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Is WSS sound driver for DOS really working?
Rafal Szyja
Member #2,408
June 2002
avatar

well... It's not really a Allegro developing problem, but
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Is WSS sound driver for DOS really working?
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I tried window$ Sound System driver for DOS on 3 PCs with different cards (with properly installed drivers!) and it wont work!

these cards are:
Crystal CS4235 ISA (win98fe)
Zoltrix RadioMax ISA (I forgot model... ;) ) (win98fe)
Sound Blaster Live! PCI (win98fe)

CS4235 is mine.
It's SBPRO hardware-compatible so it provides 44KHz/8bit/mono and
22KHz/8bit/stereo but in WSS mode it can support 48KHz/16bit/stereo!!!

HOW ABOUT THIS? :-/

_____________________________________________________________
My website: [url http://rafalszyja.republika.pl]
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Thomas Fjellstrom
Member #476
June 2000
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I remember it working for my old Yamaha card that was builtin to an old motherboard... Other than that, I don't know.

--
Thomas Fjellstrom - [website] - [email] - [Allegro Wiki] - [Allegro TODO]
"If you can't think of a better solution, don't try to make a better solution." -- weapon_S
"The less evidence we have for what we believe is certain, the more violently we defend beliefs against those who don't agree" -- https://twitter.com/neiltyson/status/592870205409353730

Bruce Perry
Member #270
April 2000

Well, Descent 2 was perfectly capable of using the Windows Sound System driver on my laptop. Allegro wasn't. So there we go.

--
Bruce "entheh" Perry [ Web site | DUMB | Set Up Us The Bomb !!! | Balls ]
Programming should be fun. That's why I hate C and C++.
The brxybrytl has you.

Thomas Fjellstrom
Member #476
June 2000
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I seem to remember not much actual work being done on it after it was added to allegro.

--
Thomas Fjellstrom - [website] - [email] - [Allegro Wiki] - [Allegro TODO]
"If you can't think of a better solution, don't try to make a better solution." -- weapon_S
"The less evidence we have for what we believe is certain, the more violently we defend beliefs against those who don't agree" -- https://twitter.com/neiltyson/status/592870205409353730

Thomas Harte
Member #33
April 2000
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I think perhaps you have become confused by the terminology? The Windows Sound System is a particular type of sound card. DOS Allegro does not (and probably cannot) hook into the windows sound drivers, offering support for any card.

The WSS cards are of a similar vintage to the Disney Sound Source - you're unlikely to see one in the wild nowadays. But the hardware is documented on http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Heights/6494/wss.html if anyone is interested.

Bruce Perry
Member #270
April 2000

Then why was Descent 2 able to use its Windows Sound System driver? The card was an ESS of some kind, and Allegro could use the ESS driver without problems. I believe D2's WSS driver worked on every computer we had, provided D2 was running in a Windows DOS-box.

--
Bruce "entheh" Perry [ Web site | DUMB | Set Up Us The Bomb !!! | Balls ]
Programming should be fun. That's why I hate C and C++.
The brxybrytl has you.

Thomas Harte
Member #33
April 2000
avatar

From http://www.mobygames.com/attribute/sheet/attributeId,78/ :

Quote:

The Windows Sound System was a sound card put out by (guess who?) Microsoft as an optimal sound card for Windows 3.1 multimedia applications. It was not compatible with any other DOS-supported "standard" sound card, so additional code was needed by DOS games to support it.

From http://mail-index.netbsd.org/port-i386/1995/06/30/0001.html :

Quote:

Found such card lying around without any documentation or disks, tried
stuffing it into my PC.

In fact, http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;Q254081&FR=1 :

Quote:

The issue occurs because the Windows Sound System sound card is not supported in Windows Millennium Edition.

From the Allegro file, wss.c :

static void wss_wait()
{
   int i = 0xFFFF;

   /* Wait for INIT bit to clear */
   while ((inportb(_sound_port + 4) & INIT) || (i-- > 0))
      ;
}

Enough evidence for you?

Thomas Fjellstrom
Member #476
June 2000
avatar

Thomas, you could access WSS cards provided windows was running. At least I could.. Then my card only emulated WSS, It was not a WSS card its self. In fact it was a really nice Yamaha chip that had the best hardware midi I've ever heard. (no patchsets that I could change...)

--
Thomas Fjellstrom - [website] - [email] - [Allegro Wiki] - [Allegro TODO]
"If you can't think of a better solution, don't try to make a better solution." -- weapon_S
"The less evidence we have for what we believe is certain, the more violently we defend beliefs against those who don't agree" -- https://twitter.com/neiltyson/status/592870205409353730

Thomas Harte
Member #33
April 2000
avatar

Microsoft are to blame here. They have mixed terminology. The thing launched and sold as the Windows Sound System is an open standard for sound cards based on some widely available chips.

Later on, however, Microsoft seem to have come up with the Windows Sound System 2.0, which according to http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;Q110377& "ships with drivers for five of the most popular sound cards." - including the sound blaster and compatibles.

The original definition is still the one in most wide use, is the one most things mean when they refer to WSS, and is the thing Allegro means it refers to WSS.

Rafal Szyja
Member #2,408
June 2002
avatar

well... so why Crystal CS4235 isn't working ?
it should be CS4232 compatible!???

_____________________________________________________________
My website: [url http://rafalszyja.republika.pl]
Gadugadu:3646465 ICQ: 177671442

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