I read somewhere they are for testing at the factory.
The same configuration can be found on the SB16.
Nothing useful to the end user.

EDIT:
Phil beat me to it by a microsecond. 😀

keropi wrote:

I don't know if it's related but I am getting freezes with Open Cubic Player.

Did you try MPXPlay? It is much more basic than Cube Player and easier to setup.

PhilsComputerLab wrote:

I think that's a Creative test / diagnosis header of some sort. They (Creative techs) would remove the jumper and hook up their own testing connector. Just a guess though 😀

It's the 'audio extension connector' and some of it is useful to the end-user. It was actually listed in the manual, see page D-2: http://www.minuszerodegrees.net/manuals/Sound … ing_Started.pdf
I once connected my PC speaker to it, so that I could get sound even without anything connected/turned on at the back.
Basically I had my motherboard PC speaker connected to the speaker in (JP3), then the internal speaker connected to this header, so that the PC speaker in my case now did both the PC speaker and the SB audio (the pinout is designed so the right speaker pins fit to the standard PC/XT 4-pin header)... and had a volume control (the wheel at the back).

Cool, a good application for that header 😀

James-F wrote:

[...]
Did you try MPXPlay? It is much more basic than Cube Player and easier to setup.

I tried the in_mod plugin - it just doesn't work. The readme says to just put it in the player directory but nothing happens. Quite disappointing.
Tried older Cubic Player 1.7 - same freeze. That's the first time this build freezes on me like that.

edit:

Prehistorik 2 complains about NMI blah blah and it freezes - SB16 back in and all work. 😐

Can anyone please test Prehistoric 2 with a later than 03 revision CT1600.
Revision 04 would be interesting since it also don't have an oscillator chip.

keropi did you try to install the drivers with SBPRO.ADC etc..?

You have to enable NMI (non-maskable interrupts) in the BIOS before DOS soundcard "emulation" can work, IIRC.

Maybe try to reset the bios settings?

Well there isn't a NMI setting in my bios. I removed the GUS, and changed the ISA slot of the CT1600 , no change.
Maybe it's just a system incompatibility - or maybe 233mhz is too much or the phase of the moon. I will try with a CT1350B at some point and report back.

edit:
seems a speed issue - jumpered the cpu to 166mhz - no change. Disabled caches with ICACHE and all seem to sound OK , cubic sounds nice, prehistorik2 loads fine... 😐

keropi wrote:

edit:
seems a speed issue - jumpered the cpu to 166mhz - no change. Disabled caches with ICACHE and all seem to sound OK , cubic sounds nice, prehistorik2 loads fine... 😐

😲
I wonder what may be the cause of that and if it is revision specific...
Anyone with a SBPro2 and a Pentium 233MHZ MMX?

even a 166mhz mmx craps out - I have caches disabled and mod playback still goes fine , atm ~40mins of playlist playback

James-F wrote:

I wonder what may be the cause of that and if it is revision specific...
Anyone with a SBPro2 and a Pentium 233MHZ MMX?

It may be revision-specific. The problem is probably that the DSP requires a certain amount of response time between commands. Some software uses delay loops for that, which run faster as you use a faster CPU. At some point the delay will become too short for the DSP to respond properly.
I had that problem with the Crystal Dream demo by Triton.
On my ESS AudioDrive clone, I didn't have the problem, because its DSP responded more quickly.

It could be that later DSPs are faster than the early ones... but I wouldn't expect it.

PIII 1.4GHz (440BX) + CT1600 079337: Prehistorik 2 is OK (relatively), Cubic 2.5 hangs with or without L1.

cubic still works for me , caches disabled ofcourse... it's more than 2hrs now
Now I wonder if older SBs have the same issue

079 has a dedicated clock right? so this might not be the sole factor ... when cubic hangs, does it play the whole mod to the end?

Might be worth using period correct hardware with all these tests? Although it's also of interest to know if some cards are "better for faster machines".

It's not like a Pentium is period correct for 8-bit cards. 😀
No doubt this stuff would behave better on a 386 or 486.

keropi wrote:

cubic still works for me , caches disabled ofcourse... it's more than 2hrs now
Now I wonder if older SBs have the same issue

079 has a dedicated clock right? so this might not be the sole factor ... when cubic hangs, does it play the whole mod to the end?

Yes, it has the 14.318 MHz oscillator, v3.02 DSP, new chips and layout. By default it would crash instantly, with L1 disabled it played for a second or two before freezing in a loop. Killing L2 would probably get it closer to stable.

It sucks because now one needs to make another compromise on ss7 machines, I was pretty sure it would work just fine and make the system more compatible... Still interesting to know there are speed issues.

I have a regular P200, but clocked at 100 MHz in my main SS7 machine. The raw clock speed can cause issues, even with caches disabled.

Open Cubic Player freezes on my Pentium 233 MMX with the YMF71x too.
When it freezes the audio continue to play, only the GUI freezes.
Disabling L1 cache and cubic player works fine without freezing.
Prehistoric 2 plays fine with or without L1.

Are we sure it is SBPro related? Looks more like Cubic Player related.
Maybe try to find the right parameter responsible for the crashes in the CP.INI file?

EDIT:
AudioDrive ES1688 does NOT freeze.
Aztech NX PRO does NOT freeze.
Aztech MM Pro 16 does NOT freeze.

Sure, it can be OCP related... maybe some drivers are bugged or something
Do you remember how Halloween Harry sounded with a SB16? this is was I was getting - clipping on a lower volume though - until the freeze, once OCP froze then audio was perfect for as long as it was playing...

How is prehistorik 2 ? does it work all the times? I will test more games and report back (originals not random downloads)

edit:
tried with a CT1350B on my ss7 system: same freeze with OCP. So it seems this was a crappy test program after all (luckily in GUS mode it's fine)

What do you guys make of this rev 4 card? Spot the oscillator that isn't meant to be there!

^ post a bigger picture, this one is useless

Sorry, I've updated it, still not great but better.