlib compatibility for use with old games and applications in pure DOS mode. 🙂

That does leave me with two questions:

  • How is it still possible for PCI Express video cards to offer hardware registry-level VGA compatibility out of the box, without any sort of port trapping trickery?
  • On even newer chipsets that did away with legacy PCI, and only have PCI Express slots, would it be possible to support substractive decoding on PCI Express after all, since the PCI Express root port wouldn't have the PCI‐to‐PCI bridge to content with? And are there any manufacturers that actually added support for that?

Reply 16 of 22, by ruthan

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

BTW i got by accident this Parallel + Serial port card with Mosh pit (MOSCHIP) chip MS9835CV:
itec-pci-card-2x-serial-1x-parallel-moschip-chipset_ie126174.jpg

It which conditions this will port in Dos? For Parallel port and OPL2/3LPT? Because most of modern moderns are without LPT ports and have 0 or 1 serial port header. Its chipset related too, which chipsets would be good enough?

I personally used serial ports only for LAN party gaming... after itroduction PS/2 for better mice and Paralel cable for faster data transfers.

Im old goal oriented goatman, i care about facts and freedom, not about egos+prejudices. Hoarding=sickness. If you want respect, gain it by your behavior. I hate stupid SW limits, SW=virtual world, everything should be possible if you have enough raw HW.

Reply 17 of 22, by NJRoadfan

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

Both the PCI and PCIe specifications along with the companion bridge specifications cover legacy VGA devices and address decoding. It's definitely a special case that the bus was designed around.

Reply 18 of 22, by digger

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie
NJRoadfan wrote on 2022-01-19, 01:55:

Both the PCI and PCIe specifications along with the companion bridge specifications cover legacy VGA devices and address decoding. It's definitely a special case that the bus was designed around.

Thanks for the info. I guess that makes perfect sense. Legacy VGA compatibility remained necessary even in the earlier part of the PCI Express era, as long as there were motherboards and systems still being released with either a legacy BIOS or UEFI with CSM. Thanks for clarifying.

Reply 19 of 22, by LSS10999

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie
ruthan wrote on 2022-01-19, 01:40:
BTW i got by accident this Parallel + Serial port card with Mosh pit (MOSCHIP) chip MS9835CV: https://www.discomp.cz/itec-pci-ca […]
Show full quote

BTW i got by accident this Parallel + Serial port card with Mosh pit (MOSCHIP) chip MS9835CV:
itec-pci-card-2x-serial-1x-parallel-moschip-chipset_ie126174.jpg

It which conditions this will port in Dos? For Parallel port and OPL2/3LPT? Because most of modern moderns are without LPT ports and have 0 or 1 serial port header. Its chipset related too, which chipsets would be good enough?

I personally used serial ports only for LAN party gaming... after itroduction PS/2 for better mice and Paralel cable for faster data transfers.

I'm not experienced with such cards. I think you'll need ways to route the LPT port to legacy standard locations (e.g. 378h) so DOS applications can work with them.

Don't know if your chip supports this, but I found these documents (for a different MosChip) when I googled about using MosChip under DOS. Looks like MosChip did provide a TSR for such use cases.

Beware that the card most likely won't provide ECP capabilities (which involves ISA DMA).