CT1950R Sound Font Memory Module Upgrade for my AWE64 Gold Thanks to Anthony!

  • Hey all :)

    Some time ago right after x-mas 2021 Anthony gifted me one of his AWE64 Sound Font Memory Modules the CT1950R for my CT4390 AWE64 Gold ISA sound card which I use in my AMD K7 Athlon Thunderbird 700Mhz retro PC, since I am more in to midi music and high quality Midi sound effects this CT1950R Sound Font Memory module will come in great handy with the Sound Font ISO I have for it.

    Here the pics of the neat packaging applied by Anthony his logo's and the basic info of this handy device:

    And here the package contents:

    Here the CT1950R it's self which is packed with 14x 2MB 6ns Hynix SDRAM:

    Here the CT1950R next to the CT4390 AWE64 Gold showing how the CT1950R connects to the CT4390's J1 & J4 connectors, top = 26 pins bottom is 24 Pins, hard to miss, the white arrow indicates the right way up to mount it 26 pins at tops and 24 pins at bottom:

    And here my CT4390 with the CT1950R connected to it:

    Here the diagram Anthony made explaining on how the CT1950R works:

    Once installed I will update this thread :)

  • Happy SoundFont loading! :)

    1-6000-banner-88x31-jpg

    Stolzer Besitzer eines 3dfx Voodoo5 6000 AGP Prototypen:

    • 3dfx Voodoo5 6000 AGP HiNT Rev.A-3700

    [//wp.xin.at] - No RISC, no fun!

    QotY: Girls Love, BEST Love; 2018 - Lo and behold, for it is the third Coming; The third great Year of Yuri, citric as it may be! Edit: 2019 wasn't too bad either... Edit: 2020... holy crap, we're on a roll here~♡!

    Quote Bier.jpg@IRC 2020: "Je schlimmer der Fetisch, desto besser!"

  • Happy SoundFont loading! :)

    Sadly it's been a nightmare in Win2K being a NTFS guy I never could get used to 98SE I really hope there are ways to get this working in Win2K I just can't stand 98SE for too many unwanted reasons

    So after installing the Creative AWE64 Gold Drivers I get issues I was forced to go to Safe mode and get in uninstalled I then tried that Vogons Driver Iso and also a no go and after uninstalling them garbage Creative drivers I now get this crap when I want to play a Midi file...

    out of range me arse (not the guy, the error message lol)

    It's just annoying af and I am thinking of reinstalling Win2K Pro again ... sigh, so I can at least get my sound back :X

    And for the worst I might be forced to use 98SE and if that really needs to happen I need a good English version the Dutch version I have now which

    sucks big time, it has more bugs than the UK versions, also I would have to burn it on a CD I guess or a USB stick any advice even I really prefer Win2K pro over anything.

    As for UnOfficial Service pack some say they break 98SE others don't any good thoughts to those also can they see the full 768MB of system ram my system has as well? I wonder.

    Nice part. I should also get one. Are there golden ones?

    Hey thanks, as for Gold ones, I have no idea really.

    2 Mal editiert, zuletzt von Gold Leader (25. Januar 2022 um 19:59)

  • Drivers for ISA cards often need direct access to the hardware. That's something Windows NT and successors (2000, XP...) forbid or try to avoid as much as possible in order to make the system more stable.

    Try this one: https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=64063

    Ich werde mich von keinem einzzzigen Prozzzessor trennen.
    Jedoch lockt es mich beinahe, ihn Dir zu überlassen, nur um zu sehen, wie er Dich in den Wahnsinn treibt :evil:

    Meine Begehren

  • I think (though I am not 100% correct sure, it's been a while, long while) that SoundFonts can indeed only be loaded and used under Win9x on the AWE64 Gold. I remember no longer being able to do it after the switch to Windows 2000 either.

    But there could of course be ways I'm just not aware of.

    1-6000-banner-88x31-jpg

    Stolzer Besitzer eines 3dfx Voodoo5 6000 AGP Prototypen:

    • 3dfx Voodoo5 6000 AGP HiNT Rev.A-3700

    [//wp.xin.at] - No RISC, no fun!

    QotY: Girls Love, BEST Love; 2018 - Lo and behold, for it is the third Coming; The third great Year of Yuri, citric as it may be! Edit: 2019 wasn't too bad either... Edit: 2020... holy crap, we're on a roll here~♡!

    Quote Bier.jpg@IRC 2020: "Je schlimmer der Fetisch, desto besser!"

    Einmal editiert, zuletzt von GrandAdmiralThrawn (25. Januar 2022 um 20:59)

  • I think (though I am not 100% correct, it's been a while, long while) that SoundFonts can indeed only be loaded and used under Win9x on the AWE64 Gold. I remember no longer being able to do it after the switch to Windows 2000 either.

    But there could of course be ways I'm just not aware of.

    Yea had the same in mind lmao, this is going to be interesting :topmodel: Or the entire thing explode witha lovely mushroom cloud, I'll try and get 98SE working on it once i get a good UK version on CD or USB stick.

    On the other hands UnOfficial Service Packs are they a go or a no?
    As this goes
    https://www.htasoft.com/u98sesp


    Here the sound card upgraded in the system:

    2 Mal editiert, zuletzt von Gold Leader (25. Januar 2022 um 20:59)

  • Oh, I made a stupid mistake in my last post, thank you for ignoring my blunder. Corrected it! ;)

    As for the unofficial service packs: Others can tell. I never used them. We got this "Installing Windows 98 perfectly" thread by Tweakstone around here though, with lots of pictures, [see here]. It's really extensive and pretty step-by-step. Maybe it'll be of help for you. There he recommends a "Windows 98SE Service Pack 2.1e", but like I said, I never used any such pack on 9x.

    1-6000-banner-88x31-jpg

    Stolzer Besitzer eines 3dfx Voodoo5 6000 AGP Prototypen:

    • 3dfx Voodoo5 6000 AGP HiNT Rev.A-3700

    [//wp.xin.at] - No RISC, no fun!

    QotY: Girls Love, BEST Love; 2018 - Lo and behold, for it is the third Coming; The third great Year of Yuri, citric as it may be! Edit: 2019 wasn't too bad either... Edit: 2020... holy crap, we're on a roll here~♡!

    Quote Bier.jpg@IRC 2020: "Je schlimmer der Fetisch, desto besser!"

  • Hmm I am willing to try anything nothing to lose I have everything backed up which is nice of running a network xD
    But I will look in to that tomorrow I did fix this bug with Winamp btw thanks to Denis Negoe from x-3dfx, he came with the tip to check my Winamp Midi Synth settings and YUS :spitze:

  • Also for Sound Fonts I have this iso on CD as well I also want to thank Bier.jpg for helping me out with getting the correct needed files and such :)
    http://vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?fi…_AYB7_5N_GD0SYU

    imgIso is a sweet program, never heard of it either rofl :topmodel:
    Super easy to use then that tune after it finishes haha xD fabulous :spitze:

    As for 98SE All good to go, I will start doing this tomorrow as Thursday Jan 27, 2022 goes.
    As for the boot floppy, hmm not sure if I can make one with WinXP Pro, even so what does it actually do or allow?
    Even I used to know these things, all some blank space now heh.

    I also want to thank GrandAdmiralThrawn for his helpful tips & input and everyone else that replied :respekt::respekt:

  • Do you want to go dual boot (98SE and 2k) or simply swap 2k for 98SE?

    You can delete the NTFS partition via fdisk on the 98SE CD, for that you don't need a boot floppy. And I think if the NTFS partition is not occupying the whole disk, you can try to make a DOS partition in the free space for 98SE also via fdisk. But how to dual boot from this I cannot tell, because of no experience.

    Voodoo: Athlon XP-2800+ auf MSI KT3-Ultra 2, 1GB DDR, Voodoo 5 5500 AGP, SB Audigy Platinum EX, Win98SE
    Voodoo²: Athlon XP-2400+ auf MSI K7T266Pro2, 1GB DDR, Nvidia GF3TI500 und Voodoo 2 SLI, SB Audigy 2ZS, Win98SE

    Mainsys: Ryzen 5-3600 auf Asus Prime B350-Plus, 32GB DDR4 3200, RTX2070, Win 11

    Midrange: 2x Xeon 3,2GHz Dell Precision 450, 3GB DDR, ATI HD3850 AGP, SB X-Fi mit Frontpanel, WinXP

  • Do you want to go dual boot (98SE and 2k) or simply swap 2k for 98SE?

    You can delete the NTFS partition via fdisk on the 98SE CD, for that you don't need a boot floppy. And I think if the NTFS partition is not occupying the whole disk, you can try to make a DOS partition in the free space for 98SE also via fdisk. But how to dual boot from this I cannot tell, because of no experience.

    Yea i just wanna run 98SE only and I didn't know that actually hah interesting thanks for the tips tho :)
    Kind of weird I always used the Floppy Disk Method in the past , probably I just didn't know how else I guess, but hey that clears that up then :topmodel:
    thanks again 8)

    Well it's doing something :)


    I deleted the NTFS partition and chose to make a new one and then format it yet it is verifying it first, don't remember this tho ah well must be fine I guess :topmodel:
    So I did a reboot and chose option 02 to format the C drive, the old method was kind of easier imo, this is kind of new to me and yea a maze a s always heh.

    2 Mal editiert, zuletzt von Gold Leader (27. Januar 2022 um 14:19)

  • And back to Win2K this installation process has given nothing but Strife & nightmares and unwanted lockups,, just no more, I mean it's like what I kept getting in the past, it's the same stressful crap all over :X

    Win2K Pro never gave me these unwanted things, so I am going to just go back to where it all was, 98SE was never my kind of OS anyways.
    And yes i removed 1 stick of ram and I removed the USB 2.0 PCI card and still no go

    it just fights my mind, I may need to build a P3/E 650 with 384MB SDRAM and use my old Dutch 98SE install with UnOfficial SP 3.66 the latest build instead, not my favorite thing to do but yea for an other project then.

    Thanks to those that tried to apply aid with this and it's not your fault thsi failed lol, don't take it that way.
    it's that I'm just not fond of 98SE, it never was something I'd ever get used to either, NTFS has been like in my blood for ages.

    Einmal editiert, zuletzt von Gold Leader (27. Januar 2022 um 15:49)

  • On which point in the installation process do you get a lockup? The 98SE setup is quite a diva when it comes to too much RAM, I forget that on a regular basis myself ;) If you have more than 512MB installed, you tend to get "funny" things... USB 2.0 should not be a showstopper, it simply does not work properly until you install the drivers for it.

    Voodoo: Athlon XP-2800+ auf MSI KT3-Ultra 2, 1GB DDR, Voodoo 5 5500 AGP, SB Audigy Platinum EX, Win98SE
    Voodoo²: Athlon XP-2400+ auf MSI K7T266Pro2, 1GB DDR, Nvidia GF3TI500 und Voodoo 2 SLI, SB Audigy 2ZS, Win98SE

    Mainsys: Ryzen 5-3600 auf Asus Prime B350-Plus, 32GB DDR4 3200, RTX2070, Win 11

    Midrange: 2x Xeon 3,2GHz Dell Precision 450, 3GB DDR, ATI HD3850 AGP, SB X-Fi mit Frontpanel, WinXP

  • On which point in the installation process do you get a lockup? The 98SE setup is quite a diva when it comes to too much RAM, I forget that on a regular basis myself ;) If you have more than 512MB installed, you tend to get "funny" things... USB 2.0 should not be a showstopper, it simply does not work properly until you install the drivers for it.

    Well I have a matched set of Legend/Micron memory 3x 256MB< I removed 1x 256MB for 512MB and even with 512MB it just goes in a repetitive reboot sequence

    and then it complains there is a Windows NT based file or sector on the drive it's installed even I fully formatted the drive lmao

    Such things trigger my anxiety and I just back off all at once because I know where it s going.
    What I can do is make a boot disk for Fat32 in WinXp pro and go from there and just use my old methods they always worked well with my Pentium3 650 & AthlonXP 2700+ systems.

    It's just stressing when it goes wrong..again and again, as if I am sucked in to a timeless loop of troubles and it just fends me off completely.

    Even I found drivers for all the needed parts, I Downloaded UnOfficial SP 3.66 & 2.1a English dunno which one will work with that version of 98SE.
    when I had my Dutch version I always used UnOffical SP 1.6 and later 2.1a never touched later ones because i moved fully to Win2KPro and XP Pro by the time they were great and stable.