Does anyone know if there is a way to force 98SE to load ESDI_506.PDR driver even if windows thinks it's unsafe and bypass the 16-bit/32bit hybrid mode check?

Is it possible to increase the framerate in Quake using 640x480?

It looks like Duke 3D is able to run up to 800x600 and a really good framerate, but Quake really struggles...

DOS quake or Windows quake?

Either one if one performs better, but I'm testing DOS quake.

Try

quake -dibonly

or one of these other commands - https://www.quake-info-pool.net/q1/startup.htm

edit:
oh! derp! I read Windows quake when you clearly wrote DOS quake! my bad!

Does winquake run faster than the DOS version?

I haven't been keeping up with the latest in this thread but I know Windows had file transfer/driver issues so I was avoiding it...

sofakng wrote on 2023-03-02, 18:06:

Does winquake run faster than the DOS version?

I haven't been keeping up with the latest in this thread but I know Windows had file transfer/driver issues so I was avoiding it...

This is an inconvenience if you copy files, but it doesn't affect gameplay. Quake ran nicely in Windows 98 SE.

I found a Ricoh SD Card Bus driver for windows 98.
Although it needed an INF mod to un-comment the windows 98 section - it's in the MOD folder.

I can load the SD Bus portion of the driver to load, but the memory card driver freezes the system.

I'm uploading it on here in case someone wants to have a go at getting it to work.

Hi, I'm trying to make similar small PC/104 system based on Dr. Berghaus PC/104 520 v1.01 (AMD Élan SC520-133AC PBGA388): http://rayer.g6.cz/hardware/sbc-x86.htm#AMD_SC520_PC104
For this purpose I ordered PC/104 soundcard PCBs in JLC and assembled one. Instead of CS4237 I used spare CS4236 but it should be fine, it's 100% pin compatible, only lacks 3D sound feature that I don't need. My first test failed because I didn't know how to program the EEPROM and didn't get any sound. Yesterday I found and used resource tool from the Vogons package: http://www.vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?file … menustate=46,38
I was able to successfully program the EEPROM based on included CS4236 ini file. Then PnP BIOS successfully assigned the resources - see photo below. I tried all kind of available init tools - original Crystal one, Orpheus (didn't recognize card correctly) and latest Unisound 0.80. It forced IRQ from 15 to 5 according to ini file / BLASTER env. but I'm still unable to make SFX working. Only FM synth plays fine (tested in Doom). Crystal test utility indicates there's problem with DMA1. I tried to change DMA number in ini file to different values and init again, test utility reported different DMA number but always failed. I'm suspect it may be some specific BIOS issue rather than soundcard problem itself. A can see that there are only 6 lines (DRQ0,1,3 and DACK0,1,3) routed directly between soundchip and PC/104 header so can't be problem there. BIOS has some cryptic DMA setting where I can set channel A to 0-5 and channel B to 6-7 or like that. I tested all choices but didn't help. I also performed system diagnostic by Notron Utilities and the IRQ and DMA controller tests passed. Any idea? How to debug DMA? Should I scope DRQ/DACK lines? When I externaly force DRQx how can I read it was activated? When PnP BIOS assign DMA1 does it mean it will use lines DRQ1 and DACK1?

Hello,
I just put together 3 weecev0.3 boards. It's a very neat project and I've learned a lot. However, I'm having issues with the SD card reader. I receive I/O errors. I've continuity tested all of my boards but they all have the same issue. Which makes me think it's the SOM? I have a VIBE1 and I removed the marked resister.

The BIOS detects my SD Cards. They are formatted FAT32 but I still cant get opendos or win 98 boot disk to boot from them without I/O errors. USB drives formatted similarly work fine.

Any suggestions on where I can trouble shoot next?

escapegoat wrote on 2023-03-04, 03:23:

Hello, I just put together 3 weecev0.3 boards. It's a very neat project and I've learned a lot. However, I'm having issues with […]
Show full quote

Hello,
I just put together 3 weecev0.3 boards. It's a very neat project and I've learned a lot. However, I'm having issues with the SD card reader. I receive I/O errors. I've continuity tested all of my boards but they all have the same issue. Which makes me think it's the SOM? I have a VIBE1 and I removed the marked resister.
front-VIBE1-marked (1).jpeg

The BIOS detects my SD Cards. They are formatted FAT32 but I still cant get opendos or win 98 boot disk to boot from them without I/O errors. USB drives formatted similarly work fine.
bios.PNG
error.PNG
io error.PNG

Any suggestions on where I can trouble shoot next?

The first thing is to have SOM304RD52VINE1 only here is guaranteed functionality. What SD card are you using? According to the company's ICOP, SOM only supports SDHC cards. Did you check well the micro SD adapter that is powered on the board? It used to happen to me that under the microscope the soldering was good but in reality it didn't work.

Vridek wrote on 2023-03-04, 09:22:

escapegoat wrote on 2023-03-04, 03:23:

Hello, I just put together 3 weecev0.3 boards. It's a very neat project and I've learned a lot. However, I'm having issues with […]
Show full quote

Hello,
I just put together 3 weecev0.3 boards. It's a very neat project and I've learned a lot. However, I'm having issues with the SD card reader. I receive I/O errors. I've continuity tested all of my boards but they all have the same issue. Which makes me think it's the SOM? I have a VIBE1 and I removed the marked resister.
front-VIBE1-marked (1).jpeg

The BIOS detects my SD Cards. They are formatted FAT32 but I still cant get opendos or win 98 boot disk to boot from them without I/O errors. USB drives formatted similarly work fine.
bios.PNG
error.PNG
io error.PNG

Any suggestions on where I can trouble shoot next?

The first thing is to have SOM304RD52VINE1 only here is guaranteed functionality. What SD card are you using? According to the company's ICOP, SOM only supports SDHC cards. Did you check well the micro SD adapter that is powered on the board? It used to happen to me that under the microscope the soldering was good but in reality it didn't work.

I'm using a MicroSD HC class4 8GB but I'll try a HC class 10 since that's cheaper than buying a VINE1 at the moment.

I tested the PC/104 soundcard in another larger SBC (iEi Rocky with Pentium MMX) and there it works fine, CWDIAG.EXE passed all resources and games plays SFX and Adlib 😀. So it's proved that CS4236B is 100% compatible with soundcard design and DMA problem is on side of my SBC PC/104 520. Curently no idea what's wrong there and how to debug this 🙁

escapegoat wrote on 2023-03-04, 15:37:

Vridek wrote on 2023-03-04, 09:22:

escapegoat wrote on 2023-03-04, 03:23:

Hello, I just put together 3 weecev0.3 boards. It's a very neat project and I've learned a lot. However, I'm having issues with […]
Show full quote

Hello,
I just put together 3 weecev0.3 boards. It's a very neat project and I've learned a lot. However, I'm having issues with the SD card reader. I receive I/O errors. I've continuity tested all of my boards but they all have the same issue. Which makes me think it's the SOM? I have a VIBE1 and I removed the marked resister.
front-VIBE1-marked (1).jpeg

The BIOS detects my SD Cards. They are formatted FAT32 but I still cant get opendos or win 98 boot disk to boot from them without I/O errors. USB drives formatted similarly work fine.
bios.PNG
error.PNG
io error.PNG

Any suggestions on where I can trouble shoot next?

The first thing is to have SOM304RD52VINE1 only here is guaranteed functionality. What SD card are you using? According to the company's ICOP, SOM only supports SDHC cards. Did you check well the micro SD adapter that is powered on the board? It used to happen to me that under the microscope the soldering was good but in reality it didn't work.

I'm using a MicroSD HC class4 8GB but I'll try a HC class 10 since that's cheaper than buying a VINE1 at the moment.

Do a soldering check. Poorly powered microSD is the problem or U4.

I tried using Universal BIOS Backup toolkit 2.0 to dump the BIOS of my weecee but I got a message saying that it could not find the BIOS.

@Paul_V

What tools would be best to use for a BIOS dump for the weecee?

Duffman wrote on 2023-03-11, 11:11:

What tools would be best to use for a BIOS dump for the weecee?

You can use BIOSMP utility from DM&P (see the attachment)
Also, check that you are running in real-mode just in case.

The dump size will be 16Mbit (whole size of the flash chip).
To use it in amibios editor, you'll need to manually trim empty space of the dump in hex editor to get 256KB BIOS image.

xflash and spiflash should also work, but I have not tested them.

@Paul_V

Thanks!
Uploaded the full 2MB dump here.

Is it possible to read this in a disassembler like IDA Pro?
or do I need to use AMI tools?

edit:

also, what address should I trim up to? I'm not sure.
The BIOS is at the very end of the dump - the rest is FF

Duffman wrote on 2023-03-12, 11:41:

@Paul_V […]
Show full quote

@Paul_V

Thanks!
Uploaded the full 2MB dump here.

edit:

also, what address should I trim up to? I'm not sure.
The BIOS is at the very end of the dump - the rest is FF

I've attached a trimmed BIOS file. You practically just cut excess FF's from the beginning of the file until you reach exact 256KB in size (or 4 0000h file length in HexEdit)
You can edit some registers and menu options in AMIBCP, or replace modules in MMTOOL

Duffman wrote on 2023-03-12, 11:41:

Is it possible to read this in a disassembler like IDA Pro?
or do I need to use AMI tools?

It's possible, but requires some IDA scripting and pointing the disasembler to a starting point of the code.
Before that, you'll probably need to extract and uncompress main rom module from BIOS with MMTOOL, which you then feed to the desasembler.
I've attached the extracted main BIOS module.
I have not personally traversed that far into the BIOS, so I'm not much of a help from here.

@Paul_V

Thanks for this.
Now to see if I can figure out whats going on with IDE.

Duffman wrote on 2023-03-12, 15:29:

@Paul_V

Thanks for this.
Now to see if I can figure out whats going on with IDE.

Any news? I'm at a standstill. Upgrading to an SD card certainly doesn't solve the situation. The ICOP wrote me back that it's a driver problem and the BIOS works fine.