VOGONS


Reply 20 of 33, by Half-Saint

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BloodyCactus wrote:

ctcu is the key. I never had troubles. go into bios into pnp, set chosen irq+dma to legacy. run ctcu and set profile, it creats ctpnp.cfg, load ctcm from config.sys, it configures 4 of 4 devices etc. done.

if I ran ctcm from autoexec.bat it would only ever configure 3 of 4 devices. in config.sys, it does 4 of 4 for me.

For me CTCM configures 3 out of 3 devices.

I just installed Heretic episode 1 and I get both, music and sound effects. Tomorrow I will try some other games. X-Wing still doesn't give me anything. This version doesn't have CD sound but rather normal FM or MIDI, not sure. I even managed to get music in the config utility twice but I got question marks where IRQ and DMA values should have been.

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Reply 21 of 33, by dr_st

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Maybe something is wrong specifically with the X-Wing config file. If the detection routine cannot correctly determine your port/IRQ/DMA/AWE port, you may be able to set it manually.

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Reply 22 of 33, by Half-Saint

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Through google I found this topic dealing with the same problem: Xwing Collectors CD with AWE64 - Midi is silent?!

However, even after running AWEUTIL /EM:GM successfully and manually configuring the game for AWE32/MIDI music and AWE32 sound effects, I still get no music in game.

EDIT: I replaced the CD-ROM driver with vide-cdd.sys. Now I finally get music in the game, regardless of how I run AWEUTIL. I'm not sure replacing the driver helped but it sure looks like it. However, looks like there's some sort of a bug in the game (?). Sometimes when I run it, I get horrible loud noise coming from the speakers. The noise persists even after I exit the game and I have to run AWEUTIL /s again to make it go away. Any ideas?

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Reply 23 of 33, by foil_fresh

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Half-Saint wrote:

Through google I found this topic dealing with the same problem: Xwing Collectors CD with AWE64 - Midi is silent?!

However, even after running AWEUTIL /EM:GM successfully and manually configuring the game for AWE32/MIDI music and AWE32 sound effects, I still get no music in game.

EDIT: I replaced the CD-ROM driver with vide-cdd.sys. Now I finally get music in the game, regardless of how I run AWEUTIL. I'm not sure replacing the driver helped but it sure looks like it. However, looks like there's some sort of a bug in the game (?). Sometimes when I run it, I get horrible loud noise coming from the speakers. The noise persists even after I exit the game and I have to run AWEUTIL /s again to make it go away. Any ideas?

I had this issue with something a week ago and I believe it was a matter of changing the DMA channel from 1 to 3 or 3 to 1 cant remember.

As for all your other issues I recommend watching phil's awe64 and awe32 videos, I followed his setup for the awe32 on my awe64 value card and the dos setup worked perfectly the first time (I used a ISO cd for AWE64 to install the windows 98 side of things first), setting the autoexec/config files manually and copying the correct files to the correct locations.

I suggest starting from the beginning, you may have something (a file, a wrong file, a line in the autoexec in the wrong order or with a typo etc etc) out of place that simply isn't noticed yet and will continue to drive you mad.

good luck in the kitchen.

Reply 24 of 33, by Half-Saint

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foil_fresh wrote:

I had this issue with something a week ago and I believe it was a matter of changing the DMA channel from 1 to 3 or 3 to 1 cant remember.

Is this in reference to the "deafening noise" coming from the speakers or simply music not working? I got music to work in a pure DOS 6.22 now (see my previous post).

foil_fresh wrote:

As for all your other issues I recommend watching phil's awe64 and awe32 videos, I followed his setup for the awe32 on my awe64 value card and the dos setup worked perfectly the first time (I used a ISO cd for AWE64 to install the windows 98 side of things first), setting the autoexec/config files manually and copying the correct files to the correct locations.

I suggest starting from the beginning, you may have something (a file, a wrong file, a line in the autoexec in the wrong order or with a typo etc etc) out of place that simply isn't noticed yet and will continue to drive you mad.

good luck in the kitchen.

Thanks! I need to burn that CD first, not sure I have any blank ones at the moment. I can't access his website from my Win98 PC, it's too modern which is kind of paradoxical 😁 Have no trouble browsing vogons in Opera!

Here's a short video showing the problem:
https://youtu.be/zGp0winyELU

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Reply 26 of 33, by Half-Saint

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keenmaster486 wrote:

The horrible loud noise has happened to me using AWEUTIL /EM:GM before.

To me it happens with AWEUTIL /S as well but only after I run the game (X-Wing) for the 2nd time.

For example:
1. run game -- sound is normal
2. quit; run again immediately -- sound goes bonkers
3. quit; AWEUTIL /s -- all is quiet again
4. run game -- sound is normal again

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Reply 27 of 33, by SirNickity

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I kind of agree -- AWE cards are not really great at DOS. Or rather, DOS by that point was so far past its sell-by date that it was really stinking up the place. All the PnP managers, drive overlays, memory managers, redirection TSRs, and all the other hacks to graft features on to a dead OS, were only marginally successful in bringing those said features to those stubborn enough to walk on broken glass long enough to find the magic combination of incantations that made it (barely) functional.

I guess I'm one of those idiots that keep trying though. I have a Goldfinch card in my 486, with DOS 6.22 and Win 3.1. Why? Who knows. Half the time the games I have that actually run well on a 486 and even kind of support AWE32 just crash when I try to use it anyway. I would be much better off sticking to GM via the MIDI port.

Reply 28 of 33, by badmojo

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Yes I’ve had the same experience with my Goldfinch - can be flakey, x-wing causes it to go mental, and AWE often sounds like arse, but I’ve left it in my P166MMX for years all the same! I like that it gives me another sound standard to play with, and that it allows me to load sound fonts alongside whatever soundcard I want (I.e non creative) (Win9.x only obviously).

Life? Don't talk to me about life.

Reply 30 of 33, by dr_st

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Yes, it's not a bad solution. X-Wing is not the only game with these issues. I think Doom Engine and Build Engine games also suffer from them, one way or another.

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Reply 31 of 33, by Half-Saint

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Well, looks like I'm back to square one. I tried to replicate the above solution but I'm having the same problems again! Only this time nothing works!

My solution worked under DOS 6.22. It doesn't work under DOS in Windwos 98. Here's what I did so far:
- BootGUI=0 in MSDOS.SYS
- using patched CTCM and CTCU
- the same drivers as before*
- the same CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT as before* with some path corrections

*before - meaning under DOS 6.22

EDIT: still talking about having no music in X-Wing of course.

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Reply 32 of 33, by SirNickity

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Hey, just a thought. I noticed I usually use 220 for the SB part, and 620 for AWE. I've heard some Sound Blaster boards don't decode the full address, and so 220 and 620 may look a lot alike if it's not decoding more than 10 bits. I wonder if that's why I've had some lock-ups with an AWE or with SB16 + Goldfinch? I do remember a PNP manager telling me the address wasn't available due to ISA aliasing once, but that was before I heard about partial decoding.

Reply 33 of 33, by Half-Saint

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Looks like I stumbled upon a solution by accident. I found some mention of having to delete CTPNP.CFG. Found two instances and deleted them both. Ran DIAGNOSE which found/set all the same settings as before. Restarted PC and voila! Everything works again.

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