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Full Throttle and ESS

A user e-mailed me in desperation the other day after tech support from ESS and LEC fell kinda flat. I am pasting some of the e-mail here in the hopes that someone with Full Throttle and an ESS sound card will read it and be able to help get this guy's sound working. :)

----

Quote:

In a nutshell: I don't get Full Throttle's sound running. If don't want to
or aren't able to help, you best stop reading now and delete this mail. Thank
you for your time, anyway.

Since you seem to like this game rather heavily I thought you might have
encountered similar problems when changing your system. As for me: I missed Sam
& Max and Full Throttle completely because I couldn't afford the required
hardware, back then. Now I'm trying to fill the gap by THE LUCASARTS ARCHIVES.
The Dig, for example, runs without a hitch but with Full Throttle the sound
card installation always aborts. Neither LucasArts nor ESS Technologies could
(or really wanted to) help me

What LEC told him...

Here is his query to LEC tech support:

Quote:

PLATFORM: PC/IBM and compatibles
MEDIA: CD-ROM
LANGUAGE: English
COUNTRY: Switzerland
NATURE OF THE PROBLEM: Sound
PROBLEM: hello

In iMUSE installation "Sound Blaster Pro" is detected but the sound test fails and ends the installation. The game starts normally but no sound is heard. In the options menu under sound it reads "disabled". I've already tried many things, please help (e. g. "Sound Blaster" can be installed but the sound test is aborted after two seconds and during the test and during the game only squeaking can be heard; and the "DMA 0 or DMA 3" thing doesn't work either).

PS:
Sometimes there's also a "not enough memory" message, which cannot be

MANUFACTURER: Other
PROCESSOR: Pentium2 (Intel)
PROCESSOR SPEED: 333 MHz
RAM: 256 MB
OPERATING SYSTEM: Windows 98
DVD/CD-ROM: Samsung Unknown
CD-ROM SPEED: 24X
SOUND CARD: ESS Technology Maestro-1
VIDEO CARD: ATI Technologies Rage Pro
MODEM: Unknown
OTHER HARDWARE: Brand Of Computer: Samsung Notebook GT6000
Sound Card: I'm not completely sure about the sound card: it is for sure something with "Maestro" from ESS
WINDOWS PRE-INSTALLED: No
LAPTOP: Yes

Here is LEC's e-mail reply to him:

Quote:

Please try this:

Go to the Configure Sound Card option in the menu.
Choose 'Custom', for sound card choose Sound Blaster 2.0, port 220, irq 5, dma 1.
try the game.
You may want to experiment with these settings.

Please note that LucasArts Entertainment Company, LLC does not recommend making any changes to your system without first contacting your computer manufacturer about the configuration of your computer.

And his results from their advice:

Quote:

I did what you wrote but it didn't help: When attempting to test the sound, the installation program crashed. In the game, again no sound is heard and in the options menu under sound it reads "disabled". So I went back the the sound configuration screen and tried all kinds of combinations (different cards with different ports, irqs and dmas) but nothing worked. When selecting port 220, the program normally crashed -- unless "Sound Blaster" is chosen. But then only noise can be heard -- for about a second, after that the sound test is aborted (as I mentioned before).

"The Dig" (also contained in "The LucasArts Archives -- Volume III") works fine.

What ESS told him...

His query:

Quote:

Dear ESS team

When attempting to run the game "Full Throttle" (1995) by LucasArts I encountered problems with sound card detecting/support. When contacting LucasArts they told me to update my sound card driver. So I visited your site and intended to download the latest appropiate driver, but since I'm quite a dead loss in all things computer I couldn't even properly detect my Chip ID (is it "ES197X.VXD" or "46" or "4.05.00.0453"?).

Their reply:

Quote:

You may try ES1978 Maestro-2E Win95/98 driver to see how it works.
Regards

One thing he never mentions is what port, IRQ, and DMA settings he's trying, and whether or not he knows what he should be trying. I would think that plain old SoundBlaster at 220, 5 (or 7), 1 would work. I'd like to know if he's tried that already. Unfortunately I'm not familiar with this card and don't know what issues it might have with it's DOS drivers (or if it even has any).

(Hi. This is the bum unable to run "Full Throttle" with sound)

I tried all kinds of port, IRQ, and DMA settings, including Sound Blaster at 220, 5 (or 7), 1.

When selecting port 220, the program normally crashed -- unless "Sound Blaster" is chosen. But then only noise can be heard -- for about a second; after that the sound test is aborted.

Have you been doing this all in Windows, or have you also tried it in DOS? (Meaning booting to DOS, not just in a DOS prompt.)