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Questions about adding an AWE 64 to my setup

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First post, by mothergoose729

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I have built this super sweet DOS machine and for the most part I couldn't be more thrilled with it

Slot 1
VIA C3 Nehemiah
Some windows sound cards
Nvidia GPU
Some voodoo cards
Orpheus sound card (IRQ 5, DMA 1)
Tandy LPT (IRQ 7)

I have a free ISA slot which I would like to fill with something SB 16 compatible. The AWE 64 CT 4500 and 4520 cards are a great combination of cheap, easy to find, and good enough.

I haven't ever had more than a single DOS sound card in my system before, and since I am playing lots of games from the adlib and SB 1.0 era I have some concerns.

1) AWE 64 being plug and play I really need it to use DMA 3 and IRQ 3 all the time. Is there an easy way to force those assignments?

2) Some old games auto detect ad lib or sound blaster without giving you the option to configure the IRQ and DMA. If I add an AWE 64 is there a chance these games will prefer this card instead of my Orpheus?

3) My Orpheus has an intelligent mode midi interface that I would like to use with the AWE 64. Would it be hard to disable the MPU 401 midi interface on the card or at least force it to port 300?

4) Is there maybe a better sound card I should get instead? Maybe a non plug and play SB16?

Thanks!

Reply 1 of 2, by enaiel

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In my Ezra C3 based DOS PC, I use integrated SBPro 2.0, YMF744 for OPL3 FM, AWE64 for SB16 and AWESYNTH, and SC-7 for General MIDI. The AWE64 can be configured by editing the CTPNP.CFG file. In what I have seen so far, old games that automatically configure ADLIB or SoundBlaster, do not support SB16 or AWE64 anyway. Games that support SB16 or AWE64 natively, usually have a sound setup utility. I have separate batch files to initialize each of the sound options and I mix and match them based on the game. The only port that is usually not configurable is the FM port, so I just make sure I zero out the CQM volumes when I'm using OPL3 FM.

#1 VIA C3 Ezra-T 1.0GHz / MSI MS-6368 / Voodoo2+ViRGE GX / SBPro2+YMF744+AWE64+SC-7
#2 Pentium III-S Tualatin 1.40GHz / QDI A10T / Voodoo3 3000+GF4 Ti4200 / Audigy+AU8830+SC-50

Reply 2 of 2, by mothergoose729

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enaiel wrote on 2021-05-03, 14:52:

In my Ezra C3 based DOS PC, I use integrated SBPro 2.0, YMF744 for OPL3 FM, AWE64 for SB16 and AWESYNTH, and SC-7 for General MIDI. The AWE64 can be configured by editing the CTPNP.CFG file. In what I have seen so far, old games that automatically configure ADLIB or SoundBlaster, do not support SB16 or AWE64 anyway. Games that support SB16 or AWE64 natively, usually have a sound setup utility. I have separate batch files to initialize each of the sound options and I mix and match them based on the game. The only port that is usually not configurable is the FM port, so I just make sure I zero out the CQM volumes when I'm using OPL3 FM.

Thanks for the background, your PC is really similar to mine. I found one for cheap. Worst case scenario I wasted 35$.

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