Any conflicting IO, IRQ, or DMA resources?

gdjacobs wrote:

Any conflicting IO, IRQ, or DMA resources?

I've actually used BIOS to disable COM, LPT and gameport, so I shouldn't have any— it's only two PS/2's and a soundcard now. How do I check for conflicts?

ESS soundcards are pretty bad, get a different one and stuff should work again. SB16 should still be cheap and plentiful.

RoyBatty wrote:

ESS soundcards are pretty bad, get a different one and stuff should work again. SB16 should still be cheap and plentiful.

Well, I don't have any with OPL, but this is what I have:

- Creative Vibra 16 CT2940
- Creative AWE64 CT4500 with extra RAM
- Creative Vibra 16XV CT4170
- Creative Vibra 16C CT4180

Which do you think I should pick for this machine?

jheronimus wrote:

Well, I don't have any with OPL, but this is what I have: […]
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RoyBatty wrote:

ESS soundcards are pretty bad, get a different one and stuff should work again. SB16 should still be cheap and plentiful.

Well, I don't have any with OPL, but this is what I have:

- Creative Vibra 16 CT2940
- Creative AWE64 CT4500 with extra RAM
- Creative Vibra 16XV CT4170
- Creative Vibra 16C CT4180

Which do you think I should pick for this machine?

I think I'd go for the Vibra 16 CT2940, AFAIK it has a real OPL3. If not though, then I'd use the AWE64.

mr_bigmouth_502 wrote:

jheronimus wrote:

Well, I don't have any with OPL, but this is what I have: […]
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RoyBatty wrote:

ESS soundcards are pretty bad, get a different one and stuff should work again. SB16 should still be cheap and plentiful.

Well, I don't have any with OPL, but this is what I have:

- Creative Vibra 16 CT2940
- Creative AWE64 CT4500 with extra RAM
- Creative Vibra 16XV CT4170
- Creative Vibra 16C CT4180

Which do you think I should pick for this machine?

I think I'd go for the Vibra 16 CT2940, AFAIK it has a real OPL3. If not though, then I'd use the AWE64.

Nope, there are two versions of CT2940. Unfortunately, I have the one that doesn't have any Yamaha chips on it =)

I'll still try both. If it works, I'll probably try to get an OPL3-enabled one later.

That's too bad. Truthfully it's been a long time since I've actually messed with vintage hardware, but if Wikipedia is anything to go by, the CQM doesn't sound very good in comparison to a real OPL3. 🤣

mr_bigmouth_502 wrote:

That's too bad. Truthfully it's been a long time since I've actually messed with vintage hardware, but if Wikipedia is anything to go by, the CQM doesn't sound very good in comparison to a real OPL3. 🤣

There are sound samples on YouTube if you search. IMO the difference is not too dramatic, but I do admit I've never owned a CQM card, so my opinion might change if I listened to one in person and played games with one over a period of time.

So, I've tried CT2940, installed the CTCM and the drivers from this collection.

I've also installed the floppy 1.666 version of DOOM2 and added DOS4G 2.01 version (though there didn't seem to be a DOS4GW.exe file there in the first place, so I'm not sure it's using an updated version). I now actually get a little further, but still, this is what I get:

jheronimus
try other video card

clueless1 wrote:

the difference is not too dramatic

not dramatic. OPL3 sounds wrong, with minor issues or significant ones, wich you may notice during the comparision of same music. and it always sounds not like a composer did.

Tertz wrote:

jheronimus
try other video card

Not an easy thing to do. This is an integrated card that produces video output through the motherboard connector (along with power and other things) directly to the screen. Even if I get a new ISA videocard (I don't have any) and hook up an external monitor, there is no option to disable the integrated videochip. So I guess, it wouldn't even work.

I can only choose between 8/16 bit VGA RAM bus width. I already tried 8 bit, it allowed me to get a bit further in the game for some reason, but nothing else.

This may be stretched, but.. try a different PC.

Have you tried UNIVBE yet?

clueless1 wrote:

Have you tried UNIVBE yet?

I don't think UNIVBE will help him one bit considering Wolfenstein 3D and DOOM only use VGA capabilities. UNIVBE is for SVGA. The Cirrus Logic cards are rock solid when it comes to VGA compatibility.

To the OP, does your computer have any external cache? Perhaps disabling or removing it may help. You can also try disabling your CPU's internal cache with CACHEOFF to rule it out.

Make sure your game files are not write protected.

Great Hierophant wrote:

I don't think UNIVBE will help him one bit considering Wolfenstein 3D and DOOM only use VGA capabilities. UNIVBE is for SVGA. […]
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clueless1 wrote:

Have you tried UNIVBE yet?

I don't think UNIVBE will help him one bit considering Wolfenstein 3D and DOOM only use VGA capabilities. UNIVBE is for SVGA. The Cirrus Logic cards are rock solid when it comes to VGA compatibility.

To the OP, does your computer have any external cache? Perhaps disabling or removing it may help. You can also try disabling your CPU's internal cache with CACHEOFF to rule it out.

Make sure your game files are not write protected.

Installed UNIVBE 5.3 anyways and added them to autoexec.bat.

The system doesn't have external cache. Also tried disabling internal cache, but it didn't help, just made the game extremely slow.

Used Norton Commander to clear read-only status from all Doom 2 files. Still, nothing.

However, after I used Compaq's own MODE tool to change CPU speed from default "high" to "auto", I got another result. In some cases the game would freeze after a while, but it kept working. The music and sound were still on, the character would just bump into the wall and keep working, but the game wouldn't accept any input.

Maybe there's something wonky with your motherboard and/or RAM. I dunno, can a machine that old run Memtest86+? If so, I'd give it a whirl.

mr_bigmouth_502 wrote:

I dunno, can a machine that old run Memtest86+?

It should.

Sometimes old Dosgames run better on faster Machines like PII above 300 Mhz when started under running Win9x.
Check this please. I am pretty sure that they will run.

Yeah, well. Just when I basically gave up on this machine, I found a solution. It was memory, after all. I found a guy who gave me a free genuine Intel motherboard with Pentium 60 and a bunch of RAM sticks, so I just tried them all. Here is what I know:

- my system definitely didn't support EDO RAM.
- before that I used 8 MB FPM RAM. I had two pairs of those, and in both cases I could only use one stick for a total of 12 MB (4 MB onboard). The system supports 20 MB though.
- now I'm using two 4 MB FPM RAM sticks and DOOM 2 works. I suck at identifying RAM, so I have no idea what was wrong with four 8 MB sticks I used before.