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Thread: Blast from the past: a hardware conflict

  1. 10-05-2009, 10:16 PM #1
    Tim James
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    Blast from the past: a hardware conflict

    A month ago I noticed that every single Game Maker game ever produced had a periodic split-second hitch or lag every few moments. After an hour with selective startup, I narrowed it down to the Plug and Play service and instantly thought of my Aureal3D soundcard I installed this summer to use my gameport-based force feedback joystick. Popped that out and no more problems.

    Strange that it only affected one dev kit like that, but I'm also wondering if something else has changed since I installed the card, because I swear I've played Game Maker titles without a problem since then. Just did a search and I've had the card installed for 4 months, but didn't notice the problem until 1 month ago. I guess it's possible that I didn't play any games with this problem during that time, but I also wonder if I messed something up, perhaps cleaning up drivers and services and resident programs.

    Anyway, just thought it was funny.
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  2. 10-05-2009, 10:20 PM #2
    mkozlows
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    Probably your printer is on IRQ7. Try changing to IRQ5.
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  3. 10-05-2009, 10:21 PM #3
    rei
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    Don't forget to include the SET BLASTER= variable in your AUTOEXEC.BAT.
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  4. 10-06-2009, 12:11 AM #4
    polar boar
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    Try freeing up more expanded memory with EMM386.EXE
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  5. 10-06-2009, 01:10 AM #5
    chequers
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    Related question: I remember finding a program for windows that provided a nice visualisation (a sorted text column iirc) of IRQ interrupts. It also had useful features like mapping each IRQ to the various related hardware resources Windows used and some other stuff.

    I thought it was a sysinternals tool, but I just had a look and it's not. Google is pretty unhelpful too, does anyone here know what I'm on about?
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  6. 10-06-2009, 07:22 AM #6
    KaoFloppy
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    Windows Device Manager can show you a list of devices by IRQ/DMA.
    Open Control Panel, then run System. Go to the Hardware tab, and click on Device Manager button.
    Now, open the View menu, and pick Resource by Connection. Voila!
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  7. 10-06-2009, 10:17 AM #7
    Murph
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    Wow...this thread brought back so many memories.
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  8. 10-06-2009, 10:30 AM #8
    Alistair
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    When are they going to get rid of all that onscreen BIOS crap on PC startup. I don't want to see the IRQs enumerated, or anything else. Nor do I really know what POSTing achieves, as it never seems to fail...
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  9. 10-06-2009, 11:11 AM #9
    Lunch of Kong
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    Quote Originally Posted by Alistair View Post
    I don't want to see the IRQs enumerated, or anything else.
    There's an option in your BIOS for that.
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  10. 10-06-2009, 12:44 PM #10
    Murph
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    Quote Originally Posted by Alistair View Post
    When are they going to get rid of all that onscreen BIOS crap on PC startup. I don't want to see the IRQs enumerated, or anything else. Nor do I really know what POSTing achieves, as it never seems to fail...
    I've seen it fail, BUT...your point is still solid, 'cause when it fails, it's not like the onscreen display (usually) tells you anything. Dells, at least, have 4 LEDs on 'em somewhere, and the light code there tells you what to check.
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  11. 10-06-2009, 12:48 PM #11
    Brian Rubin
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    Quote Originally Posted by Murph View Post
    Wow...this thread brought back so many memories.
    Agreed, holy crap this stuff takes me back...
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  12. 10-06-2009, 12:52 PM #12
    antifood
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    I learned quite a bit about DOS after getting Ultima 7 to run.
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  13. 10-06-2009, 12:54 PM #13
    Brian Rubin
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    For some reason I recall Strike Commander being a particular pickle in DOS, taking me ages to get the config.sys and autoexec.bat files to be just right for it to run.
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  14. 10-06-2009, 01:10 PM #14
    Morkilus
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    It took me nearly 8 hours to get the right combination for Master of Magic, but oh my was it ever worth it.
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  15. 10-06-2009, 01:14 PM #15
    Brian Rubin
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    Quote Originally Posted by Morkilus View Post
    It took me nearly 8 hours to get the right combination for Master of Magic, but oh my was it ever worth it.
    OMG I forgot what a difficult that one was back in the day. But yeah, once it was working, the playtime invested in it totally made up for the hours needed to tweak it.
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  16. 10-06-2009, 01:36 PM #16
    Staff Sergeant
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    Quote Originally Posted by mkozlows View Post
    Probably your printer is on IRQ7. Try changing to IRQ5.
    Quote Originally Posted by rei View Post
    Don't forget to include the SET BLASTER= variable in your AUTOEXEC.BAT.
    Quote Originally Posted by polar boar View Post
    Try freeing up more expanded memory with EMM386.EXE
    It's incredibly surreal seeing advice like this in 2009 (yes I'm young but I was using computers in my young age and have vague memories of my uncle doing stuff like this for me to fix my computer).
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  17. 10-06-2009, 01:41 PM #17
    ARogan
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    Wing Commander....with speech pack.....on a 286 with only extended memory (no expanded). Man, I was so jealous of those people with 386's and their fancy expanded memory.

    QEMM FTW!!!
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  18. 10-06-2009, 01:43 PM #18
    Brian Rubin
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    Quote Originally Posted by ARogan View Post
    Wing Commander....with speech pack.....on a 286 with only extended memory (no expanded).
    OMG, that must've been AWFUL...
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  19. 10-06-2009, 01:44 PM #19
    Tim James
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    Quote Originally Posted by ~EFG~ View Post
    It's incredibly surreal seeing advice like this in 2009
    You know they're joking, right? You're not really seeing advice, just a little humor.
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  20. 10-06-2009, 01:45 PM #20
    Brian Rubin
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tim James View Post
    You know they're joking, right? You're not really seeing advice, just a little humor.
    And sweet, sweet nostalgia. ^_^
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  21. 10-06-2009, 01:47 PM #21
    ARogan
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    And who needed multitasking....we had TSR's!!!! Though I knew there were a few must have TSR's but I'm having a hard time remembering any of them.
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  22. 10-06-2009, 01:47 PM #22
    Brian Rubin
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    Quote Originally Posted by ARogan View Post
    And who needed multitasking....we had TSR's!!!! Though I knew there were a few must have TSR's but I'm having a hard time remembering any of them.
    Maybe a sound blaster one and a VGA one? And a memory manager like QEMM? I'm having a hard time recalling as well...
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  23. 10-06-2009, 02:06 PM #23
    cheapfilms
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    QEMM had the box with the football player on it, right? Or am I mixing up my memory managers.
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  24. 10-06-2009, 02:09 PM #24
    Staff Sergeant
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tim James View Post
    You know they're joking, right? You're not really seeing advice, just a little humor.
    Haha having not been the one to actually do that stuff all I knew is that it sounded familiar and I couldn't believe it was being suggested in 2009. I thought the hardware forum was populated with the helpful types and all the snarky types stuck to the other forums (at least in all the threads I've read in hardware people have been serious).
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  25. 10-06-2009, 04:18 PM #25
    KaoFloppy
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    Quote Originally Posted by ARogan View Post
    And who needed multitasking....we had TSR's!!!! Though I knew there were a few must have TSR's but I'm having a hard time remembering any of them.
    I remember the RAM Disk, where you move the rest of the *.EXE *.COM *.BAT into, and set COMMAND=R:\command.com, and eject the DOS disk! (Not SMARTDRV that came with DOS 5. This was back in DOS 1 or 2 days, when there were these 6-in-1 card that adds RAM + parallel + serial ports.)

    Sadly, you must undo all this to free up the RAM.

    Don't forget to LOADHIGH the mouse driver.
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  26. 01-29-2010, 05:50 PM #26
    Tim James
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    How did we survive those days?

    I reinstalled this sound card to play the Freespace expansion with my force feedback joystick. It gave me Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable Package errors in Dead Space! I figured it was video card drivers or a shoddy port until a random forum post mentioned a joystick causing a conflict. Then I remembered this old thing. Crazy.
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  27. 01-29-2010, 07:50 PM #27
    wisefool
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    use QEMM + Deskview + Commo + Hyper Zmodem, newbies.

    What I remember is that MSCDEX sucked a lot. It took up 40 KB, the largest chunk next to the smartdrv cache thing. All to join this "multimedia" thing.
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