JazeFox wrote on 2021-04-27, 21:43:

[*] Added new eXtended option for GUS PnP (/XGL) to limit RAM to 512K for
compatibility with some games.[/list]

Missed this til now, but definitely wanted to say thank you.
I'll make sure to prominently mention UniSound in the ARGUS docs from now on, since this adds a considerable amount of usability and spares people from having to hassle with the quite meh original GUS PnP drivers.

This tool works extremely well on all my 6 different sound cards but in the damed Aztech PRO16AB. This card (I38-MMSN824) uses an AZT2316A+CS4248-KL and does not work well even with the official Voyager drivers that requires installing from Windows 3.x

Thanks for the great program, it's working very well with my CT2230 and ES1868f. I do have one question: is it possible to use this driver to run them together (ESS just for MIDI and SB16 for all the rest)? I have tried a few things, but it looks like I'm getting resource conflicts (and the SB16 cannot be configured via command line switches, only via BLASTER variable which I suspect is causing some weirdness; I did disable MPU via jumper, though). Anyone tried this?

So, just to clear things up: the CT2230 is a non-PnP card (?) and the ES1868f is a PnP -card.

You can configure the cards to reside nicely side-by-side; just re-set the BLASTER before re-running unisound. I have a CT2290 and the Yamaha Audacian (YMF718, PnP) so it is very similar to your setup. Important question is: how have you set up unisound at the moment? I.e. post your autoexec.bat here!

This is what I do at the moment in my autoexec.bat:

1SET PATH=%PATH%;C:\DRIVERS\UNISOUND
2SET BLASTER=A240 I7 D3 H5 P300 T4
3UNISOUND /CS
4rem Yamaha Audacian:
5SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 P330 T4
6UNISOUND

In any case there should be no conflicts between the cards. What I would do in your shoes, just leave the P -parameter off from the BLASTER environment variable for your SB16, since it is disabled in any case. Just curious: what are you using to mix the outputs of the cards? Are you routing the output to line input of the other card?

Cheers!

p.s. I haven't actually tried to use things so that the other card (Yamaha) would be the MIDI card, and the SB16 would be used for digital parts. There is no sense in that IMHO in my case since the Yamaha has way better digital output and compatibility with SB Pro than the SB16. Actually, I only got the SB16 for the rare cases where a game specifically needs an SB16. But this does give me an idea: in rare(-ish) cases the SB16 digital output might be better, but the Yamaha with the dreamblaster S1 has a better midi... maybe I could try what you are trying to do 😉

I did, in fact, just try this - and it works without problems here!

I tried with Duke Dukem 3D (but not with other games, yet). For Duke Nukem 3D one does not need to "lie" about the MPU I/O address - so I left it at P300 (as in my AUTOEXEC.BAT), but one could make a "combination" of the BLASTER variable, so that the Pxxx refers to the MPU-401 one wishes to use, and rest of the parameters to the digital card. After testing, I routed the SB16 line_out to line_in of the Audacian card, and it works just fine that way 😉. I suppose I'm adding a miniscule amount of noise by going trough the analog part of both cards, but oh well 😜

One thing which might cause problems is an MPU-401 implementation which also requires an IRQ. But very few cards need on (AFAIK). In case they exist, the setup utilities don't ask for the IRQ for the MPU-401 specifically, and the SET BLASTER doesn't have an ability to specify the IQR for the MPU-401 only; so I'm not sure how that kind of cards are supposed to work in the first place.

Wild-E wrote on 2021-07-07, 13:36:

So, just to clear things up: the CT2230 is a non-PnP card (?) and the ES1868f is a PnP -card. […]
Show full quote

So, just to clear things up: the CT2230 is a non-PnP card (?) and the ES1868f is a PnP -card.

You can configure the cards to reside nicely side-by-side; just re-set the BLASTER before re-running unisound. I have a CT2290 and the Yamaha Audacian (YMF718, PnP) so it is very similar to your setup. Important question is: how have you set up unisound at the moment? I.e. post your autoexec.bat here!

This is what I do at the moment in my autoexec.bat:

Copy code to clipboard

1SET PATH=%PATH%;C:\DRIVERS\UNISOUND
2SET BLASTER=A240 I7 D3 H5 P300 T4
3UNISOUND /CS
4rem Yamaha Audacian:
5SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 P330 T4
6UNISOUND

In any case there should be no conflicts between the cards. What I would do in your shoes, just leave the P -parameter off from the BLASTER environment variable for your SB16, since it is disabled in any case. Just curious: what are you using to mix the outputs of the cards? Are you routing the output to line input of the other card?

Cheers!

p.s. I haven't actually tried to use things so that the other card (Yamaha) would be the MIDI card, and the SB16 would be used for digital parts. There is no sense in that IMHO in my case since the Yamaha has way better digital output and compatibility with SB Pro than the SB16. Actually, I only got the SB16 for the rare cases where a game specifically needs an SB16. But this does give me an idea: in rare(-ish) cases the SB16 digital output might be better, but the Yamaha with the dreamblaster S1 has a better midi... maybe I could try what you are trying to do 😉

Yo, thanks for the advice. That looks similar to what I have tried, here is my initialization file:

1@echo off
2REM Cleanup any previous initializations
3C:\DRIVERS\UNISOUND\UNISOUND.COM /D
4REM SB16
5SET BLASTER=A220 I7 D1 H5 J200 F388 T6
6C:\DRIVERS\UNISOUND\UNISOUND.COM /CS /VL0 /VM0 /VC0
7REM ES
8SET BLASTER=A240 I5 D3 H0 P330 F398 J210 T4
9C:\DRIVERS\UNISOUND\UNISOUND.COM /VL0 /VC0 /VM0
10REM SET BLASTER=A220 I7 D1 H5 P330 F388 J200 T6

And this is the output:

1Universal ISA PnP Sound Card Driver for DOS v0.76b. (c) JazeFox 2019-21
2———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
3
4PnP card found: [ESS1868] ESS ES1868 Plug and Play AudioDrive
5Disabling card's logical devices...
6ADD:0 OPL:0 MPU:0 IRQ:0 DMA:4/4 CTR:0
7Card disabled.
8Universal ISA PnP Sound Card Driver for DOS v0.76b. (c) JazeFox 2019-21
9———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
10
11SB16 detected at: [220h] DSP: v4.13
12Settings: ADD:220 IRQ:7 DMA:1 HDMA:5
13SB Mixer [VOL:85 WAV:80 FM:80 LIN:0 CD:0 MIC:0 PC:0 TREB:50 BASS:50]
14Universal ISA PnP Sound Card Driver for DOS v0.76b. (c) JazeFox 2019-21
15———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
16
17PnP card found: [ESS1868] ESS ES1868 Plug and Play AudioDrive
18BLASTER environment var found! Loading settings...
19ADD:240 OPL:398 MPU:330 IRQ:5 DMA:3/0 CTR:800 JOY:210
20Initialization done. 
21ESS Mixer [VOL:85 WAV:80 FM:80 LIN:0 CD:0 MIC:0]

MIDI is correctly coming out of the ES, but so was PCM audio. I thought it was due to some exoteric conflict, but to also answer your curiosity, I have everything wired up to an outboard mixer from which every device has its own channel. However, this fancy setup backfired on me: it turns out I swapped around the cards' output cables like an a-hole. 😳🤣

Aside from this epic brainfart, it is working nicely. The remaining question I have is: for legacy games, am I allowed to use a single BLASTER variable containing the parameters from both individual cards, like I did in my commented line? And which type should I use, T4 (SBPro) or T6 (SB16)?

Thanks again, and I hope that my mishap offered at least some entertainment value.

EDIT: I also tried this with Wing Commander 3, with mixed results: MIDI works just fine, but audio only comes out of the left channel. The setup program outright crashes when trying to play back the right channel; could this be because I still have the T4 parameter after all?

EDIT 2: It was, after all! I uncommented the "Frankenstein" BLASTER variable, and it seems to be good for now 😁

Glad to hear you got it working!

All games using a SoundBlaster can only use one sound blaster card. You *can* combine the Axxx, Dx, Hx, Ix for one card with the Pxxx for the MPU-401 part, since these are actually different devices, but otherwise, you can not combine them AFAIK.

The other parameters (Fxxx, Jxxx tc.) are totally irrelevant for games, as they are only meant for unisound and no game will parse them (AFAIK - someone will correct me if I'm wrong).

Hope this helps!

p.s. noticed an error in my SET BLASTER for the SB16 - should be T6 not T4. However this probably does not matter, since games supposedly only use it to differentiate some older SB types, however there might be some odd game which does parse it...

I have a possibly stupid question, but I'm just trying to get my ducks in a row before some hardware gets here.

I have a system with an SBLive, who's dos performance I'm underwhelmed by. The fact that the dos driver requires EMS throws a wrench into playing a smattering of old Origin games. The OPL3 (emulation?) has a very uneven, performance altering tempo in Descent and X-Wing. When it had been on IRQ5, emulating SB16 on IRQ7, another smattering of games like Hexen would cause the system to reboot when played in DOS mode as opposed to Win98SE.

So I ordered an AWE64 (CT4500) that finally popped at a reasonable price. Now I see the manufacturer drivers want to add CTSB16.SYS and CTMMSYS.SYS to the config.sys. I also hear these really aren't needed for the vast majority of games. Am I correct to assume UNISOUND also does not require these to initialize the AWE64?

Also, in order to bump the SBLive off of IRQ5 (and 7, and 3 and 4) I reserved them for Legacy ISA in the mobo bios. Now I know the AWE64 is a PNP card, but if I leave them reserved for Legacy ISA, will UNISOUND still initialize them to the IRQ I tell it? Such as 5? Or do I need to unreserve the IRQ, and find some way to get the AWE64 on it instead of the SBLive when PNP tries to assign them? Does the IRQ specified for UNISOUND need to match whatever the BIOS assigns the AWE64? Or will it force it over assuming no conflicts? Currently nothing is on IRQ5.

I may learn more just jumping in like a bull in a china shop and trying a billion things. Nothing will probably break. But I figure it doesn't hurt to ask.

Namrok wrote on 2021-07-11, 01:46:

Also, in order to bump the SBLive off of IRQ5 (and 7, and 3 and 4) I reserved them for Legacy ISA in the mobo bios. Now I know the AWE64 is a PNP card, but if I leave them reserved for Legacy ISA, will UNISOUND still initialize them to the IRQ I tell it? Such as 5? Or do I need to unreserve the IRQ, and find some way to get the AWE64 on it instead of the SBLive when PNP tries to assign them? Does the IRQ specified for UNISOUND need to match whatever the BIOS assigns the AWE64? Or will it force it over assuming no conflicts? Currently nothing is on IRQ5.

Setting it to reserved in the BIOS is the correct way to do it. If an IRQ isn't reserved it's available in the pool of IRQs that BIOS will assign to PCI devices. Most BIOSes I've seen will list the PCI devices and their assignments during post.

But ISA devices aren't assigned IRQs until you've loaded an OS, reserving one takes it out of the pool. Unisound can then configure the ISA card to use the unassigned IRQ.

Do PAS 16 is supported?

spacedrone808 wrote on 2021-07-20, 12:02:

Do PAS 16 is supported?

Since, to my knowledge, it's not a PnP card and it's also not listed as supported in the enclosed README, I'm quite sure that it's not supported.

Reading up on it, it seems the PAS is using its own drivers to configure the card (and no jumpers) - so, as much as I am not really expecting it, but who knows, maybe JazeFox might want to scope-creep for the beloved PAS a little...? 😉

Hi! I have here a Terratec TT1816-S/N soundcard with AD18max10JS chip. It is almost the same as AD1816JS as far as I know and both chips seem to be listed as supported by unisound. Unfortunately the card seems not to be detected. Original drivers do work properly however. It's not critical, but if it is already listed as working, may be there are only some bits missing to get this card running as well. So, if I can help somehow, I'd be glad to. The card is this one:
https://computer-retro.de/Bilder/Soundkarten/ … dkarte-1998.jpg

scorp wrote on 2021-08-01, 12:08:

Hi! I have here a Terratec TT1816-S/N soundcard with AD18max10JS chip. It is almost the same as AD1816JS as far as I know and both chips seem to be listed as supported by unisound. Unfortunately the card seems not to be detected. Original drivers do work properly however. It's not critical, but if it is already listed as working, may be there are only some bits missing to get this card running as well. So, if I can help somehow, I'd be glad to. The card is this one:
https://computer-retro.de/Bilder/Soundkarten/ … dkarte-1998.jpg

Sound Blaster 16 PnP in a Tandy 1000 TX

I tested this file and it gets my pnp soundcard running in my 286 too.....maybe this can help until a new update of Unisound comes out?

Edit: also found this in case you are having a pnp compatible system
http://terratec.ultron.info/Audio/OEM/TT1816/Driver/

Thanks, but as I told, the original drivers work just fine. I just wanted to point out, that the card doesn't work with unisound, although it is listed as working.

Btw. it would be really nice, if unisound code would be open sourced, so people could try to make their improvements themselves. It is for sure possible to start this again as an open source project, but it would be quite stupid to run in all of the already solved issues.

scorp wrote on 2021-08-02, 10:36:

Thanks, but as I told, the original drivers work just fine. I just wanted to point out, that the card doesn't work with unisound, although it is listed as working.

Btw. it would be really nice, if unisound code would be open sourced, so people could try to make their improvements themselves. It is for sure possible to start this again as an open source project, but it would be quite stupid to run in all of the already solved issues.

Ahh my bad i didn't read that the original driver worked.😅
Anyway do you know if there are more drivers for Windows 3.1 to make a CT2940 run except under Dos? I can only get sb 1.5 running but for midi i get only the adlib sound. How can I tell Windows to send the midi instructions to my SC-55 ST so I can use Canyon.mid on the integrated media player?

Small bugfix release:

Tool updated to v0.76f

Changelog:

• Fixed detection of AD181x cards on some systems (regression bug).
• Fixed Card listing /CL stopped running when conflictive cards were present.
• Fixed CMI incorrect master volume was present in some apps
• Added support for some fake Yamaha cards (crystal chip based)
• Now up to 9 PnP cards can be initialized per system
• Other minor optimizations and cosmetic changes

The download link is updated at the end of the first post as usual:
UNISOUND - Universal ISA PnP Sound Card Driver for DOS v0.81b

------------

Some notes:

A regression bug caused that AD181x based cards could not be detected on some systems since 0.75e, as shown in this post (Re: UNISOUND - Universal ISA PnP Sound Card Driver for DOS v0.76b), reported previously by a forum user. It's fixed now in 0.76f

Even though it was not documented (because it must be used with caution), It is possible to free some resources (not all) on some cards (not all) setting a value to zero (except DMA. To disable a DMA, set it to 4). Example: I have a separate MPU card and I want to free the MPU IRQ of my PnP card. Solution: Set U0 in the BLASTER variable before running Unisound and that IRQ will not be used by the card. Use with caution! Do not set essential ports to zero, because the card or the system could behave erraticaly.

@JazeFox thank you very much! I obviously overlooked previous report about the broken AD181x cards detection.

I know, you've been asked before already, but did anything changed in your plans to open the code? It is already full of really exciting know how and hard work. Would be really a shame for all of us if it would just vanish one day.

Hi, I can't get the game port to work maybe you guys can help me?

I'm using an ES1868F PNP ISA sound card. It has a Dreamblaster S1 on the wavetable port.
The computer is a 386SX-16 with 1MB RAM if it matters. MS-DOS is 5.0.

I haven't SET BLASTER, only using the default options of UNISOUND, which are ADD:220 OPL:388 MPU:330 IRQ:5 DMA:1/0 CTR:800 JOY:200

I have a Gravis PC Gamepad plugged in.

I can't use the joystick in games, and CheckIt tells me that "There is no game port on this machine".

I don't know where to go from there. I've never used a joystick under DOS before and would gladly take any pointers to make this one work.

jarreboum wrote on 2021-08-02, 21:15:

Hi, I can't get the game port to work maybe you guys can help me? […]
Show full quote

Hi, I can't get the game port to work maybe you guys can help me?

I'm using an ES1868F PNP ISA sound card. It has a Dreamblaster S1 on the wavetable port.
The computer is a 386SX-16 with 1MB RAM if it matters. MS-DOS is 5.0.

I haven't SET BLASTER, only using the default options of UNISOUND, which are ADD:220 OPL:388 MPU:330 IRQ:5 DMA:1/0 CTR:800 JOY:200

I have a Gravis PC Gamepad plugged in.

I can't use the joystick in games, and CheckIt tells me that "There is no game port on this machine".

I don't know where to go from there. I've never used a joystick under DOS before and would gladly take any pointers to make this one work.

Not sure if this helps, but should be JOY:201 I think

Thanks, I had the same issue with my ES1868F PNP ISA. Setting it to J201 via the BLASTER variable did the trick.

Btw, is there also a command line switch for setting/changing the joystick port?

Shouldn't the joystick port default to 201 instead of 200?

Here's a neat program to test a joystick in DOS:
https://www.sac.sk/download/utilmisc/joycheck.zip