VOGONS


First post, by ohhwell

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Hi,

I did a search of the forums and the internet as well and didn't come up with any actual answers. Just a couple of infuriating posts where someone mentioned that they had figured it out etc but never disclosed the answers.

I did find out and verify that the Mk4 does indeed have the Silicon Motion SM710 LynxEM VGA in it but I had some trouble with many of the drivers around the internet. some did install but obviously were not correct. I haven't tried the Lynx family driver that is hosted in Vogons Drivers but I will share that I had perfect results with a driver titled "lynxem-Win9x-6.0" in win 98se. I don't know how to submit to the Vogons Drivers site so I will just attach that driver here.

OK, so now my actual problem. Trying to get the sound device working was a bit rougher. The hardware identifies as "ESS Technology ES1988/9 Allegro-1 Audiodrive" and the hardware ID is "VEN_125D&DEV_1988&SUBSYS_833810F7&REV_12" which leads me to assume that it is a 1988 Allegro-1. I tried a ton of drivers for the series and finally "ES1989_SE1136" got the sound working right in Windows. However, there is an entry in device manager listed as "Soundblaster Pro or Compatible" as well as the gameport which have the dreaded yellow exclamation point symbol. Device manager claims to find the drivers for it in the ES1989_SE1136 folder and installs them but clearly something is wrong. I am attaching a .png of device manager and the UnknownDevices readout on it.

So, if sound works perfectly in windows, why am I concerned? Well, it doesn't work very well in a DOSprompt window. I tried a slew of DOS titles from Monkey island to 4d boxing and could not get sound going. Interestingly, I did run Quake 1 dos executable in a DOSprompt window and it had sound. Almost kinda scared me actually. I haven't gotten it working in pure DOS mode either but I also haven't tried too much. It seems to be recognized by the dos mode drivers but I have to look into that more.

So I guess my question is does anyone have one of these with all drivers correct in device manager and can steer me in the right direction? This thing is way too weak on the GPU side for win98 gaming so I wanted to use it as a simple DOS gaming laptop.

Thanks!

Reply 1 of 1, by ohhwell

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OK, well I guess never mind. I did finally find a couple games that do use digital audio in both Dosprompt and DOS mode. Apparently there is just no Wavetable or OPL support. Just SB Pro digital audio.