VOGONS


First post, by TelamonLivesOn

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Hello All,

I have recently purchased an ESS Audiodrive 668F from eBay under the impression it was a 1688F (as advertised) to replace my Sound Blaster 16 Value, which suffers from bugs. It does come with free returns within 30 days, but I am curious as to whether I can get it to work or not. My plan is to connect a Roland SC-55mk2 to it through the game port. However, when trying the driver disks with the enmpu.exe file (I already installed emmset.exe and emmvol.exe), it tells me that there is no IDE CD-ROM (I have a Panasonic one connected). I also tried softmpu, which did not seem to work either. My current CD-ROM Drive can read files fine from DOS, but does not play music CD's from Windows. Strangely enough, games like DOOM seem to work fine with the built-in MIDI and sound effects. I eventually found the schematics for my specific model: https://arvutimuuseum.ee/th99/i/I-L/51695.htm, but nothing is changing.

I know my post may be somewhat confusing, but does anyone know the best DMA, IRQ, TSR Software, etc for this? I am low on budget and cannot go out to buy much more. Let me know if there is any other information I can give.

Reply 1 of 7, by gdjacobs

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You probably need jumper settings for the card. Most of those cards weren't configured through software.

All hail the Great Capacitor Brand Finder

Reply 2 of 7, by dionb

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Yep, there were two big differences between ESS668 and ESS1868:
- non-PnP vs PnP
- no integrated FM synth vs ESFM synth. Generally ESS668 cards were paired with a Yamaha OPL3 or 1-on-1 clone.

To me, that makes the 668 by far the superior solution - PnP in DOS is a pain in the arse, with jumpers (or EEPROM config) you can set the card exactly as you want it, and ESFM isn't bad, but OPL3 is better. The only advantage to the ESS1868 (other than lower cost) is that the integrated design makes it inherently a bit less noisy, although noise is always determined by card layout and implementation, so a good 668 can still beat a bad 1868.

You should see this card as an SBPro2, just wihout the bugs - so configure it as if it were one. Yours has nice simple jumper settings. Assuming no other sound card in the system and no other picky resource hogs, these will generally be the best/most compatible settings:
Base I/O 0x220
IRQ 5
DMA 1
MIDI I/O 0x330

As for CD-Rom - are you connecting it via this card or via your motherboard/main I/O controller? If the latter, disable IDE on the card and ignore any messages about it. If you do want to connect via the card, enable (obviously) and look for a DOS IDE CDRom driver for sound cards...

Edit: and just to confirm - no TSR needed. That's the beauty of full hardware compatibility.
Edit2: "TSR" (or at least: activator tool) is needed, definitely no MPU-401 without it. WIth it, it looks present in software but still no MIDI output...

Last edited by dionb on 2020-03-02, 06:49. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 4 of 7, by TelamonLivesOn

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Thanks for all the replies, I will likely need to check the other non-sound cards in the system to make sure they each have their own port addresses and IRQs. I will try to do this later today. Also, does the SC-55mk2 need to be plugged in for the TSR to actually run (I am currently getting one shipped to me from Japan)? @dionb I have the CD-ROM connected the sound card, which seems to read files just fine (IDE is enabled). I have uninstalled the old SB16 drivers (as far as I am aware), but my issue is likely with the jumper settings, I just need to get them right and THEN configure the drivers.

Edit: Does this card work ONLY through hardware jumpers, or is some of the port configuration done by software (I am not talking about the TSR). Also, I am getting errors regarding the essvol.exe file, should I assume that these are done with the physical dial, or is something else going wrong?

Reply 5 of 7, by gdjacobs

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TelamonLivesOn wrote on 2020-02-21, 14:38:

Also, does the SC-55mk2 need to be plugged in for the TSR to actually run (I am currently getting one shipped to me from Japan)?

Nope, you can load the TSR without a MIDI device attached just like you can initialize the MPU401 interface on a SB16 dry.

A jumper configured 688 card doesn't need drivers loaded to operate the PCM or FM sections. Likely the only thing of interest in the driver package will be the mixer utility.

All hail the Great Capacitor Brand Finder

Reply 6 of 7, by TelamonLivesOn

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SUCCESS!!! By using these settings mentioned by @dionb, I was able to not only get DOS audio working, but also for Windows 3.11. I reinstalled the CD-ROM driver and it seems to work great. Only issue I am having though, is that the software for windows keeps auto-detecting the wrong IRQ (chooses 2 or 10), despite manually setting it through both hardware and command line. I have the jumper set the the IRQ 5 position, but is there something wrong with the board contacts? If so, I might need to clean them. As for the TSR, it appears to work fine.

Edit: I am not exactly sure if I even need the windows 3.11 driver, but I would think it provides better CD-ROM and audio playback support

Reply 7 of 7, by TelamonLivesOn

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Ok, so I just Installed a different driver set, BUT the CD AUDIO is NOT working. I was able to fix the IRQ issue though. Do you have any suggestions on how to fix this? (I did connect the CD Audio cable to the sound card).