DoomSlinger wrote on 2021-04-15, 03:25:

I've been having issues getting this program to find my card. I have an ES1869 card that's been integrated into the motherboard (old compaq deskpro) I add the parameter /CL and it returns two dots, I type in /R and it says it hasn't detected a pnp card. The card works fine in windows 98SE, however music WON'T play when playing any game through DOS 6.0 (I don't have 6.22 floppies and I haven't gotten around getting upgrade floppies made) and DOS 7 doesn't work either. Games I've tried: KQ6, SQ5, Hexen, SQ4 (sq4 actually does work if I select adlib audio when setting it up, but this only works with kq4, the others don't work with the adlib option, hexen works with cd audio) All sounds play fine in windows 98 (with some exceptions in KQ6 and SQ5 due to problems related to windows 98) the ESSCFG has not worked, or I haven't found the correct version, (downloaded the one here on vogons for es1869) in fact, using it disabled the speaker in the computer. Any ideas?

Edit: Forgot to mention the cpu is a pentium III 542 mhz, idk if that would make a difference, kinda new to dos.

These DOS drivers worked for me on a Compaq 1869 https://kentie.net/article/retropc/ES1869.zip
They might be the same ones you've tried.
The speaker in my computer doesn't work at all, you're saying you got that problem after running a wrong esscfg? Have you managed to restore functionality?

Hi!

I've been out of home for a long time and missed a lot of messages here.

Even though I have not enough time to answer them all, I'll try to summarize with some general responses and will give some little news too.

First, about a new UNISOUND version: Next days I'll release a small bugfix and small improvements version I had prepared at the end of last year (but unreleased), with a small addition I did today.

About users with unsupported cards, unrecognized cards, "no PnP card found" problems, etc, please, add all the details to be able to help you. Examples: The full text output you get when you run UNISOUND, your system specs (as complete as you can), comparison with original tools/drivers, etc. Also you can try to init the cards with these options: /F or /XXF or both /F /XXF , and post results. Also try your card with different systems, if possible, and post results.
Next step is to run the PnP dump tool (mportant, on a PnP BIOS capable system like a pentium or better), zip the folder with the results and post it here. You can go to this post and you'll find a link there to download: Re: Universal ISA PnP Sound Card Enabler for DOS v0.71c (UNISOUND)

About EWS64 cards support: This is being investigated. I was in conversation with user Bancho last year who helped to do some tests (thank you!). Now I have an EWS64 XL here thanks to a friend and will use it for further investigation. The firmware is complex, so it'll require some time. No ETA.

About Orpheus support bugfixes and enhancements: Need more time to cover that, no ETA. I see now there is a new dedicated and very complete tool for it, that's good news, so more support for that great card.

One little mention to GUS PnP: This is the little addition I was talking about earlier: next version will have an option to limit the RAM size to 512K. It's tested and it's working very well with Absolute Pinball and an original GUS PnP with 8MB.

Thank you all for your feedback!

See you soon.

hurray!
welcome back JazeFox 😀

awww, we missed you! Thanks for the news and hope all is well!

Hi JazeFox, welcome back!
As soon as some new version is already in the oven, here is a little suggestion by one of our AWE64 Legacy testers:
"BLASTER environment var found! Loading settings...
ADD: 220 OPL:388..."
In this message could you rename "OPL" into CQM for all Creative AWE64 based cards and those AWE32 PnP cards that have CQM (is there a way to identify them for sure?). For those cards that can't be identified for sure, OPL could be renamed for FM, for the accuracy sake as there are many different FM variations (CQM, ESFM, Crystal FM, etc.). And for our AWE64 Legacy we could implement a two step detection: first read out the CQM variable from BLASTER, set its address, if it's other then 388 then check for true OPL3 presence on 388, if it is there (I mean, you already put CQM at, let's say, 398, then check for FM chip on 388 and it is there) then write a message "OPL3 enabled at 388". That would greatly improve user friendliness of our complex card 😁

Welcome back mate.

JazeFox wrote on 2021-04-22, 10:43:

About Orpheus support bugfixes and enhancements: Need more time to cover that, no ETA.

When (or if) you decide to work on this, if you have any interest in discussing implementation details or features, feel free to ask. The choice is yours: here, in one of the other Orpheus-related threads or privately.

JazeFox wrote:

...

Could you make the mpu401 intelligent mode available? prince of persia for example needs that to run with MT32. I only have a SC-55 ST with uart mode but for this game i need softmpu but my problem is that it needs a 386 or higher so with my 286 i get only pc speaker sound when I choose the Roland mode

GuillermoXT wrote on 2021-04-23, 02:47:

Could you make the mpu401 intelligent mode available? prince of persia for example needs that to run with MT32. I only have a SC-55 ST with uart mode but for this game i need softmpu but my problem is that it needs a 386 or higher so with my 286 i get only pc speaker sound when I choose the Roland mode

if you only have uart mpu401 on a 286 your stuck with it or get a intelligent midi isa card.

Finally got around to using this the other day, and just want to say: Thank you for making this! I had tried all the drivers and settings that I could find with my awe64 without any luck, but with this it worked immediately without any tinkering. So great hearing those old games again on original hardware!

BloodyCactus wrote on 2021-04-23, 03:56:

GuillermoXT wrote on 2021-04-23, 02:47:

Could you make the mpu401 intelligent mode available? prince of persia for example needs that to run with MT32. I only have a SC-55 ST with uart mode but for this game i need softmpu but my problem is that it needs a 386 or higher so with my 286 i get only pc speaker sound when I choose the Roland mode

if you only have uart mpu401 on a 286 your stuck with it or get a intelligent midi isa card.

I know...but unisound for example opened a backdoor for using sb16 cards in systems like the 286 witch are normally not supposed to run these cards.

I think you are misunderstanding the problem. The reason newer soundcards run on a 286 with UNISOUND is because the original software to setup these cards was programmed for 386+. The reason why "intelligent mode MPU" is not available on almost all soundcards is that this feature simply is not implemented in the card. It's not a matter of initializing the soundcard in a specific way. The reason SoftMPU works is because it emulates this missing feature in CPU (Hence the name SoftMPU). A 286 will most likely be too slow to do this emulation btw.

Small update with some pending bugfixes and additions:

Tool updated to v0.76b

Changelog:

• Added option to disable onboard GM chip sound on AD1816 cards (use /VF00)
• Fixed MPU base address assignation when non-PnP ViBRA16S (CT2504 chip) is
  detected. Now it is set properly. (accepted P values: 0, 300, 330).
• Added new user-configurable options via BLASTER var for CMI cards:
  Qx (WSS IRQ) and Kx (WSS DMA). Examples: Q11 K0 (set WSS IRQ to 11 and
  WSS DMA to 0).
• Fixed wrong IDE logical device detection on ES1868 cards with IDE port.
• Fixed MIDI port detection bug on some ES186x cards after initialization,
  now MPU will work on games like Descent.
• Fixed some typos and missing info (tool and docs)
• About Terratec EWS64 X/XL/XXL cards: now the tool assigns PnP resources
  correctly, but output will be silent, because firmware support is being
  investigated yet. So for now, these cards are not supported. WIP, no ETA.
• Added new eXtended option (/XEA) for ES1868 cards, to try an alternate init
  method if normal init does not work.
• AWE64 Legacy: Only for this card, when its unique PnP ID is detected,
  Creative FM is now shown as "CQM". Also if CQM is remapped to a port
  different than 388, and an OPL chip is detected at 388h it will be shown.
• Added new eXtended option for GUS PnP (/XGL) to limit RAM to 512K for
  compatibility with some games.

The download link is updated at the end of the first post as usual:
UNISOUND - Universal ISA PnP Sound Card Driver for DOS v0.81b

JazeFox wrote on 2021-04-27, 21:43:

[*] Added new eXtended option for GUS PnP (/XGL) to limit RAM to 512K for
compatibility with some games.[/list]

This really fixed it for Absolute Pinball, awesome!

We also tried the /XEA for the ES1868: on a first quick test, it also seems to have fixed the issues there (just any single invocation without the /xea removes all settings again)!
Amazing work and such a great tool, thank you!

gordon-creAtive.com wrote on 2021-04-27, 18:57:

I think you are misunderstanding the problem. The reason newer soundcards run on a 286 with UNISOUND is because the original software to setup these cards was programmed for 386+. The reason why "intelligent mode MPU" is not available on almost all soundcards is that this feature simply is not implemented in the card. It's not a matter of initializing the soundcard in a specific way. The reason SoftMPU works is because it emulates this missing feature in CPU (Hence the name SoftMPU). A 286 will most likely be too slow to do this emulation btw.

The reason it could never even in theory work on a 286 is not speed, it is that the 286 lacks the MMU that EMM386 leverages to achieve the port redirection needed to trap writes to the MIDI output

JazeFox wrote on 2021-04-22, 10:43:

Hi! […]
Show full quote

Hi!

I've been out of home for a long time and missed a lot of messages here.

Even though I have not enough time to answer them all, I'll try to summarize with some general responses and will give some little news too.

First, about a new UNISOUND version: Next days I'll release a small bugfix and small improvements version I had prepared at the end of last year (but unreleased), with a small addition I did today.

About users with unsupported cards, unrecognized cards, "no PnP card found" problems, etc, please, add all the details to be able to help you. Examples: The full text output you get when you run UNISOUND, your system specs (as complete as you can), comparison with original tools/drivers, etc. Also you can try to init the cards with these options: /F or /XXF or both /F /XXF , and post results. Also try your card with different systems, if possible, and post results.
Next step is to run the PnP dump tool (mportant, on a PnP BIOS capable system like a pentium or better), zip the folder with the results and post it here. You can go to this post and you'll find a link there to download: Re: Universal ISA PnP Sound Card Enabler for DOS v0.71c (UNISOUND)

About EWS64 cards support: This is being investigated. I was in conversation with user Bancho last year who helped to do some tests (thank you!). Now I have an EWS64 XL here thanks to a friend and will use it for further investigation. The firmware is complex, so it'll require some time. No ETA.

About Orpheus support bugfixes and enhancements: Need more time to cover that, no ETA. I see now there is a new dedicated and very complete tool for it, that's good news, so more support for that great card.

One little mention to GUS PnP: This is the little addition I was talking about earlier: next version will have an option to limit the RAM size to 512K. It's tested and it's working very well with Absolute Pinball and an original GUS PnP with 8MB.

Thank you all for your feedback!

See you soon.

Man glad you are ok. Just hope you can keep this awesome project alive!

Hi people,
Thanks alot for this tool, I was able to have sounds in Dos games with it.
My problem is that I am not able to edit the autoexec so it can run on computer startup, i need to run it manually every time.
Sound card : Genius k0237014 based on Crystal CS4237 chip.
The file path is C:\kituri\unisound.com
How should the sound card initialization look like?My autoexec looks like:
SET BLASTER =A220 I5 D1 T4 J200 P330
C:\kituri\unisound.com /v80

I also tried with
SET ULTRASND=240,3,3,11,11

Adding only the second line (location of unisound exe) does not work either

How exactly should i know what to add in the first line?

Thanks !

gordon-creAtive.com wrote on 2021-04-27, 18:57:

A 286 will most likely be too slow to do this emulation btw.

A 286 can run faster then a 386SX on same Clock Speed.
But it lacks Virtual 86 Mode so, no emulation possible.

SoftMPU is fine on 386SX 16Mhz.

JazeFox wrote on 2021-04-22, 10:43:

About users with unsupported cards, unrecognized cards, "no PnP card found" problems, etc, please, add all the details to be able to help you. Examples: The full text output you get when you run UNISOUND, your system specs (as complete as you can), comparison with original tools/drivers, etc. Also you can try to init the cards with these options: /F or /XXF or both /F /XXF , and post results. Also try your card with different systems, if possible, and post results.
Next step is to run the PnP dump tool (mportant, on a PnP BIOS capable system like a pentium or better), zip the folder with the results and post it here. You can go to this post and you'll find a link there to download: Re: Universal ISA PnP Sound Card Enabler for DOS v0.71c (UNISOUND)

So I've tried the tool with the four sound cards that I have here: SB16 CT2950, ALS100, Yamaha YMF719, TerraTec Base1. It works with all except for the TerraTec card. With that, I just get "No PnP sound card detected.", even with /F, /XXF, or /F /XXF.
The output from the dump tool is here: https://ufile.io/rd4urt06
I've captured it in DOS 7 (i.e. Windows 98 DOS mode without Windows running), if it helps I can re-run it in DOS 6.2. Let me know if you're having trouble downloading it. If so, I'll upload it somewhere else.

Thanks a ton for your program - it's awesome!

@BraveToaster

Hi,

Thank you for your report. I found a regression bug with some AD181x based cards running on some systems in latest versions of Unisound. I'll work to fix it for the next version. Meanwhile, you can use the older UNISOUND v0.75b.