This software package contains the drivers for Windows 95, Windows 3.1 and DOS. For Windows 95 users, please refer to the "Windows 95" section. For Windows 3.1X/DOS users, please refer to the "Windows 3.1X/DOS" section.
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Windows 95
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1. DRIVER INSTALLATION
Insert the sound card into your system and power on the computer.
Windows 95 will detect the sound card and prompt you for the
driver. Insert the driver diskette into the floppy drive. Windows
95 will step through the installation procedure.
Notes:
- The 82C931 is a Plug-and-Play audio device. It consists of a
number of logical devices that could be detected and reported by
Windows 95. These devices are:
. Gameport Joystick : Joystick interface
. OPTi Plug-N-Play MPU-401 : MPU-401 interface
. OPTi Plug-N-Play Sound System : Audio device
. (optional) Standard IDE/ESDI Hard Disk Controller
- If there is no audio device installed in the system before,
Windows 95 would prompt user to insert the Windows 95 CD to
add related audio utilities (like volume control, sound recorder,
etc.) into your system.
2. RESOURCE RECONFIGURATION
The 82C931 sound device is a fully Plug-N-Play device. Windows 95 can
detect its available resources and allocate them on-the-fly in the
installation sequence. In some rare cases, however, resource conflict
could occur and it is flagged by the yellow exclamation mark shown at the
Device Manager of the Windows 95.
To resolve the conflict, click on the SYSTEM icon in the Control Panel
folder and choose Device Manager. From Device Manager,
double click the "Sound, video and game controller" category and the
list of installed devices will be displayed. Double click on the
device with yellow exclamation mark. Choose Resource. Determine the
conflict cause thru the hints shown in the "Conflicting device lists".
Change the resource (e.g. I/O address, DMA, IRQ) accordingly. The resource
setting will be reconfigured.
3. AUDIO CONFIG IN WINDOWS 95's DOS BOX
The audio device's configuration is valid in both Windows 95 and dos box.
The majority of the audio applications should be running fine in DOS box.
It was found, however, that certain soundblaster games could launch from
dos box but failed to produce digital sound or FM music. These games could
not use the pre-assigned resources but intead expect the popular
soundblaster settings,i.e., IRQ=5 DMA=1 I/O=220h. As a result, the resource
mismatch causes the problem. To correct it, make sure the games' setting
match the assignment shown at Device Manager.
To find out what resources are currently assigned to the sound card,
proceed to open the properties box associated with the "OPTi
Plug-N-Play Sound System" (Control Panel / Device Manager, under
"Sound, video and game controller" category) and select the Resource
tab. The third I/O Address range in the Resources box is used for
DOS games. The first Direct Memory Access is used for playback. We
recommend you select the following resources:
Input/Output Range: 220
Interrupt request: 5 or 7
Direct Memory Access: 0 or 1
Choose these resources as appropriate and select OK. The Device
Manager will dynamically configure the hardware to use the resources
you've selected. At this point, you may setup your DOS game with the
settings which you have just chosen.
4. MPU-401 WAVETABLE CONFIGURATION
if you have a wave table device on board or attached to your
sound card, you should follow the recommended steps listed above but
check on the "OPTi Plug-N-Play MPU-401" device settings instead.
You may need to write down its current settings which might be needed
for enabling the general MIDI support in some DOS games.
5. HELPFUL SETTINGS FOR DOS GAMES
To ensure an ideal environment for DOS games, it is recommended that
you modify the Idle Sensitivity property of the DOS Game environment
to High. To do this, press the ALT+ENTER keys to change to a DOS Box
Window (if not already in a Windowed session) and click on the top left
hand corner of the DOS Box Window. A drop down menu will appear and
at which point you should select Properties. Select the Misc tab and
proceed to modify the aforementioned property.
When you are playing DOS games in DOS box, you can use hot keys to
adjust the volume:
-Alt + Shift + PageUp : Turn up master volume
-Alt + Shift + PageDown : Turn down master volume
-Alt + Shift + End : Mute/unmute master volume
6. AUDIO SUPPORT UNDER REAL MODE DOS
In Windows 95, the audio driver is requested and installed automatically
after the plug-and-play sound card is plugged in. After the driver is
successfully installed, user would need to run the following to install
the DOS configuration utility, SNDINIT.EXE, which is USED to initialize
the sound card for audio application in real mode DOS.
To install this utility, insert the 82C931 Drivers Installation diskette
in the floppy driver. Click on "Start" and choose "run". Type "a:SETUP.EXE"
The InstallShield Wizard will guide you through the installation of
the DOS cofiguration utilities for 82C931.
Note: The resources setting in real mode DOS is independent of the settings
in Windows 95. So you can configure your sound card DOS
resource separately. Type SNDINIT.EXE under DOS prompt, the
DOS resource configuration user interface will be brought up.
You can select the resources, adjust volume settings, and do sound
test to see if the resources or the settings are OK.
The command options of SNDINIT.EXE:
/? - Show all the command options
/b - Setup and initialize the sound card in batch mode.
None - When no option is specified, it will activate the
configuration program. Use this program to
change the settings of your sound card.
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Windows 3.1X/DOS
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1. DRIVER INSTALLATION
Insert the sound card into your system and power on the computer.
Bring up Windows 3.1, and insert this installation diskette to
your floppy drive, then go to Program Manager | File | Run,
select the SETUP.EXE file in the diskette. The InstallShiled Wizard
will guide you through the installation process and install the
Windows 3.1X/DOS drivers and utilities.
Your AUDOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS will be changed for using sound
card under DOS environment. Please refer to the user's manual
for more details.
The InstallShiled Wizard will create an "82C931 Application" group
in Windows 3.1. This consists of audio programs and utilities.
2. RESOURCE RECONFIGURATION
During the driver installation, the installation program interfaces
with the system BIOS and chooses a set of available resources for audio
device. These resource settings could be modified later by using the
configuration program.
The resource settings in Windows 3.1X and DOS are independent of each
other. The following describes the steps to go through for reconfiguring
resource setting in Windows 3.1X and in DOS mode:
In Windows 3.1, go to Program Manager | Control Panel | Drivers. Select
"OPTi 82C931 Audio Driver". Click on Setup, the configuration dialogue box
will be brought up. Changing the setup would cause the Windows 3.1 to
restart to make the new resources take effect.
In DOS environment, change to 82C931 directory and run SNDINIT.EXE.
The DOS configuration interface will be brought up. You can change thge
hardware settings, perform sound test to see if the setting works out
properly, or adjust the volume settings.
The command options of SNDINIT.EXE:
/? - Show all the command options
/b - Setup and initialize the sound card in batch mode.
None - When no option is specified, it will activate the
configuration program. Use this program to
change the settings of your sound card.None
However, when Intel's CM (Config Manager) is present, you need to
use ICU to change the sound card resources.
3. AUDIO CONFIG UNDER WINDOWS 3.1X's DOS BOX
The audio device's configuration is valid in both Windows 3.1X and dos box.
The majority of the audio applications should be running fine in DOS box.
It was found, however, that certain soundblaster games could launch from
dos box but failed to produce digital sound or FM music. These games expect
the popular soundblaster settings, i.e., IRQ=5 DMA=1 I/O=220h. If the config
in Windows 3.1X is set differently, the resource mismatch would cause the
problem. If you want to play DOS games in Windows 3.1X' DOS box, please note:
1) Make sure the game's settings match the ones in Windows 3.1X.
2) Sometimes, the Setup of the PIF file of a DOS game is crucial.
To make a game work effectively under Windows, you probably
have to try a few alternative options through PIF editor.
3) Not all of the DOS games can run in Windows' DOS BOX. Please refer
to games' user manual for suggestions. If the issue persists, try to
launch the game in pure DOS mode.
4. MPU-401 WAVETABLE CONFIGURATION
If you have a wave table device on board or attached to your sound
card, please make sure in the configuration dialogue, the MPU401 interface
is ON. If users use MIDI keyboard recording, then MPU IRQ has to be selected
(prefer IRQ = 9).
