Posts by Gold Leader

Quote from Lotosdrache

That looks very good.

As you can see, there are no more error messages.

The soundfonts gets loaded, the mixer is initalized, all resources are allocated as desired, and even Windows is not complaining, which you thought was impossible 2 days ago.

Please, be patient. Nobody said this was a simple card! It's meant for DOS gaming, Windows gaming and semi-professional music production. Therefore, the settings are very diverse.

1. I have overlooked one minor point for DOS gaming:

Quote from Lotosdrache

EDIT:

Can you show me the content of your autoexec.bat file?
It's in the root directory of drive C:.

Quote from Gold Leader

hmm I can't open that thing, it says bad command or file name heh, that isn't doing much I guess

Nevermind that


Hmm no idea what this all means tho.

Quote from Lotosdrache

No need to change anything here.

I was wrong here. I missed the first line. The values are relevant for the Sound Blaster emulation under DOS, but at the moment they reflect the first EEPROM programming before the Windows installation. Afterwards the resources in the EEPROM were adapted, but the driver did not automatically transfer them to the first line of AUTOEXEC.BAT. Please change the first line as follows:

@SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 T4

Save the file by overwriting/replacing the original.

2. Next minor point:

It seems that IRQs 3 and 4 are still free. So you can ENABLE IRQ assignment for USB in your BIOS if you wish to use your USB ports at some point:

3. Please check your speaker configuration:

So far you have:
1. configured the hardware resources (I/O address, interrupts, DMA channels) by enabling them in the BIOS (PCI/ISA PnP) and writing them to the EEPROM using the EWS64CFG program under DOS.
This replaces the configuration using jumpers, as can still be found on old ISA cards (Legacy ISA). The EWS64 XL therefore belongs to the ISA PnP cards. The configuration is done by software without having to open the computer, similar to PCI cards.
2. installed the driver by unpacking the file EWS64_Drv_w9x_3.1.exe and installing the contents using the device manager when Windows found the card at system startup
3. installed parts of the configuration tools by extracting the files
EWS64_App_w9x_D.exe
EWS64_MixerSettings.exe
into the default directory.
4. set some software parameters in the device manager and the control panel.
The card consists of two major components:
The Crystal CS4236B chip, called CoDec (if I remember correctly), and the Dream SAM9407 chip, called Synthesizer. The latter has a 2 MiB Roland sound font on the card for sound generation and can load additional sound fonts, e.g. from Yamaha, Korg etc., into the additional memory on the card.

The next step will deal with the mixer and the sound routing.

Display More

I'm hoping that Sound Routing will solve the issue I am still having.

My V PCI Mac been through 9 reworks, it's Polymer recap which was done by a friend of SWZSSR was probably one of the key quality of life changes it has ever gotten, that plus the newly applied VRAM that Backfire mounted as well, everything done to my card has given it a much safer and healthier long term lifespan for future use:

Backfire's Repairs & Reworks:

01. Renewed Ceramic SMD's on the rear
02. 6ns Hynix VRAM renewal for the main VSA-100 Graphics Chip
03. Renewed Heatsinks & Fans for the VSA's topside
04. Renewed Power Supply Controller Chips
05. Fixed the IC U510 Chip's pins
06. Replaced 4x TSOP-86
07. 6ns Hynix VRAM renewal for the slave VSA-100 Graphics Chip

SWZSSR's friend's Recap & Modifications:

01. Full Polymer Recap
02. Enzotech Copper Heatsinks for the VSA's rear side

This card is used often and runs really nice thanks to all the fixes and newels applied to it.
My hardware deserves the best treatment possible this goes for all retro parts I posses.

High Quality beats Lower Value with such things.

Just sent you a DM regarding the email.

Quote from Lotosdrache

Good news!

The system installation was completed a few minutes ago this time without any errors.

What software do you use to play your MIDI files?
Can you provide me with some of the problematic MIDI files?

I always use Winamp ver 2.81 works fine with the CT4390, seeing that the EWS64 XL is even slightly newer than the CT 4390, I thought it would be fine well it should be.

CT4390 PCB Date is 3197 (Week 31, Year 1997)
EWS64 XL PCB Date is 3397 (Week 33, Year 1997)

All my midi music files don't work anymore when they did work it was from the right speaker and the sound quality was worse than 8 bit midi sound lie general midi.

Not sure how to share them here all my midi music that I placed on my google drive
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hk1VI64QPW8SN-i_6YvcPyq_gtwdAc-M/view?usp=drive_link

Quote from Lotosdrache

Everything looks fine.

I have to admit that the next step is beyond my memory and I can't find any suitable screenshots of it. I will set up a PC with the card this evening/night. Then I can also access the online manual and the pictures and test whether the mixer settings that still need to be made work.
My cousin is coming to visit, so I won't be finished until tomorrow afternoon. I suggest you just enjoy the rest of the day/night/tomorrow morning and noon.

We can try later today if you can tho.

Quote from Lotosdrache

Everything looks fine.

I have to admit that the next step is beyond my memory and I can't find any suitable screenshots of it. I will set up a PC with the card this evening/night. Then I can also access the online manual and the pictures and test whether the mixer settings that still need to be made work.
My cousin is coming to visit, so I won't be finished until tomorrow afternoon. I suggest you just enjoy the rest of the day/night/tomorrow morning and noon.

Yea all good man thanks so much thus far, I tested everything and still no sound when playing Midi & MP3 music only Wave files from Win98SE and the G400 Tech demo are working but also again only the right PC Speaker from my facial view point.
I really would like to know what I did wrong , unless the Sound routing would have to play a role to fix this, I tested my speakers with the AMD K7 Athlon 700 Thunderbird with the CT4390 AWE64 Gold and both speakers work fine so that kind of narrowed that possibility down, could of bean that the left speaker didn't work, but it does so yea.

Here that K7 build, also with an original Thermaltake Golden orb and the CT4390 also has the same Gold Capacitors that Backfire applied to that of the EWS64 XL:




Here the Gold Recapped CT4390:

Every sound card deserves this treatment, well to me anyway.
Gold Capacitors kind of fits my user name as well Gold Leader, hmm must be some sort of gold rush

But yea you have a nice evening as well, it is weekend after all.
Thanks for taking me through all of this, I would not of done it alone myself.

Hmm I don't need the USB, I have two USB Ventilators on them they just need USB power and that works just fine, I Kept the USB disabled to free up as many IRQ's I could give the system for the EWS64 XL but also for the network card the G400 MAX, the IDE controllers you name it I had no idea, but I don't think I will need the USB anytime soon I have more modern systems for that kind of use.

Here a screenshot of my Autoexec.bat file I added nothing that line edit was already done by the drivers I believe:


Here the Speaker Configuration settings, nothing too drastic, yet it did nothing:

Even if I have Used Preferred Devices enabled or disabled, there was no change, so I left it enabled
that 2MB chip may explain why my card detects 34MB and not 2+ 32MB as it's actually set up physically.

Quote from Lotosdrache

That looks very good.

As you can see, there are no more error messages.

The soundfonts gets loaded, the mixer is initalized, all resources are allocated as desired, and even Windows is not complaining, which you thought was impossible 2 days ago.

Please, be patient. Nobody said this was a simple card! It's meant for DOS gaming, Windows gaming and semi-professional music production. Therefore, the settings are very diverse.

1. I have overlooked one minor point for DOS gaming:

Quote from Lotosdrache

EDIT:

Can you show me the content of your autoexec.bat file?
It's in the root directory of drive C:.

Quote from Gold Leader

hmm I can't open that thing, it says bad command or file name heh, that isn't doing much I guess

Nevermind that


Hmm no idea what this all means tho.

Quote from Lotosdrache

No need to change anything here.

I was wrong here. I missed the first line. The values are relevant for the Sound Blaster emulation under DOS, but at the moment they reflect the first EEPROM programming before the Windows installation. Afterwards the resources in the EEPROM were adapted, but the driver did not automatically transfer them to the first line of AUTOEXEC.BAT. Please change the first line as follows:

@SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 T4

Save the file by overwriting/replacing the original.

2. Next minor point:

It seems that IRQs 3 and 4 are still free. So you can ENABLE IRQ assignment for USB in your BIOS if you wish to use your USB ports at some point:

3. Please check your speaker configuration:

So far you have:
1. configured the hardware resources (I/O address, interrupts, DMA channels) by enabling them in the BIOS (PCI/ISA PnP) and writing them to the EEPROM using the EWS64CFG program under DOS.
This replaces the configuration using jumpers, as can still be found on old ISA cards (Legacy ISA). The EWS64 XL therefore belongs to the ISA PnP cards. The configuration is done by software without having to open the computer, similar to PCI cards.
2. installed the driver by unpacking the file EWS64_Drv_w9x_3.1.exe and installing the contents using the device manager when Windows found the card at system startup
3. installed parts of the configuration tools by extracting the files
EWS64_App_w9x_D.exe
EWS64_MixerSettings.exe
into the default directory.
4. set some software parameters in the device manager and the control panel.
The card consists of two major components:
The Crystal CS4236B chip, called Synthesizer (if I remember correctly), and the Dream SAM9407 chip, called Codec. The latter has a 2 MiB Roland sound font on the card for sound generation and can load additional sound fonts, e.g. from Yamaha, Korg etc., into the additional memory on the card.

The next step will deal with the mixer and the sound routing.

Display More

Yea Like I said it triggers my anxiety and I get very negative of it, sorry for that I will read this through, just so you know I am still here, I don't even know how to thank you back really

Anyways I still have the card built in, all Id o know I don't think I can get much more out of it.
Not going to sell it just yet even it's just a thought, I mostly sell things that I don't find useful and if it's in the hands of someone that can make it more useful I will have peace with it.

Quote from undertaker_2

Would you be interested in a trade for a Soundblaster 64 AWE Gold! + S/PDIF Bracket?

If so, get in touch...

Hell no, I paid 435 Euros for this card incl box & Repairs so that is what I will ask for it, no low balling offers mate.... I can buy a AWE 64 Gold with bracket + CD for less than 100 Eur if I wanted to, so that never.

And also ex shipping like I said it's a card for those that know how to use it and I really don't know anything even I have really tried.

There are times I wish I never bought the card , because if I knew it would be this difficult I would of avoided it, so I am still willing to see what else can be done but I have many doubts.

Mixed minds can it work well it should do as it is installed, I have done everything that I could understand yet i am still doubtful if this is every going to workout for me.

Quote from Lotosdrache

Quote from Lotosdrache

For Windows:
- open the Windows System Properties

- go to TerraTec Audio Devices

- double-click on TerraTec EWS64 XL Synthesizer

- go to MIDI tab and setup your favorit soundfonts

- you can also take a look on the other tabs

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Once you have familiarized yourself with loading the sound fonts, go to the “Setting” tab and set the Number of Wave Play channels to a maximum of 4.

http://www.studio4all.de/htmle/main33.html#ews64inst08

Keep this tab in mind. If you have problems with the card later, you can try to increase the Wave Play buffer latency (didn't help me in any case) or set the Direct Sound option to Game Mode.

Now go back to system properties and double-click on TerraTec EWS64 XL Codec.
Set everything like here: http://www.studio4all.de/htmle/main33.html#ews64inst09

Next step and then it should sound much better.
- Go to the Windows System Control Panel
- Open the Multimedia applet (Note that I only know the German names and am guessing at the English ones. The real English ones may differ slightly).

http://www.studio4all.de/htmle/main33.html#ews64inst10

- Check if the settings are correct:
1. Audio tab: Set the EWS64XL codec as the preferred device in both cases.
2. Multimedia tab: Use EWS64XL Midi Play

- Restart your PC

I hope it sounds better now. We will discuss the different sound routings of the card later.
I'm going to make breakfast and then do the shopping for the weekend. That will take until noon.

Display More

Reviewing this I setup as you mentioned but still mono sound at bootup but my midi music does not even play, this is confusing.
I just follow on what is being said even I have little understanding what I am doing.

EWS64 XL Multimedia Properties:

also I make as many photos as I can so you can see how things are on my end.
Even I have no idea what I am doing wrong either, it's like walking ina thick layer of mist and with no vision on what lies ahead.

And yes I have the complete card + IO Drive flat data cables + all three manuals, two CD's and a floppy disk.
It is basically the full retail package:

And here the card fully recapped by Backfire

And here in the system as of now:

So yea the entire thing is complete.

Despite all on how beautiful it looks I still have no mp3 & Midi sound out put from my speakers, only the Windows sound plays after bootup and when I run the Matrox G400 tech demo the music plays from the right speaker, so with all the work we did here it's still no normal result which I am still hoping to find, even I am already running out of possibilities.

Maybe this card is better off in the hands of those that actually know what they are doing as I have mentioned earlier it's beyond my limits of knowledge or left alone understanding.

Or maybe that is just my mind speaking abruptly

whelp I been through the that site several times I tried to follow it all now I have Mono sound at startup and no sound at all if playing Midi files...
Can[t call this an improvement tbh... it's alla bit much for me tho.

This is what I have during bootup:

And here the settings I used as that guide went:

EWS64 XL Synthesizer Properties:

EWS64 XL Codex Properties:

EWS64 XL MIDI-2 Resources:


And still I have Mono sound at start up but none of my MP3's & Mdii music plays there is no sound at all.

ahh right well I'll continue tomorrow now Iam vibing to 1980's pop hits with some friends in VR Chat haha

As the EWS64 XL goes my mind was like dis

More like WELL ...

Well that isn't working lol

soundfonts won't load because they are not.tts files.
My card has 32MB Sound font memory it seems 34816 KB so about 34MB total sound font memory, od number would of thought it came with 32 or 64MB EDO ram, unless it's 2MB on the board + 32MB EDO ram hmm probably something like that,

hmm I can't open that thing, it says bad command or file name heh, that isn't doing much I guess

Nevermind that


Hmm no idea what this all means tho.

oops double post

No idea how I am supposed to set that up if being honest....

As for configuration utilities go..where are they?
Because none of them were installed with them 3.1 drivers, it is just the bare driver and nothing else, it's like a WDM driver kit for just the hardware and nothing else, it's very bare in that sense.

So i can download them files but no idea how to even use them, this is all kind of above my knowledge tbh, it's very hard for me to follow
If I knew that using this card was this mentally complicated and very unfriendly for use, I would of avoided it with my life, this is just not my kind of thing man.
Just wtf after the other wtf situation, no offense, but it's already nearing the wall of impossibility for me.
The card I have will be better in the hands of those that know what they are "actually" doing, but no way with me.

Anyways I'll see what i can do, but I fear I will have to let this one slide, all because it's way too damn complicated and too bloody stressful which is the opposite of fun.... and that doers not go well with my mind's liking.

Sorry man I may just place this card on the marketplace of VA or elsewhere.