crvs wrote on 2020-11-04, 15:42:

I tried latest version (v0.75e) with the following hardware: 486-class PC, ES1868 sound card + MIDI daughterboard

Under UNISOUND, some applications do not recognize presence of daughterboard. For example, in Descent setup test of Music Card=General Midi results in "System Failed to find hardware". There's no such issue with the official driver, but with UNISOUND I didn't find the solution.

Please let me know if I can help with any additional tests or information;

Thank you a lot for reporting this!! It helped.
No additional tests needed. I found a nasty bug in UNISOUND with some ESS cards with IDE port.
I hope I'll be able to work on it soon, when job allows... Still working on some other general bugfixes, new cards testing, and some refinements for the Orpheus too.
...when time permits (sigh)

From the documentation included with the latest release, it appears that you set specific values without using a SET BLASTER variable. I'm trying to use this feature but I can't seem to get it to take them.

If I don't have a SET BLASTER it just uses the defaults, or it will use the SET BLASTER if one is defined. I have it working the way I want using.

SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 H5 J201 P0 F0
UNISOUND /c2

SET BLASTER=A240 I7 D3 H4 J0 P330 F388
UNISOUND /c1

SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 H5 P330 T6

Is possible to only have a single SET BLASTER and pass the settings via parameters to the UNISOUND call?

@JazeFox: This tool is great, especially for boot discs.
Did you consider packing the UNISOUND.COM file with "UPX"? This would result in a file half the size.

Just discovered this utility today ! Thanks JazFox for it ! If I have a mean to pay you a beer or something let me know, I gladly put a small donation for your hardwork and to release it as a freeware which was the noble and right thing to do !

Does this work with the Snark Barker MCA?

Nitroraptor53 wrote on 2020-12-01, 06:13:

Does this work with the Snark Barker MCA?

Does SnarkBarker MCA have a PnP initialization?

1541 wrote on 2020-11-26, 11:24:

@JazeFox: This tool is great, especially for boot discs.
Did you consider packing the UNISOUND.COM file with "UPX"? This would result in a file half the size.

Why would you suggest forcing some obscure packer for everyone else ?
If space is a problem, you can easily pack it yourself.

Akuma wrote on 2020-12-01, 09:44:

1541 wrote on 2020-11-26, 11:24:

@JazeFox: This tool is great, especially for boot discs.
Did you consider packing the UNISOUND.COM file with "UPX"? This would result in a file half the size.

Why would you suggest forcing some obscure packer for everyone else ?
If space is a problem, you can easily pack it yourself.

It would be a packed executable. Only difference for the user: tiny bit (maybe unmeasurable) slower execution, yet a lot smaller size of the executable. Nothing would be forced upon anyone.

appiah4 wrote on 2020-12-01, 07:07:

Nitroraptor53 wrote on 2020-12-01, 06:13:

Does this work with the Snark Barker MCA?

Does SnarkBarker MCA have a PnP initialization?

IDK, now that I think about it it's an SB1.0 clone so probably not.

GigAHerZ wrote on 2020-12-01, 12:04:

Akuma wrote on 2020-12-01, 09:44:

1541 wrote on 2020-11-26, 11:24:

@JazeFox: This tool is great, especially for boot discs.
Did you consider packing the UNISOUND.COM file with "UPX"? This would result in a file half the size.

Why would you suggest forcing some obscure packer for everyone else ?
If space is a problem, you can easily pack it yourself.

It would be a packed executable. Only difference for the user: tiny bit (maybe unmeasurable) slower execution, yet a lot smaller size of the executable. Nothing would be forced upon anyone.

Of course it is, because everyone then has to download that packed executable.
And I'm not the only one who has problems with packed executables.
Then on top of that you could introduce problems like this one:
Fixing games by unpacking executables: Wizardry VII demo

And what would be the gain ? I'm not seeing it.

Actually I picked up the idea with UPX from the mTCP package.
They also offer 2 flavors: one unmodified exe-file and one packed exe-file (mostly suitable for bootdisks)

'They' is me ... I can't remember who inspired me to use UPX but I'm sure I got the idea from somewhere else too. "Share and enjoy!"

UPX works great for smaller systems with limited space. And the performance hit only comes when the program is loading, as it has to be unpacked before it runs. After the initial small delay for unpacking, it is the same program. I've noticed an extra quarter of second of time on a PCjr, but that wasn't a rigorous measurement.

I always offer both the UPX version of the executables and the regular versions just in case there is a problem, but in 10+ years of shipping mTCP nobody has every reported a problem with the UPX versions. You can misuse UPX and make the unpacking horribly slow, so test on a real, old system first. But otherwise, it's great for floppy disk only systems or systems with small hard drives.

has anyone run unisound on a laptop? I tried to run it on my dell latitude cp which has the crystal CS4237B and reports no cards detected.
I honestly have no idea if its connected over pci and that the reason.
but i use cwdinit to start the pnp setup and cwdmixer to set the volume with no problem

Pickle wrote on 2020-12-04, 03:24:

has anyone run unisound on a laptop? I tried to run it on my dell latitude cp which has the crystal CS4237B and reports no cards detected.

The problem is not so much that it's a laptop; rather, it's in the way that the device is configured. UNISOUND works only with devices that take part in the ISA Plug and Play protocols. Your device is virtually guaranteed to be on the ISA bus, but is either reported via specific BIOS services, or is integrated as a non-Plug and Play device. CWDINIT has support for at least one of these methods of initialisation, while UNISOUND does not. That is why UNISOUND reports that no devices were found.

Been using unisound successfully for quite a while now. Yesterday I gave away an unused and formerly never tested ESS Audiodrive ISA card with an ES1868F to a friend and we tried initializing it with unisound:
It gets detected nicely and unisound reports sane values for adresses, IRQ, DMA, etc. on the startup - alas, the card doesn't get detected by e.g. modm, doom, cubic player, etc afterwards.
On first investigation and testing unisound /r , it reports zero values for all parameters. Repeated attempts with different settings for the BLASTER environment, etc. didn't change anything.

So, we installed the ESS driver and upon configuring it with ESCFG it was instantly recognized and working in e.g. doom. Exiting the game, starting unisound and restarting the game, the sound failed again. Before reconfiguring it with ESCFG, it did show DMA and IRQ with a zero value in ESCFG. So, it seems that at least these two values seem to get set 0 by starting unisound.

We did use the latest version of unisound on MS-DOS 6.22 on a 486DX2-66, with all other cards (apart from controller and VGA) removed.

Amazing, it WORK and save my life on my collections of ISA sound cards! Especially for those PNP sound cards whose DOS drivers are not friendly enough, I have not been able to get them to work under DOS for a long time...

I will test them one by one.

Orchid NuSound PnP 32
- Crystal CS4232 Controller
- Wavetable onboard ( CS9233 Synth with 1MB ROM )
- Orchid NuSound PnP 32 User's Manual
https://www.driverguide.com/driver/detail.php?driverid=46885

Test:
- PIII1000EB & 440BX mobo with BIOS PNP/PCI configuration AUTO
- SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 P330 J200 T4
- NuSound PNP32 get IRQ5 / DMA1,3 when booting

Games:
Doom --- WaveBlaster & Sound Blaster or GM & SB OK
Doom2 --- WaveBlaster & Sound Blaster or GM & SB OK
!!! Raptor --- Waveblaster or GM & SB hanged on initing MPU when loading
Comanche --- Sound Blaster OK
Red Baron --- GM or Adlib OK
Slipheed --- Adlib OK

Media player:
!!! OCP (Open Cubic Player https://www.cubic.org/player/) on DOS --- MOD music playing correct but OCP UI freezing
Media Rack (CD/MIDI/WAV Player & Mix from Nusound driver ) on Win3.X --- OK

Conflicts:

UniSound auto set MPU-P330/IRQ9 , but IRQ9 may conflicts with others, evenif I set BIOS PNP/PCI configuration to manual, and let IRQ9 assigned to Legacy ISA , there is ACPI Controller still using IRQ9.

I have set MPU of NuSound PNP 32 to disable IRQ with sound card config program. But how to disable or change IRQ for MPU in UniSound?

-- Addon 01

I reset the MPU-401 with IRQ9 in DOS Config program of NuSound PNP 32, just same as default setting of MPU P33O/I9 in UniSound, then
- RAPTOR is OK with WaveBlaster&SB or GM&SB
- OCP is OK to show the dynamic graphic equalizer, but no sound this time...
- I have checked all parameters available for setting the BLASTER environment variable, none for IRQ of MPU-401, I still don't know how to change IRQ for MPU in UniSound

Default parameters for MPU-401 in UniSound is P330/I9

DOS Config program of NuSound PNP 32 can set IRQ for Mpu-401 with 5 / 7 / 9 / Disabled , but no matter what is set, it will not affect the default parameter settings of unisound.

-- Addon 02

Thx @Lennart for a parameter to set IRQ for MPU-401 of the BLASTER environment variable --- U# 0 for disabled , I can set same parameters for hardware and unisound now.
- All P330/I# (0 for disabled IRQ or other free IRQ# ) is OK in games such as Raptor
- OCP is still abnormal --- It is not related to IRQ# of MPU-401, but TYPE of Sound Blaster! Music playback OK but UI freezing with T4, no music but UI OK with T6 >.<

aigeek wrote on 2020-12-07, 07:07:

But how to disable or change IRQ for MPU in UniSound?

The easiest way is to set the BLASTER variable in your AUTOEXEC.BAT like this:

SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 H5 P330 T6 rem A220 = Port Address (in this case 220h) rem I5 = Interrupt (in this case 5) rem D1 = DMA c […]
Show full quote

SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 H5 P330 T6
rem A220 = Port Address (in this case 220h)
rem I5 = Interrupt (in this case 5)
rem D1 = DMA channel (in this case 1)
rem H5 = "High" DMA channel (in this case 5)
rem P330 = Midi port (in this case 330h)
rem T6 = Type of card (in this case 6)
rem E620 = AWE32 parameter

1541 wrote on 2020-12-07, 07:39:

The easiest way is to set the BLASTER variable in your AUTOEXEC.BAT before executing UNISOUND.COM like this:

SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 H5 P330 T6 […]
Show full quote

SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 H5 P330 T6

rem A220 = Port Address (in this case 220h)
rem I5 = Interrupt (in this case 5)
rem D1 = DMA channel (in this case 1)
rem H5 = "High" DMA channel (in this case 5)
rem P330 = Midi port (in this case 330h)
rem T6 = Type of card (in this case 6)
rem E620 = AWE32 parameter

rem call unisound executable
C:\DOS\UNISOUND.COM

Thanks, but the environment variable BLASTER does not affect the built-in MPU-401 IRQ9 of UniSound, only P330

aigeek wrote on 2020-12-07, 07:07:

But how to disable or change IRQ for MPU in UniSound?

Have you tried adding the U0 parameter to your BLASTER variable? That should control the MPU IRQ according to the documentation. A value of 0 should disable it.

Lennart wrote on 2020-12-07, 12:55:

Have you tried adding the U0 parameter to your BLASTER variable? That should control the MPU IRQ according to the documentation. A value of 0 should disable it.

What a great undocument parameter for BLASTER ! I can set the IRQ parameters of MPU-401 synchronously now.