VOGONS


First post, by YesAffinity

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie

I bought this card knowing it potentially had issues. I replaced electrolytic caps and the TDA1521 audio amp.

It has a TL084BC between YAC512 and TDA1521. I had read that the TL0* is incorrect from the factory in some instances, and should be a TL074. I replaced the TL084 with a TL074 with no improvement, so put it back to original.

Sound effects were problematic from the start, and now are non-existent.

I put a PII 440LX test rig together for purposes of troubleshooting this card further. The only things in it are the CPU, 64MB of SDRAM, a Trident 9750 AGP card and the sound card. It's a DELL motherboard, so no overclock options. Also with a fresh install of DOS 6.22 (from phil's) on a 2GB CF.

Attached are the results in Jan Knipperts drivers. I have tried all available IRQ's and SB DSP options, and get the same result no matter what. If I go into mixer, FM Synth plays fine, Sample produces nothing. In Doom, music plays fine, no sound effects.

I'm trying to hone in on where to start probing, hoping I can find a faulty component to replace and get this card working 100% again. I'm not afraid to throw hot air at it, should the 82c929 need replacement.

Hoping someone can point me in the general direction of where to start probing.

Attachments

Last edited by YesAffinity on 2024-12-02, 16:01. Edited 2 times in total.

Reply 2 of 13, by Tiido

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

TL084 is improved version of TL074 with lower noise, and like most opamps, pin and function compatible and unless actually faulty, it wouldn't cause problems. It is most likely the opamp is only there for YAC512 only.

PCM sound comes from a WSS codec chip on cards with 82C929, there are a few different ones possible such as AD1845 and CS4231. Problem is most likely in the codec chip or its crystals, unless there are actual SB detection errors etc.

T-04YBSC, a new YMF71x based sound card & Official VOGONS thread about it
Newly made 4MB 60ns 30pin SIMMs ~
mida sa loed ? nagunii aru ei saa 😜

Reply 3 of 13, by YesAffinity

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie

Thank you both!

Well interestingly, i tried the original drivers - https://www.philscomputerlab.com/82c929a.html - which I have never had success with, and everything is working with them...with a catch. It only works at irq 7 and dma 0. At any other setting, sound effects fail and attempting to save the settings (via setup/sndinit program) returns a message that there is a irq, dma, etc conflict.

I rebooted and tested in that environment multiple times, tested doom, all is working. I then switched back to the Jan Knippert drivers, with the same settings and sound effects are again missing and testing the setting in that environment fails as seen in the screenshots.

Note: Jan Knippert drivers had been working with mixed results in a different but similar environment. Mostly, music worked, sound effects would be garbled, play too fast, just a "blip" would be produced, sometimes no sound effects at all. Inconsistent and irregular results in that scenario.

This card has a ad1846jp code, and at last check, wss worked fine in windows. Any suggestions on what pins to probe to determine what the cause might be?

Lastly, unisound driver does not detect a sound card. I haven't spent any time familiarizing myself with the unisound driver, just noting that's what was happening with rem removed from that auotexec line on the fresh install of dos. If there's configurations and other things to be done due to this being a non-pnp card, that's something I will have to look further into.

Reply 4 of 13, by konc

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t
YesAffinity wrote on 2024-11-22, 13:45:

Lastly, unisound driver does not detect a sound card.

I believe Unisound is only for PnP cards.

I also have a 82C929A card which is picky with drivers, so don't worry too much about it.

Reply 5 of 13, by YesAffinity

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie
konc wrote on 2024-11-22, 13:57:
YesAffinity wrote on 2024-11-22, 13:45:

Lastly, unisound driver does not detect a sound card.

I believe Unisound is only for PnP cards.

I also have a 82C929A card which is picky with drivers, so don't worry too much about it.

Ok good to know. Thank you for the reassurance. 😀

I did see in the Jan Knippert readme there is an option to initilaze the card more than once which may fix things. Going to try that out, will report back.

Reply 6 of 13, by Tiido

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t
YesAffinity wrote on 2024-11-22, 13:45:

This card has a ad1846jp code, and at last check, wss worked fine in windows. Any suggestions on what pins to probe to determine what the cause might be?

If WSS worked then that rules out the codec chip as the fault since the OPTi chip has to translate SB to WSS for the codec chip to do its thing. This narrows the problem down to the OPTi chip but since it is purely digital device without any analog factors you either have a faulty chip or some actual incompatibility with rest of the computer.

From my experience, 929 is a poor chip with bad compatibility (but much better than 928 which is a lot worse). The later OPTi parts are a whole lot better.

T-04YBSC, a new YMF71x based sound card & Official VOGONS thread about it
Newly made 4MB 60ns 30pin SIMMs ~
mida sa loed ? nagunii aru ei saa 😜

Reply 7 of 13, by YesAffinity

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie

Reporting back with some positive progress and more trouble. 😁

I got the Opti Mad fully working, and working side-by-side with a PicoGUS. The PicoGUS is outputting to Opti Mad line in, and all works well there. Both cards can work individually, or can mix and match without issues (i.e. GUS in GUS mode for music, Opti Mad outputting effects in SB mode and vice versa). I've got one game that the Opti Mad does not work well with - Keef the Thief. In that case, I just disable the Opti Mad in autoexec.bat, and put the PicoGUS in SB mode, and it works well.

Now then - to CD audio. 🙁

I had the Opti Mad working with CD audio in via the Sony 4-pin input. Routed a standard CD audio cable to the Sony 4-pin input, and was excited to get CD audio working (test game: Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo). I believe I configured it within the drivers for CD audio, with a "Sony Compatible" CD, and on address 340h. No DMA or IRQ set. This is on the original drivers.

I then went to Jan Knipperts drivers and set them up the same way, modified autoexec.bat to load them instead of the original drivers, and was pleased to have CD audio still working.

Well, then I started messing with the Creative DSP setting in Jan Knipperts' drivers, hoping may be I could get Keef the Thief working via the Opti Mad, but alas had no success with that. And somehow in the process, I've lost CD audio.

I have now tried everything I can possibly think of - different audio cable (and confirming the pinout from CD to Sony 4-pin input) various settings within both sets of drivers - different addressing, DMA and IRQ settings, different CD/DVD drive, and disabling CD input completely. According to the installation manual for the Opti Mad 16, if you are not going through one of the on-board data cable connectors, you don't need to enable CD input in the drivers, just connect the audio cable and you're good.

I had thankfully cloned the hard drive just before getting CD audio working, and have since restored the backup, but am still unable to get CD audio working again.

Anybody else have trouble with CD audio on these cards, and have any good suggestions for getting it working? I'm simply trying to get the analog audio cable to transmit CD audio through the card. The drives are connected to the IDE connector on the motherboard.

Attachments

  • Opti Mad 16 manual.png
    Filename
    Opti Mad 16 manual.png
    File size
    29.63 KiB
    Views
    359 views
    File license
    Fair use/fair dealing exception

Reply 8 of 13, by YesAffinity

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie

I did also test with quake, and same result. With both games, the cd spins up when the game launches and the drive light comes on regularly, giving indication that the cd's are being read as expected.

CD volume is turned up in the respective mixer/software as well.

Reply 9 of 13, by YesAffinity

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie

So, I did some checking with the multimeter, on the Opti Mad cd analog audio inputs. The Sony input is a LGGR or RGGL. The Matsumi input is either RGLG or LGRG, and the Panasonic input is the opposite but also *G*G.

I've really tried just about every possible troubleshooting step as well as configuration within both of the driver sets, and am getting no CD audio. I tried tracing out the pins from the connectors, and came to a resistor array right next to them, but don't find continuity anywhere else from the R or L pins. I assume the resistor array is either a pull-up or pull-down.

I also tested MIDI sound in Super SF2 Turbo, and the startup after game launch was much slower while the CD was initializing, but once it launched into game, MIDI sound works great. I'm not unhappy with using MIDI via a SC-55, but that ol' OCD is unhappy with CD audio not working...and eventually I want to get Quake going with CD audio. 😀

So, bit of a conversation with myself here but if anyone with experience with these sound cards has any hints, tips or tricks for getting CD audio working, please share. 😀

Reply 10 of 13, by YesAffinity

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie

Well, probably the last post on this thread 🤣. I finally got enough spare parts together to get a test rig to a point that I could test the mad 16 with cd audio in, and it works just fine.

So somethings buggered in the PII environment. I'm unofficially blaming it on the sb live! I was trying to get working in there as a mixer. Every time I would plug it in, things would stop working.

So, I'm in the process of a reformat and hoepfully be back in business with picogus and mad 16 happily sitting side by side, and cd audio in through mad 16 working as intended.

Thanks again for the help here!

Reply 12 of 13, by YesAffinity

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie

I'll see if I can faithfully recreate the journey from memory, so hopefully others don't have to spend as much time as I did figuring out a hardware solution that *doesn't* work. Also, one new revelation as I've gotten things working fully (#12 and 13 below).

Main setup:
ECS P6LX-A+ 440LX
PII 233mhz
2x256 PC100
2x CD/DVD RW drives
1x5.25 1.2M floppy
1x3.5 1.44M floppy
Hercules Kyro II 4500 AGP
40GB ATA HDD w/ 20GB win98 partition and Phil's MS-DOS Super Easy Mode "patch" :p (https://www.philscomputerlab.com/ms-dos-mode-super-easy.html)

1) Had PicoGUS and SB Live! living happily together - PicoGUS out to SB Live! in, with CD audio into SB Live! from both drives; running EK1M to utilize it as a mixer only in DOS
---Note: SB Live! took IRQ5 in Windows upon installation and no matter what I tried, I could not get it to re-assign/let it go; pretty sure it was also stealing IRQ5 in DOS, even when not loading the SB drivers
2) Decided I wanted to introduce the Opti MAD 16, to have true OPL in the lineup
3) Could not ever got all 3 cards working together
4) Once deleting the Live!, I was able to get PicoGUS and Opti MAD working side by side, able to mix and match as noted in previous posts, i.e. PG effects with Opti MAD SB or Ad Lib FM
5) Around this point, I cloned the hard drive as a "restore point"
6) I went on to get CD audio working via the Opti MAD with little effort; I was frankly surprised at how effortless it was, just plugged in the cable and I think set the CD to Sony compatible/address 340h/no IRQ or DMA, in Opti MAD original driver UI (which, turns out is unnecessary; this can all be left disabled for CD analog in only)
7) I then switched over to Jan Knipperts drivers loading via autoexec.bat, replicated in JK driver UI what I had done in OG drive UI, and CD continued working
😎 I was very pleased at that point to have what I considered to have the full feature set working, including JK drivers which are IMHO superior to the OG drivers, and called it a night
9) The next morning, I messed around in the JK drivers, trying to get Keef the Thief working, and found in the process that CD audio was not longer working
10) Fast forward through much troubleshooting and re-confirming on a fresh DOS testbed with only an AGP card and Opti MAD add-in cards that CD audio via Opti MAD still works
11) Back to the non-test rig, I reinstalled Win98 and Phil's Super Easy DOS
12) Once installed and re-configuring the environment, I found that JK drivers would not allow PicoGUS to operate properly; pretty sure this was not true previously...
----I was able to replicate this in the DOS environment setup for the test rig as well
13) Going to Opti OG drivers, the PicoGUS and Opti MAD can work harmoniously together.
14) However, CD audio breaks with any combination of PicoGUS + OptiMAD, regardless of drivers, PicoGUS operating mode, pretty much any conceivable combination will not work
---Removing both cards and reinstalling only the Opti MAD results in CD audio via Opti MAD working again, but not until the card is physically removed and reinstalled *head scratch*

Side note: I also ended up uninstalling all Opti MAD devices in Windows. Windows Sound System, Game Port and non-functional SB emulation were installed natively with Win98 install. Any sound that initiated like emptying the reycle bin or clicking on a folder would hang and repeat indefinitely. I can't conceive of anything more annoying. Muting Wave in sound settings eliminated it along with all Windows audio. So, if it's not working anyway, why take up resources...? I only use Windows environment for easier file transfers and that's pretty much it.

So, I'm now back at thinking PicoGUS for DOS + SB Live! as a DOS mixer (incl. CD audio in) and a Win98 sound device will be a good setup. And the test rig mobo might be destined to be an Opti MAD OPL + CD audio rig. Was really hoping to get this all working in one box, and maybe doable with something in place of the Opti MAD, but seems like PicoGUS + OPL + CD audio is not mesnt to be with this selection of hardware.

Reply 13 of 13, by YesAffinity

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie

Well I decided to take another stab at this today, cuz you know what they say about insanity and doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. I tend to be a little insance when it comes to these things. 😀

But, I'm happy to report all features are now working reasonably well...and of course I'm not sure what I did to fix it. :p

Current state of affairs, with which I'm happy:
PicoGUS MPU output works in tandem with Opti MAD SB sound effects (original drivers and JK drivers)
PicoGUS full GUS mode works as long as I REM all OptiMAD lines in autoexec.bat and don't load the drivers; true for all Pico GUS operating modes, i.e. SB, Adlib, Tandy, etc.
CD audio via Opti MAD, and Opti MAD SB sound effects works, with PicoGUS in USB mode; I disable everything in this mode
Opti MAD works for full SB emulation regardless of what the PicoGUS is set to

Those are the things that work. Anything not specifically listed I haven't tested or doesn't work (like PicoGUS GUS mode with any Opti MAD driver loaded).

Pretty sure I had tested with these BIOS setting set as noted below, but this is what they are now, so I'm recording them for posterity.
-All IRQ and DMA set to PNP (none reserved for ISA)
-PNP OS set to NO

I still don't have working Windows sound, and I've given up any further attempts of getting that working. Again, all I'm using Windows for is USB file transfers, so it's pretty unimportant.