IBM Aptiva Mxx series M50/M51/M30/M31/M41/M53/M71/M63/M55
(250-0440/1/2/3/4/5/50/53) Using the FASTCFG Utility  Faxback Doc. # 33017

This article applies to all Aptiva computers that came pre-loaded with the
MWave sound card/modem.

You can change the way your MWave card works in DOS using the FASTCFG
command at the DOS prompt.  The command offers four different modes:

1) Games (Sound Blaster Pro emulation with no modem functions)
2) Advanced Audio (Sound Blaster Pro emulation with General MIDI emulation)
3) Telegame (Sound Blaster emulation with 14.4K bps modem enabled)
4) Advanced Modem (28.8K bps modem with no sound functions)

The FASTCFG program was originally set to the third option to provide sound
and modem support in DOS.  Depending on your games, you may want to change
to one of the other options.  There are advantages and disadvantages to
using the different options.

The first option provides Sound Blaster Pro emulation, which is supported
by almost all DOS games.  The major advantage to using this option is that
it uses the least amount of memory.  If you are having memory problems with
the game, use this option.

The second option will provide the best sound quality for games that
support General MIDI sound cards.  Games that can take advantage of this
option will have better music, as they take advantage of the wavetable
features of the MWave card.  The disadvantage of using this option is that
the wavetable features use up about 2MB (megabytes) of extended memory.  If
your system has 8MB of memory, this may prevent you from running the newer
games that require 8MB of memory.

The third option provides sound and modem support for games that support
modem play.  The biggest disadvantage of this feature is that the modem
driver takes up 50KB of conventional and upper memory, and this can prevent
you from running some DOS games with very high conventional memory
requirements.

The fourth option will also use the 50KB modem driver.  Modem software
requires much less memory than most DOS games, and this is not a real
disadvantage.  The main disadvantage here is the loss of sound.

The nice thing about FASTCFG is that you can change the features again and
again without rebooting your computer.  Each time you make a change and
then select OK, the program will ask you if you want to use that change
each time you reboot your system.  To try out a new setting, select "No"
until you decide that you want it to be your usual setting.

(BKL-05/22/96)