VOGONS

ESSOLO-1 on freedos and SQ5

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First post, by vogge

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Hi!
Some questions from a newbie in retrodosgaming on real hardware.
I just installed an old compaq with Freedos. It has an ESSSOLO-1 soundcard, and I tried space quest 5 on it. The soundcard is found by the initial dossetup,and seems to be found correct. When configuring SQ5 there's two choices.
Music: Soundblastercomp ... and so on
Audio: Sound blaster ... and so on

I can choose Music: and get music in-game, but when also choosing Audio; Sound blaster, it says hardware not found. Altough both the Music: and Audio: Menus are shown as "found in your system" though.
So, is the ESSOLO-1 card supposed to support the audio also, or can it only support the music part? IE ist there something wrong with my setup?
I guess i'll miss all the soundeffects if it can't find Audio:, only Music:?

Also, do i need the BLASTER variable when using ESSOLO-1 for SB-emulation to work?

Reply 2 of 4, by jwt27

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Do you have the driver/configuration program installed? Adlib music usually works out of the box but sound effects really need a driver on this card. The BLASTER variable is only used to "auto-detect" the card, it shouldn't be necessary if you configure it yourself. But it's a good idea to add it anyway.

If the game supports it, configure it to use SB Pro 2 instead of SB, for stereo sound.

To find the right driver, pull out your sound card and check the ES18xx number on the chip. Google that and you should be able to find it easily.

Reply 3 of 4, by pyrogx

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Your PC is probably too fast, you'll need to patch SQ5. See this page for more info: http://www.sierrahelp.com/Utilities/SoundUtil … s/GOSiERRA.html
The BLASTER variable should be set to BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 T4 and the Solo1 DOS driver needs to be loaded.

To find the right driver, pull out your sound card and check the ES18xx number on the chip. Google that and you should be able to find it easily.

The Solo1 is a PCI card, its code name is ES1938. The appropriate drivers are here: http://www.vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?fileid=60

Reply 4 of 4, by vogge

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It's amazingly fast, it's an pentium 4:) But, it was to fast for the old Sierra games. The patch from GOSIERRA helped me, and now it works with both audio and music. Ah, off for some retro-adventureing on REAL hardware and CRT-screen. BTW Seems like Freedos works fine.

Thanks to all for the quick help and for your suggestions!!

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