deomsh

As said, I am not a programmer - sorry my AI-agent has been wasting your time. He also said he could rewrite your code, I had 'only' to do the compilation myself. With my earlier experiences with AI modifying existing bootcode fresh in mind, I thought I would make you no competition But my N68/VT1705 is always ready for testing.

Was just adding search machine-info while you posted, see above. Same phrase: site:msfn.org 2026

Maybe I was too not looking good enough (my eyes are already aging), but I checked again. It's in the title only. Same on Edge (on my Smartphone too - Edge only there): BTW I used Brave (brave.com) with Private Search and inside Firefox/ Edge, so not their browser.

I do understand THAT already. To be sure I made myself clear: on Brave only the two mentioned gave Thai results (without filtering on dates). This I do NOT understand (lack of skills ).

Personally I am happy with msfn. AND: it's still Sunday, maybe don't expect too much from the people who keep msfn running. I did some new tests with following string (NO quotes): site:msfn.org 2026 BOTH Google and Bing give the full Thai-connection. Images seems to be max 2 days old according to Bing (Google gives no images ??). Today this one is my favourite: It may be useful if members from other zones than North-West Europe check for themselves and report too (unsure if they should ask for a refund - isn't this a gift to help msfn staying alive? ). I checked Mojeek and Brave too. Only on Brave I could filter on specific date (very nice, better than the Big Two). After 23 march there are no results anymore on Brave. Both seem to give normal results, EXCEPT on Brave the following TWO (checked all six pages with search results): 1) msfn.org/board 2) msfn.org/board/index.php

I continued my conversation with Copilote, with following question: "In an earlier conversation today (on another browser) Copilot said Bing was still indexing msfn.org. Was this an error, or is it possible the AI-engine was so called 'hallucinating'?" The answer was interesting (at least to me, probably not to AstroSkipper ). Cited small part of Copilot's answer only: "The earlier answer you saw was not you imagining things — it was almost certainly a case of the AI giving an overconfident but incorrect statement. In other words: yes, that was a hallucination, and I can explain exactly why it happens in this specific situation. 🎯 Short, direct answer Bing used to index MSFN normally, but it no longer indexes new MSFN content reliably. If another Copilot instance told you “Bing is still indexing MSFN,” that was incorrect — a classic AI hallucination caused by outdated assumptions about how search engines behave. (......) Bing is still returning MSFN pages, but it is not indexing new pages beyond ~2025. (....)."

Because bing.com seems to behave differently from Google, I couldn't resist to have a small a conversation with Copilot on bing.com. See the attachment. Copilot on Google-indexing changes.md

Holland here (with Firefox 151.0.2 on Windows 10 64-bits): Google AI is aware of existence of msfn.org, but give NO links to msfn.org, which is strange. Searching with site:msfn.org "Windows XP": Bing.com gives results with "MSFN" "Windows XP" (NOT with "MSFN Windows XP" - which is a BAD search-phrase anyway): And with site:msfn.org "Windows XP":

Hello @Drew Hoffman I did long testing of VT1705 on my N68 board with WDMHDA Alpha-020 (returned to Windows 98SE - for other reasons). I studied codec.cpp on your behalf, but I couldn't find anything special. With help of Google AI I managed to use DebugView. To me it seems the problem is on the HDA-controller/ Driver level. See complete documentation in VT1705.zip below. I let my AI-agent analyse the log's from DebugView, seems to corroborate my idea. Today I asked my AI-agent to analyze your source code too. I had the luminous idea to ask for comparision with source code of HDADRVO11 (latest, published version - has absolutely no problems with my system). During the testing phase of this version Watler produced eleven versions. Because he is rather sparse with words (I believe I am not) I used my AI-agent to analyse changes. Everything runs in a (virtual) VSCode directory in Ubuntu, so my AI-agent from ai.pi studies earlier analysis/ log's/ code too). AI's analysis (GLM5 if I remember well) of WDMHDA Alpha-020 seems to make (some) sense to me, but in my language we say: "Een kinderhand is gauw gevuld" (in English probably: "Small things please little minds"). Maybe you can use the result of AI's analysis. VT1705 on N68 with WDMHDA.020 - source code compared with HDADRV9O11 .md VT1705.ZIP

Here you go, but as said: unspecific (Fatal Exception 0E) I will try to understand codec.cpp (as a non-programmer). But there is some sound on lowest volume level of mplayer2, only heavily distorted and 'transposed' one er more octaves lower - listening with Headphones (all reported earlier).

Although latest update WDMHDA Alpha-020 is probably not ment for VIA-codecs, I couldn't resist testing while working on Windows 98 FE installations. Same problems as reported earlier (N86/VT1705). DxDiag: after ignoring the warning there was a problem with Sound I got a non-specific Blue Screen with some problem on 0028:00000009 (non-fatal). Not sure if DxDiag was used earlier this way.

Watler provided a new version of his Win3x HDA-driver: HDADRV9O Download from: https://cute-crisp-779a84.netlify.app/index.html Highlights: After first boot CODEC_Index can be set manually in HDACFG.INI: useful in case of HDA-modems or HDMI-codec 'giving' wrong Codec index; HDAICOUT.HDA can have many more lines than earlier max of 256; HDAICOUT.HDA is extended with some scripting commands: jump/ label, conditional jump/ label for PCI-devices, conditional jump/ label with GET-verb and Response (so possible to send GET-/ SET-verbs for a specific HDA-controller or HDA-codec, even a specific sub-version). Also VolumeWidget can be set (IF working it should override VolumeWidget setting in HDACFG.INI); Example with free code to make your own extensions using new exported function(s) of HDA2.DLL (mytest.exe).

Third version of Part 8½ B: Full installation of Windows 98 Second Edition on a Rloew non-XMS Ramdrive Most important changes: 1) PROTHOOK.VXD ruled out in favour of PATCHMEM /P While working on Windows 95 versions of this project I found out PROTHOOK.VXD is not compatible with Windows 95, but PATCHMEM /P is working: And what is nice in case of Windows 98: possible to start Windows in Safe mode on a Rloew non-XMS Ramdrive. 2) Use of NOOFF.COM (optional). Found this small program again after many years in mdgx' Powertoys. If found during Setup NOOFF.COM will be used always, so it is now possible to make changes in Windows on a Ramdrive, shutdown to the command-line and start Windows again on the Ramdrive. Logo's must be deleted before, which is done automatic if NOOFF.COM is found. 3) Restart Windows in 'Normal mode' on Ramdrive after using Safe mode on Ramdrive (NOOFF.COM must be installed already). Normally it is not possible to start Windows in Normal mode AFTER been in Safe mode from the command-line. Always going back in Safe mode. But I developed a more or less reliable procedure to restart Windows in 'Normal mode'. Unless Windows Standard video driver is used in both 'Normal mode' and Safe mode, next two dialogs must be absolved (just click 2x OK): 4) Added U98SEUSB from Problemchild's SP3 to possible pre-installed USB-stack's with a menu to choose (IF files are copied before to their respective directories by the user): However, second phase of Setup will change a little because modded SYSDM.CPL from Windows ME is used in U98SEUSB: Overwriting SYSDM.CPL if Setup has been run is blocked inside Windows. But if starting Windows in Safe Mode on Ramdrive the original Windows 98 SYSDM.CPL is used again, also if restarted afterwards in 'Normal mode'. After next full boot modded SYSDM.CPL will be used again. 4) New Boot menu with choice to run Windows in Safe mode directly on the USB Bootdrive, with or without MS-DOS CD-drivers: BTW language of header is dependent on IO.SYS' language. 5) Choice of video-driver to use in Safe mode: Tihiy's modded SVGA driver or PlugMGMK's (Windows 3x) driver (if files are found by Setup). Even possible to set video in Safe mode to 1920x1200 with 32k colors (if available as VBE-mode). Be aware: there are currently six MSBATCH-versions. If you want to insert your Product ID, this must be done in all six files, unless you are sure which one will be used during Setup. 6) Option to disable Floppy seek inside Windows Explorer (but not elsewhere): 7) New choices before starting Windows on Ramdrive: Boot in 'Normal mode' with 'win' or 'WIN', in Safe mode with 'WIN /D:M' or 'win /d:m', both from C:\ to force use of WIN.BAT. Using other switches is supported too. Starting Windows from on Ramdrive from R:\ is possible too, but procedure to start 'Normal mode' after shutdown from Safe mode is not available in this case. I found on one of my chipsets with USB2.0 only, the USB-drive MUST be removed before starting Windows on a Ramdrive, even in Safe mode - while overmapping with SUSBST.EXE is helpfull too. On two of my chipset's USB2.0 is 'lost' after booting a second time from the command-line. If no USB1(.1) is available, only use Safe mode BEFORE starting in 'Normal mode' (found same with NDIS2-driver, IF started). 8) Supporting 64KB clusters. If the USB-drive is formatted with 64KB clusters (128 Sectors per Cluster), IO.SYS will not boot from such a disk (as far tested). But with use of Grub4dos, booting IO.SYS directly is possible (grldr with grldr-bootcode needed). The MENU.LST included will auto-highlight the (currently) right choice, but will wait a while for Enter. Even installation of this project from a Logical partition is possible (partly tested for now). Main problem: LCOPY.EXE does not support 64KB clusters (nor aligment with higher number of Reserved sectors on FAT16). These problems are solved in the included version of LCOPY.EXE, modifications mainly by my pi.ai-agent (original and changed source code included too, in directory SETUP982\README\LCOPYMOD). As probably known: SCANDISK.EXE will not support 64KB clusters (but SCANDISKW.EXE does). Currently solved with DOSFSCK.EXE from Freedos (CWSDPMI.EXE is needed too). DOSFSCK.EXE will only run during Setup to check the USB-drive, if installed, but not automatic if Safe mode is started directly from the USB-bootdrive and FAT16 or FAT32 is 'dirty' (SCANDISK.EXE is disabled in this case by Setup). WINONR8.5.2.USB.ZIP More information in the directory SETUP982\README EDIT: something went wrong with the zip, please delete and download latest version!

Thanks for all these info. On my hardware I can not test further, but I will keep this code in my collection. So far I didn't do much with MBR-code, only compiling SYSLINUX and porting MS-DOS 4.0 FDBOOT to NASM (apart from the F2 => F3 variation).

Nice! I was a bit behind because of working on some bootloader experiments. This sounds not good. I see somewhere in properties of windows' starting sound (using Mplayer2): '22,050 samples per second'. According to the High Definition Audio Specification there are two main frequencies: 44.1 kHz and 48 kHz. Others are provided by multipliers/dividers. See '3.7.1 Stream Format Structure'. But I don't know how this is on the driver-level however. With all due respect, but I think this is not the right question to ask. Rather the other way round: when and why is audio not working if snooping is enabled? Last friday I looked a bit more into this Snooping 'thing'. At my current (quite low) level of knowledge I would say: if it ain't broke, don't fix it. The PCI-bus is highly complicated. From my understanding snooping can slow things down, also because the process of holding memory and processor cache coherent takes time and can introduce latency. However this Snooping (looking in the processors cache first for data) doesn't seem to be absolute. Also depends on the type of memory. At least if the memory used by the audio stream is marked as 'Uncacheable (UC)' in the MTRR (Memory Type Range Registers) there should be direct hardware access, no caching. But remember: I am not even a programmer, just an amateur with (maybe) some information-searching/ -processing skills. So every reader of this thread: please correct me if I am wrong (or providing incomplete information). If you want to experiment: try with and without snooping to watch some movie and listen to the audio with headphones while copying a big file of say 500 MB. The processor must NOT stay at 100%, some simple old AVI will do. Be aware the Windows' default is 20 (if not set in SYSTEM.INI). So common knowledge is that lower settings will give better performance, higher settings better stability. However said this, the other way round is not fully unthinkable: the audio stream passes al sorts of buffers on its way from the disk to the codec and buffer-underruns are no good. Can you show your version so far? In the past I started with HDAWIN16.INF which contained all the info I gave you, but the one published in this thread was only a copy/ paste version reduced to GENHDA16.INF. Also I made the bad choice to include HDARUN.EXE instead of WAVEOUT.EXE, seen in retrospect. Good you fixed this (which compiling problems I wasn't aware of).