VOGONS


AWE64 Legacy

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Reply 400 of 779, by Velociraptor

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hard1k wrote on 2020-08-06, 22:14:

We don't have any plans for mail-in rebates of CT4520s, however, if we run out of assembled cards due to lack of our own donor cards, and the demand for blank PCBs is lower than estimated, we'll reconsider this. Just a bit of more patience, please 😀

I've waited 30 years to get my dream DOS setup, I'll wait as long as it takes! I hope you're not annoyed by all the questions about when, I think we're all just excited about it and nobody wants to miss out.

Reply 401 of 779, by 2Mourty

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Just reiterating my excitement for this project!! Can't wait (but waiting does give me time to save up the cash for whatever this is going to cost.) =)

Reply 410 of 779, by darry

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CMB75 wrote on 2020-08-25, 06:56:
SquallStrife wrote on 2020-08-25, 05:44:

The prototype has finally arrived!

... guess the pirates couldn't figure out what to do with that device 😉

They could have used it to listen to pirated music . Isn't that what pirates do nowadays ? 😉

Reply 411 of 779, by Scythifuge

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darry wrote on 2020-08-25, 07:40:
CMB75 wrote on 2020-08-25, 06:56:
SquallStrife wrote on 2020-08-25, 05:44:

The prototype has finally arrived!

... guess the pirates couldn't figure out what to do with that device 😉

They could have used it to listen to pirated music . Isn't that what pirates do nowadays ? 😉

*badum-bum-tish*

Reply 412 of 779, by SquallStrife

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I did some testing on stream last night. I'll go back over the VOD to prepare some detailed notes, but in summary:

There were a few hiccups, but overall everything worked as expected.

In pure DOS, I used UNISOUND to initialise the card.

- Keen 5 (OPL) worked fine
- Wolf3D (OPL+Digital) worked fine
- Jill 2 - Jill Goes Underground (OPL+Digital) has the same "crunchy" sound as experienced on regular AWE and SB16 cards, but otherwise worked OK
- Descent (XR385 Daughterboard + Digital) worked fine
- Space Quest 3 (HardMPU+MT-32) worked fine
- Gateway (HardMPU+MT-32) did not work. MT-32 showed "GATEWAY" on the LCD display, but no further MIDI messages arrive, and game freezes. This was even after using the HARDMPU utility with the Gateway specific option
- Warcraft 2 (HardMPU+SC-55 ST+Digital) worked fine after some hardware trouble (forgot to check the serial/MIDI switch on the SC-55ST)
- Soundfonts in Win95 worked fine, although using the Chorium RevA soundfont had some weird modulation on drum samples, where every second or so, the sound cycled between being very clear and quite muffled. This issue did not exist on the 4MB or 8MB GM soundfonts from Creative, so I'm not sure if it's the card of the soundfont that's a problem.
- Using Soundfonts from DOS games via Win95 worked fine after some fiddling with resource allocations.

Things that didn't get tested that I'm going to go back and try off-stream:
- Duke Nukem 3D
- IMAGO Orpheus
- Eradicator (Accolade)
- Hi-Octane (Bullfrog)

VogonsDrivers.com | Link | News Thread

Reply 413 of 779, by darry

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SquallStrife wrote on 2020-08-30, 23:47:
I did some testing on stream last night. I'll go back over the VOD to prepare some detailed notes, but in summary: […]
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I did some testing on stream last night. I'll go back over the VOD to prepare some detailed notes, but in summary:

There were a few hiccups, but overall everything worked as expected.

In pure DOS, I used UNISOUND to initialise the card.

- Keen 5 (OPL) worked fine
- Wolf3D (OPL+Digital) worked fine
- Jill 2 - Jill Goes Underground (OPL+Digital) has the same "crunchy" sound as experienced on regular AWE and SB16 cards, but otherwise worked OK
- Descent (XR385 Daughterboard + Digital) worked fine
- Space Quest 3 (HardMPU+MT-32) worked fine
- Gateway (HardMPU+MT-32) did not work. MT-32 showed "GATEWAY" on the LCD display, but no further MIDI messages arrive, and game freezes. This was even after using the HARDMPU utility with the Gateway specific option
- Warcraft 2 (HardMPU+SC-55 ST+Digital) worked fine after some hardware trouble (forgot to check the serial/MIDI switch on the SC-55ST)
- Soundfonts in Win95 worked fine, although using the Chorium RevA soundfont had some weird modulation on drum samples, where every second or so, the sound cycled between being very clear and quite muffled. This issue did not exist on the 4MB or 8MB GM soundfonts from Creative, so I'm not sure if it's the card of the soundfont that's a problem.
- Using Soundfonts from DOS games via Win95 worked fine after some fiddling with resource allocations.

Things that didn't get tested that I'm going to go back and try off-stream:
- Duke Nukem 3D
- IMAGO Orpheus
- Eradicator (Accolade)
- Hi-Octane (Bullfrog)

Thank you very much.

Question/Suggestion : Did you disable caches when running Gateway ? Also, could you try Gateway with SOFTMPU ?

Reply 414 of 779, by SquallStrife

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No, didn't spend too much time fiddling with Gateway to make it work.

I'll add it to my list of things to try offline.

VogonsDrivers.com | Link | News Thread

Reply 415 of 779, by carlostex

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SquallStrife wrote on 2020-08-30, 23:47:
I did some testing on stream last night. I'll go back over the VOD to prepare some detailed notes, but in summary: […]
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I did some testing on stream last night. I'll go back over the VOD to prepare some detailed notes, but in summary:

There were a few hiccups, but overall everything worked as expected.

In pure DOS, I used UNISOUND to initialise the card.

- Keen 5 (OPL) worked fine
- Wolf3D (OPL+Digital) worked fine
- Jill 2 - Jill Goes Underground (OPL+Digital) has the same "crunchy" sound as experienced on regular AWE and SB16 cards, but otherwise worked OK
- Descent (XR385 Daughterboard + Digital) worked fine
- Space Quest 3 (HardMPU+MT-32) worked fine
- Gateway (HardMPU+MT-32) did not work. MT-32 showed "GATEWAY" on the LCD display, but no further MIDI messages arrive, and game freezes. This was even after using the HARDMPU utility with the Gateway specific option
- Warcraft 2 (HardMPU+SC-55 ST+Digital) worked fine after some hardware trouble (forgot to check the serial/MIDI switch on the SC-55ST)
- Soundfonts in Win95 worked fine, although using the Chorium RevA soundfont had some weird modulation on drum samples, where every second or so, the sound cycled between being very clear and quite muffled. This issue did not exist on the 4MB or 8MB GM soundfonts from Creative, so I'm not sure if it's the card of the soundfont that's a problem.
- Using Soundfonts from DOS games via Win95 worked fine after some fiddling with resource allocations.

Things that didn't get tested that I'm going to go back and try off-stream:
- Duke Nukem 3D
- IMAGO Orpheus
- Eradicator (Accolade)
- Hi-Octane (Bullfrog)

Watched your stream. The issue with Gateway seems indeed an IRQ2/9 conflict. Are you sure your SCSI config isn't conflicting?

Reply 416 of 779, by SquallStrife

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Not that I could see:

FQL9mEH.jpg

Also tried disabling caches to no avail 🙁

Could my computer just be too fast? It's an MMX 233.

VogonsDrivers.com | Link | News Thread

Reply 417 of 779, by darry

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SquallStrife wrote on 2020-09-01, 05:18:
Not that I could see: […]
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Not that I could see:

FQL9mEH.jpg

Also tried disabling caches to no avail 🙁

Could my computer just be too fast? It's an MMX 233.

Gateway runs fine for me on a Tualatin 1400 with caches disabled running Softmpu on an AWE64 connected to an MT-32 .

Reply 418 of 779, by SquallStrife

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Turns out yep, IRQ shenanigans.

Disabled serial ports, moved HardMPU to IRQ3 using DIP switches on the back, works perfectly:

07k1Vl3.jpg

VogonsDrivers.com | Link | News Thread

Reply 419 of 779, by Wild-E

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Yeah, sounds familiar. There is really very few free IRQ:s in the <10 range (usable for soundcards), IIRC 1 if LPT and both COM ports are enabled. Disabling the LPT and one (or both) COM ports will free up some IRQs, which are needed if there is more than one sound card installed.

And, btw, the BIOS listing will only list PCI devices IRQs. (Non-PnP) ISA IRQs are H/W based, BIOS knows nothing about them (exception: those devices which are configured in BIOS, which is possible only in modern BIOSes - and usually includes the already mentioned COM and LPT ports).

EDIT: Actually, this does not need to be based on my shady memory; from Wikipedia:

Wikipedia: Interrupt request (PC architecture) wrote:
IRQ 0 – system timer (cannot be changed) IRQ 1 – keyboard controller (cannot be changed) IRQ 2 – cascaded signals from I […]
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IRQ 0 – system timer (cannot be changed)
IRQ 1 – keyboard controller (cannot be changed)
IRQ 2 – cascaded signals from IRQs 8–15 (any devices configured to use IRQ 2 will actually be using IRQ 9)
IRQ 3 – serial port controller for serial port 2 (shared with serial port 4, if present)
IRQ 4 – serial port controller for serial port 1 (shared with serial port 3, if present)
IRQ 5 – parallel port 2 and 3 or sound card
IRQ 6 – floppy disk controller
IRQ 7 – parallel port 1. It is used for printers or for any parallel port if a printer is not present. It can also be potentially be shared with a secondary sound card with careful management of the port.

IIRC IRQ9 is kind of useful for sound card (on typical old DOS computers without ACPI), but not all (especially older) games might not be compatible with using IRQ9, so it should be avoided if possible. Might misremember, though,