Do you have guys any experiences with DOS sound on ASRock K7S41GX, containing SiS 963L southbridge?

Srandista wrote:

Do you have guys any experiences with DOS sound on ASRock K7S41GX, containing SiS 963L southbridge?

DDMA support seems to end somewhere between the 962 and 964 series of southbridges. I could run the YMF744 and ALS4000 in DDMA mode on the 962UA southbridge but noe the 964L. Unfortunately I don't know which side the 963L happens to be. Both for the YMF744 and ALS 4000 I used the initializers located here: http://vsynchmame.mameworld.info/

Ensoniq and Creative range off PCI cards will work but here you got a TSR running in the background.

Kamerat: didn't you try also ESS Solo-1 in DOS?

I have Live! 5.1, what do you mean by running TSR in the background?

canthearu wrote:

Srandista wrote:

biessea: I don't want to be rude or something like that, but why are you so fixed on nForce boards? You're obviously not using SLI config with those, and they're otherwise notoriously hostile for retro (or rather DOS) purposes. Again, as LSS10999 mentioned, there aren't any legacy capabilities provided with that chipset and you won't be able to use any PCI sound card to its full potential in DOS. And all of this is easily findable with quick Google search (in fact, "nforce dos legacy audio" query would point you directly to this topic as a 1st search result).

Absolutely, I wasn't even able to get EMM386 to create upper memory blocks on my nforce 2 board (Asus A7N8X or something like that).

I'll bring the motherboard back up again to give it another go with the vortex 2 if Biessea would like me to try, but really, if you want to use DOS on an Athlon XP cpu, you are much better off with one of the VIA based motherboards. Everything just works a lot better on those.

Oh God, if you really can do this for me I really will appreciate a lot.

Cause I am searching ONE and I say ONE audio card to make it work on Real Dos.
I succeded on finding a motherboard with gameport working (This Asus A7N8X Deluxe) and now I would love to try to have Dos music and sfx. Cause a lot of games doesn't work with PC Speaker. And I simply don't want to leave this Dos Project that I have begin some months ago.

I really appreciate any help, on this FINAL step.

Thanks a lot

The Aureal Vortex 2 doesn't give any DOS compatibility on my nforce 2 board, in windows or in DOS. Board is Asus A7N8X-X

No matter what PCI slot I used, I get the following message during booting of Windows 98 SE:

With nothing other than the main Sound Device being detected (No DOS support or joystick support)

Booting into DOS mode reveals the following screen.

Does anyone have any suggestions to get this to work. I will download and try the very latest drivers, and do a bit more messing around to try to get it work, but I'm not particularly hopeful

That kind of chipset requires disabling of pci bus detection during install. Do a search online, it requires editing the inf file. Phil has a driver package with that change preapplied I think.

https://www.philscomputerlab.com/aureal-vortex-2.html

https://www.philscomputerlab.com/uploads/3/7/ … _pci_detect.zip

Use this driver if you get a message Your Vortex adapter is not plugged into the primary PCI bus. This will also install Sound Blaster drivers for command promt and MS-DOS mode.​ Includes all the A3D demo rooms.

I never understood with people are using Windows 98 better than nothing fallback Dos mode, instead proper Dos boot, i never had good experience with it.

Otherwise my drivers and configs package is still valid:
X58/i865/V880 - Yamaha7x4/AurealV1/2 pure Dos7.1- compatibility list/research/ultim. drivers configs, WIP- gurus needed

ruthan wrote:

I never understood with people are using Windows 98 better than nothing fallback Dos mode, instead proper Dos boot, i never had good experience with it.

Otherwise my drivers and configs package is still valid:
X58/i865/V880 - Yamaha7x4/AurealV1/2 pure Dos7.1- compatibility list/research/ultim. drivers configs, WIP- gurus needed

I don't understand what you mean by this, but running DOS programs in Windows 98 has several benefits the biggest of which for me is being able to use Win32 soft synths.

Ok, i've tried the pci_no_detect drivers, with the following results:

In windows:
a) All parts of the drivers are loaded. I originally had a bluescreen error when it tried to load the SB PRO emulation - but I was able to fix this by reserving IRQ 5 in the bios.
b) In windows, DOS programs can seemingly reliably play digital sound. But FM and General Midi do not work at all.

In Pure DOS:
a) The AU30DOS driver reports that it is loaded and SB emulation is enabled.
b) However, none of the emulated SB PRO functions of the sound card work. Attempting digital audio often casues the machine to lock up.

If anyone else has any solutions that might improve things on this generally retro hostile motherboard, I'm prepared to try them.

Hey there,
I found the Turtle Beach form a user that want to sell it.
The exact chip number is this one : au8830a2

So this is a Vortex 2 sound card.

Is this possible to make it work with my Nforce2 chipset on my Asus a7n8x deluxe?

Doesn't matter about gameport cause I have the bracket directly supported by the motherboard.

But I just read upper that a user didn't figure out to make it work on Nforce2 chipset.

I will buy from this user if you say that I could have dos sound working.

Aureal Vortex 2 compatibility was mentioned by someone else, i cant say a thing, but if something would work, so its this card.. its good to have one for all other boards.
At least it would working in Windows 98 for sure even this MB.

About gamepad, im quite sure that gameport its working through sound card drivers, so you should disable you on board stuff, so you would have to connected joystick to Aureal card.

I personally haven't managed to get it working on Vortex 2 (AU8830), though in theory it should if conditions are met.

I only had success with original Vortex (AU8820). Its DOS driver worked as intended on nForce/ICH6+. You may consider trying that.

If your motherboard can wire port 200h to your onboard port then joystick should work fine there, and you probably needs to disable/redirect your card's gameport to avoid a resource conflict.

Srandista wrote:

Kamerat: didn't you try also ESS Solo-1 in DOS?

I have Live! 5.1, what do you mean by running TSR in the background?

I'm not having much success with ESS Solo-1 running on SiS chipsets.

The Live! requires a TSR/driver running in the background breaking compatibility with some games, best option for PCI sound using Sound Blaster emulation under DOS are using DDMA or PC/PCI that doesn't need any TSR but it requires the motherboard and chipset to support it.

LSS10999 wrote:

I personally haven't managed to get it working on Vortex 2 (AU8830), though in theory it should if conditions are met.

I only had success with original Vortex (AU8820). Its DOS driver worked as intended on nForce/ICH6+. You may consider trying that.

If your motherboard can wire port 200h to your onboard port then joystick should work fine there, and you probably needs to disable/redirect your card's gameport to avoid a resource conflict.

If the motherboard you got it working on had the ICH6+ southbridge, that is a whole different kettle of fish to a pure Nforce 2 machine, as the vortex card is interacting with the ICH6+ rather than the nforce part.

biessea wrote:

Hey there, I found the Turtle Beach form a user that want to sell it. The exact chip number is this one : au8830a2 […]
Show full quote

Hey there,
I found the Turtle Beach form a user that want to sell it.
The exact chip number is this one : au8830a2

So this is a Vortex 2 sound card.

Is this possible to make it work with my Nforce2 chipset on my Asus a7n8x deluxe?

Doesn't matter about gameport cause I have the bracket directly supported by the motherboard.

But I just read upper that a user didn't figure out to make it work on Nforce2 chipset.

I will buy from this user if you say that I could have dos sound working.

Your experience will probably be similar to mine if it. It would work fine for windows software, but for dos software, I could only get digital sound working while running under windows, not in pure DOS.

So partial success.

canthearu wrote:

biessea wrote:

Hey there, I found the Turtle Beach form a user that want to sell it. The exact chip number is this one : au8830a2 […]
Show full quote

Hey there,
I found the Turtle Beach form a user that want to sell it.
The exact chip number is this one : au8830a2

So this is a Vortex 2 sound card.

Is this possible to make it work with my Nforce2 chipset on my Asus a7n8x deluxe?

Doesn't matter about gameport cause I have the bracket directly supported by the motherboard.

But I just read upper that a user didn't figure out to make it work on Nforce2 chipset.

I will buy from this user if you say that I could have dos sound working.

Your experience will probably be similar to mine if it. It would work fine for windows software, but for dos software, I could only get digital sound working while running under windows, not in pure DOS.

So partial success.

Oh God.

So another bad news here.

Someone write here that on nforce2 chipset aureal vortex 2 was the only card that work, i'm interested obviously in DOS, for Windows I can use if I want my integrated sound card.

Does your integrated soundcard have a decent FM Synthesis though? The Vortex2 lets you play (acceptable) SB Pro compatible music for DOS games under Win9x, so that's still something.

appiah4 wrote:

Does your integrated soundcard have a decent FM Synthesis though? The Vortex2 lets you play (acceptable) SB Pro compatible music for DOS games under Win9x, so that's still something.

I don't know... The only thing that I need is to use this vortex2 under real dos... I have an hard disk with dos and I have to try to load drivers under dos, I hope to find a guide or something. But what I read before make me feel sad, as I can't succeed my task. 🙁

biessea wrote:

appiah4 wrote:

Does your integrated soundcard have a decent FM Synthesis though? The Vortex2 lets you play (acceptable) SB Pro compatible music for DOS games under Win9x, so that's still something.

I don't know... The only thing that I need is to use this vortex2 under real dos... I have an hard disk with dos and I have to try to load drivers under dos, I hope to find a guide or something. But what I read before make me feel sad, as I can't succeed my task. 🙁

It's an nvidia chipset, they were never particularly compatible with even contemporary hardware.

Your best bet is to go with a VIA motherboard instead if you have to go for a Socket A build.

appiah4 wrote:

biessea wrote:

appiah4 wrote:

Does your integrated soundcard have a decent FM Synthesis though? The Vortex2 lets you play (acceptable) SB Pro compatible music for DOS games under Win9x, so that's still something.

I don't know... The only thing that I need is to use this vortex2 under real dos... I have an hard disk with dos and I have to try to load drivers under dos, I hope to find a guide or something. But what I read before make me feel sad, as I can't succeed my task. 🙁

It's an nvidia chipset, they were never particularly compatible with even contemporary hardware.

Your best bet is to go with a VIA motherboard instead if you have to go for a Socket A build.

Another time I repeat that I want to remain with my Asus a7n8x deluxe and Nvidia chipset. I cannot believe there isn't a method to make a pci audio card working in dos environment.

I have no words.