Plasma wrote:

http://arstech.com/install/ecom-catshow/usb2.0.html

Thanks for link, could you just add some more info? If just googled it, or if you have some personal experience with it, or reference? More info about compatibility, if is working in DOS etc?

Update: I just read description its XP+ / MacOS 10.7 / Linux 3.x + so its probably nice for some industry cards.. but i dont see too much point to use ISA soundcard in WinXP, unless you are some musician.. because XP already have deprecated Dos, maybe it could be somehow pass through to DosBox.. maybe not.
In description is that there is some software needed to install and some SDK..
I also worth to mention that is 130-200$ stuff, for such money, maybe we can thing about whole small PC solution, as is this for midi from Falcosoft, if latence could be good enough for emulation SB.. I dont know which bandwidth is needed for SB emulation, but regarding of Rayers info General midi requirements are very low - 31 250 bauds.

But the is FAQ with this info:
- Do I need to load a driver for the ISA card?
There is a variety of isa software - 16 bit for dos, 32 bit for Windows nt, 98 . With 32bit software you will need to load the isa driver. If you have a standard device like a modem for ex. - you need to modify the .inf file and load the driver for it.
We can not guarantee the work of usb2isa under all the combinations of isa hardware and software , computer hardware and operating system .
Im not quite sure, what it means? Does it means that for 8bit and 16bit stuff you dont need driver so it could work in DOS, you would able to speed some data through USB controller in DOS? Maybe it could be implemented through its SDK, if it could be ported to DOS (longshot). Or maybe you can instead USB use LPT.. Other option would be create own PCI-E or PCI to USB adapter, similar to them which are used by PCI-E to PCI adapter, they working fine without any driver in DOS, at least for NICs, Videocards.

BTW i wonder why LPT soundcards like this from Serdashop are only FM + Adlib, if there is some HW limitation which blocks to add SB FX, or problem is "just" in software which would have to be developed..

BTW DOS Virtual machine - with Vmware or Virtualbox, not have DosBox speed problem, but again there is SW wall, because Vmware DOS sound card implementation is imcomplete (FX or FM, but not both totger) for more than 5+ years.. and maybe will me never completed.

The USB to ISA adapters just provide a USB interface to use ISA signals. They are expensive because they are produced in such small numbers, however for such a device like this commercially produced they are actually very cheap. Your idea to get an ISA card running on a modern computer is not something you will be able to do cheaply!

They only support XP/MacOS/Linux because that's all the platforms they have written drivers for. You can make this device work in DOS, but you will need to write your own drivers.

ruthan wrote:

BTW i wonder why LPT soundcards like this from Serdashop are only FM + Adlib, if there is some HW limitation which blocks to add SB FX, or problem is "just" in software which would have to be developed..

The LPT port is too slow for this. There are sound devices (Covox etc.) that can produce digital sound via LPT but the quality is very poor and they have very high CPU usage because there is no DMA. The reason why the popular sound cards were ISA at the time was because DMA allowed sound effects to be played with enough CPU power left over to run the game itself.

LSS10999 wrote:

PCI cards will work on a PCIe-PCI bridged port. However, as others (like Kamerat) pointed out, without Subtractive Decode, the legacy functionalities of those audio cards (usually provided by VxD driver) will not work even on Windows (such as MIDI on 330h, and in YMF7x4's case, native OPL3 FM on 388h, which is also provided by Windows XP built-in DS-1 driver), unless they could be mapped to an area above the card's base I/O address. For audio cards that don't have many powerful features (such as A3D or EAX), this makes them no different than using onboard audio.

And as such, the probability to get SB16 Emulation of SBLive! working on a recent PCIe chipset is close to zero.

The SBLive SB16 emulation is literally just that - it is not a compatibility mode like with other cards, it is full on emulation done entirely in software. The card itself does not listen to any traditional I/O ports or IRQs. It uses a protected-mode DOS driver to capture port writes and converts this to native PCI commands to the SBLive. There is no OPL chip so the FM support is also emulated in software. There should be no problem running the SB16 emulation on any modern chipset as no special hardware support is required on that side of things.

LSS10999 wrote:

DOSBox (at least official versions) probably cannot emulate CPU to the point that would 100% match the behavior of a real one (opcodes, clock timings, bugs and quirks, etc.), so not all games are equally compatible (according to the compatibility list). Provided the SB16 emulation of SBLive! works without issues, you can probably avoid some CPU/speed related issues on some "well-behaved" games that never had issues even when running on the fastest real PCs (that is, with proper speed handling and without abusing CPU bugs or quirks).

The SBLive's SB16 emulation is not the best. It works well enough with well-behaved games, but if I had to choose between DOSBox or SBLive with DOS drivers, I'd choose DOSBox. It does a much better job of emulating the SB16 and the OPL synth is way more accurate. The SBLive's emulated OPL synth is not very faithful to the original. The SB16 emulation also has to run in protected mode in order to capture all the I/O port accesses, which means games like Zone 66 that use their own protected-mode memory manager can't be run at all. DOSBox has no such problem, so if you're going to use emulation, DOSBox does a much better job of it than the SBLive DOS drivers do.

Malvineous wrote:

Your idea to get an ISA card running on a modern computer is not something you will be able to do cheaply!

I thing that i premature talk about price when we dont have any solution at all.. I only pointed out that ISA to USB adapters arent so cheap that i would just order them and give them a try without any deeper research and hope that it will work.

Malvineous wrote:

The card itself does not listen to any traditional I/O ports or IRQs. It uses a protected-mode DOS driver to capture port writes and converts this to native PCI commands to the SBLive. There is no OPL chip so the FM support is also emulated in software. There should be no problem running the SB16 emulation on any modern chipset as no special hardware support is required on that side of things.

There is some blocker, because so far as i know, you would be first who would be able to make PCI sound card working with PCI-E adapter. I tried SB live! with my adapters and not sound at all in DOS.

Back to realm of lofty ideas.. USB Dos implementation, i understand it is hard to implement fully Dos USB, because of zillion possible devices.. but something like USB sound card in my simple view not looks like something too complex, i essence you just need device would be catch some PCI bus requests for sound card resend them to USB device capable receive some data packets, do some processing send output in analog from to jack output or in digital form to some reiever or Digital to Analog box.. which would be connected to speaker.

I dont mind if some best suited for DOS PCI (through PCIeToPCI adater)/PCI-E USB controller would be part of solution, to mitigate necessity of make it working on multiple different USB controllers.

BTW if someone thing that could be capable of developing such device, we can do our small Kickstarter like campaign, as is here typical for similar projects, i understand that is not possible guarantee the result, i "only" expecting some honest effort, some basic plan analysis with milestones (biggest contains to solve) and some open documentation / source code.. to let possibility someone else to continue with sucked / failed project.

No denying - the Xigmatek isn't a 'looker' 😲

Problem with all these large tower cases is that they tend to target the extreme cooling community so they'll have multiple radiator cooling vents. Probably the cleanest look is going to be something from Lian Li - they even have one, the PC-A79 with 11 slots.

My favorites so far are Cooler Master - HAF X (RC-942-KKN1) + SilverStone TJ11 - original price is total nonsense.

I thing that problem come with top radiators slots, which come with BTW design and designers probably thing that is more important make more space for them than for cards. I thing that happened long time ago, before 3/4 Way SLI was dead, but true is that Nvidia SLI was always half dead, somewhere i read that its using by 300 thousands of users, that is nothing in comparision to Gpus sales.. but still before than AMD Crossfire, where im not sure that it ever worked good enough..

More me luxury in case / mother board point of view was always lots of slots.

ruthan wrote:

Thanks for link, could you just add some more info? If just googled it, or if you have some personal experience with it, or refe […]
Show full quote

Plasma wrote:

http://arstech.com/install/ecom-catshow/usb2.0.html

Thanks for link, could you just add some more info? If just googled it, or if you have some personal experience with it, or reference? More info about compatibility, if is working in DOS etc?

Update: I just read description its XP+ / MacOS 10.7 / Linux 3.x + so its probably nice for some industry cards.. but i dont see too much point to use ISA soundcard in WinXP, unless you are some musician.. because XP already have deprecated Dos, maybe it could be somehow pass through to DosBox.. maybe not.
In description is that there is some software needed to install and some SDK..
I also worth to mention that is 130-200$ stuff, for such money, maybe we can thing about whole small PC solution, as is this for midi from Falcosoft, if latence could be good enough for emulation SB.. I dont know which bandwidth is needed for SB emulation, but regarding of Rayers info General midi requirements are very low - 31 250 bauds.

But the is FAQ with this info:
- Do I need to load a driver for the ISA card?
There is a variety of isa software - 16 bit for dos, 32 bit for Windows nt, 98 . With 32bit software you will need to load the isa driver. If you have a standard device like a modem for ex. - you need to modify the .inf file and load the driver for it.
We can not guarantee the work of usb2isa under all the combinations of isa hardware and software , computer hardware and operating system .
Im not quite sure, what it means? Does it means that for 8bit and 16bit stuff you dont need driver so it could work in DOS, you would able to speed some data through USB controller in DOS? Maybe it could be implemented through its SDK, if it could be ported to DOS (longshot). Or maybe you can instead USB use LPT.. Other option would be create own PCI-E or PCI to USB adapter, similar to them which are used by PCI-E to PCI adapter, they working fine without any driver in DOS, at least for NICs, Videocards.

BTW i wonder why LPT soundcards like this from Serdashop are only FM + Adlib, if there is some HW limitation which blocks to add SB FX, or problem is "just" in software which would have to be developed..

BTW DOS Virtual machine - with Vmware or Virtualbox, not have DosBox speed problem, but again there is SW wall, because Vmware DOS sound card implementation is imcomplete (FX or FM, but not both totger) for more than 5+ years.. and maybe will me never completed.

I posted the link because it's exactly what Malvineous described. It exists and you can buy it today. You complain about the cost, but consider how much time alone you would invest in developing this yourself. $150 is chump change. Actually there is one on ebay for $70 right now.

I have not used it, but the user manual shows USB2ISA being used with an ISA sound card.

There are no native DOS drivers but there is a custom DOSBox build to pass the I/O through. 32-bit Windows XP will also run most DOS games if you set it up right.

All that said, I think your time and money would be better spent buying a period correct computer with real ISA slots.

Malvineous wrote:

The SBLive SB16 emulation is literally just that - it is not a compatibility mode like with other cards, it is full on emulation done entirely in software. The card itself does not listen to any traditional I/O ports or IRQs. It uses a protected-mode DOS driver to capture port writes and converts this to native PCI commands to the SBLive. There is no OPL chip so the FM support is also emulated in software. There should be no problem running the SB16 emulation on any modern chipset as no special hardware support is required on that side of things.

Unfortunately, there are some hardware requirements for SBLive! SB16 emulation, one of which would be SERR# to NMI routing. Back then RayeR managed to get it enabled on ICH7, but the result is the same as most other PCI DOS solutions: only FM/Adlib worked, FX did not work.

It might be a full emulation, but in fact it relied on some chipset quirks to achieve the functionality (similar to the way how AWE64 Gold emulated General MIDI through NMI), so it's not entirely a software solution (that is, completely independent of the underlying chipset).

I'm not sure about the ES1370 (pre-AC97), as I once heard that its documentation mentioned the card (only ES1370, not the AC97-complaint ES1371/ES1373) featured its own 8237 DMA controller, so I don't know whether the card might work under DOS or not with modern hardware. However, the AudioPCI line is no good for FM as it's emulated by the ECW as well (you could actually tinker how the music would come out by loading different ECW samples, and switching to MT-32 mode also affected FM output to some extent. However, in any case, the FM was nowhere near the quality of a real OPL3).

ONLY place on a modern motherboard to get ISA style IRQ and DMA is the LPC bus. You can get the IRQ off TPM connector but for DMA you'll have to steal it from the SuperIO chip and lose floppy and ECP port support in the process (and you have to mod the motherboard, there's no way around it).
All other solutions require special hardware support (non existent on any modern chipset) or require software solution (some TSR/driver + protected mode leading to compatibility issues with some games). Once any software enters the picture you might aswell go full software and have something that talks to the onboard HDaudio and get you your sound. FM will be a roadblock but nowdays it is possible to do nearly perfect software emulation and there's certainly enough CPU power left to spare. One could possibly even utilize any of the other cores for the emulation side so as not to impact the performance of the game itself.
Capturing DMA writes etc. isn't possible on hardware level due to those transactions not getting visible on the PCI or PCI-E bus, they go straight to LPC along with bunch of other accesses.
On some fully modern hardware that has completely dropped all the legacy devices you probably can though (no clue if such a thing exists), then there's no reason for those accesses to be treated specially and they should always be visible on PCI/PCI-E and be ready for capture by whatever hardware you stick in the slot.

In future I will make a PCI+LPC to ISA bridge but I will not be doing any sort of software solution or PCI-E stuff. I have plenty other things coming first in the todo list so this will take time too (years possibly).

Thanks for info, i have some clarification questions.

Tiido wrote:

ONLY place on a modern motherboard to get ISA style IRQ and DMA is the LPC bus. You can get the IRQ off TPM connector but for DMA you'll have to steal it from the SuperIO chip and lose floppy and ECP port support in the process (and you have to mod the motherboard, there's no way around it).

I can live easily without floppy / ECP and TPM, how complex would be mod? What about MBs without parallel port header?

Tiido wrote:

In some fully modern hardware that has completely dropped all the legacy devices you probably can though (no clue if such a thing exists), then there's no reason for those accesses to be treated specially and they should always be visible on PCI/PCI-E and be ready for capture by whatever hardware you stick in the slot.

This sounds interesting and feasible and easy to check, what exactly we need to do to check?

Tiido wrote:

In future I will make a PCI+LPC to ISA bridge but I will not be doing any sort of software solution or PCI-E stuff. I have plenty other things coming first in the todo list so this will take time too (years possibly).

Do you have idea idea abott on which chipsets it would/ wouldnt be working?

I just blatantly plundered Rayers treasure to gain more info:

Lastest MBs with ISA slots and working DMA:
DFI G7S620-N - Intel 865G / Intel ICH,5, P4 only (there is some unofficial Core 2 bios - im not sure about its state)- https://www.dreamhardware.com/mb-g7s620-n-int … 050g-19149.html manual -If im not wrong Parus and Tiido have this MB and confirmed that ISA sound is working.
Portwell RUBY-9719VG2AR - intel G41 / ICH7R (up to Core 2 Quad) - https://www.portwell.com.tw/download/sbc/cata … y-9719vg2ar.pdf There is Fintek F85226FG bridge - which supports ISA DMA, but you have to enable it throug some Tiido (i heard somewhere about this guy:) utility (link needed) and SB16 is working.
MSI MS-98A9 - intel Q77 - http://ipc.msi.com/product/pages/ipc/MS-98A9.html - PCI to ISA bridge iTE IT8888G ISA DMA is not supported - so no sound card
DFI HD620-H81- intel H81- https://www.dfi.com/Product/Index/305 - PCI to ISA bridge iTE IT8888G - ISA DMA is not supported - so no sound card

Lastest MBs with PCI slots - i cant confirm anything
GA-Z170-HD3 - intel Z170 - https://www.gigabyte.com/us/Motherboard/GA-Z1 … 0-HD3-rev-10#sp // ASM1083 bridge
FUJITSU Mainboard D3446-S - intel C236 - Socket-1151 (Skylake / Kabylake) https://sp.ts.fujitsu.com/dmsp/Publications/p … DS_D3446-S.pdf/ Pericom PI7C9X118SL bridge (2017)

These 2 are long shot, i dunno it could make difference that bridge are integrated right on MB.. Pericom PI7C9X118SL is most modern bridge which i saw from 2017. If someone would work in some HW distributor and have access to these HW, or using such MBs for development it would be really not to try PCI sound cards compatibility.

I personally have only GA-Z97P-D3 there are similar GA MB even with 3x PCI (GA-Z97-D3 abd GA-H97-D3)- Bridge is ITE(i dont have it at the hand right now - update its IT8892E) . i tried lots of sound cards with it and best what i was able to squeeze from it is working FM + Adlib with ALS 4000 - but i have cheapest ALS 4000 variant - on board are very few components in comparision with proper ALS 4000 boards.. and im not really sure if DOS sound would work with any MB with it. MB has at least parallel and serial ports..

There are also some X79 MBs with PCI slot.

I added this info to first post and added new Pericom datasheet link, new one is from 2017, other are much older.

ruthan wrote:

I can live easily without floppy / ECP and TPM, how complex would be mod? What about MBs without parallel port header?

Without PS/2, LPT and/or COM ports there's usually no SuperIO chip either and thus no LPC bus use is necessary. Mod involves locating the LPC DMA request line, severing it, soldering a wire to the trace and then to the bridge that one day I'll make. It might be possible to share the DMA line so that SuperIO chip can still do DMA but I'm not sure if timings permit it.

This sounds interesting and feasible and easy to check, what exactly we need to do to check?

Lack of 8259 (PIC) and 8237 (DMA controller) on their usual addresses would be the first good sign. I don't think PIC will ever disappear, DMA controller does serve no purpose on modern hardware though and that is the most important thing for sound in DOS games.

Do you have idea idea abott on which chipsets it would/ wouldnt be working?

Anything with real PCI slots and LPC bus should work. PCI-E to PCI will likely cause complications that may on may not be overcomeable.

utility I made to enable usual IO ranges used by most SB stuff for Portwell RUBY-9719VG2AR can be found here : http://www.tmeeco.eu/TKAYBSC/

Tiido wrote:

Without PS/2, LPT and/or COM ports there's usually no SuperIO chip either and thus no LPC bus use is necessary.

All MBs linked above have at least PS/2 port, i would recommend it at least because of Windows 98 safe mode compatibility, i dunno if there is some workaround? I know that exist some PCI to PS/2 board, but i dont have any sucess reports, in comparision with LPT and Serial ports PCI, which are proven as working at least with some MBs.

Tiido wrote:

Mod involves locating the LPC DMA request line, severing it, soldering a wire to the trace and then to the bridge that one day I'll make. It might be possible to share the DMA line so that SuperIO chip can still do DMA but I'm not sure if timings permit it.

Be sure that as success would be reported, i would send you few my MBs for upgrade right away and have hunch that i would be alone:)

Tiido wrote:

Lack of 8259 (PIC) and 8237 (DMA controller) on their usual addresses would be the first good sign. I don't think PIC will ever disappear, DMA controller does serve no purpose on modern hardware though and that is the most important thing for sound in DOS games.

Ok thanks for info, is someone here capable to some testing in this area?

I moved to other of my lairs, so i could check my GA-Z97P-D3, its using ITE bridge IT8892E, same as Rayes GA-P67A-D3-B3 (if wikipedia is not lying P67 does not have Native PCI as other 6x/7x chipsets) where are Yamaha 724/744 and Aureal V1 working.. i tried same cards not luck, so there should be something else in play than only PCIe to PCI bridge type itself. I can do something wrong with testing, but im quite sure, that i dont, i able to make these cards working with other MBs.
AurealV1+V2 just freeze right with drive initialization or right after when i try execute some program, Yamaha 744 even with DSDMA.exe no sound at all.
Maybe is only ITE8892E implementation botches, or there is some HW conflict..

I thing that it would be nice to write diagnostic utility to check if MB is ready to make PCI soundcard working, if is someone able to it.. it would same lots of money some of these cards are not cheap and it would safe some disappointments..

I also checked GA-X79-UP4 - https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-X79-UP4-rev-10#ov has 1x PCI too, but it Motherboard Block Diagram is not bridge at all, and on board is not too.. in case of GA-Z97P-D3 there is bridge in block diagram i really dont know if good or bad thing and how its glues together..

checked my ex58-ud5 block diagram where are PCI sound cards working (Yamaha 744 + Aureal V1/V2, nothing else), there is also PCI slots just connected right to chipset as in X79 case, lets hope that Gigabyte block diagrams are using some logic and that it means that soundcards would work..

You could be curios why im mainly linking Gigabyte boards - there is one killer feature primary videocard slots selection - which has not only MBs expect some HP O.E. MBs afaik and this making videocard per OS much easier especially with Bios profiles per OS.. There are some urban legends as that Win98 has to use videocard in first PCI-E slot or first in order.. with these MBs its not true.

Tiido wrote:

ruthan wrote:

I can live easily without floppy / ECP and TPM, how complex would be mod? What about MBs without parallel port header?

Without PS/2, LPT and/or COM ports there's usually no SuperIO chip either and thus no LPC bus use is necessary. Mod involves locating the LPC DMA request line, severing it, soldering a wire to the trace and then to the bridge that one day I'll make. It might be possible to share the DMA line so that SuperIO chip can still do DMA but I'm not sure if timings permit it.

That would be a cool hack indeed. 😀 Would it also be possible to solder an SB-Link port to the LPC DMA request line? That would allow PCI sound cards with SB-Link support to have hardware Sound Blaster compatibility without having to use a PCI/ISA bridge.

IRQ protocol should be same on SBlink/PC-PCI connector and LPC bus (serialized IRQ) but DMA definitely works different and isn't compatible as is. It shouldn't be difficult to convert the DMA protocol though. One extra feature for that bridge I'll make : SBlink connector.

Ok, let me summarize was would mod take:
- some soldering on MB side
- lost of LPT and Serial ports functionality
- some custom PCB
- some custom chip on PCB
- SB-Link header on PCB
- some cable form MB to PCB
- PCI slot header(s) on PCB - here i wonder, if there is limit of 1 PCI slot, or we could use more.. and if you can still buy ones or you have to salvage them a what would be best source..
I see these as potentional donors cards:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Pcie-Express-PCI-E-1 … qotm:rk:21:pf:0
https://www.ebay.com/itm/2-6-FT-PCI-E-Express … kgAAOSwsXVZaysy - maybe could be possible just mod this one, remove bypas original chip a use new one .. and it could be probably cheaper without PCI-E 1x card and and USB3 cable..
- soldering lest say 50$ + plus shipping , what you say Tiido?

So in theory we can make it under ~100$ (i assume parts for $30 or less and $20 for 2xshipping in EU), what is nice much better than some overprices and hard to get Core 2 MBs with ISA.. and it make enable something faster than X58/P67 chipset.. and enable better DOS compatibility.. and enable even other than only Yamahas and Aureals on these chipsets (but even 1 working SB card would be nice).

Custom board, FPGA and ton of work (months). I will want my time to be compensated which firmly puts the thing in several thousand € range as far as cost goes, one device will not go below 100€. There is no way to reuse any of the existing things. I also will not be looking at this for year(s) to come, there are other things in the todo list that take priority.

Tiido wrote:

Custom board, FPGA and ton of work (months). I will want my time to be compensated which firmly puts the thing in several thousand € range as far as cost goes, one device will not go below 100€. There is no way to reuse any of the existing things. I also will not be looking at this for year(s) to come, there are other things in the todo list that take priority.

Ok it seemed from text before that chip thing would be quite simple, in comparison to whole sound card which you created... just some instruction translator, anyway but im still in 😀 up to 200E i make sense for me and some people dont care about such amount of money, there people with thousand dollars capture cards / video cpus / amiga accelerators there is not really alternative.. so they would probably pay what you say.., until / unless you will get some copycat..

I think than gain some money for project start in advance lets say 2,3 thoundsands euros, wouldnt be such big problem, right now i quite short of money because i broke few vertebras in last year, and im not still ok, otherwise i would invest this amount money just myself, if needed.. sd good venture capitals with some % from future big sales of course 😀

Time is bigger problem, of course.. but is nice for you to have lost of work offers and you can select between projects and escalate the price 😀

ruthan wrote:

right now i quite short of money because i broke few vertebras in last year, and im not still ok, otherwise i would invest this amount money just myself, if needed..

Get well soon, ruthan! Hobbying and retrocomputing is fun, but ultimately good health is much more important for everyone. 😀 I hope you're not having pain anymore.