The FM part will work without even using the DSDMA TSR. You can get decent SB Pro compatibility if yo do use the DSDMA TSR.

See my sig for links to the downloads for the modified SETUPDS and DSXGDOS installer (driver package with the DSDMA TSR)

So I now have a Cobra YMF744 II and it's working well in DOS, 9x, and XP. I'm limited to DSDMA in my rig, however. It's mostly fine, but I'm having a devil of a time getting digital audio working in Tyrian/2000. In pure DOS mode if I have DSDMA active it will give me some slightly garbled AUX ... cannot initialize error and won't even let me into the setup or game. In Windows I can get it playing digital audio for a few seconds but it crashes quickly. Some versions of the game simply show Error 253 when I try to select SB in the setup program. I forget which one, but I've tried various builds, but one will give me a Runtime 216 (not the 200 tppatch-able issue) error when I attempt to run with digital audio. FM is fine. My SBLive similarly could not get sounds to play in Tyrian so it either REALLY hates my board/CPU or TSR SB audio implementation.

Another nagging issue is that I can't figure out how to get Windows to use OPL for MIDI playback. FMsynth doesn't find my chip when pointed to 388 (which the legacy audio system shows as FM, and FM also works in games in Windows) and the Adlib driver is simply silent. Maybe it's my IRQ or a conflict with the legacy sound driver?

Intel ICH5/865PE board, P4 2.4ghz with HT (disabled),1gb of RAM,Windows 98 SE. Set to IRQ 11 in BIOS. I've found with IRQ 5 there's at least some breakage in DOS, as Skyroads will lock up with DSDMA, but will be fine with 11.

There is a modified setupds that should allow you to use ddma. See links in my sig.

cyclone3d wrote on 2020-10-31, 23:42:

There is a modified setupds that should allow you to use ddma. See links in my sig.

I used the ICH5 variant of the setupds program. None of the DMA channels work in the setup UI, however, and it won't let me test or save settings with any of them either. I just chalked it up as a loss on this board, but think there's a solution?

Here's my ds.ini

LEGEN=1
SBIO=0
SBIRQ=0
SBDMA=1
MPUIO=0
MPUIRQ=0
JOYIO=0
INTAIRQ=5
IRQMODE=1
DMAMODE=0
FIRSTTRY=0
SLAVEBASE=0
SLAVEADDR=0
LEGMAS=77
VOICE=35
FM=77
MASTER=0
MONO=8000
PCBEEP=8000
PHONE=8008
MIC=8008
LINE=8808
CD=808
VIDEO=8808
AUX=8808
PCM=808
SBFILE=YMH8.WAV
NAFILE=YMH16.WAV
FMFILE=YMH.MID
PIRQRC=11
LOADTSR=1
IRQSHARE=0

As is, no digital audio will play til I run dsdma, and the setupds interface fails with all DMA channels. DDMA greyed out with PC/PCI in the field. Just for kicks I tried the other ICH setupds exes , and the only one that would let me select IRQs/INTA is the one for my ICH5 board so I imagine it's at least somewhat recognizing my hardware.

Heh... was posting on my phone and didn't notice that I had replied previously.

I've found on some boards that DMA must be set to 0 through Setupds. Have you tried that one?

Pictures of what you are seeing in setupds would also be helpful.

Are you running setupds /s before you enter setupds?

cyclone3d wrote on 2020-11-01, 02:20:

Heh... was posting on my phone and didn't notice that I had replied previously. […]
Show full quote

Heh... was posting on my phone and didn't notice that I had replied previously.

I've found on some boards that DMA must be set to 0 through Setupds. Have you tried that one?

Pictures of what you are seeing in setupds would also be helpful.

Are you running setupds /s before you enter setupds?

Running loadtsr in autoexec.bat which sets blaster at IRQ5, DMA0, T4 + setupds /s. Same results with DMA 1.

This is of course, me running the setupds program manually, not what happens at boot. Whether or not I run this program, nothing picks up the soundblaster til I run dsdma.

(apologies for the lousy quality; the greyed out text is IRQ CHANNEL: INTA, DMA MODE: PC/PCI, and DMA BASE: 8000 respectively)

You can't use DDMA on any ICH because it was never implemented there.

Up to ICH5 has PC/PCI support but that requires connecting a few physical wires (if both the board and the card have the SB-Link connector) and doesn't work out-of-box.

LSS10999 wrote on 2020-11-02, 03:40:

You can't use DDMA on any ICH because it was never implemented there.

Up to ICH5 has PC/PCI support but that requires connecting a few physical wires (if both the board and the card have the SB-Link connector) and doesn't work out-of-box.

This is correct. For some reason I was thinking that it supported DDMA but I was wrong.

Ah well. It's a fine card regardless and I presume as good as it gets if you're gonna make a jack of all trades no ISA build.

Any luck getting Windows to use the FM as the MIDI playback device, though? Seems I can only get DOS apps within Windows to use it. Would just prefer old games to have that sound over soundfonts.

n1ghttr4p wrote on 2020-11-02, 05:20:

Ah well. It's a fine card regardless and I presume as good as it gets if you're gonna make a jack of all trades no ISA build.

Any luck getting Windows to use the FM as the MIDI playback device, though? Seems I can only get DOS apps within Windows to use it. Would just prefer old games to have that sound over soundfonts.

For Windows 9x, use the VxD driver to be able to use FM as MIDI playback device.

For Windows XP, use the default driver that comes with Windows (Yamaha DS-1), which enables FM.

I have the Cobra YMF744 II as well and was able to get DDMA working for my on my 865G chipset mainboard (ICH5), unless I'm completely misunderstanding what DDMA is. Using the ICH5 modified drivers I could get SB Pro compatibility without calling the DSDMA TSR, but my DMA had to be set to "0" for it to work. Using DDMA I could get Jazz Jackrabbit to run without crashing at start up (as it would with DSDMA) but Doom would crash instead unless I used DOS32a. I didn't play around with much more than that though since I could get most of my games running under Win98 anyways.

See... that is what I was thinking originally. I have an LGA775 setup that has the 865 / ICH5 chipset. I was pretty sure that I had tested with DDMA in that system but after looking at the data sheets I wasn't sure.

Also have an industrial computer i865 chipset PGA478 setup that I can try it on as well.

Desomondo wrote on 2020-11-02, 19:28:

I have the Cobra YMF744 II as well and was able to get DDMA working for my on my 865G chipset mainboard (ICH5), unless I'm completely misunderstanding what DDMA is. Using the ICH5 modified drivers I could get SB Pro compatibility without calling the DSDMA TSR, but my DMA had to be set to "0" for it to work. Using DDMA I could get Jazz Jackrabbit to run without crashing at start up (as it would with DSDMA) but Doom would crash instead unless I used DOS32a. I didn't play around with much more than that though since I could get most of my games running under Win98 anyways.

Seems like the behavior of this card is hugely variable from board to board, and maybe IRQ settings on top of that. Both of those games run fine for me with DSDMA. The only one that will absolutely refuse to play digital audio as far as I've seen so far is Tyrian. I'll give it one more go, but I think it just doesn't like my board enough for DDMA.

Of note for anyone reading this and interested in this card, you'll either want to have himem limit visible memory to 512mb or less or DSDMA will reboot your machine. Saw one other account of that in these forums.

LSS10999 wrote on 2020-11-02, 06:45:

n1ghttr4p wrote on 2020-11-02, 05:20:

Ah well. It's a fine card regardless and I presume as good as it gets if you're gonna make a jack of all trades no ISA build.

Any luck getting Windows to use the FM as the MIDI playback device, though? Seems I can only get DOS apps within Windows to use it. Would just prefer old games to have that sound over soundfonts.

For Windows 9x, use the VxD driver to be able to use FM as MIDI playback device.

For Windows XP, use the default driver that comes with Windows (Yamaha DS-1), which enables FM.

Huh. Used VxD in 98 and I get the "legacy audio system" device for DOS games to refer to but there's no FM synth device installed in particular, nor is it selectable in Multimedia settings or as a playback option in dxdiag. Only the MIDI/soundfont style playback is available. I'll try another set of drivers later.

n1ghttr4p wrote on 2020-11-02, 22:28:

LSS10999 wrote on 2020-11-02, 06:45:

n1ghttr4p wrote on 2020-11-02, 05:20:

Ah well. It's a fine card regardless and I presume as good as it gets if you're gonna make a jack of all trades no ISA build.

Any luck getting Windows to use the FM as the MIDI playback device, though? Seems I can only get DOS apps within Windows to use it. Would just prefer old games to have that sound over soundfonts.

For Windows 9x, use the VxD driver to be able to use FM as MIDI playback device.

For Windows XP, use the default driver that comes with Windows (Yamaha DS-1), which enables FM.

Huh. Used VxD in 98 and I get the "legacy audio system" device for DOS games to refer to but there's no FM synth device installed in particular, nor is it selectable in Multimedia settings or as a playback option in dxdiag. Only the MIDI/soundfont style playback is available. I'll try another set of drivers later.

Check the device driver's active resource profile. You'll want to choose a profile that contains a mention of I/O range 0388-038B, which is the FM synth.

Not sure if Yamaha's VxD drivers have such settings but it was the case of some ISA sound cards that I once used, that you can enable/disable FM from the driver by choosing different resource profiles.

What's weird is that I can direct MIDI to FM quite easily in XP as stated, through XP provided drivers, but this is proving to be quite a challenge in 98.

I've tried every driver in the pack for download here. VXD, WDM, WME. None of them give me an FM MIDI playback option in Windows, only VXD gives me adlib support in DOS games. When I try to manually install the DS-XG FM driver it just presents the device as faulty and pops a non-showstopper blue screen up on startup. Any kind folks wanna show me their device manager or proof of this working in their Multimedia > MIDI window in 98? I think the issue is that the legacy support takes precedent over native Windows use somehow, but I don't know. Maybe I can get it working through WDM somehow as that's how it works in XP, but that would kill 9x DOS game FM and not be worth it to me.

LSS10999 wrote on 2020-11-03, 00:11:

n1ghttr4p wrote on 2020-11-02, 22:28:

LSS10999 wrote on 2020-11-02, 06:45:

For Windows 9x, use the VxD driver to be able to use FM as MIDI playback device.

For Windows XP, use the default driver that comes with Windows (Yamaha DS-1), which enables FM.

Huh. Used VxD in 98 and I get the "legacy audio system" device for DOS games to refer to but there's no FM synth device installed in particular, nor is it selectable in Multimedia settings or as a playback option in dxdiag. Only the MIDI/soundfont style playback is available. I'll try another set of drivers later.

Check the device driver's active resource profile. You'll want to choose a profile that contains a mention of I/O range 0388-038B, which is the FM synth.

Not sure if Yamaha's VxD drivers have such settings but it was the case of some ISA sound cards that I once used, that you can enable/disable FM from the driver by choosing different resource profiles.

I can change FM resource from 388 to 398 and whatnot via the legacy sound driver, but it makes no difference as far as being a visible and selectable MIDI playback device for Windows goes. There is no FM/388 reference in the main DS-XG main driver resources.

n1ghttr4p wrote on 2020-11-03, 14:37:

LSS10999 wrote on 2020-11-03, 00:11:

n1ghttr4p wrote on 2020-11-02, 22:28:

Huh. Used VxD in 98 and I get the "legacy audio system" device for DOS games to refer to but there's no FM synth device installed in particular, nor is it selectable in Multimedia settings or as a playback option in dxdiag. Only the MIDI/soundfont style playback is available. I'll try another set of drivers later.

Check the device driver's active resource profile. You'll want to choose a profile that contains a mention of I/O range 0388-038B, which is the FM synth.

Not sure if Yamaha's VxD drivers have such settings but it was the case of some ISA sound cards that I once used, that you can enable/disable FM from the driver by choosing different resource profiles.

I can change FM resource from 388 to 398 and whatnot via the legacy sound driver, but it makes no difference as far as being a visible and selectable MIDI playback device for Windows goes. There is no FM/388 reference in the main DS-XG main driver resources.

Check the Devices tab in the Multimedia settings from Control Panel. See if there's an entry for FM (as the legacy driver did occupy the FM I/O ranges).

If there isn't, maybe something's missing in the driver's INF... I'm not sure about that.

You can also try this: Pick a profile that doesn't contain 0388-038B I/O range, and manually install the "Adlib Gold Compatible (OPL3)" driver from Add Hardware. That driver only takes the 0388 I/O range and should be able to give you a MIDI device entry of the same name.

The solution turned out to be within the Yamaha YMF utilities app, which is an utter pain in butt to use in anything but Japanese Windows 98. The catch is that while the FM MIDI playback/driver is enabled, it will remove the DOS legacy support. You have to choose one or the other and restart.

http://web.archive.org/web/20070218005227/htt … /Y7x4Util10.lzh