VOGONS


First post, by kikendo

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Hello everyone,

I found a Compaq Presario with an ESS Allegro sound device in it, and I managed to make it all work except teh audio mixer.

I cannot find an ESS Allegro specific mixer for it, and the ones I used (SB Pro mixer, bccvol, Crystal's cwbmix) don't seem to work. Every time after I set the levels, games ignore them and go to max volume or whatever.

Is there one I should be using that will work or what am I doing wrong? Or is it just that game s will ignore these settings? Seems like some games respect them, others don't.

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.

Reply 1 of 5, by Revolter

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kikendo, try one of the attached mixers. They are from older driver packages for ISA ESS cards, but they work fine with some later PCI ESS chips.

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  • Filename
    ESS_mixers.zip
    File size
    19.38 KiB
    Downloads
    124 downloads
    File license
    Fair use/fair dealing exception

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

Reply 2 of 5, by kikendo

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Thanks so much for that! I will give it a try.
I noticed I am running into some more issues with this, like the synth volume is always WAY TOO LOW compared to wave. I wonder if it's related to the mixer app I was using.

Reply 3 of 5, by kikendo

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Been a while but I tried these and they don’t work with my particular hardware.

I really need this because none of the mixers I tried work, I need to be able to enable and set the volume of the line in input!

Hopefully someone has the install disks for this card?

Reply 4 of 5, by cyclone3d

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Bringing this back from the dead.

Anybody know of a DOS mixer for the Allegro that works?

I have an original XWave Driver CD that has the Allegro driver install and it doesn't have a DOS mixer.

Maybe the Diamond Sonic Impact S100 included one? Maybe some other card?

Edit:
I've looked through all the different driver versions and not even the earliest ones have a DOS mixer or volume control. Hrmmmm.

Edit 2:
I found the actual datasheet for the Allegro. Guess I might need to write a mixer myself. Looks like it shouldn't be too difficult.
Another interesting thing is that the Allegro has the built-in ability to have a hardware implementation for a volume control using momentary switches.

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

Reply 5 of 5, by Kahenraz

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cyclone3d wrote on 2021-12-29, 01:58:
Bringing this back from the dead. […]
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Bringing this back from the dead.

Anybody know of a DOS mixer for the Allegro that works?

I have an original XWave Driver CD that has the Allegro driver install and it doesn't have a DOS mixer.

Maybe the Diamond Sonic Impact S100 included one? Maybe some other card?

Edit:
I've looked through all the different driver versions and not even the earliest ones have a DOS mixer or volume control. Hrmmmm.

Edit 2:
I found the actual datasheet for the Allegro. Guess I might need to write a mixer myself. Looks like it shouldn't be too difficult.
Another interesting thing is that the Allegro has the built-in ability to have a hardware implementation for a volume control using momentary switches.

Any Sound Blaster PRO-compatible mixer will work. Here is a free one with source code:

https://www.bttr-software.de/products/sbmix/

The issue that I have run into is that these mixers don't work for FM, at least not on my Maestro-2E. A workaround is to use a MAESTRO.COM from version 2.11, which has a louder default volume.

See here for more information on how to get these cards setup:

Guide for configuring ESS PCI Audio cards for DOS (Solo, Maestro, Allegro, etc.)