How is Integrated/Onboard sound PCI-based?

[seskanda]

I own a PC which has onboard or integrated sound (i.e soldered on the motherboard as a chip). The manufacturer is Crystal Semiconductors,inc.(now Cirrus Logic)model CS4280-CM. The manual repeatedly indicates that it's PCI-based. How could this be so? Because, if i'm not mistaken, aren't PCI-based devices only inputted into sockets/connectors on the mobo?

As I stated before, being onboard, the sound is in the form of a chip(s) located somewhere on the mobo. How can it be PCI? Or function like a PCI-based card does? Unfortunately, this crummy E-machines PC came with ZERO documentation for the sound. And what I know comes directly from a .pdf manual of the PC, as a whole.
 www.cirrus.com  wasn't helpful, either. As they only have docs for other models, and not CS4280. Searching for a manual turned out to be practically pointless, too. Some help would be greatly appreciated! THX!!

[Juho Sippola]

Onboard sound circuitry's being PCI based... this is not the easiest thing to explain.

You should from now on bear in mind that PCI is not just those white slots on motherboard: It is also the means of connection for the on-motherboard circuitry that use PCI signaling and are 100% compatible with PCI standard, just like your CS4280 chip or any southbridge chip (the chip that gives you IDE, USB, serial and paraller ports and such. Nowadays they use their own links between northbridge and southbridge such as VIAs V-Link but still two years ago the connection was PCI bus).

[Juho Sippola]

By the way, if you think that you'd have any success with PCI sound running old ISA games sound natively, forget about it. No computer manufacturer is really interested about that issue anymore. Earlier PCI sound cards such as SB Live! had DOS drivers that worked very much depending on system platform (Intel 440BX and ALi Aladdin V were good in getting those working as I recall my battles with PCI sound some years ago) but with the demise of Windows 95/98 and emergence of Windows XP the way of doing things is VDMSound and DosBOX. Current sound cards such as SB Audigy or any ICEnsemble Envy24 based board don't have even a trace of DOS drivers. You can still utilize Roland MT-32, SC-55 and stuff as long as your whatever-you-have sound card has driver supported MIDI interface that works.

[seskanda]

quote:Originally posted by Juho Sippola:
Onboard sound circuitry's being PCI based... this is not the easiest thing to explain..

hehheh...I realize that I've tread into a highly technical area, but c'mon what kinda answer is that? I thought Quest Studios were experts on the nuts 'n' bolts of MIDI and such, no?

On another note, how can I get the "Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth?" As it doesn't appear under 'MIDI' in the 'Multimedia' section of the Control Panel in Win98SE. THX!



[This message has been edited by seskanda (edited May 12, 2004).]

[Firfy]

What soundcard do you have?  With some soundcard drivers it's installed automatically as the midi option.  Otherwise it's always available as gm.dls in c:\windows\system32\drivers.

[Zemus]

You need WDM drivers for your soundcard to be able to use the softsynth. The older drivers were called VxD-drivers if I'm not mistaken.

[seskanda]

Ok, I see the file gm.dls located in C:\windows\system32\drivers, what next?

Frankly, I'm not really sure what my soundcard it is. I only know it's onboard/integrated into the motherboard, but everything else is very confusing. Here's  my PC manual's full specs for the soundcard   (As if someone can really comprehend any of this):


    Built-in Crystal Audio Controller

*CS4280 CrystalClear PCI Audio Interface*
-Full DOS Games Compatibility via PC/PCI, -DDMA, and CrystalClear Legacy
SupportTM
-PCI Version 2.1 Bus Master
-PC ’97 and PC ’98 Compliance (and compliance with preliminary PC ’99)
-MPU-401 interface, FM synthesizer, and Game Port
-Full Duplex Operation
-Win 95, 98 (WDM), WinNT 4.0, WinNT 5.0 (WDM) Drivers
-Advanced Power Management (PPMI)
-Digital Docking Solution with AC97 2.0 Codec

*CS4297 CrystalClear SoundFusion Audio Codec ’97*
-AC’97 1.03 Compatible
-Industry Leading Mixed Signal Technology
-18-bit stereo full-duplex Codec with fixed 48KHz sampling rate
-Four analog line-level stereo inputs for connection from LINE IN, CD, VIDEO
and AUX
-Two analog line-level mono inputs for speakerphone
-Mono microphone input switchable from two external sources
-High quality differential CD input
-Dual Stereo line level outputs
-Extensive power management support
-Meets or exceeds Microsoft’s PC ’97 and PC ’98 audio performance requirements.

Phew!!! Most of this stuff is jargon, and I simply do not understand it. As for WDM drivers (whatever those are) As you can see from the first section above, The drivers should be WDM, because it says "Win 98... (WDM) Drivers."

So, maybe their not installed correctly, or something. But I've tried re-installing them several times yet no "MS Wavetable SW Synth" only two things appear under 'MIDI' in the 'Multimedia' section of Control Panel: "Crystal SoundFusion(tm) FM" and "SoundFusion External MIDI"

Thanks!






[This message has been edited by seskanda (edited May 13, 2004).]

[Juho Sippola]

That board should work normally in Windows either by using VXD drivers (from Win95 to WinME) or WDM drivers (98SE and newer depending on card, only guaranteed to work in NT5 based environments.)

I haven't seen any WDM drivers supporting SB either in Windows 98 DOS window or real mode maybe because that design also must work with today's WinXP machines so if you need DOS compatibility in Win98, VXD drivers usually have that functionality. How it works with programs is another story though.

For seskanda's question about the chip again, let's try another explanation   : The sound chip is wired to computer's PCI bus by motherboard just as the PCI slots are. The PCI slots allow inserted cards to connect and communicate with PCI bus. Some older integrated audio solutions even did this by using ISA.

You probably have VXD drivers by now but if you change to WDM drivers, the following will happen:

-You should gain those softsynth capabilities
-You lose all DOS capabilities of that card

[Firfy]

You can actually make the Audigy (2) work for DOS if you do a little searching on the internet for drivers.  They are however only for real mode DOS, and thus are rather a pain to get working.