Plug and Play BIOS Considerations

Be sure to register appropriate device IDs and resource structures in your Plug and Play BIOS for machines with on-board multimedia devices. In other words, just because an on-board device is compatible with Sound Blaster does not mean that the BIOS should report the *PNPB001 device ID.

To determine the appropriate IDs, first determine the chipset manufacturer (such as Analog Devices, Creative Labs, ESS, and so on) and then match the resource IDs using the table provided in . You may report the device ID from this table or you may register your own ID and report the device ID from the table as a compatible ID. However, if you register your own device ID and this ID is not included in the standard .INF files or is not included in the OEM's implementation of Windows 95, the user will be prompted with a dialog box and given the option to select the compatible device or select from a list of other devices.

If the device is partially software configurable (such as the Windows Sound System or ES688 and ES1688 reference designs), you have some options for the reported device structure:

• You may report only the fixed resources in the boot configuration and allow the Configuration Manager to fill in the remaining required resources determined by the dependent functions. The Configuration Manager will determine the highest priority and most feasible dependent function to fill.
• You may report all of the resources in the boot configuration and require a restart to apply a new configuration (this option is not recommended).

Note that BIOS is expected to configure these software configurable resources to match the resulting configuration.