SIMMS in SB AWE 32

RedDaemonFox

Amiga's enemy is my enemy!
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I recently acquired an SB AWE 32, which I will use in an AMD K6 DOS/NT4 gamesystem. It has 2 SIMM slots, both are unpopulated. My question is, how many MB of memory can i add and can I use some of it to add to my system's memory? I'm hoping for at least 256MB onboard, but I would like to see if I can use the slots on this too.
 
Re: SIMMS in SB AWE 32

Is that the huge 14 inch long ISA card? That was one big card. I still have the slightly later and much smaller ISA AWE64 Gold! Somewhere. :)

The two 30pin SIMM sockets cannot be used to add more system ram. They are there to be used to add sample memory to the card, which can then be used by musicians to store soundfont sound samples and voices for midi sequencing. The card comes with 512KB of ram on board, and the two SIMM slots can be used to expand this up to 28MB of RAM.

This card also had a built in CD-Rom interface so you could connect non-ATAPI CD-Rom drives to a PC. This card came out just as Multimedia PC was becoming the in thing and Sound cards were the first way for PC users to add a proper sound card and CD-Rom drive to their systems to make them "multimedia".
 
Re: SIMMS in SB AWE 32

Well this AWE 32 will be good then. I figured that the SIMMS added RAM for the card itself. I never heard of the AWE64, but the AWE32 is the best card I've seen for BUILD and DOOM games. I'll be looking for the proper SIMMS once I get the money.
 
Re: SIMMS in SB AWE 32

As far as I know, you can hook regular 30-pin SIMM on the sockets. To be honest, I never had hear about 16Mb 30-pin SIMM before today. Your best bet is grab some 30 pin 4Mb units (not very common) or even ordinary 1Mb units.

Remember that even you locate those "common as hen's teeth" 16Mb boards, only 28Mb will show up (4Mb are reserved for ROM synthesis addresses).
 
Re: SIMMS in SB AWE 32

oh, that's fine, I just want the best sampling on the card possible. But before I buy a pair of 16Mb simms, I need to get some cash, as you said, these are rare.
 
Re: SIMMS in SB AWE 32

My SB32 PnP is exactly the same way and I have 16MB in it. I have an Awe64 Gold card that is just lying around as well. I should either find a machine to put it in or sell it off. I wonder if I can get back the amount I paid for it? Hmm $5..

Nathan
 
Re: SIMMS in SB AWE 32

I'm no longer using my AWE64 Gold either. I ditched ISA cards in favour of PCI as soon as I could. Although the AWE64 did work perfectly with Win98 and Win2000 when it was being used in my main system many years ago.

That same system now has a PCI Soundblaster Live! in it though and that card is very nice for DOS and Win9x use.

The end of the ISA slot was in my view one of the best things to happen to PC hardware. So many hassles configuring cards and trying to make each use different IRQs and DMA channels. PCI was so much nicer, although still not without its problems in Win9x OSs.
 
Re: SIMMS in SB AWE 32

yeah, i agree, but try to get BLOOD to recognize a newer sound card without emulation. lol.
 
Re: SIMMS in SB AWE 32

You can get the sound to work with BLOOD on even quite new PCs running XP. You just need to have VDMSound drivers installed, plus the Sound Blaster Live! crash fix. Have a look at http://buildxp.deathmask.net/
 
Re: SIMMS in SB AWE 32

I know that, but VDMSound and all that .vlp stuff isn't my style, I like the real thing, the actual experience without any patching. I'm planning on this system to be an MS-DOS variant dual booted with NT4. (It's gonna be for older DOS games and maybe some Sega Katana dev action :shhh:
 
Re: SIMMS in SB AWE 32

No patching? I seem to remember pretty much every DOS game needed patching! :LOL:
 
Re: SIMMS in SB AWE 32

Not all games needed patching. If you are talking about sound patching, most games the used the Roland MT-32 used an overwrite patch called the SYSEX patch to load custom instruments and sound effects for use with the specific game you are playing. When General Midi came out, the SYSEX patching system was deemed unnecessary and removed, which caused a lot of anger with companies that heavily supported the LA Synth set up of the MT-32. I have some old DOS games like Quest for Glory I ega, and the only patch I have found for that is a timing patch to make it work with the clocks on the newer faster computers. But you are correct, Windows PC games definitely seem to need more patching than other system games. It was a sad day when I bought an Xbox360 and realised that I had to patch the games. Quite the shock for me. :shock:

Nathan
 
Re: SIMMS in SB AWE 32

In the past though, especially with DOS and early Windows games, patches were definitely more because the games were buggy and released too soon, or they had to release them or run out of development funds. However, that has now changed...

With regard to the Xbox 360, it is just a case of consoles finally being designed with broadband connections seen as a standard part of the console's connectivity. Therefore giving games developers the possibility to patch their software. Before this any bugs in console games had to remain in them. But now they can patch and fix problems, but also improve and keep working on a game after release. For this reason I see the ability to release game patches on consoles a good thing.

People moan about patching, saying it just shows the games were not ready and rushed out too early. I don't see it that way any longer. Continued support and after sales improvements to the software you buy is a great thing.

And these days, especially on the PC, we see new features and additions being included with big updates and patches. Thus adding more value and life to a game. More so with online gaming features. Less and less games released recently require patching before they will even run (which was the case years ago).
 
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