essreg

ES1869 Register Utility

This repository contains two utilities designed for the ESS AudioDrive ES1869sound card chipset.

essreg.exe

• Utility to control otherwise unsupported registers for the ES1869 audio chip.
• This program can be executed in native DOS or Windows DOS box environment.
• Sound card with ES1869 chip is assumed to be on I/O port 220h.
• Check out the d option that enables digital recording of the FM chip at 48kHz!
  • Examples!

ES1869 Register Utility (c) 2024 Ethan Halsall <ethan.s.halsall@gmail.com>

|Option--------------|Description----------------------------------------
| a                  | Get all values
| r=[path]           | Dump ES1869 Registers        default "essreg.txt"
| c                  | Calibrate Op Amp
| 3=[0,63; 0%,100%]  | 3D Amount                    Get / Set
| ol=[-1024,960]     | ADC Offset Samples Left      Get / Set
| or=[-1024,960]     | ADC Offset Wamples Right     Get / Set
| a1s                | Audio 1 Sample Rate          Get
| a1f                | Audio 1 Filter Clock         Get
| a2s                | Audio 2 Sample Rate          Get
| a2f                | Audio 2 Filter Clock         Get
| pa=[1,0]           | Analog Stays On              Enable / Disable
| pd                 | Digital Power Down           Get
| m=[1,0]            | Mono-In                      Enable / Disable
| ml=[0,25; 0%,100%] | Mono-In Level                Get / Set 
| micp=[1,0]         | Mic Preamp                   Enable / Disable
| fmd=[1,0]          | FM,IIS,ES689 digital record  Enable / Disable
| fms=[1,0]          | FM,IIS,ES689 digital sync    Enable / Disable
| fmr=[1,0]          | FM Reset                     Execute
| t=[1,0]            | Telegaming Mode              Enable / Disable

Example: `essreg r=before.txt 3=0 m=1 p=1 r=0 t=0 r=after.txt`

1869opl3.com

• Utility to fix ES1869 OPL3 playback for some games in the Windows DOS box.
• This program reads the FM volume mixer register on the sound card and then runs the application.
• Sound card with ES1869 chip is assumed to be on I/O port 220h.
• The IIS mixer control must not be muted in the Windows volume mixer. However, the volume can be set to 0.

Example:

c:\>1869opl3.com "c:\path\to\game.exe"

esfmpat.exe

• Utility to write custom patch banks to the Windows ESFM VxD driver.
• Known Issues: Patch banks that are larger than the existing bank will cause page faults. The custom patch bank must be the same size in bytes of the original.
• See the ESFM patch banks for the Windows 98, Windows NT4, and other custom patches.
• See the recordings for ESFM patch comparisons.

ESFM Patch Utility (c) 2024 Ethan Halsall <ethan.s.halsall@gmail.com>

This utility writes your custom patch set to an existing ESFM.DRV file.
Compatible with the VxD Windows driver only.

** WARNING: BACKUP YOUR ORIGINAL ESFM.DRV BEFORE RUNNING THIS UTILITY! **

Usage: esfmpat "c:\path\to\esfm.drv" "c:\path\to\patch.bin"

Building

Prerequisites

• MSDOS like build environment (MS-DOS, Windows 9x, DOS-BOX, etc.)
• Watcom C 11.0

Building

• Clone this repo and copy it your build environment.
• Run build.bat to build the executables

Testing

• This code has been tested using a real ES1869 soundcard on I/O port 0x220. It probably won't work with any other ESS sound chips.

License

• GPL 3.0

Thanks to

• The community over at Vogons who helped out!
• Phil's Computer Lab for uploading the ES1869 datasheet!