Windows 3.1 drivers for newer hardware

[Xacalite]

Is that the same as the Media Vision Pro Audio Spectrum?

No, the original PAS is 8-bit, PAS16 is its 16-bit successor.

Do you have four MIDI channels?

That card has a typical Yamaha OPL3 synth (20-voice), plus MIDI port.

Neither Enhanced Mode nor Standard Mode will run without the support of DOS TSR drivers.
Windows is a just a DOS program.

Yes, it's a DOS program, but doesn't need any DOS TSRs.
Well, with one exception: networks. For this, regular Windows 3.1 needs drivers at the DOS level, native Windows networking began with Windows for Workgroups.

On a 386, your idea would make the most sense for single tasking 8086 DOS programs.
I would guess that it would cause the time slice to shift toward turbo.

Yes, as I already mentioned, Sound Club is such a program.

 

[watlers_world]

I wonder how many windows 3.1 midi channels 20 voices equates to.
Are you certain that Sound Club is an example of what you are talking about?

If you want to know if realtime PCM mixing is possible, you could test wmidi. http://turkeys4me.byethost4.com/programs/Wmidids.zip
If my drivers don't work, you might try the wingroove or yamaha software synth.

 

[aaronwhooley]

Aaronwhooley, what driver version did you find was working on the netbook?

DOS games use a rather wide variety of audio standards.
Which DOS games were you thinking of?

I'm ok with mythical legend. It sure beats being extinct.

:D

Sorry about the late reply! The driver version is High Definition Audio Sound Driver 9, and its running perfectly on a samsung N145 plus, installed simply from drivers menu in control panel.

It does take about 25 seconds for windows to see it when its loading, is that normal?

Game wise, I would love to play the likes of Epic Pinball, duke 3d, e.t.c on the little netbook woulthd be cool. At the moment im able to load DOSBOX on it in native dos via the HX extender. It even works with sound!, although laggy..

 

[aaronwhooley]

Also walters_world. I managed to track down a YAMAHA soft synth for windows 3.1(on the netbook), I Installed it and CANYON.MID plays perfectly but only for 2 seconds, then it cuts out..
S-YG20 is the name of the soft synth

 

[watlers_world]

The latest version of the HDA driver was 9.J:
http://turkeys4me.byethost4.com/files/HDADRV9J.7z

You would have to ask Yamaha of the S-YG20's history and future.
I have not tried the S-YG20 demo.
If you are having trouble with my midi synth (Wmidids.zip), please let me know.

I'm glad to hear that you have HX working.
Although there are win16 drivers, I've not written 386VM drivers.
Are you running windows 3.1 in Standard or Enhanced Mode?

The HDA driver's delay between commands can be reduced on most computers.
Take a look at these settings in your HDACFG.ini:
wait1=$100
wait2=$100



There were a few windows 3.1 pinball games. Have you tried any of them?

Since your laptop is a Pentium III equivalent, I would guess that 3D games should work.
Although there were several win16/win32s 3D engines and games,
I don't think Duke Nukem 3d (1996) had a win16, win386 or win32s port.

 

[aaronwhooley]

The latest version of the HDA driver was 9.J:
http://turkeys4me.byethost4.com/files/HDADRV9J.7z

You would have to ask Yamaha of the S-YG20's history and future.
I have not tried the S-YG20 demo.
If you are having trouble with my midi synth (Wmidids.zip), please let me know.

I'm glad to hear that you have HX working.
Although there are win16 drivers, I've not written 386VM drivers.
Are you running windows 3.1 in Standard or Enhanced Mode?

The HDA driver's delay between commands can be reduced on most computers.
Take a look at these settings in your HDACFG.ini:
wait1=$100
wait2=$100



There were a few windows 3.1 pinball games. Have you tried any of them?

Since your laptop is a Pentium III equivalent, I would guess that 3D games should work.
Although there were several win16/win32s 3D engines and games,
I don't think Duke Nukem 3d (1996) had a win16, win386 or win32s port.

I am running Windows 3.1 in 386 enhanced mode, I made a few adjustments as you advised, and it is now working within seconds.

I have sucessfully installed the wmidi driver, I will record some samples for it for use in the future. I did manage to find a copy of Wingroove, and that is working perfectly CD quality wavetable sound!

I tried space cadet pinball, and works very well..

 

[watlers_world]

Thank you for testing hda2.dll, aaronwhooley.

You can thank the maker of Wingroove for his help with wmidi.
When I asked about Wingroove, he advised me to make my own midi driver and told me how to get started.

Since Duke Nukem 3D was ported to the 16-bit Sega Genesis, a 16-bit Windows 3.1 version might also be possible.
ACK 3-D for Windows "ACKWIN.zip" is an open source example of Win16 raycasting.

Some newer processors perform 3D math better with win32s :http://turkeys4me.byethost4.com/files/TRI3D57.7z
How many triangles per second can your win3x laptop work with?

Xacalite, This person was able to play multi channel Midi using the PC speaker.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OmO-9c_kP4
With that method, wave table mixing is not required.

 

[cml37]

I just downloaded and configured HDADRV9J. Worked great. Using a Dell Inspiron 570, detected by the driver as Vendor ID = 10EC, Device ID = 0888 (Realtek HDA Audio card).

Modified C:\Windows\hdacfg.ini to change VolumeWidget=$0C and to change wait1=$010 and wait2=$010

I left EMM386.exe in my config.sys and had no issues.

 

[Arandy]

Hello there,

@watlers_world,

your work on developing ac97/HDA drivers for Windows 3.11 is amazing. It was something I was looking for a long time.

So far I've been experimenting on differnet Pentium4 boards, from early ones to modern ones.

At first, I tried DOS Gaming on P4 platform and I succeded by using SBEMU to make ac97 chips to work under dos and make old games to play sound without an ISA card! That was fantastic, but I wanted more: to use modern audio on Windows 3.11 with the power of a P4.

So I stumbled upon your drivers and I tried them asap! But so far my test have been successful only with ICH AC97 drivers with an issue.

SBEMU recognizes this chip as Intel ICH AC97. So I tried ichac97 driver.
The platform is a MS-6535 with a pentium4 1.6GHz. It has a Realtek ALC650 audio chip.

I was able to install the driver and make win3.11 sound! BUT there is one problem. The audio is very garbled.

It seems it is downsampled or badly encoded.

Audio chip works fine: with SBEMU, I can play DUKE NUKEM 3D in all his glory, with perfect sound and music.

The other driver: AC97DRVB, throws an exception (Integer overflow) and blocks windows before program manager appears.

See the attached image.

Do you have any idea on what the problem is?

I'm so close to the perfect setup. DOS and WINDOWS 3.11 fully working on that P4 machine!

Can you help me?

Thank you

 

[Arandy]

Oh WOW!

I changed driver again to w3xac97.dll. But this time I slowed down the system using THROTTLE ( wit 4 -C params) and magically it worked!
Sound is loud and clear!

I'll do some more experiments but the goal is reached!

Thank you for sharing your work. It is very apreciated.