 The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group Sound Advice Darryl Harrison |
Aren't sound cards great? They open up a new dimension to games and allow you to think of interesting noises to associate with Windows actions. One now asks how to improve the actual sound quality.
Let's face it, the standard non-powered speakers supplied with most multimedia upgrade packages only hint at your audio possibilities. A typical sound card has a built in amplifier rated at four watts per channel at four ohms impedance (the same rating as a low priced car radio/ cassette). This is fine for standard speakers, but running a speaker rated at say 20 watts nominal input would have serious consequences. The amplifier would be driven into what's known as "clipping," trying to drive a load it's not capable of. The end result is a blown speaker. Let's look at some ways to improve our audio.
For those on a tight budget, try finding a pair of car audio speakers rated at four watts nominal, or even maximum input at four ohms impedance. There should be plenty of these lying around in garages, as most people (me included) like to improve car audio quality. Good quality speakers to look for would be a well-known brand, normally 150 mm diameter, dual cone design. Some come in boxes to mount on top of the rear parcel shelf (a good idea for mounting beside your PC and a help with shielding). You would need to make up a plug to fit your sound card. Hopefully you have a friend who can solder if you can't. It really doesn't matter what size or shape the speakers are, provided you keep in mind the power handling, impedance, placement and shielding factors.
Powered speakers are certainly the way to go, but justifying the expense can be hard. Many people own portable or mini stereo systems and most have a provision for an auxiliary or tape input. All you need is a patch lead to connect from the sound card line-out socket, (3.5 mm stereo plug) to the input of your stereo (2 x RCA or 3.5 mm mono plug). These leads can be readily purchased from Rod Irving, Dick Smith, etc. Speaker placement can be easily addressed if you are lucky enough to have a unit with detachable speakers.
Those who own an integrated unit should consider mounting it on a shelf above your PC. The bottom line is for you to be sitting in the centre of your speakers to achieve the stereo effect. Of course you can patch your sound into almost any hi-fi system, but keep in mind that high-end audio systems are quite sensitive to crackles and pops that some games and .WAV files produce. You wouldn't be popular if you blew the family hi-fi whilst playing Doom at rock concert levels.
Now to the real McCoys, powered speakers designed for your PC. Look for reasonable power output (20 watts is heaps), a dual-cone speaker design (3-way is even better), good shielding and mains power connection (these pack more grunt than battery powered units requiring a DC adaptor). Other niceties would be front located controls and a facility to switch on and off with your PC (I have heard of these but don't know how they work).
Having powered speakers means you don't have to rely on software to control your volume. When switching amplifiers on and off, set your volume control to zero. I find it best to first start my PC, then switch on my speakers and set the volume. Powering down is vice versa, set volume to zero, switch off the speakers, then the PC. This procedure eliminates any damaging clicks and pops. Remember to use the speaker-out jack of your sound card for non-powered units only, use the line out socket for powered units. Wrong connections can cause serious damage. Keep powered speakers well ventilated as they have a heat sink that can get hot.
Sound memory
Boy, it's getting tough. New sound hardware comes with all these great device drivers to hog your memory and the new games are putting huge demands on system resources. The end result is heaps of conflicts and hangups. What to do?
Most game documentation recommends disabling of Memory Managers (EMM386 etc.), disk caching software (SMARTDRIVE), or to create a system disk with only what you need to run sound and a mouse. This means one has to either boot from a floppy disk or create a dual boot option. On the other hand, some software still requires expanded memory (EMS). Graphics card manufacturers suggest excluding certain addresses (e.g. C000-C7FF) from upper memory. I find all of this time consuming and mostly unnecessary. The goal is to load as much as possible into high memory, keeping at least 600 KB conventional memory free and run everything reliably booting from your hard disk.
Up until recently I have had little trouble running games. Most lockups I encountered were due to an Energy Management TSR spoiling things. I like the idea of a monitor power down facility, but for DOS use it was only useful if you left your PC at the prompt. During many games the screen would blank after the specified time, not detecting joystick action. Pressing a key or wiggling the mouse could reactivate the monitor but not always. Consider the frustration of a screen blanking right at a crucial point whilst playing DOOM or negotiating a canyon in Rebel Assault. Running screen savers/power management in Windows is okay, they unload on exit.
The nightmares began after trying out newer games such as Heretic and Rise of The Triad. Whilst quick saving a game, the hard disk would run slower and eventually lock up, requiring hitting the reset button to escape. I immediately blamed my Side Pro Jnr. HD controller having, like many others, experienced other hangups. After much experimentation I found that if all my device drivers and TSRs were loaded into high memory the lockups occurred. For example, loading WINDOWS\IFSHLP.SYS or SB16\DRV\CSP.SYS low would solve the problem. It still bothered me and I was determined to run everything high and solve the problem. I found two solutions.
The time-honoured procedure of changing the order of loading files in CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT didn't help and MEMMAKER couldn't load as much high afterwards. Editing the STACKS= command in CONFIG.SYS to 18,512 allowed everything up high with no lockups, but ate up another 7 KB of conventional memory.
UMBFILES.EXE, a nice little freeware utility from PC-Magazine running from AUTOEXEC.BAT, allows you to run a low FILES= in CONFIG.SYS (8 is the minimum) reducing the amount of conventional memory DOS uses. For example, in AUTOEXEC.BAT, the command C:\UTIL\UMBFILES.EXE 42 would automatically load high (3 KB or so) and simulate FILES=50 in CONFIG.SYS. It seems that later games software and Windows 3.11 don't recognise UMBFILES. Windows will live with it but running Wintune 2.0 suggest FILES in CONFIG.SYS should be altered to at least 40. The abovementioned games, however, don't like UMBFILES and will hang. Disabling UMBFILES and editing CONFIG.SYS to say; FILES=50 and returning to STACKS=9,256 also cured the hangups.
Most multimedia equipped PCs need to run CD-ROM and sound device drivers in CONFIG.SYS plus MSCDEX in AUTOEXEC.BAT as well as your usual disk caching, mouse driver and IFSHLP.SYS for Windows 3.11 32-bit file access. Running all this in high memory can be quite a challenge but can be achieved with a little patience. Novice MEMMAKER users could benefit from the following.
Check CONFIG.SYS and ensure DEVICE=C:\DOS\HIMEM.SYS and DEVICE=C:\DOS\EMM.386.EXE are loaded first. Your CD-ROM driver, then IFSFLP.SYS (if applicable) should come next, followed by your sound card drivers in whatever order the install software loaded them. Make sure all drivers are loaded in conventional memory for starters (DEVICE=). Check FILES= (50 is usually OK) and STACKS=9,256. Now save that file.
Edit AUTOEXEC.BAT, checking for the following file loading order; MSCDEX.EXE, SMARTDRV.EXE then your mouse driver. As with CONFIG.SYS, load everything low by deleting LH (and address if applicable) that proceeds your file commands. If you are booting straight to Windows or a menu, disable the command by typing a colon (:) before it (because it will interrupt MEMMAKER). UMBFILES users should insert that command before MSCDEX as it appears to work best this way.
Before saving the file, decide whether you want to enable expanded memory (EMS). If you do, try adding the parameter /E to MSCDEX, allowing it to run in expanded memory and thus reducing its size in memory to around 15 KB. Save AUTOEXEC.BAT and reboot your system where you should be returned to your C: prompt.
Run MEMMAKER, select Continue, then Custom setup. Answer Yes or No if you need EMS. To select drivers to be optimised answer Yes. To scan upper memory aggressively answer Yes. To reserve memory for Windows answer No (answering yes allows DOS programs to run better through Windows but is no good for games). Answer Yes to enable monochrome region of memory (most graphics cards run OK like this unless you want to run DOS video utilities which are generally not required).
To keep current EMM386 parameters answer No (just in case there's something there that conflicts). Finally, answer Yes to move BIOS extensions to upper memory. Press Enter and you will be asked to select which files are to be included in the optimisation. Answer Yes to all the files we have covered above, plus any others you may have. (UMBFILES users only - answer No as it likes to fit itself into upper memory and may hang on bootup if forced to an address). MEMMAKER will now search for Windows.
Confirm the location then you will be prompted to reboot. (UMBFILES users again - MEMMAKER changes FILES= to the total of your original setting plus whatever you specified in UMBFILES. Best thing to do is interrupt the bootup by holding down F5 or Left Shift and edit CONFIG.SYS to your original FILES setting, save and reboot by pressing Ctrl+Alt+Del and this will not interfere with MEMMAKER.)
All being well you will return to MEMMAKER after reboot. Presuming you have a similar configuration to mine above, it will have made one calculation and ask you to reboot again. Let it do so and hopefully you will have 618 to 620 KB of conventional memory free. You can now exit MEMMAKER by pressing Enter and the new configuration will be saved. Edit AUTOEXEC.BAT to enable Windows or a menu on bootup if applicable. Edit WINDOWS\SYSTEM.INI [386 Enh] section
to include the command DEVICE=C:\DOS\MONOUMB.386. (Actually, you should do this before running MEMMAKER if enabling Monochrome region.)
A few final tips. If you don't use Expanded Memory, remove the /E parameter from MSCDEX (it will read an error on bootup if you don't). You do not need to enable the monochrome region as disabling EMS will leave heaps more upper memory. Check the LASTDRIVE= command in CONFIG.SYS, CD-ROM installation software normally changes this to Z and you only need the letter of your last drive (usually E, which is the default anyway).
If you have EMS enabled, edit the EMM386 command in CONFIG.SYS ending with a space then RAM 4096. This will limit EMS emulation to 4 MB (more than any game I've seen requires). Try loading your Power Management utilities if you really want them, you may be lucky and get away without them hanging. Finally, if you run anti virus TSRs, they can cause various games to hang. For those who are limited to 4 MB of RAM, you may still need to create a boot disk to run certain games.
Reprinted from the July 1995 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia
