I've had similar issues tryting to get a TBSC working simultaneously with a Yahama YMF724 card. The SB emulation can sometimes be hard coded to work only with a certain DMA channel or PCI IRQ, and the other card can interfere. Try running only the ESS and pull the Montego. Also look for resource sharing conflicts like a "printer" IRQ sharing setting or reserved ISA DMA.

So you got an ESS AudioDrive ES1868F based card and Sound Blaster support is still bad!? That card should work for almost any game out there. The 430TX chipset motherboard should also support DOS in every way.

Try to use these resources: SET BLASTER=A220 I7 D1 T4. Make sure the LPT port is not on IRQ7, set it to 5 in the BIOS. Do not reserve resources in the BIOS for legacy ISA, as the ESS card is PnP. Test it in pure DOS (F8 at boot), then run esscfg.exe from the DOS prompt, then try a game.

Some DOS games support ESS Audiodrive directly, does that work?

I've had similar issues tryting to get a TBSC working simultaneously with a Yahama YMF724 card. The SB emulation can sometimes be hard coded to work only with a certain DMA channel or PCI IRQ, and the other card can interfere. Try running only the ESS and pull the Montego. Also look for resource sharing conflicts like a "printer" IRQ sharing setting or reserved ISA DMA.

Thanks. I am looking at the removal of the Turtle Beach as a means of troubleshooting this issue, but I want to keep both. FreeSpace2, Unreal, Thief and System Shock2 all feature A3D audio support and I'm going to have it all! 😈

The LPT on this rig defaults to IRQ7, so clearly I'm going to have to move that elsewhere...

So you got an ESS AudioDrive ES1868F based card and Sound Blaster support is still bad!? That card should work for almost any game out there. The 430TX chipset motherboard should also support DOS in every way.

Try to use these resources: SET BLASTER=A220 I7 D1 T4. Make sure the LPT port is not on IRQ7, set it to 5 in the BIOS. Do not reserve resources in the BIOS for legacy ISA, as the ESS card is PnP. Test it in pure DOS (F8 at boot), then run esscfg.exe from the DOS prompt, then try a game.

Some DOS games support ESS Audiodrive directly, does that work?

Exactly. Apparently I'm doing something wrong since I have all the right parts. Looks like my first mistake was made in the BIOS (I did reserve resources for Legacy ISA because I thought it meant the sound card would default to using those!).

Based on advice from you both I tried these things:

• Moved LPT1 to IRQ5/278H (the only option that is not IRQ7)
• Disabled reserved resources in the BIOS

This moved the AudioDrive to IRQ7 with DMA channels 0 and 1 (why does the card use channel 0, does anyone know?), but the base address is 240 because my NE2000 ISA ethernet wants 220 and refuses to let it go). I wonder if I should pull that out and put a PCI 3Com in its place...

I'm going to try that next and if that doesn't help I'm going to pull the Montego to see if it that fixes the issue.

Okay.

I feel like some progress is being made. Here are my observations:

...after removing the Realtek NE2000 compatible ISA ethernet.

• The AudioDrive in Windows defaults to IRQ10, DMA1 and base 220.
• SimCity2000 configuration utility detects the settings correctly but trying to run the game results in a black screen.
• Day of the Tentacle now runs, but all speech is cut after second by silence. Also the cursor fails to appear after the intro (weird).
• Under DOS, Day of the Tentacle first complains that it wants more RAM, then hangs on a note at the LucasArts logo.
• Under DOS, SimCity2000 runs(!) but with absent sound effects. Only music is played. The setup utility actually fails to detect any SoundBlaster model for effects when run in DOS.

...putting the Realtek NE2000 compatible ISA ethernet back into the machine.

• The AudioDrive in Windows is now using the ideal settings (IRQ7, DMA1 and base 220).
• SimCity2000 configuration utility detects the settings correctly but trying to run the game results in a black screen.
• Day of the Tentacle crashes during the LucasArts logo with a hanging note.
• Under DOS, esscfg says 'Failed configuration register address test'. No games detect any sound at all!

Enabled Plug&Play OS setting in BIOS (thus allowing Windows to set up the hardware). This again changed around the hardware addresses but I was finally able to get the AudioDrive to the preferred settings by manually setting PCI device IRQs in the BIOS (AudioDrive wanted to go to IRQ10, but not given that option it finally settled down to 7). 😀

I'm now back to the situation where most games seem happy.
I quickly tested a bunch of old DOS games and they all ran without hiccups except for DOTT:

• Commander Keen in Goodbye Galaxy
• WORMS United & Reinforcements
• King's Quest 7
• Dyna Blaster (Bomberman clone)
• SimCity 2000 (yes, even in Windows!)
• Command & Conquer
• Monkey Island 2 (this one seems to use the Turtle Beach synth though, eww).
• Molez

The only games left that give any trouble are the older Scumm based adventures like DOTT and Sam n' Max. Those crash to the desktop with the hanging note during the LucasArts logo and a message about Illegal operation or Invalid instruction. Trying to run them from DOS results in the hanging note and freeze, no error message, but right before crashing the game complains about how it wants 15k more memory and that the amount of EMS available is less than 2 MB. I suppose I can just use ScummVM in Windows and set that to use the ESS AudioDrive or the Terratec Wave XTable on the Turtle Beach...

So looks like I solved the case. I now have a dedicated SB PRO that works with most DOS games.

Your computer is probably too fast for running some older DOS games. I have a similar setup here (Asus TX97, K6-III/400) and I am using slowdown utilities (like this one http://bretjohnson.us/programs/slodn310.zip) or disable the CPU cache. DOTT for example only runs if I disable the L1 cache.

leonardo wrote:

So looks like I solved the case. I now have a dedicated SB PRO that works with most DOS games.

Good!
Setting up PnP resources is really shitty for ISA soundcards. Usually there is a way to get the soundcard on the desired resources, but it takes effort.

For example:
-On the Asus P2B motherboard, setting LPT to IRQ 5 still results in programs detecting IRQ 7 to be occupied by LTP. So I had to disable LPT entirely.
-Crystal CS4232 PnP soundcards want to be on IRQ 5, so you actually have to occupy 5 with something (LPT/Reserve Legacy ISA) to get it to 7. Actually it still did not cooperate enterily: I modified the PnP key data in the soundcard EEPROM so it only accepts A220 I7 D1, and nothing else. These cards are really easy going since. 😀

pyrogx wrote:

Your computer is probably too fast for running some older DOS games. I have a similar setup here (Asus TX97, K6-III/400) and I am using slowdown utilities (like this one http://bretjohnson.us/programs/slodn310.zip) or disable the CPU cache. DOTT for example only runs if I disable the L1 cache.

This could in fact be the case. It just never occurred to me. Thanks for the hint!

In other news, what I did - turns out - also fixed the emulation on the Turtle Beach card. 😦
That's right. What I did in trying to fix the actual SoundBlaster rendered the whole purchase kind of pointless. 🤣 Oh well...

If I disable the AudioDrive and re-enable the SoundBlaster Pro emulation the emulation takes up the exact same resources and now appears to fully work with all games. Some games (like C&C for example) actually sound better thru emulation. I suspect it has to do with a higher sample rate on the Turtle Beach or something. Games that use synth sound better on the AudioDrive. Hmm... I suppose in the end since using either is just a reboot away, it's not a big deal. Interestingly DOTT works with SB emulation but not with the AudioDrive. Could the emulation slow the system down just enough for it to work?

Also, I discovered after my altered settings that when using the SB PRO emulation on the Turtle Beach card I can use the Terratec Wave XTable in DOS. In Windows it doesn't work, but in pure DOS mode it works. Games with General MIDI support sound great, but the volume is way too loud compared to the sound effects.

This has been most educational. Will have to see how rig #2 fares when I have time for it...

leonardo wrote:

Okay.
[*]Under DOS, Day of the Tentacle first complains that it wants more RAM, then hangs on a note at the LucasArts logo.

If this problem is not a base memory problem, I can help you this. Pure DOS with more than 32MB RAM always make troubles.
I heard one solution is "OS/2 Installed - Yes" in bios setting.

My solution is "Use a Ramdrive" for reduce your Ram. I got a 64MB machine, Using 32MB of SRDISK make my machine can run games reporting I have (Minus)-????K XMS or EMS.

The daughtercard header on that Vortex 1 should work in DOS when the SB emulation driver is loaded. It also emulates MPU401. I've done it myself with that exact Montego A3Dxstream card.

ik777 wrote:

If this problem is not a base memory problem, I can help you this. Pure DOS with more than 32MB RAM always make troubles. I hea […]
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leonardo wrote:

Okay.
[*]Under DOS, Day of the Tentacle first complains that it wants more RAM, then hangs on a note at the LucasArts logo.

If this problem is not a base memory problem, I can help you this. Pure DOS with more than 32MB RAM always make troubles.
I heard one solution is "OS/2 Installed - Yes" in bios setting.

My solution is "Use a Ramdrive" for reduce your Ram. I got a 64MB machine, Using 32MB of SRDISK make my machine can run games reporting I have (Minus)-????K XMS or EMS.

Thanks for the hint. SimCity 2000 for example complains that the amount of memory is negative. However it still runs just fine.

swaaye wrote:

The daughtercard header on that Vortex 1 should work in DOS when the SB emulation driver is loaded. It also emulates MPU401. I've done it myself with that exact Montego A3Dxstream card.

I've confirmed it does in DOS. I wonder why it doesn't work in Windows though.