OS/2, eCS & ArcaOS - Technical > Multimedia

[SBAWED2] Getting an old audio card working.

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Doug Bissett:

--- Quote ---I'm not sure about this ArcaOS removing support for ISA as if so, why do ISA audio drivers (SB16, AWE, ESS, etc.) continue to exist in the installation media?
--- End quote ---

As I understand it, ArcaOS still supports ISA. What has happened, is that there are only a few drivers included. The ones that are still there are for virtual systems. ISA still works okay, but you will probably need to find appropriate drivers for the devices, and manually install them.

Roderick Klein:
All speculation can ended at once by just looking in the DVD and check the directory:
\CID\SERVER\MMOS2\DRIVERS

BUSAUDIO-> ISA
CR4231-> ISA
CR423X-> ISA
ESS1688-> ISA
ESS1788-> ISA
ESS1868 -> ISA
ESS1888 -> ISA
ESS688 -> ISA
SB16 -> ISA
SB16PNP -> ISA
SBAWE32 -> ISA
SBAWEPNP -> ISA
SBLIVE -> PCI
UNIAUD -> PCI

Most the drivers seem to installable for ISA audio cards that are populair...

Roderick

Ian Manners:
If the card volume is low or non existant, standard trick is to check your x:\mmos2\mmpm2.ini file and in any line under the "mixer sections", what the
"PARMSTRING=BALANCE=50,VOL=80,INPUT=LINE,GAIN=70,OUTPUT=SPEAKER" line values for GAIN and VOL are.

Not all mixers can change, or change the correct VOL and GAIN parameters and I've had no problems with the mixers for SBAWE32 and 64 when I used them. If you do need to manually change these parameters, boot to maintence mode or boot from a CD/DVD otherwise your edits will be lost. You can sometimes change the values and simply hit the reset button as long as nothing else is running but it is not the recommended way of doing it, you could end up with a corrupt mmpm2.ini file.

As already pointed out, check the cards irq and ports are not conflicting with something else as the AWE drivers are not high IRQ aware, they can only use the old base interrupts. If you can check under a different operating system where the AWE card works to double check the card's settings and adjust those on the drivers line in your config.sys file. I now remember when I let the AWE32/64 driver figure it out automatically that it did not work. driver switches should be in one of the packages.




lss73912:

--- Quote from: Ian Manners on September 22, 2018, 06:21:35 am ---If the card volume is low or non existant, standard trick is to check your x:\mmos2\mmpm2.ini file and in any line under the "mixer sections", what the
"PARMSTRING=BALANCE=50,VOL=80,INPUT=LINE,GAIN=70,OUTPUT=SPEAKER" line values for GAIN and VOL are.

Not all mixers can change, or change the correct VOL and GAIN parameters and I've had no problems with the mixers for SBAWE32 and 64 when I used them. If you do need to manually change these parameters, boot to maintence mode or boot from a CD/DVD otherwise your edits will be lost. You can sometimes change the values and simply hit the reset button as long as nothing else is running but it is not the recommended way of doing it, you could end up with a corrupt mmpm2.ini file.

As already pointed out, check the cards irq and ports are not conflicting with something else as the AWE drivers are not high IRQ aware, they can only use the old base interrupts. If you can check under a different operating system where the AWE card works to double check the card's settings and adjust those on the drivers line in your config.sys file. I now remember when I let the AWE32/64 driver figure it out automatically that it did not work. driver switches should be in one of the packages.

--- End quote ---

I'll see if I can adjust the gain from the DOS side (thru MIXERSET). I'm not sure if the card remembers the gain settings onboard, but right now it's definitely too low to be heard. The card's output is connected to a mixer which can also provide gains to make it heard, so it's not a severe problem, just that I need the card usable on ArcaOS as I cannot take advantage of the other one (X-Fi, which is mainly for Windows). The driver ArcaOS has is 2.30.00 from what I can see.

EDIT: Never mind... maybe the card's onboard amp is not working anymore, so I'll have to use the mixer to provide the gain to make the card continue to work as intended.

Tried installing the 1.2 package but the problem persists... guess I'm on my own to look for a way to get it working...

EDIT 2: Now I remembered something... especially now seeing that under DOS that AWEUTIL /S is failing, that it's possible that some NMI-related issues might be involved. Back then when I actually wanted to use the GM options on that card with AWEUTIL, a NMI would fire and I need to manually clear (ignore) it, after which it works as intended.

Guess I'll just have to re-enable the onboard audio that's been left dormant (although I sincerely don't like using onboard cards primarily due to noises from motherboard, especially when using the front panel, which is often poorly isolated and the static was so audible that you could actually "hear" the computer's internal communications).

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