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Opti 82C929A - DOS driver anyone please?

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Reply 120 of 138, by DonutKing

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That would be good, do you have somewhere to host or do you need to email them?

If you don't have anywhere to host you can sign up to dropbox.com for a free 2gb of public webspace 😀

If you are squeamish, don't prod the beach rubble.

Reply 121 of 138, by Ace

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I typically upload anything I send to people to MediaFire or MegaUpload then post the download link. I'll zip up the drivers for the 82C929A and upload them to MediaFire for you as soon as I figure out why my OPTi 82C931 is causing my DOS test box to crash while booting into Windows 95.

EDIT: The DOS test box is now working correctly(stupid 82C931 doesn't like to work on any other DMA than DMA 3). I will now upload the drivers for the 82C929A.

EDIT 2: Well, I guess I'll just attach the drivers to this post 'cause they're under 1MB in size. You have both the DOS and Windows 95 drivers in the same archive.

Reply 122 of 138, by DonutKing

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Heyt thanks, I'll try these out and see how it goes 😀

If you are squeamish, don't prod the beach rubble.

Reply 123 of 138, by sliderider

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Ace wrote:

I typically upload anything I send to people to MediaFire or MegaUpload then post the download link. I'll zip up the drivers for the 82C929A and upload them to MediaFire for you as soon as I figure out why my OPTi 82C931 is causing my DOS test box to crash while booting into Windows 95.

EDIT: The DOS test box is now working correctly(stupid 82C931 doesn't like to work on any other DMA than DMA 3). I will now upload the drivers for the 82C929A.

EDIT 2: Well, I guess I'll just attach the drivers to this post 'cause they're under 1MB in size. You have both the DOS and Windows 95 drivers in the same archive.

Preventing IRQ conflicts and incompatibilities, one of the many "joys" of DOS and early Windows versions. 😀

Reply 124 of 138, by DonutKing

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Thanks for the drivers Ace, they worked perfectly. The other ones I tried would just crash back to dos prompt when running the install program, this driver worked fine.

I attached my XR385 to it and went to do the 'hexen -warp 02; test, the wavetable board plays perfectly, no hanging notes... but it didn't play any digital sound 😒 need to have a fiddle and see what the go is. Digital sound works in other games.

I also can't get the PC speaker passthru working yet. I've swapped the wires around to no avail.

Here's the card. It also has a YMF-262 on it for real adlib music 😀

IMG_0647.JPG

Overall sound quality is pretty good, sounds just as good as my CT2800 and doesn't have the noise/crackle that my CT1740 does (particularly noticable in Halloween Harry/Alien Carnage).

Another nice thing is that the sndinit driver is not memory resident, just runs at boot to set the card and that's it.

Reply 125 of 138, by DonutKing

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Hmmm, strange. I've been fiddling for a while and I just cannot get sound effects working in Doom or Hexen with this card. Even with no music selected, sound blaster or general MIDI music, it just won't play sound effects.
Also no luck getting the PC speaker passthru working either. 🙁

Any ideas?

If you are squeamish, don't prod the beach rubble.

Reply 126 of 138, by Ace

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Glad to be of help, DonutKing.

It's strange, though. I remember Doom working just fine on my 82C929A. Do you have the 82C929A set to use address range 220, IRQ 7 and DMA 1? Every sound card I use is set to use those settings. See if doing that changes anything.

Also, do you have the Collector's CD-ROM edition of X-Wing? I'd like to hear how its FM music sounds like on your 82C929A as I will pick up an 82C930 today that uses the same quad op-amp as on your 82C929A to amplify the YMF262's audio output. If you do, before you record anything, max out the volume of everything but FM Synthesis, which I set to 85 on my 82C929A(anything higher than that and the FM Synthesis would be way too loud).

Creator of The Many Sounds of:, a collection of various DOS games played using different sound cards.

Reply 127 of 138, by DonutKing

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Do you have the 82C929A set to use address range 220, IRQ 7 and DMA 1?

Yes that's exactly what I'm using... got no idea why it doesn't work. It works in populous 2 which I couldn't get working with early SB16's (CT1740) but worked with Vibra 16's (CT2800).

I do have DOS collectors' CD-ROM of X-Wing however my 'main' PC I use for recording has onboard audio and seems to have a bit of hum/interference...

Here are some of my previous recordings, you an discern some noise that I think introduced by the recording PC and is not present on the playing PC.
"The Many Sounds of:" - A look at various different sound cards and the sound they produce in DOS games

I can still do it if this isn't a problem

If you are squeamish, don't prod the beach rubble.

Reply 128 of 138, by Ace

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The recordings are no longer necessary. I picked up the 82C930 earlier today and gave it a go on two computers. I will post my thoughts on the 82C930 on the first post of my sound card recordings thread.

Creator of The Many Sounds of:, a collection of various DOS games played using different sound cards.

Reply 129 of 138, by DonutKing

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Well I've given up trying to get the 929 to work with doom engined games -hexen, heretic, doom - FM works fine but not digital. Haven't found anything else it doesn't work with yet. I've got a GUS in this machine so I'll just use that for those games, mainly want this card for games that don't work/sound crap on the GUS.

I've been trying to get the PC speaker passthru working with no luck. Turns out it works if you don't load the sndinit.exe to initialise the card. Of course then you get no digital or FM sound. As soon as you run sndinit the PC speaker passthru stops working. I've tried changing jumpers to use line out instead of speaker out but no difference, so I think its nothing to do with the card's amp.

If you are squeamish, don't prod the beach rubble.

Reply 130 of 138, by DonutKing

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I've managed to get the pc speaker passthru to work. Turns out that aopen still has drivers for this card on their FTP site: ftp://ftp.aopen.com/pub/driver/sound/
I downloaded the s20v30a1.exe and s20v30a2.exe files, and they installed perfectly. They are much older versions of the driver, in particular they don't offer any volume control for the line/mic input, however it allows the PC speaker passthru to work. doom/hexen etc still don't work with digital sound with this driver.

In my testing I've found that this card seems to have a limited number of voices, that is, it plays a lesser number of sounds at once than a Sound Blaster 16. For example, in blake stone, i you are holding down the fire button, the sound of your gun is interrupted almost constantly by the sounds of other characters, pickups etc. On a Sound Blaster this does happen but nowhere near as often, it seems to be able to play more sounds at once than the Opti.
Overall though this card has sound quality no worse than my old CT2800, and it works with the wavetable DB and has a real OPL so I think I'll stick with it for lack of better options. If I could change the volume on the line in it would be perfect however I think I am just going to have to bite the bullet and buy a stereo mixer...

If you are squeamish, don't prod the beach rubble.

Reply 131 of 138, by retro games 100

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retro games 100 wrote:
I got another Opti 82C929A sound card. ... http://lh3.ggpht.com/_Dop-eDMechk/TRHrhoRvMDI/AAAAAAAAAj4/zgXl7Wwrt0Y/s800/OptiOPL4.J […]
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I got another Opti 82C929A sound card.
...
OptiOPL4.JPG

I just dug this card up again. Oh no, it doesn't work any more. Also, the PCB looks warped. I guess the attic got too hot, and the heat bent the PCB. When I run the driver install, it says it can't find the card. I've tried cleaning the contacts and I tried it in a couple of mobos. 🙁 Why do sound cards die? What's the most likely reason? ESD? Bad capacitors?

Has anyone noticed that old RAM is fairly reliable? I mean, you can drop the stuff, and if you throw a load of sticks in to a box, and fish out a few to use later on, and in the process of doing this, scrape 'em against each other as you look for the stick(s) you want, and they still work - usually. I'm wondering if chips on old hardware such as this ISA sound card has similar "resilience" to ESD, because the chips look "old and chunky", like the chips found on old sticks of RAM. OTOH, more modern RAM looks slim, and I'm wondering if this "slimness" forms less of a protective barrier to the "silicon logic" inside, and consequently is more prone to ESD.

(BTW, I know the chips on this sound card isn't RAM. I just used RAM as an example.)

Reply 132 of 138, by Ace

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If the PCB is warped, there's a good chance the solder has gotten loose on all surface-mounted chips. In that case, get a heat gun and reflow the solder on the 82C929A, AD1845XP, DSP24S and DAP16S. Be sure to use flux, otherwise the solder won't stick very well, and be sure to keep the heat gun moving in circles, otherwise, you'll burn out the chips. Other than that, you might want to replace the crystals on the sound card. My 82C929A originally had a broken crystal which prevented it from working. Try to replace the crystals first, then reflow the solder on the chips I mentioned.

Creator of The Many Sounds of:, a collection of various DOS games played using different sound cards.

Reply 133 of 138, by retro games 100

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Thanks a lot for the advice. (Puts heat gun and flux on shopping list.) Also, I'll see if I can get hold of some replacement crystals...

I looked up "heat gun flux" on youtube, and watched a video of someone repairing their PS3. Question: when I use this liquid "no clean" flux, do I dribble it on to the base of the chips legs? And/or do I dribble it on to the solder joints on the reverse side of the PCB? And then do I blast the area with a heat gun on both sides of the PCB, where the flux is? Thanks a lot.

Reply 134 of 138, by Ace

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The chips are all surface-mounted, so the only place you need flux while reflowing the solder with the heat gun is directly on the pins of the 82C929A, AD1845XP, DSP24S and DAP16S. Then blast the heat gun only on the top of the chip.

Creator of The Many Sounds of:, a collection of various DOS games played using different sound cards.

Reply 135 of 138, by Tetrium

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retro games 100 wrote:

I just dug this card up again. Oh no, it doesn't work any more. Also, the PCB looks warped. I guess the attic got too hot, and the heat bent the PCB. When I run the driver install, it says it can't find the card. I've tried cleaning the contacts and I tried it in a couple of mobos. 🙁 Why do sound cards die? What's the most likely reason? ESD? Bad capacitors?

Best is to keep them laying flat.
Alas, my attic also can become quite hot in the summer, but oh well...
I always try to keep items packed laying flat (though it won't always be the case due to lack of cardboard boxes.....L O L!)

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Reply 136 of 138, by Robin4

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If you have the real Acer magic S20, you can find the drivers here: http://download.driverguide.com/driver/Acer+M … er/d890383.html

The only con is that you need to pay about 2 a 3 dollars, so i hoping they are the right ones.. I don,t have the card yet, but have to tried it out.. If they work i will let you know it.

~ At least it can do black and white~

Reply 137 of 138, by jcarvalho

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retro games 100 wrote:
Edit: Oops. Not sure what happened to my post here. :oops: Basically, I got this sound card, as seen below. […]
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Edit: Oops. Not sure what happened to my post here. 😦 Basically, I got this sound card, as seen below.

OptiOPL4.JPG

[/quote]

Hi!! Can you please do a copy of the install dos disks? I have a ExpertMed Med2000 Ver 1.0 but no drivers.
Many thanks!
Jorge

Reply 138 of 138, by foxbat

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The card shown on OP photos looks identical to Shuttle Sound System 48 sound card. I bought one in 1994. DOS drivers were named MAD16 with quite rich GUI for its configuration. Card was jumperless but not PnP. SBPro and WSS compatible but not SB16. Installing it in Win9x was little tricky because it was not discovered as any kind of multimedia device but had to be installed manually as 'Other device'. After that Device Manager lists it in main tree and not under 'Multimedia devices' branch. At the end I even upgraded it with true Wavetable doughterboard. The card spent quite long time with me and met on its way AMD DX2/66, AMD 5x86 133, AMD K6-2 450 and finally ended on Athlon 750 (the one on SlotA).