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Reply 240 of 486, by dr.zeissler

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I did lots of testing with my older ScoveryXS i815e P3-600/133FSB with EssSolo1-PCI for DOS.
For soundplayer I can recommend glx http://www.dcee.net/Files/Music/Player/glx212.arj for MOD and InhertiaPlayer http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=29208 for MOD/S3M, for MP3 under plain DOS only qvpro261 http://multimediaware.com/qv/index.html works, all others fail and I tested about 20-30 different dos-soundplayers.
Don't know what qvpro261 uses as driver for PCI soundcards, would be nice if other problematic soundengines in that setup would use that same method too.

btw: the other version "qv103b" is my standard picture-viewer within plain dos on older machines. It is able to display a 1024x768 @ 256colors TGA Image on a AmigaBB with 286/8Mhz 1MB RAM with a standard ET4000/1MB within 1-2 Seconds! thats REALLY FAST!

Does anyone have tested soundplayers on plain dos with PCI-Soundcards too?

Retro-Gamer 😀 ...on different machines

Reply 241 of 486, by RayeR

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I just tried this players on Yamaha YMF724 PCI (with DSDMA loaded):
Open Cubic Player 2.6.0 - hangs at play
Digital Sound System version 3.-1 - OK
Impulse Tracker 2.14 - OK
Inertia Player 1.20 - OK
TetraMED 1.15 - OK
FastTracker 2.12 - failed to load due DPMI error
XTC-Play 0.97 - hangs at startup

But I mostly use MpxPlay and Mplayer with native SB Audigy driver

Gigabyte GA-P67-DS3-B3, Core i7-2600K @4,5GHz, 8GB DDR3, 128GB SSD, GTX970(GF7900GT), SB Audigy + YMF724F + DreamBlaster combo + LPC2ISA

Reply 242 of 486, by LSS10999

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dr.zeissler wrote:
I did lots of testing with my older ScoveryXS i815e P3-600/133FSB with EssSolo1-PCI for DOS. For soundplayer I can recommend glx […]
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I did lots of testing with my older ScoveryXS i815e P3-600/133FSB with EssSolo1-PCI for DOS.
For soundplayer I can recommend glx http://www.dcee.net/Files/Music/Player/glx212.arj for MOD and InhertiaPlayer http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=29208 for MOD/S3M, for MP3 under plain DOS only qvpro261 http://multimediaware.com/qv/index.html works, all others fail and I tested about 20-30 different dos-soundplayers.
Don't know what qvpro261 uses as driver for PCI soundcards, would be nice if other problematic soundengines in that setup would use that same method too.

btw: the other version "qv103b" is my standard picture-viewer within plain dos on older machines. It is able to display a 1024x768 @ 256colors TGA Image on a AmigaBB with 286/8Mhz 1MB RAM with a standard ET4000/1MB within 1-2 Seconds! thats REALLY FAST!

Does anyone have tested soundplayers on plain dos with PCI-Soundcards too?

Not sure about other players, but QuickView Pro has its own driver for a select amount of PCI and onboard audio cards, similar to MPXPlay. As such, the audio cards are accessed without involving legacy modules or emulations, when using those DOS players.

Not sure if Ruslan (the author of QV's PCI Sound Card driver, and the PCI sound-enabled HX-DOS Extender) is still active, though, as his sites were last updated in 2016.

Reply 243 of 486, by dr.zeissler

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I have read that too, but I don't need to download that driver, or it is included in the actual exe-file?
It works out of the box if I only use the actual executable only.

Retro-Gamer 😀 ...on different machines

Reply 244 of 486, by ruthan

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I got ICH7 MB - Intel 975X / ICH7RPCIe - Asus P5W64 WS Professional (4x PCI-E long + 2x PCI, C2D Quad, 4x DDR2 up to 8 GB), so tested sound card compatibility:
- Yamaha 744 is working,Vortex V1 is working. ESS-Solo 1 not (Doom2 registry error). Audigy - FM only. ALS4000 - FM only. Fortmedia 801 - FM only.

Results are as expected only Yamahas and Vortexes are working, nothing else.

Im old goal oriented goatman, i care about facts and freedom, not about egos+prejudices. Hoarding=sickness. If you want respect, gain it by your behavior. I hate stupid SW limits, SW=virtual world, everything should be possible if you have enough raw HW.

Reply 246 of 486, by Revolter

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An update to my ESS Solo-1 compatibility list:

  • Added Descent to Undermountain - the sound engine is the same as with Descent 1 & 2 (it even uses the same test MIDI file);

    Added Earthworm Jim 1 - the sound engine is apparently identical to the EWJ2;

    Removed Wing Commander: Privateer - the problem turned out to be the RAM size (severe audio glitches may occur with >16Mb). Otherwise works perfectly with standard TDMA mode, and I have completed this game and its expansion from start to finish like that without a hitch;

    Quarantine is now compatible - patched/later versions of the game (I'm using the European edition - the one with the choice of languages upon start-up) work great with DOS/32A and a very specific slowdown level. The main problem with this game for me was that it's been constantly and randomly crashing, despite the perfectly working sound. Turns out the crashes only occur when the slowdown is too high - as in <25 FPS. I'm now using "Throttle.exe -c 6" command instead of "-c 7", and it didn't crash once ever since, and the Sound Blaster setting also works like it should. Success! Also the 1.0 version crashes no matter what, and the Demo version works perfectly even with TDMA and without DOS/32A;

    Turrican II is now compatible - the problem was a broken scene release. With proper version everything now works. Note that the sound init is speed-sensitive.

Only 2 games to go - if it is even possible 😀 I'll still try, though.

Celeron 800, 512MB, GeForce2 MX, ES1938S/DB S2, Windows ME/DOS 6.22

Reply 248 of 486, by ruthan

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ESS-Solo 1 driver is running in realmode, but further its about chipset compatibility, i tested only with VIA 880 and sound was broken.. ESS-Solo 1 is probably good card, for much other chipsets. Turican II is extreme case, because so far it failed with all modern chipsets and sound cards which i tested.

Im old goal oriented goatman, i care about facts and freedom, not about egos+prejudices. Hoarding=sickness. If you want respect, gain it by your behavior. I hate stupid SW limits, SW=virtual world, everything should be possible if you have enough raw HW.

Reply 249 of 486, by Revolter

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ruthan wrote:

Turican II is extreme case, because so far it failed with all modern chipsets and sound cards which i tested.

Yeah, this port and its cracked releases are a mess.

There are several versions of Turrican II floating around on the Internet. The game looks for the TURRICAN.CFG file upon start-up in order to output the sound. If it doesn't find it - there'll be no sound at all (and in some cases - no graphics).

The problem with it is that it looks for the configuration file in a very specific spot. The one version that worked for me, for instance, needs the TURRICAN.CFG to reside in the C:\TURRICAN\ folder along with the rest of the game files. Once the file is configured (I've attached mine) and loaded - there is perfect stereo goodness even without the need to slow the computer down each time.

Another update

I've managed to run Death Rally in Windows with decent sound by choosing the SB16 option 😀 By "decent" I mean that it is not perfect: when first started, the music in the main menu is glitchy at first (though it gets better over time), and during the races there is some unpleasant random crackling present. I think it's good enough for me, but I still consider it "incompatible".

Attachments

  • Filename
    TURRICAN.CFG
    File size
    888 Bytes
    Downloads
    68 downloads
    File license
    Fair use/fair dealing exception
Last edited by Revolter on 2019-01-17, 16:57. Edited 2 times in total.

Celeron 800, 512MB, GeForce2 MX, ES1938S/DB S2, Windows ME/DOS 6.22

Reply 250 of 486, by ruthan

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I dont thing that i have this problem, configuration is found, sound is playing only is broken on newer chipsets..

Im old goal oriented goatman, i care about facts and freedom, not about egos+prejudices. Hoarding=sickness. If you want respect, gain it by your behavior. I hate stupid SW limits, SW=virtual world, everything should be possible if you have enough raw HW.

Reply 251 of 486, by dr.zeissler

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@REVOLTER what about Duke3D, Blood, Rott, Swarrior ?

I put the ESSOLO back in the XS (i815e) and found another compatiblity fix for some demosceene-intros that before went back to a "failsafe" by using the pc-speaker instead of choosing the sbpro at 220 irq5.
I have to put the esssolo.com in the root of c: (before I placed it into a subfolder (Tools/Drivers/Audio/ESSDRV) and it MUST be loaded first in the autoexec.bat.
Then lots of intros find it that got back to pc-speaker before.

I'll test Turrican this weekend...

Retro-Gamer 😀 ...on different machines

Reply 252 of 486, by tpowell.ca

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Trying to catch up here.
Is the PC/PCI connector the same as the SB-Link connector?

Also, on these (or any other card), how does the SB-Link connection work? By this I mean, are TSRs or special settings needed to enable it?
I'm guessing DDMA is a software alternative?

Thanks

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Reply 253 of 486, by RayeR

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Revolter wrote:

The one version that worked for me, for instance, needs the TURRICAN.CFG to reside in the C:\TURRICAN\ folder along with the rest of the game files.

If there is hardcoded visible path in game EXE file it's usually simple to replace it in hexaeditor (string is shorted and padded with 0 to original length).

Gigabyte GA-P67-DS3-B3, Core i7-2600K @4,5GHz, 8GB DDR3, 128GB SSD, GTX970(GF7900GT), SB Audigy + YMF724F + DreamBlaster combo + LPC2ISA

Reply 254 of 486, by Revolter

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dr.zeissler wrote:

@REVOLTER what about Duke3D, Blood, Rott, Swarrior ?

Thanks for mentioning ROTT - I've overlooked it for some reason. On my system it doesn't work with TDMA, but works wonderfully with both the WBDMA in DOS and the Windows WDM driver. UPD.: I also forgot about Dune 2 - it only works in TDMA with a PCI sound patch.

Duke3D and other games using this engine don't work properly even in WBDMA mode (they crash or freeze at some point), but do work fine in Windows.

dr.zeissler wrote:

I have to put the esssolo.com in the root of c: (before I placed it into a subfolder (Tools/Drivers/Audio/ESSDRV) and it MUST be loaded first in the autoexec.bat.
Then lots of intros find it that got back to pc-speaker before.

Glad you keep adding titles to your own compatibility list 😀 Have you tried using just the batch file Kamerat made, without the official driver? It doesn't need any of the ESS stuff (but you can still use the mixer), since essolo.com (apparently) does just the same: changes the card's PCI registers to get it going in pure DOS.

RayeR wrote:

If there is hardcoded visible path in game EXE file it's usually simple to replace it in hexaeditor (string is shorted and padded with 0 to original length).

Yeah, but judging by the various messy Turrican II releases - it looks like the game was tough to crack. Another game like that - Rayman - comes to mind: the .NFO mentions the executables had 14 points where they check for CD, and the resulting rip also has some weird folder structure to imitate CD-to-HDD relationship.

tpowell.ca wrote:

Is the PC/PCI connector the same as the SB-Link connector?

Yes, it's the same thing.

tpowell.ca wrote:

Also, on these (or any other card), how does the SB-Link connection work? By this I mean, are TSRs or special settings needed to enable it?
I'm guessing DDMA is a software alternative?

In short: yes, both the DDMA and PC/PCI serve the same purpose of directing the ISA signals to PCI cards - but one is a software solution, and the other is the hardware one. Dunno about other cards, but with Solo-1 you can force the PC/PCI (like any other) mode directly and without TSR's, but it is likely to autodetect it anyway.

Celeron 800, 512MB, GeForce2 MX, ES1938S/DB S2, Windows ME/DOS 6.22

Reply 255 of 486, by dr.zeissler

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@REVOLTER => what chipset are you using, what CPU-power? (I use i815e PIII600Mhz ScoveryXS D1215 micro-desktop with 3dfx-Voodoo1)
here you can see the "b" machine, which has a Tualatin 1400 and a Radeon 7000 PCI https://www.flickr.com/photos/94839221@N05/al … 157704435152934
(btw. I have to take some pictures of my main machine. which is exactly the same but equiped with PIII/600/133 and Voodoo1 see above)

Thx for mentioning the "crackeling-sound" issue. It's not an ESS-only bug. It's because of the much too fast CPU.

Pinball-Dreams1 works with "adlib" choosen on ESS-Solo1 (has no crackeling sound afair)
Pinball-Dreams2 works with "adlib" but has crackeling-sounds over >300Mhz (the celeron300 on my ScenicC6 is the last cpu that does not make this crackeling-sound) (adlib is worse then sb/sbpro, but sb/sb-pro only produce tick,tick,tick on ess-solo1)
Pinball-Fantasies same as Pinball-Dreams2
Epic-Pinball does not work with ess-solo on my setup
(btw. these Pinball-Games do not work within startet win9x)
Don't know how silverball and pinball illusions do react to ess-solo.
Tombraider1 (3Dfx) does not work with Solo1 actual.

Extreme-Pinball does not work at all. It does start within Win9x, but I do not have sound at all. (even with the WDM-Drivers)
I like the VXD-Drivers more, because they support FM which the WDM-Drivers do not and mostly the DreamblasterS2 is also not usable with WDM-Drivers, so I am stuck with "microsoft midi-software-soundfont", but this soundfont is not that bad. The later wdm-drivers do support the DreamsblasterS2 on my ESS-solo1 but this support is buggy...mostly only one game works. Then I will have to restart the machine.

btw. crackeling sounds. The Fasttracker 2x produces also crackeling-sounds but this is due to the soundengine updated between older and later versions. There are versions that do not make this crackeling sounds. Sometimes it can help to unload the mouse-driver (I use ctm-de 1.9) before starting a game or demo. don't know why that is.

Doc

Retro-Gamer 😀 ...on different machines

Reply 256 of 486, by Revolter

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dr.zeissler wrote:

what chipset are you using, what CPU-power?

I'm using almost the same config 😀 It's in my forum signature (what's not in there is the motherboard model - DFI CS32-TC), and I also sometimes swap the CPU between the Celeron 800/128/100 and a Pentium III 600/256/133 - comparing their behavior and trying to choose the best one of the two. So far the Celly proved to be better for my purposes (it's slow enough for ancient games on FSB 66 + Throttling, and it can overclock to 1066 Mhz by simply engaging the FSB 133 instead of FSB 100 - which keeps the other components cool and safe on stock frequencies, unlike when you overclock a PIII 600EB past its FSB 133).

I'm not sure what's so different about our configs that the same workarounds don't work on yours. Mine is a pretty default and unmodified: I'm using a separate DOS 6.22 partition and the latest official Windows ME build without any further updates; the WDM driver is bone stock and comes from the setup, so I'm not even installing that manually. The only thing I do is specify the Solo-1's MPU-401 module as the General MIDI source instead of the Windows' own GM font, which is selected by default.

Regarding the Pinball series - I'll check them later today more thoroughly and will update the list accordingly, but, just before going for work today, I've tried Epic Pinball and Extreme Pinball - and they both worked beautifully in Windows and with "Sound Blaster (Mono)" setting, albeit with soft crackling noise in the background (but this is a very light case of it, compared to games like OMF2097 or Super Star Wars - but at least in those the crackling is consistent and not random like in Death Rally - which is much less bearable IMO). Not sure if it's indeed the fast CPU that's causing it, because when I slow it down via Throttle.exe - it behaves like earlier-generation CPUs (XT, 386, slow and fast 486, Pentium, Pentium II) properly and 100% of the time. And with the Pinball games the crackling is the same with or without a slowdown - at least on my system.

dr.zeissler wrote:

Tombraider1 (3Dfx) does not work with Solo1 actual.

My case is too small to host a Voodoo1, unfortunately (although I have one and can use it via a PCI cable extender should the need arise). Does the regular non-accelerated DOS Tomb Raider 1 work for you, though?

dr.zeissler wrote:

DreamblasterS2 is also not usable with WDM-Drivers

I've also experienced this when I tried to install them separately - after uninstalling the VxD drivers. Have you tried using the WinME's built-in WDM drivers that install automatically with the clean OS? If you intend to use Windows 98SE, I'm afraid I have no idea how to fix the WDM drivers there.

Celeron 800, 512MB, GeForce2 MX, ES1938S/DB S2, Windows ME/DOS 6.22

Reply 257 of 486, by dr.zeissler

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It sounded to good to be real and it's unfortunately not. It does not make a difference if I see the init-dialog in t2 or not.
The WBDMA does fix the strange sounding music, but the music plays to slow (10%-20%) and the game hangs after a view seconds 🙁

Thx for the advice with the WDM-Drivers that are installed within winME, I'll keep up testing them.

Retro-Gamer 😀 ...on different machines

Reply 258 of 486, by Revolter

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dr.zeissler wrote:

The WBDMA does fix the strange sounding music, but the music plays to slow (10%-20%) and the game hangs after a view seconds 🙁

Sounds like and IRQ conflict. Are you sure the IRQ is the same in DOS, Turrican.cfg and in your WBDMA script?

I've tried all the pinball games you mentioned, and the picture on my system is as follows (using the WDBMA trick):

Pinball Dreams - FM and SB work and sound the same
Pinball Dreams 2 - FM and SB work, but SB sounds much better
Pinball Fantasies - FM works, SB doesn't work
Epic Pinball - nothing in DOS, SB works in Windows
Extreme Pinball - nothing in DOS, SB works in Windows
Silverball - doesn't work properly at all (nothing in DOS, glitchy in Windows)

So there are now 3 incompatible games, including Silverball %)

Celeron 800, 512MB, GeForce2 MX, ES1938S/DB S2, Windows ME/DOS 6.22

Reply 259 of 486, by dr.zeissler

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I used your stuff. Perhaps I forgot something? My solo is at 220/5/1. perhaps I should make a clean boot without anything and use pciset as a batch? I'll test that...

FM means adlib?

On my machine:
PinballDreams - Does not work with SB chosen, only with adlib
Pinball Dreams 2 - Does not work with SB chosen, only with adlib (throttle -c c for less crackeling noises)
Pinball Fantasies - Does not work with SB chosen, only with adlib (throttle -c c for less crackeling noises)
Epic Pinball - runs stuttering within windows, scrolling not smooth!
Extreme Pinball - nothing in DOS, SB works in Windows = you are right, sb-mono works
Silverball - works on my machine, but needs additional testing...

We should always write in what config we are testing. I'll upload my config.sys/autoexec.bat later.
Btw. the Pinball games require only himem on my setup. with loaded emm386 they freeze.

Retro-Gamer 😀 ...on different machines