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-
- Sound Blaster AWE32 and Sound Blaster 16 PnP Drivers
- ----------------------------------------------------
-
- Disclaimer
- ----------
-
- The Sound Blaster AWE32 and Sound Blaster 16 Drivers and
- related files provided in this package are provided 'as
- is' without any warranties from Creative Technology Ltd,
- expressed or implied with respect to the files. Creative
- Technology Ltd. would not be responsible for any kind of
- damage, caused directly or indirectly, by using these
- drivers and the related files.
-
- Proceed with the installation, only if you agree to the
- above terms and conditions.
-
-
- *WARNING*
- ---------
-
- THE INSTALLATION PROGRAM REQUIRES THAT YOU HAVE INSTALLED
- EITHER SOUND BLASTER AWE32 OR SOUND BLASTER 16 WITH
- MMPM/2.
-
- IF YOU ARE USING SOUND BLASTER PRO OR ANY OTHER SOUND
- CARD, USE 'Selective Install' TO INSTALL SUPPORT FOR
- SOUND BLASTER AWE32 OR SOUND BLASTER 16 AND THEN RUN THIS
- INSTALLATION PROGRAM.
-
- ALSO NOTE THAT, TO INSTALL THE DRIVERS CORRECTLY, USE THE
- INSTALLATION PROGRAM. SIMPLY COPYING THE DRIVER FILES AND
- UPDATING THE CONFIG.SYS IS NOT ENOUGH. THE INSTALLATION
- PROGRAM UPDATES YOUR CONFIG.SYS AND MMPM2.INI AND CREATES
- OTHER INITIALIZATION FILES AS REQUIRED.
-
-
- What's New
- ----------
-
- New DLL+SYS Architecture
- ------------------------
-
- The Sound Blaster drivers now come in two parts. A ring
- 3 driver in the form of a DLL(VSD) and the traditional
- ring 0 PDD. These drivers implement most of the new
- features and interfaces introduced with Warp.
-
- DART
- ----
-
- These drivers behave properly with DART enabled applications.
- DART provides a high performance audio interface for games.
-
- AWE32 SoundFont Support
- -----------------------
-
- The Sound Blaster AWE32 drivers now include support for
- SoundFont loading. The control panel application, can be
- used to load SoundFont files into the banks.
-
- Detection of Various Vibra Chipsets
- -----------------------------------
-
- These drivers also include support for the latest series of
- Vibra chipsets. Unlike old drivers, the support for different
- Vibra chipsets are built-in and there's no need for a driver
- specific for Vibra.
-
- Support for Advanced Power Management(APM)
- ------------------------------------------
-
- These drivers include Advanced Power Management support.
- On systems with APM support, the drivers would suspend and
- resume correctly.
-
- CSP Codec Support
- -----------------
-
- CSP support has been added in. You can use the same CSP
- files used in Windows. Copy the CSP files to \MMOS2\DSP
- directory. The drivers look for the CSP files and if the
- required CSP file is not present, it would use the DSP
- files shipped with Warp. The CSP files provide better
- recording/playback quality than the ones shipped with
- Warp.
-
- Plug n'Play Support
- -------------------
-
- These drivers include support for Plug n'Play cards. The drivers
- would detect these cards and automatically initialize them.
-
- To enable automatic configuration of Plug n'Play cards, omit all
- hardware related parameters in the CONFIG.SYS DEVICE= line. These
- are /A, /I, /M, /D and /H for base address, IRQ, MPU port address,
- 8-bit DMA and 16-bit DMA respectively.
-
- If any of these parameters are specified, the driver would
- initialize the hardware with the parameter value specified taking
- default values for the parameters omitted.
-
- Plug n'Play BIOS
- ----------------
-
- On systems with Plug n'Play BIOS, the driver would not initialize
- the hardware unless otherwise requested. The BIOS initializes the
- sound board and the driver just reads the settings.
-
- But again, if any of the hardware parameters are specified in the
- DEVICE= line, the driver would initialize the card with the
- specified parameters. This feature comes handy when having to
- configure a system with PnP BIOS and with legacy cards that cannot
- be configured. Such legacy cards might have resource conflicts
- with standard Sound Blaster configuration. In this case you can
- ask the driver to override the default configuration with the one
- you specified in CONFIG.SYS.
-
- On some systems, the driver's Plug n'Play BIOS interface in the
- driver causes it to crash during initialization. This is due to
- incompatibility between different PnP BIOS implementations. If
- you get the problem, try /P option with the driver. This tells
- the driver to ingnore the PnP BIOS forcing it not to access the
- PnP BIOS functions even if one is present.
-
- Co-existence Other Plug n'Play Cards
- ------------------------------------
-
- The SB driver would initialize *ONLY* Sound Blaster PnP cards. If
- there are other PnP cards in the system, the driver would not
- initialize them. Nor would it tamper with other PnP cards that
- have already been initialized by its driver or PnP BIOS. This
- ensures a certain level of system integrity.
-
-
- CONFIG.SYS DEVICE= Line Syntax
- ------------------------------
-
- The new drivers use a different command line syntax from
- the original Sound Blaster drivers installed with Warp
- MMPM/2. The new DEVICE= line syntax goes like this,
-
- DEVICE=<path>\SB16D2.SYS /C:n /D:n /H:n /I:x /A:xxx /B:n /M:xxx /N:SBAUD1$ [/Q] [/EXT]
-
- /C: - Card Number, this would be set to 1 in most cases
- /D: - 8-bit DMA channel,
- Valid values - 0, 1 & 3
- (Sound Blaster cards that use Vibra chipset do not have 0).
- Default value - 1.
- /H: - 16-bit DMA channel,
- Valid values - 5, 6 & 7
- (Sound Blaster cards that use Vibra chipset do not have 6).
- Default value - 5.
- /I: - IRQ number,
- Valid values - 2, 5, 7 & 10.
- Default IRQ - 5.
- /A: - Base addresss,
- Valid values - 220, 240, 260, 280
- Default value - 220.
- /B: - Buffer size in KB,
- Valid values - 1-24. While any value in this range would work
- fine, to get the best results use either 8 or 16.
- Default value - 8.
- /M: - MPU port address
- Valid values - 300 & 330
- Default value - 330.
- /N: - driver name, set this to SBAUD1$
- /Q - quiet mode flag, OPTIONAL
- Setting this option disables initialization messages.
- If not specified the initialization messages are displayed
- during boot-up.
- /EXT - use MPU port instead of internal synth for MIDI, OPTIONAL
- By default the drivers are configured to use the internal
- synthesizer. But if you have a daughterboard attached to
- your Sound Blaster card and you want MIDI playback to
- use the synthesizer in the daughterboard, specify
- this flag.
- /P - Ignore PnP BIOS if it is present. If PnP BIOS is present,
- the driver usually queries the BIOS for certain PnP port
- addresses. Specifying this option causes the driver not
- to access the BIOS and determine these port addresses
- itself.
-
- THE NEW DRIVER DOES NOT RECOGNIZE THE OLD POSITIONAL SYNTAX.
-
- The installation program would make the necessary chages
- to your CONFIG.SYS. But make sure that you have a valid
- existing Sound Blaster AWE32 or Sound Blaster 16 support
- installed in MMPM/2(See *WARNING* above).
-
- A sample CONFIG.SYS statement looks like this:-
-
- DEVICE=C:\SBAWE32\SBAWED2.SYS /C:1 /D:1 /H:5 /I:5 /A:220 /B:8 /M:330 /N:SBAUD1$
-
-
- Using 8-bit DMA Channel for 16-bit DMA
- --------------------------------------
-
- Some systems come without 16-bit DMA support. In such
- systems, the drivers can be configured to use 8-bit DMA
- channels for 16-bit DMA. Just set the 16-bit DMA Channel
- parameter(/H:) to use one of the 8-bit DMA channels(0, 1
- or 3).
-
-
- Reporting Driver Problems & Bugs
- --------------------------------
-
- If you find any problem or bugs in the driver, please do
- report them. If you have internet access, please post a
- message on the comp.os.os2.multimedia newsgroup. This is
- the best way to ensure that the bug report reaches the
- driver developer.
-
- If you do not have internet access, please report the bug
- to Creative Technology/Creative Labs technical support
- and they will inform the developer.
-
-
- [HM12011995]