# duke nukem sound problem



## alanh (Sep 20, 2003)

i have an older yamaha sound card, P3 733 mHz, WIN98SE. it works fine except in Duke Nukem 30D.

The Yamaha PCI audio codec uses IRQ11. No conflicts. The Yamaha Legacy Sound System uses IRQ9, DMA 01, I/O range 0240-024F, etc.

Duke's sound setup: finds the sound card under the soundblaster choice at address 0 x 240. I can choose DMA 01, and IRQ11, but IRQ9 is not even there as a choice. When I test the sound within DUKE setup or try to run the game I get a "failed to load , possibly due to a DMA conflict" error message"

What can I do?


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## WarC (Dec 26, 2001)

Try rebooting the computer into DOS mode before running the game...That helps alot with other issues, might help here as well. Also, a lot of the newer soundcards will play sound through all kinds of legacy drivers, so trying options other than sound blaster might work for you as well.

Beyond that, perhaps you should consider trying to change what IRQ the sound card uses...And double, triple check for IRAQ conflicts.


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## WarC (Dec 26, 2001)

IRAQ conflicts! Hahahaha, waaaay too much news reaching our heads, these days.

IRQ Conflicts! On the computer! Eeeek!


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## Couriant (Mar 26, 2002)

You might want to see if you can change the IRQ manually to IRQ11. But try to use all the IRQ configs, also choose (if you didn't) soundblaster compatible for the card.


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## alanh (Sep 20, 2003)

Thanks for the responses, but no joy yet. 

Booting into DOS mode allowed the game setup to again run, but no difference in the results. 

There are no IRQ conflicts. In fact one irq, 4 is free. It's not an availble choice form DUKE however.

I tried all combinations of card types, but only the soundblaster type allows me go forward. Tried all soundblaster types, but no difference. Left it on "soundblaster or compatible".

Although windows sysytem information shows IRQ4 free Duke3D does not show IRQ4 as a choice in Duke setup. IRQ3 does show. So tried changing the IRQ for a modem on IRQ3 to IRQ4. Windows would not allow it.

Tried changing the legacy sound sytem form IRQ9 to anything else, it warned a conflict would result, but I did it anyway, and a big red x results indicating conflict, Went back to IRQ9.

I really do not get how IRQs work, , like what are the rules of assignment of devices to IRQs. Good suggestions so far, but anyone have others?

thanks


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## alanh (Sep 20, 2003)

Also, what is a CODEC??


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## Couriant (Mar 26, 2002)

codec is like a format for video (and I guess audio). Codecs are typically used with Windows Media Player. So for example if a .mpg (or .mpeg, .avi etc) was made with DIVX 5, then you will need the codec to decode that file so it can play in your video player (WMP, Winamp3 etc).

I was thinking about your sound card. If I'm not mistaken DN3D came out A LONG time ago, when ISAs were the norm and if I remember correctly, DN3D only had IRQs 1, 3, 5, 7 ,9 and 11, it's possible that your sound card is not compatible with the game because of it's settings. It was easier to configure ISA sound cards than PCIs. It's been that long since I played DN3D and I don't remember the settings anymore.


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## alanh (Sep 20, 2003)

By removing my old ISA modem card I managed to move devices around a bit in the IRQ assignments without causing conflicts. I now have the Yamaha Audio CODEC at IRQ11 and the Yamaha Legacy Sound System at IRQ10, DMA 0, memory adresses beginning with 0 x 260. [Why there are both the CODEC and the Legacy system both shown in device mgr? If I remove the CODEC from DM the whole sound card disappears.]

The Duke Nukem 3-D that we have, recently purchased, on CD, does, as Tidus says, have limited IRQ choices under the sound card setup, but they are: 2,3,5,7,10,11,12, and 15 on my version on this PC. I thought getting IRQs 10 and 11 as my PCI sound card devices would be good.

If I choose IRQ11, test of the sound card crashes the system. If I try from DOS boot, no sound cards are found at all.

Duke 3D does seem to see my sound card at address ox260, IRQ10. But no matter which 8-bit DMA choice I make on Duke setup: 0,1,or3, or which 16-bit DMA choice: 5,6, or 7, I still get , upon sound card testing the error message "playback failed, possibly due to an invalid or conflicting DMA channel".

On another of our PCs, also Pentium 3, WIN98SE, but with an actual soundblaster PCI 128 sound card, this same Duke 3D runs great. It also runs great on my P4, ASUS P4PE-X machine using the on MOBO audio hardware under SoundMax.

The weird thing is that on the P3 machine where it does work, the soundblaster device is assigned IRQ11, but duke is set up using IRQ5. System info shows IRQ5 as "free". This is why I say I do not get IRQs yet.

Can anyone help further, please?


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## Couriant (Mar 26, 2002)

On Windows 98, I was able to play DN3D on Command Prompt. THat way the sound was already configured and the game was supposely found the card. Though the sound card was onboard (ASUS)... as for the CODEC thing, that may be the primary name for the sound card... for example if you install a sound card, it will install the primary driver, then install the MIDI driver (to make the MIDI sounds compatible with the card). If you remove the primary one, the others will (usually) be removed too.

PS where are you finding the IRQ information?


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## alanh (Sep 20, 2003)

Tidus, here is a dumb question, but : when you say able to play on command prompt, do you mean after booting into WIN 98 normal boot you then open an MSOS window and then play? Or do you mean you press control or F8 during boot and choose comand prompt then instead of Safe Mode or normal boot? Or is there another way to do this?

My IRQ information is coming from start\programs\accessories\system tools\sytem information\hardware resources\IRQs

as well as from Device manager under the resources tab for the various devices.

I did find a very helpful description of IRQs and DMAs at http://www.pcguide.com/ref/mbsys/res/

I'll try again to run Duke from a DOS command prompt, but I think I must not be getting that right.

Thanks, and please bear with me

Alan


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## Couriant (Mar 26, 2002)

To be more specific, go into Windows and then select the Command Prompt (or MS DOS Prompt).

Secondly the reason I asked about the IRQ info is because if you go to MS DOS first (F8'ing it) then the default IRQ will be what the BIOS sets... this information is shown just before it says Starting Windows 98 on boot up. The game will only work if the IRQ on the game is the same on that beginning part. The DMA is usually 1.

EDIT: Actually I had a shortcut to .exe file... worked, though sometimes the music sound was disabled, but the sfx was ok.


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## MysticEyes (Mar 30, 2002)

Doesn't there have to be some lines in the autoexec.bat that SET BLASTER, etc., to get the card fired up in DOS?
http://rinkworks.com/apogee/s/6.4.2.shtml


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## alanh (Sep 20, 2003)

Okay, I believe I understand you now. I have been trying to run the duke3d setup program from an MSDOS prompt selected after booting into WIN98, just as you have. So I suppose that means that the IRQ and DMA of the sound card are what windows sets them to be, not BIOS, right?

The problem continues as a failure to playback dukes sound test file during the SFX test in Duke3d setup. For what it's worth, if I choose no soundcard the game plays just fine, but without sound , of course.

I do have only 2 lines in the autoexec.bat file. The first one is a SET Blaster string, the second is SETSBPCI= ... line. The previous sound card in this machine was a soundblaster 128pci card. I think, however, that I have boot set to not run autoexec.bat. Should I change that?

To review, running Duke setup.exe from an MSDOS prompt the sound card setup seems to find the card at the right address [0x260], at the right IRQ [IRQ10 now]. Since removing the ISA modem, and now reinstalling, and letting Windows reassign IRQs and DMA channels, I now see the Yamaha CODEC on IRQ 11, and the Yamaha Legacy Sound System on IRQ10, DMA channel 0, at address 0x260. If I now run DUKE setup and select these things, the computer crashes. If I change the DUKE sfx 8-bit DMA to 1 or 3, no crash, but the error msg about playback results.

What can we look into or try now? The actual soundblaster card is still here in a different machine. Any value in returning it to this machine temporarily?


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## alanh (Sep 20, 2003)

Correction to my last post, as this is a moving target: 

Started getting conflicting resource mesages from Windows, looked back on device mgr and saw that Windows has moved COM1 and COM3 to IRQ10, and I had forced the Yanmaha legacy system to stay there, creating a resource conflict. When I re-checked automatic resource assignment for the Yamaha ir reassigned it IRQ9 again, and i cannot select that from Duke3d setup. 

As the Larson FAR SIDE characters often said: DANG!!


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## MysticEyes (Mar 30, 2002)

> I think, however, that I have boot set to not run autoexec.bat. Should I change that?


You need the autoexec.bat file to run. Soundblaster was the defacto standard. See if your card has some way of emulating this.

_games that use Soundblasters look at the BLASTER environment variable to figure out where to send its sound output. Check to make sure that you have the SET BLASTER line in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file. _


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## Couriant (Mar 26, 2002)

What is the IRQ setting before Windows boots up?


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## alanh (Sep 20, 2003)

Okay. Changed config to run autoexec at boot and verified that there is a SET BLASTER line there.

Same problem with Duke3D.


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## MysticEyes (Mar 30, 2002)

Read the readme and try the sound patch
http://www.3drealms.com/downloads.html


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## alanh (Sep 20, 2003)

Thanks for the lead to the patches, Mysticeyes. It helped fix the occasional crash on our P3 system with the soundblaster card. 

On the Yamaha card system the patch did change an important item. After reinstall with the patch in place Duke setup came up first time with IRQ9 as the soundblaster assigned IRQ, even though you still could not change it to 9 by menu pick. Just the same, it still had the error as before and I'm giving up. 

I think the final issue is that the Yamaha card is not SB compatible and is not one of the Duke3d compatible sound card selections.

I consider this issue closed, and hope others benefit from the discussion. Thanks to you all for the patient help and advice. 

Alan


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## Couriant (Mar 26, 2002)

I thought there was a Yamaha sound card listed in the soundcard list...

anyways, you can pick up a 16 bit sound card for next to nothing (soundblaster) which should be compatible...


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