Hi there,

recently partly patched my win98se system via AutoPatcher98_Dec.2007 (modules: Stability Hotfixes, Internet Explorer, Recommended Tweaks - Turn on DMA access to your storage devices)

Except a certain sound Issue (spoken sound stutters in MS Flight Simulator 9) everything works very well.

Tried several adjustments to fix this. Updated drivers for my sound card (Sound Blaster Live! 24-bit), lowered its hardware acceleration in the audio tab, increased and decreased its latency, checked its IRQ (to be separated from any other device) and switched off any Directx (version 9c) debugging. Dxdiag tab tells me everything works well.

Does anyone have an idea what could be wrong?

I will be very greatful to any reasonable answer.

Os win98se
Physical Memory 511 MB Total
Virtual Memory 768 MB Total
Disk Space 74 GB Total

Motherboard
Manufacturer ECS
Model K7S5A

Chipset Vendor Silicon Integrated Systems (SiS)
Chipset Model SiS735 CPU to PCI Bridge
South Bridge SiS 735

Chipset Vendor Silicon Integrated Systems (SiS)
Chipset Model SiS735 CPU to PCI Bridge
South Bridge SiS 735

CPU AMD Athlon XP
Cpu Socket Socket-A
Processor Upgrade LIF Socket
Maximum Memory Module Size 128 Mbytes
CPU Name AMD Athlon™ XP 1800+
CPU Clock 1526.85

Video Card
NVIDIA GeForce FX 5500
Driver 81.98_forceware_win9x_international

Hi FirstOff,
Welcome to MSFN!

Can I assume that you had this problem before you used Auto-Patcher 98?
You could try the unofficial nVidia 82.69 drivers. See here: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=97140
Download here: http://www.mdgx.com/files/NV8269.EXE
I use them with a FX 5200 with no problems and a bit more performance from the 81.98 official drivers.
I have an original Live! card with current drivers on a VIA chipset Mobo.
Make sure that hardware acceleration is set to full for both audio and video.
Also, sometimes Creative sound cards do not like being in PCI slot 1 on the Mobo.
You will probably have to check your Mobo manual to find slot 1.
Go to http://www.sis.com/download/
Download and install the current SiS AGP GART driver 1.21 (assuming you are using AGP) and the current IDE driver 2.04a.
After installing, check in Device Manager, that the hard drives and CD/DVD drives actually are using DMA.
Non-DMA access uses the CPU for every byte transferred to the device and causes a lot of overhead.

Hi RetroOS,

thank you for replying and your tipps. Actually this happens since I autopatched my pc.
I'm using 81.98 driver for my video card since it has been released and can't complain about it, neither about performance nor about persisting sound probs. Setting hardware acceleration for sound to full increases the problem. Since ever acceleration for graphics has been set to full. Also tried to vary the slots of my sound card but without a result too. SiS AGP GART driver 1.21 has been installed since long. IDE driver 2.04a has been installed yesterday but nothing changed too. DMA switched on since a long time too.

Anyway thank you very much for answering.

FirstOff

Well, you might as well install the rest of Auto-Patcher 98 updates.
I've got all of Auto-Patcher (excluding manual installs folder) installed and currently my 98SE is stable with no audio or video issues.
You may find that it all works okay after that.

FirstOff, don't ignore the above very good advice - do it and report back the results. You are looking for the devices to have checks in the "Use DMA" checkbox for each drive. That would be under Properties|Settings tab, just in case you don't know where to look.

Then reboot and make sure again as many checked DMA boxes do not survive a reboot and in that case you need to take extra measures to get them to "stick".
DMA Check Box Does Not Remain Checked
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=159560
Further info - substitue 2x (DMA) modes as follows
UDMA mode 0 is 40
UDMA mode 1 is 41, etc.

Also double check that you even have a DMA buffer set aside with this line in your [386Enh] section of your System.ini file.

DMABufferSize=64

Seeing only 511 Mb of RAM available (missing 1 meg), it would seem you do have 64k reserved for DMA transfers but it can't hurt to double check.

Checking my own check boxes right now in order to post correct location info I see that I have work to do as well - can't turn around some days without trouble developing somewhere. I'm off to follow RetroOS's good advice.

Hi FirstOff,

Welcome to MSFN. I'm sorry to hear you have developed a little problem since using AutoPatcher, but i'm sure we can fix it up.

I would try to get you machine back to the state it was in when it worked as intended. Not by uninstalling the hotfixes you've already installed, but by re-installing Flight Simulator again (or do a repair install). If this doesn't work, we could try uninstalling some of the hotfixes you installed when using the stability hotfix module.

Increasing latency might work to prevent stuttering. But if your video card takes up to much bandwidth there won't be much to increase. So try decreasing the latency of your video card, usually the latency is set at maximum (255) by default. I have DTM racedriver that runs swift on my system but I have to lower the latency of my Radeon 9600 to 128 (default 255) to prevent sound stuttering. While other games or multimedia apps don't need this.
But, I don't have any idea why you didn't have this problem before installing AP. That's strange but the symptoms you describe and the fact that you ruled out other possibilities points me into this direction. And in case of harddisk DMA problems you will see overall degrading of system performance, certainly not limited to just sound in just one game! Your problem is to subtle for such a serious case.

To set the latency you can use agptimer

Hi ShadeTreeLee,

surely you think I've switched on DMA recently cause i used it in Autopatcher. Actually using it since long. Just patched it to ensure still working properly.

What do you mean by "substitue 2x (DMA) modes as follows:
UDMA mode 0 is 40
UDMA mode 1 is 41, etc."?
and how to apply?

Of course I've checked DMABufferSize=64 and that DMA mode is working well when I applied it first time.

Thank you for answering

FO

Hi

and thanks to all.

Think I've found the reason for my problem. Modified the values for SDR/DDR Cas Latency, SDR/DDR RAS Active Time and SDR/DDR Precharge Time in Bios and decreased them slightly. Also replaced my Fs9 config file by a recently updated one. Obviously this works and the probs seem to have disappeared.

FO

UDMA is Ultra DMA which is what most drives are using these days but still calling it just DMA. UDMA will be defined for you by your POST (Power On, Self Test) screens as each drive is listed there using information supplied to the BIOS by the drive itself. According to the Knowledge Base article if you want to instruct the drive to use mode 2 DMA you send it the number 22 on the second line of the script as outlined in the article. If the drive is actually UDMA mode 2 capable you need to make that number a 42 instead. DMA mode 5 would then be 25 and UDMA mode 5 would be 45.

The article descibes how to write a debug script to "set" your hard drives into higher modes of DMA transfer so as to speed up your computer's disk access times. Often this is the cause of not having the DMA checkboxes remain checked and you still haven't stated that yours actually are checked or not in so many words.

I can't begin to guess what a "Fs9 config file" is but I'm still glad you got it worked out.

Dear ShadeTreeLee,

thanks for answering. Now I instructed my hard drive to definitly use and show (device manager) UDMA5. Whereas i think before it had been already switched to UDMA5 because that's said to be default adjustment of my hard drive. Do you know something about UDMA6? My HDD is capable fo it. Postings in www telling me that one can switch to it but can't see any difference to UDMA5 cause that would be the maximum to be applied.

Best regards

Frank

Hi, Frank. First you are welcome, I'm glad to be of any help at all. I don't know anything personal about UDMA6 mode as I'm doing good to get UDMA4 to work here. I can't really understand your last sentence because I wonder why the maximum to be applied is limited to UDMA5. If you meant to say instead, that despite all attempts to set it higher (UDMA6), it just won't fly at that speed, then we do have some common ground after all as I also can not get my system to remain set at the highest speed that the drive's info state they are capable of. One of my Seagates is UDMA5 capable but it won't return a 00 code for that setting when the debug script is run. My other drive is a UDMA4 Seagate and both will only accept a speed script for UDMA3.

It doesn't seem to matter anyway though. The methodology for testing actual UDMA speed is to use an application like Hard Drive Tachometer which will read files and clock them as to the actual disk speeds achieved. What I have found is that once you have a drive returning a 00 code for <b>ANY</b> UDMA setting, the drive is set to use it's highest possible UDMA speed and other settings are ignored anyway. And one can even fudge the setting speed by one higher, get back a non-good code for the drive and still have the drive run in it's highest UDMA mode anyway - so there is a lot going on here that just isn't fully known or discussed.

I would sugest that you do a Google search for your Brand and model number of hard drive, perhaps there is a firmware upgrade that can be applied or a special driver or unique information for it? That's exactly how I found out that Seagate drives very often require the DMA script approach in order to get them run beyond PIO4 mode. The motherboard has a great deal to do with it also as my nephew's rig only had troubles one time and after running the script once, his remained in UDMA speeds without needing the script at every boot like mine always has.

Because of this thread:
http://www.msfn.org/board/Can-t-enable-DMA...ED-t112779.html
I went here:
http://www.mdgx.com/98-2.htm#W98DMA IDE BUS MASTER DMA FIX
to learn that Windows 98 was shipped with the DMA turned off and the modification to the two inf files is required in order to allow DMA to be used in the first place - no wonder I have so much trouble with it. Please vist the DMA sites that mdgx has listed there - lots of more DMA info for you.