I had success this weekend with WriteLog and MMTTYx2 with 2 soundcards.
I plan a more clear/detailed explanation of this, but can't resist a
couple of comments now, prompted by Dick's comments!
I had had problems using MMTTYx2 with my integrated sound plus 1 PCI
soundcard. The integrated sound wasn't performing correctly, and I
posted a number of msgs already about this. This weekend I got another
soundcard. That makes 3 soundsystems in the computer - Integrated,
Creative Soundblaster Live Value, and Soundblaster 16 PCI. To my
amazement, Windows recognizes them all, and each can be chosen by
Properties in the Volume Control.
Now for the "boiling cauldron" and crows feet part: I open MMTTY with
one of the sound-cards-, and it works great. I open another copy of
MMTTY with the other soundcard and it looks like it won't work - no
audio showing in the onscreen scope. Now, are you ready for
this?.......
If I bring up Volume Control|Properties|Recording, click on the LINE IN
balance slider, move it from right to left and back to right and then
unclick, VOILA - sound appears in the scope and everything is FB!
Weird, but completely reproducible. I was worried that the first time I
clicked somewhere else, I would lose the sound again, but no, that
doesn't happen - it's fine once it gets going.
So to run MMTTYx2 with the 2 soundcards, I just have to click on that
mixer slider for the 2nd soundcard and move it around and then put it
back - only once for each time I start a 2nd copy of MMTTY though, so no
big deal.
This is true no matter whether the Integrated Sound is enabled or not,
so that's not what is confusing Windows a little.
This observation is also true whether I run MMTTYx2 standalone or with
WriteLog. So, it's clearly true that one can run MMTTYx2, with or
without WriteLog, using 2 soundcards. I will be posting more clear
details to my web site later. You'll notice that I did take one
person's advice and used 2 DIFFERENT soundcards. Given the above
"crow's foot" caveat, I'm not sure if this is completely necessary or
not. Maybe the person that thought his 2nd soundcard wasn't working
didn't do the "slider thing'! ;-)) 73
P.S. To do MMTTYx2 with WriteLog, nothing has to be done with the
SoundCardIndex ini entry. The soundcard is selected from within MMTTY's
Setup.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: writelog-admin@contesting.com
> [mailto:writelog-admin@contesting.com] On Behalf Of Dick Green
> Sent: Monday, February 25, 2002 12:12 AM
> To: WriteLog
> Subject: [WriteLog] dual soundboards now working under W2K!
>
>
> A while back I reported that I couldn't get two soundboards
> to work in my Dell XPS T600 Windows 2000 system. The system
> came with a Yamaha soundboard chipset on the motherboard,
> which worked well with Writelog under Windows 98. When I
> upgraded to Windows 2000, I got major computer hash noise
> through the mic interface -- probably some sort of difference
> in what hardware on the soundboard is being initialized by
> the OS. I decided to install a standalone soundboard in the
> hope of fixing the noise problem. I also wanted to dedicate a
> soundboard to Writelog so I wouldn't have to hear myself
> through the speakers on SSB/RTTY and wouldn't have to worry
> about system sounds being transmitted over the air.
>
> I installed a Creative 16-bit Soundblaster which greatly
> reduced the noise through the mic interface to the point of
> being quite acceptable. Unfortunately, no matter what I
> tried, I could not get both soundboards to work at the same
> time. Whenever they were both active in the system, any mixer
> app I tried (Windows, Creative, Writelog) would work only
> with the Yamaha soundboard and not the Soundblaster (yes, I
> set Writelog's soundboard index in the ini file correctly.)
> The Windows mixer would display an error message when I tried
> to select the Soundblaster, even though it was listed as an
> option. The Creative mixer would just display a thin vertical
> bar on the screen when the Soundblaster was selected, but
> would display normal mixer controls when the Yamaha was
> selected. All the controls would be disabled in the Writelog
> mixer when the SoundBlaster was selected through the ini
> file, but would operate normally when the Yamaha was
> selected. All the mixers worked fine if I disabled one of the
> boards and enabled the other. After trying every imaginable
> combination of hardware installation, software settings and
> resource reallocation, I gave up and disabled the Yamaha
> board in the BIOS and just used the Soundblaster for Writelog
> and Windows. No noise, but only one soundboard.
>
> This afternoon I was playing a Reader Rabbit CD learning game
> with my daughter and encountered problems with the audio
> skipping. Troubleshooting instructions on the Learning
> Company website suggested turning off hardware acceleration
> on the soundboard. I did that, but the audio still skipped. I
> wondered if it was a problem with the Creative Soundblaster
> driver, so I disabled the soundboard in the Hardware Manager,
> rebooted and enabled the Yamaha soundboard chipset in the
> BIOS. Unfortunately, the Reader Rabbit audio still skipped
> with the Yamaha soundboard, regardless of the acceleration
> setting. I re-enabled the Soundblaster and was getting ready
> to reboot to disable the Yamaha, when I got curious and ran
> the Windows mixer app. I selected the Creative Soundblaster
> -- and *didn't* get an error message! Lo and behold, the
> Creative mixer worked, too!! I set Writelog's ini file to
> soundboard index 1, and the WL mixer worked!!! Amazing. I
> moved some cables around and tested all Writelog's SSB and
> RTTY functions -- perfect. Now Writelog can use the
> Soundblaster and Windows can use the Yamaha (which has the
> speakers.) All the mixers work with both cards enabled.
>
> At first I thought it could be related to the hardware
> acceleration setting, but determined this wasn't the case. In
> fact, when I rebooted with both soundboards enabled, the
> mixers went back to their old behavior -- not working with
> the Soundblaster. After several tests, I determined that the
> simple sequence of disabling and then enabling the "Creative
> Soundblaster AudioPCI (WDM)" in the Hardware Manager is all
> it takes to make the mixers work with both soundboards. This
> is bizarre, but not so bad. I can leave the Soundblaster
> disabled most of the time, enabling it only when I need to
> use Writelog for SSB or RTTY. It only takes a few clicks of
> the mouse to enable the second soundboard. After use, I can
> just disable the Soundblaster. No big deal if I forget -- I
> just have to disable/enable to make it work. Again, just a
> few mouse clicks and it's fine until the computer is rebooted.
>
> I guess something is going wrong in the boot sequence when
> two soundboards are detected, and that this problem gets
> fixed when the second soundboard is reinitialized by the
> Hardware Manager.
>
> Don't you just love Windows? All you have to do it stir the
> boiling cauldron, throw in a handful of crows feet, some
> witch hazel, some garlic, a handful of exotic plants -- and
> it'll do what it's supposed to do.
>
> 73, Dick WC1M
>
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