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Date:	Tue, 14 May 2002 09:24:12 PST7
From:	Harry Chris Motin <hmotin@attglobal.net >
Reply-To:	scoug-help@scoug.com
To:	scoug-help@scoug.com
Subject:	SCOUG-Help: Re: Sound card falls short under OS/2

Content Type: text/plain

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______________________________________________________________________________
Jordan,

The AOpen 320 soundcard is not toooooo bad. I have not had any problems
with it. But then, I'm not a music or sound perfectionist! A couple of
things I have noticed, however:

1. I was not able to install wavetable MIDI driver support for the
card, only FM MIDI. The wavetable MIDI sounds much better. I don't
recall exactly what I did in my attempt for wavetable MIDI (I think I
tried to install the the MM Pack from Theta Band Software), but it did
not work

2. The sound levels for wav and MIDI are noticeably different. I have
not been able to figure out how to get them to be closer together.

Yes, the AOpen installation documentation is pretty skimpy (it's geared
more towards the Windows installation). Also, that image of the
soundcard is pretty bad. It's hard to distinquish/recognize the various
sections of the card that they are referencing in the instructions.

I believe that the card comes with the Crystal Semiconduction driver
installation instructions. Right? Those instructions are pretty good,
even though they are in the form of an ASCII file (no illustrations).
Follow them.

I went to the Cystal Semiconductor website and installed the drivers for
the CS4280 and CS4614 chipsets. They are better/more up to date than the
drivers that come with the soundcard. You'll want to go to the following
website:

http://www.cirrus.com/drivers/audiodrv/os2.cfm

You can go directly there, putting that address in your browser.
Download the cwos2306.zip file, which contains the drivers you want.

You should also review some documentation that Tim Timur's has on the
Internet for OS/2 soundcaards and sound system. Go to:

http://www.ionet.net/~colin/awe32.html

and:

http://www.tabi.org/timur/crystalos2.html

He knows a lot about this!

Sorry, I cannot help you on your hardware question with regard to the
legacy SB
support for DOS games, etc. (PC/PCI sideband cable)

Good Luck!
HCM
______________________________________________________________________________

"J. R. Fox" wrote:
>
> =====================================================
> If you are responding to someone asking for help who
> may not be a member of this list, be sure to use the
> REPLY TO ALL feature of your email program.
> =====================================================
>
> Harry wrote:
>
> > I also have an AOpen 320 soundcard.
>
> How do you like it ? (And compared to other soundcards you may have
> tried.)
>
> > The Crystal Semiconductor OS/2
> > installation program claims that you do not need to deinstall/reinstall
> > OS/2 multimedia before installing the crystal drivers
>
> > The installation program claims to use undocumented OS/2 techniques to
>
> > cleanup OS/2 multimedia and avoid deinstall. It worked for me
>
> Good for them ! That will be a whole lot more convenient.
>
> > Additionally, Mr. KIA claims to have a way to clean up OS/2 multimedia
> > without requiring a deinstallation (February 2000 Mr.. KIA).
>
> Steven mentioned this past article. I've now printed it out for later reference.
>
> > One more thing. Use the "Multimedia Application Install" application to
> > install the new Crystal drivers. It's in the "System Setup" and
> > "Install/Remove" folders. There is a bug in the "Multimedia Application
> > Install" application. You have to place it half way off of your monitor
> > screen before you press the button to install. If you don't, it will not
> > work correctly.
>
> Thanks for your help.
>
> Svobi was kind enough to send me a rev. of these drivers that I had not seen
> before. They appear to be a couple years later vintage than the ones I had
> installed with poor results. If they improve the situation, I'll report that here.
> I certainly hope they do, as I'm not that enthusiastic about returning to use of
> the SB-32, esp. since I now have just one ISA slot (already occupied) instead
> of two.
>
> I have a hardware question in this regard. Those cheap Aopen folks don't bother
> to provide a real manual, not even as a downloadable file. What they give us
> instead is some very skimpy HTML thing. It states that if you want legacy SB
> support (e.g., for DOS games), you need to connect a "PC/PCI sideband cable"
> (items # 10 & 11 on the diagram) between the soundcard and the motherboard.
> I know about the audio cable you need to connect between the soundcard and
> the CD-Rom, but not what other cable they are talking about here. More to the
> point, I find nothing on the schematics for my Asus main board indicating where
> such a connection might be made.
>
> Jordan
>
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