Hmm, it seems that setmul l1d is now not working with Aureal, it could because of other change in my config, but i doubt it.. I have to retest it later with Yamaha, otherwise i starting to add to problematic games etc to at of the text, Aureal results, it look pretty good, but not working setmul would be no,no.. I tried EMS (/NoEMS) mode without loaded sound driver and yeah other drivers and setmul is working.. Debug in progress

Ok its possible to load Aureal sound driver from command line, i did in no sound mode where is was working moment ago and it not working.. so it seems that Setmul has some problem with AurealV1, afaik Agent is using it with AurealV2 somehow..
In protected mode+realmode setmul is working, to it look like that my favorite most use branch - EMS branch has problem with Aureal and setmul 🙁 If would UMBPCI work on X58, it would be so bad, because we have our list of game which are requiring EMS, which is pretty short (5%-10% of game).. I did no any tuning but i have now with Aureal only 550 KB of conv. memory in realmode with Nvidia videocard, so it would be 560 ATI, what is still far to be good..

Hmm i got even setmul free in realmode, something is wrong.

Small advantage is that Aureal working with JEMMEX, were Yamaha is freezing during DMA load.

ruthan wrote:

So with e.g. a DreamBlasterX2 you get much better GM support than with the SB Live/Audigy.

Yeah but there still would be games without general midi support, which started to common in 1993?

I think you missed his point - both card families have (emulated) FM support, and from what I've heard, the Vortex FM sounds a bit better than the Live/Audigy. When it comes to GM, it's built-in on the Live/Audigy, not on the Vortex, but the Vortex give you a wavetable connector for external GM, which will be comparable to Live/Audigy in quality.

dr_st wrote:

I think you missed his point - both card families have (emulated) FM support, and from what I've heard, the Vortex FM sounds a bit better than the Live/Audigy. When it comes to GM, it's built-in on the Live/Audigy, not on the Vortex, but the Vortex give you a wavetable connector for external GM, which will be comparable to Live/Audigy in quality.

You are expecting the worse from people 😀 No, i got it. My point is that if not fine with quality of Vortex FM, General midi is not silver bullet solution, because are games which not supporting it, so you are stuck with standard Vortex FM.
I would say that im getting more and more used to Vortex midi, but it not say that better than Audigy, yeah maybe in that linked YT videos and Lucas art games.. but when i in front of my machine and playing Doom 2 its not good.. maybe i dont tried to observe sound too much with my Core 2 machine with Audigy, but i never had that hey man that sound is really bad feeling, which i had after few second with Vortex.. I tested it again its not good card for Doom2, maybe in other games !Live sucks more.. but after using Yamaha for while, it sounded bad.

Update:
New configs - VortexV1 and Vortex2 IRQ7 branches fixed for IRQ7, there is IRQ hardcoded in ini files, i fixed problem DOS 6.22 / DOS 7 different location problem in the process. IRQ7 Realmode branch in progress + Some slim Realmode branch would be needed to for machines where is not working UMBPCI like X58..

It seem to that that Aureal driver is doing something really nasty with Dos enviroment, without it slowdos default delay is 12, after i execute it its 32, i dunno from which it is derived, but its strange and slowdos has problems too..

ruthan wrote:

I would say that im getting more and more used to Vortex midi, but it not say that better than Audigy, yeah maybe in that linked YT videos and Lucas art games.. but when i in front of my machine and playing Doom 2 its not good.. maybe i dont tried to observe sound too much with my Core 2 machine with Audigy, but i never had that hey man that sound is really bad feeling, which i had after few second with Vortex.. I tested it again its not good card for Doom2, maybe in other games !Live sucks more.. but after using Yamaha for while, it sounded bad.

Probably there are some games where one would be better than the other, and games where it's the other way around. Short of a genuine OPL3 (assuming that's what the music was written for, which is generally true for FM), nothing will be perfect. They will all sound a bit different, and in my experience what affects it most is the balance of volume between the different instruments: if you are listening to an implementation with a drastically different balance compared to what the piece was written for, it will sound terribly wrong in most cases.

Im still at the begining of Aureal testing, i aimed to problematic games, i didnt yet tested lots of games, where is music good. For now the worst one are Worms.. I really dont know if sound is so bad, because is broken, because is not OPL3..

I just tried to record it by my phone, so quality is poor and format strange 3gpp - VLC can play it and added for comparition same recording recorded from Dosbox by same style on integrated RealtekHD, emulated is the same SB PRO.

I Screamer I + II + Screamer Rally are tricky one games to make working with my X58 machine.. but this strange.
I had problem to make Sound working with Screamer Rally, so i last attempted to use sound card autodetection, which which problematic games could crash my machine and there is degrading reboot (less that with Core 2 when is too slow..).. Result was that was detected SB PRO at A220 IRQ7 and DMA3.. bad driver and set blaster are set to A220 IRQ5 DMA1.. and its working. I tested without reboot Blood and other games are IRQ 5 DMA 1 is working, IRQ 7 DMA3 is not working.. Doest in meant that same game driver could virtualize / change Sound card IRQ+DMA? Its using DOS4GW..

Note S2 setup could be set only without loaded SC driver, other i get freeze at its loading screens, its doing lots of comp testing during start..

I found out that newer AurealV1 driver is not blocking setmul and slowdos usage.. i used older driver because was recommended by Zanquance. Other note both drivers are big memory eaters 1.06 - which i used before 20KB (and even when i had big enough mem block free and LH parameter its still low in low mem), new one 24KB.. no other few points for Yamaha.

Ok, i finned AurealV1 testing, at least with group of games, which were not working with Yamaha, i managed to get working 18 from 23 games, that nice results..

• Managed to get working all games which where not working on Yamaha 744, except Ishar trilogy (something really bad here) + Darkland - which have strange Unable to find EMS memory problem, when is Aureal driver loaded, without its running, its not conventional memory problem, without Aureal driver, is working in setyo with even less memory.. than if driver is loaded. - Strange, i would be that error message is misleading. Turican II has periodical cracking sound problem..
• Because of scale of project, i didnt tested all games, which were worked with Yamaha, so its possible that would be some games, which would work with Yamaha, but not with Aureal, but i would expect, that there wouldnt be so much such games, because Aureal driver flexibility. Support of Realmode and Protected mode its great.
• So its Aureal Vortex 1 - Ultimate (Vortex 2 and ESS Solo-1 still untested) Dos soundcard for X58 machine? I would say yes its best, but its not great.. Music (FM) really sucks in some games in comparation with Yamaha. Yeah you can buy for additional $40 midi wavetable addon, with it you get better sound than from Yamaha, but for games which are supporting General midi and that are games from late 92 and later games, not even all of them.. If Yamaha would have same game compatibility i would take Yamaha, i dont need extra quality sound with wavetable.
• There is also big memory footprint of AurealV1 drive (20-24KB) means huge one and its making setmul not working well in EMS mode, which is working fine with Yamaha.

ESS-Solo 1 with wavetable header on the way, but i dont expect too much from it.

Updates..

Guide:
- added more info from Kamerat about DSP change to Guide..
- to main guide added small naive Developer request section.

Configs
- AurealV1 now is used 1189 driver as default, older 106 is kept in AurealV1 folder as backup, you could simply replace 1189 for it
- Added protection Mode without sound sound driver branch, you can run sound driver from cmd (Vortexs)

- Added real mode without sound driver branch, you can run sound driver from cmd (Vortexs)
- added comment about mode.com fast key settings and some game which could mess with it
- in AurealV1 folder are sub folder IRQ5 and IRQ7 and batch inside for fast IRQ change, set blaster is adjusted too.
- added Realmode SLIM branch, for MB as mine, where is UMBPCI is not working.
- added Protected mode SLIM branch to maximalize free conv. memory in protected mode

Drivers / utils package:
- added cbppatch more powerfull runtime error 200 patch, BTW if someone have experience with uncompressing exe files and patching them, tell me, i never was sucessfull in this area, but i maybe also tried wrong *.exe files, in package are already some tools for that and some basic info, but its not enough. Advantage of cbbpatch is that it can patch some compressed *.exe too without decompressing.

Ok i migrated our compability matrix to online sheet - im using Zoho(no more true), because i was at least in past more feature rich than Google docs, and yeah also more buggy.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1VKadO … of=true&sd=true
Working games on X58+Yamaha are listed first, tests with Core 2 Yamaha / Core + SB Live - i added some new games test to make matrix complete / X58+Vortex test are starting on line ~140..

Im not entirely sure if this version is really better than forum post version.. bad its philosophical question, i enabled all exports for readers so you could always export it to one html page. Advantage is that you can do with it all sheets porn as sorting and i future other people as edit shared online document too.

BTW i would like to add it to my package, to have possibility to take compatibility hint on pure Dos machine, but im not sure what format is the best one, because there is Acrobat reader 1 for Dos -pdf, but its cumbersome installation could discourage lots of people.. and start is slow. Html - you need some viewer or browser, no too much people probably have that and there is probably not some simple 1 *.exe html viewer (i can be wrong). Sheet from, there some sheet viewers for Dos, but again probably not too much people are using it. Really big picture (export hmtl-> to picture with tool as Screengrab) - with some insane resolution (2000x9000) - im not sure if viewers in Dos could handle it and you can not use search.. Best could be old good *csv, but it would need some viewer - which can handle different colummn text length (make all column long as most longer collumn entry), but is there such viewer?

Here are exports:

I quick tested 90 fro yamaha list with aureal. Sorry if you had list in bookmarks, i had to use new link, i update all post where was old link. As expected there some games, which have problems with Aureal, which would need some more investigation, led them for now without OK / NOT OK status and aim to testing the rest.. to score some quick points and i will return to them later.

Other obsservation is that games which are working with Yamaha with setmul, not working fine in realmode with Aureal even when setmul is not freezing, games has to be patched for Runtime error and after that there working and not setmul at all.. But there is problem that some Runtime 200 patches not working, some of them are crippling *.exe and i have 3 of them and various games various patches are working and two of them are able to patch compressed exes, but no every one..

I completed Vortex 1 testing, compatibility is ~90% vs Yamaha 85%, some of games which are working with Yamahas arent working, sometime is quite surprising which ones. Few games cant be run, because of L1 dissablers not work same as with Yamaha - they do no work, or slowdown effect is too powerful even 286 games are too slow.

I also noticed, that make games is a bit more hassle with rebooting to find right mode, because quite of lot game not working with EMS mode and realmode is not ideal, because with X58 UMBPCI is not working.. there is also more hassle with slowdowners settings and significantly worse FM.

I have to select between Vortex 1 and Yamaha, i would select Vortex, but only because compability is for me more important and hassle is acceptable and same as worse sound quality in pure DOS.. If someone would bypass that Yamahas DSDMA.exe need of ems, i would probably select Yamaha.

Also interesting results is that if you sacrifice 2 PCI slots (its better deal for compatibility that PCI videocard) or would use some PCI-PCI extender board, you can reach 97.5% of compatibility level only 4 games from 168 are not working (Ishars trilogy + Turiccan II).. but you have also use jack switcher, or some mixer board, or reconnect cables manually but i would be very annoying.. With 2 sound cards combo you can very, very good pure Dos gaming machine based on X58.

Slightly offtopic: makes me think of an Ultimate DOS-compatible PCIe sound card - a Vortex2 AU8830 paired with a Yamaha DS-XG YMF754, both behind a PCIe-PCI bridge chip, digitally interconnected (S/PDIF?), with some nice common mixer/DAC, combining the best of two worlds (A3D 2.0 + hardware assisted XG + true OPL3 core + Waveblaster connector + SB-Link + excellent compatibility) at a very affordable price tag thanks to the high integration of both chips leading to the low complexity of the common PCB... Should think a little bit more about it, on the first glance I would be happy to fund the R&D and prototype development...

BitchinFast 3D Sound?

Even a Vortex 2 and an Audigy on the same PCB would be nice for mATX builds.

Looking at the Audigy PCBs I don't think its EAX capabilities are worth the trouble. Meanwhile both AU8830 and YMF7x4 PCB designs are very simple indeed.
But yeah, it would be a nice BitchinFast DOS Sound Monster 3000 😁

hard1k wrote:

Slightly offtopic: makes me think of an Ultimate DOS-compatible PCIe sound card - a Vortex2 AU8830 paired with a Yamaha DS-XG YMF754, both behind a PCIe-PCI bridge chip, digitally interconnected (S/PDIF?), with some nice common mixer/DAC, combining the best of two worlds (A3D 2.0 + hardware assisted XG + true OPL3 core + Waveblaster connector + SB-Link + excellent compatibility)

Nice plan, but PCI-E PCI bridge are not yet proven as working with these cards, i tried Asmedia one its not go, maybe Rayer can fix it with some code, maybe other bridge would be solution. Also SB-link is working only with very old MB only like 440BX, so i will not work with anything with PCI-E.. i would be SB-Link working we would have much better compatibility that we have with Yamahas.

Yes, it would be a nice idea to make such combo PCIE card but it is still not well tested if it can work on newer PCIE-only MBs and what HW/SW limitations are there. We have only confirmed that intel P67 with ITE bridge IT8892E is fully working.
Then, is there available a full datasheet of AU88x0? I found only some 2-pages brief PDF. For Yamaha chips I have both datasheets YMF724F and YMF744B.
BTW in the AU88x0 brief sheet there's a paragraph that mention they cared a lot about DOS legacy support and stated that 300 games was tested!
Complete Legacy Support
Patented Sound Blaster Pro emulation means that the AU8830 is a hassle-free solution that still supports older games in
both Windows DOS boxes and real-mode DOS (without Windows). Unlike other PCI-based systems that merely claim
legacy support because they can run carefully selected games, Aureal’s integrated hardware support has been designed to
ensure complete legacy compatibility. Verified operation has been proven on over 300 DOS games. In addition, the
wavetable synthesizer is available for high-quality music in Windows DOS boxes.

For the audio output mixing (from YMF and Audigy) I simply use 2 jakcs to one switch as I used many years ago where I switched between ESS1868 ISA and SB Live. I would be more happy if it will be possible to do some basic mixer setting of Audigy under DOS just to route some onboard AUX to lineout to pass-through the YMF output via Audigy to PA. But I don't use it too often so not a big problem.

BTW the Aureal Vortex1 FM synth of Worms sounds really ugly compared to Dosbox. But I'm not so purist, I would rather use Dosbox for very old games that it also solves speed problems (I wanted native DOS SB support for cases where Dosbox is too slow and no slowdown tools required)...

RayeR wrote:

Then, is there available a full datasheet of AU88x0? I found only some 2-pages brief PDF. .

There is user ZanQuance who is trying to write new Vortex 2 Dos drivers, i thing that i saw post there is claims that he has all necessary documentation.

Well, maybe it was leaked or someone has/had NDA to get the secret documentation.

Configs:
- added support for multiple soundcards, you can now set variable per main mods, EMS, NOEMS, Realmode, Protected mode. For example Yamaha / Creative doesnt support sound in Realmode, so its good to have Vortex as fallback. Of course you still need to somehow handle sound inputs changing (jack switch or cable reconnecting or some mixer board).

Drivers and tools:
- PCIset for Yamaha DSP version changing and magic value, dont worry its only for 1 boot session
- font fix *.sys added, it fixing font in few games as Simcity and some setups on some cards - because vesa consorcium actually recommended its address for something else and created that patch.. more details: https://www.uwe-sieber.de/util_e.html
- added ETHERDRV for Dos pure box ethernet packet driver, for now only 2 are there but it will change in future, i started fiddling with that..
- mTCP dos TCPIP networking stack added
- freeDos Devload for load of *.sys drivers without Config.sys was added

ESS-Solo1 at home, it seems to that is not working with X58, i will post details in PCI soundcards-chisets compatibility thread.