DOS ain't dead - ISA Sound Card

ISA Sound Card (Miscellaneous)

posted by Rugxulo , Usono, 13.02.2008, 01:51

> I have 2 ISA sound cards: Sound Blaster AWE 32 and Sound Blaster 16. I have
> been experiencing problems with both of them on 2 different machines.

My P166 has a SB AWE64. By default, though, (for faster bootup), I don't load the CTCM + other config programs unless needed.

> 1. When I set "Plug and Play" option in BIOS to "NO", it configures my
> SB16 for IRQ 5, DMA 1 and HDMA 3. When I run the SB16 configuration
> utilility CTCM in DOS, it tells me to use DMA 1 and HDMA 1. Is it normal
> to set both DMA's to the same value? Mpxplay seems to play fine with HDMA
> 1, but fails with HDMA 3. However, several programs misbehave.

What programs misbehave? Face it, there is no optimal DOS configuration, you're pretty much stuck using CONFIG.SYS menus to choose what's best for certain apps (i.e. probably a driver conflict).

AFAICT, the CTCM etc. setup programs aren't needed (at least, with my Award BIOS) unless you want MIDI. I can play normal sounds correctly with just "BLASTER=A220 I5 D1".

> 2. This is a more serious problem. I only get clean sound when none of my
> hard drives nor CD/DVD drives are accessed. For example, when I load
> Mpxplay with -bl switch, which preloads the entire song into memory before
> playing, I get perfect sound. However, without -bl I get static "clicks"
> whenever any of the LED's on my hard drives/CDROM drives flash. It
> obviously gets much worse while watching movies, since you get much more
> frequent media access.

As I was told, Mpxplay can't inherit file handles when shelling out, so you have to preload (e.g. -bl) to get fluid playback. CD-ROM access is always pretty slow, though, compared to a hard disk, and that itself is obviously slower than RAM.

P.S. Sorry if this wasn't much help. Good luck anyways! :-/

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Complete thread:

ISA Sound Card - Deniska, 13.02.2008, 00:11 (Miscellaneous)
- ISA Sound Card - Rugxulo, 13.02.2008, 01:51
  - ISA Sound Card - Deniska, 13.02.2008, 03:23
    - ISA Sound Card - Laaca, 13.02.2008, 07:41
      - ISA Sound Card - Deniska, 14.02.2008, 00:09
        ISA Sound Card - rr, 14.02.2008, 10:02
        ISA Sound Card - RayeR, 14.02.2008, 16:25
        ISA Sound Card - Deniska, 14.02.2008, 23:59
        ISA Sound Card - rr, 15.02.2008, 13:52
        ISA Sound Card - Deniska, 18.02.2008, 23:46
        ISA Sound Card - rr, 19.02.2008, 10:07
        ISA Sound Card - Deniska, 19.02.2008, 23:42
        ISA Sound Card - Deniska, 15.02.2008, 11:41
        ISA Sound Card - RayeR, 15.02.2008, 19:06
        ISA Sound Card - Laaca, 14.02.2008, 10:29
        ISA Sound Card - Deniska, 14.02.2008, 23:51
    - ISA Sound Card - Japheth, 13.02.2008, 08:34
- ISA Sound Card - RayeR, 13.02.2008, 11:13
  - ISA Sound Card - Deniska, 14.02.2008, 00:03
    - ISA Sound Card - RayeR, 14.02.2008, 16:30