Re: GM MIDI Tone Generators/Sound Modules - from best to worst

Posted on 2011-01-11, 22:40

by

by megatron-uk

in PC Emulation

in PC Emulation

It's subjective I guess, but to me Roland sounds a ton better. I think it sounds inferior even to the Awe32/WB2. My favorite version of the Doom soundtrack is on the MT-32 and SoundBlaster by the way :D. It sounds very good on Azrael's Tear though. It also has to do with how well somebody uses the …

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Re: Complete newbie advice on ISA video cards required please

Posted on 2011-01-11, 17:15

by

by megatron-uk

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

A good guide to follow 'back in the day' was to avoid anything marketed as a 2d-accelerator or Windows accelerator as they were often slower in dos than pure-VGA designs.

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Re: GM MIDI Tone Generators/Sound Modules - from best to worst

Posted on 2011-01-11, 17:02

by

by megatron-uk

in PC Emulation

in PC Emulation

Now, when I hear the Sam & Max comparison I immediately find that the drum and percussion instruments sound very muted and 'fuzzy' on the Wave Blaster - the oboe does sound a little warmer, but the sax (around 1:14) is more natural (again, IMO) on the Sound Canvas, with the WB sounding very …

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Re: Anyone interested in recordings of different sound cards? I've got some here for you.

Posted on 2011-01-11, 15:37

by

by megatron-uk

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I think some of it must be to do with the case, motherboard and power supply - when I bought my GUS Max, all the way back in the 90's, it was very, very good in terms of noise; much better than the SB 2.0 (and the subsequent SB16 it was replaced with) - but since being resurrected in a modern …

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Re: NEC XR385

Posted on 2011-01-11, 14:10

by

by megatron-uk

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Made recordings of all the music options on my DOS gaming machine: Soundblaster 16 FM (CT2290, real OPL3) http://targetearth.dyndns.org/www/gaming/orig/hexen_warp02_sb16opl3.mp3 Gravis Ultrasound Max 1Mb (standard patch set) http://targetearth.dyndns.org/www/gaming/orig/hexen_warp02_gus.mp3 Yamaha …

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Re: NEC XR385

Posted on 2011-01-11, 13:26

by

by megatron-uk

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

No. The system boots to command prompt as standard. (How long is the track? Should I leave it for the music to wraparound to see if it occurs later?)

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Re: NEC XR385

Posted on 2011-01-11, 13:19

by

by megatron-uk

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Mine arrived last week - hooked it up to my CT2290 SB16 and it works perfectly. Have you tried the "Hexen hanging note bug test"? To do this, download the free to download Hexen shareware demo. Then, run Hexen at the DOS prompt like this: Hexen -warp 02 Do you hear a stuck music note, when you have …

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Re: GM MIDI Tone Generators/Sound Modules - from best to worst

Posted on 2011-01-11, 12:21

by

by megatron-uk

in PC Emulation

in PC Emulation

Wave Blaster 1 - 10 I'd have to disagree with you on this one - all the tracks I've heard via this compared to the Roland (SC55mk1/2) or Yamaha (XG50/60) equivalents have sounded really unbalanced - some instruments thin and wooly and others completely overpowering. Gravis Ultrasound - 2 There are …

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Re: NEC XR385

Posted on 2011-01-09, 13:22

by

by megatron-uk

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Mine arrived last week - hooked it up to my CT2290 SB16 and it works perfectly. Not as good, IMO, as a Sound Canvas - but very nice indeed. Between my GUS Max, SC55, MT32 and XR385, I think I've got the MIDI bases covered now 😀

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Re: NEC XR385

Posted on 2010-12-22, 22:37

by

by megatron-uk

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I've got one on the way too - he did say to expect shipping to take 20 days or so.

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Re: Deathtrap Dungeon

Posted on 2010-12-19, 10:36

by

by megatron-uk

in Windows

in Windows

Is the analogue output from the CD/DVD drive plugged in? Do you get any drive activity when the music should be playing? (ah, just read the laptop part - ignore the first part of my post then!)

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Re: Floppy disk thoughts & questions

Posted on 2010-12-09, 19:21

by

by megatron-uk

in Milliways

in Milliways

If you have a troublesome disk that dd barfs on, try using dd_rescue instead, it can skip over unreadable sectors. You may have to do a bit of repair work on the resulting image (fsck / chkdsk when mounted), but it might help you in reading some disks that are borderline.

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Re: external mpu401 and mt32: confused

Posted on 2010-10-18, 14:27

by

by megatron-uk

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Anyone see the MPU401 AT that just sold on Ebay? It doesn't bode well for anyone else looking for one.... £205.

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Re: FM Synth (Soundblaster) comparison using Monkey Island 2!

Posted on 2010-10-12, 14:57

by

by megatron-uk

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Hearing Monkey Island / Monkey Island 2 from an OPL2/3 based card after a real MT-32 makes baby Jesus want to cry 🙁 .... we were all young and naive once.....

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Re: Ensoniq Soundscape Elite recordings

Posted on 2010-10-12, 14:47

by

by megatron-uk

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Has anyone got a later Sound Canvas device, like the SC-88 Pro, SC-8820 or SC-8850? I'd be interested to see (hear!) if there is much improvement over the SC-55 mkII. From the recordings on wavetable.nl, the later SC-88xx series are very impressive (although sadly still rather expensive to buy).

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Re: How do you set the PATH variable?

Posted on 2010-10-08, 09:40

by

by megatron-uk

in DOSBox General

in DOSBox General

If you're looking at compiling in DosBox be warned that it is *very* slow compared to doing the same in VMware/Virtualbox/Xen etc. I've been doing some playing around with DJGPP and Allegro and found it about the speed of a fast 486 to compile C code.

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2010-10-06, 12:58

by

by megatron-uk

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Nice. I am tempted to upgrade my PPro 200 with one of those (the 440FX DEC motherboard has solder pads for a second ZIF socket, but only one fitted - I guess it was a at-purchase option)..... but I don't know if I can justify the cost (as you no doubt know they're rather expensive!) when I've got a …

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Re: Anyone have a real MPU-401 or MPU-IPC spare?

Posted on 2010-10-04, 09:20

by

by megatron-uk

in MT-32 General

in MT-32 General

Excellent - I guess I'll have to find one of those then!

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Another games that needs a real MPU-401? - Linewars 2

Posted on 2010-10-03, 13:35

by

by megatron-uk

in MT-32 General

in MT-32 General

I think I found another game that requires a real MPU-401 in order to function, Linewars II. Running the configuration (on a real DOS machine) with my SC55 and MT32 attached via SB16 gameport I can select either of them as output devices, or my SB or GUS, but on exiting the config menu and back into …

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Wing Commander III / IV - run from hard drive?

Posted on 2010-10-03, 13:19

by

by megatron-uk

in DOS

in DOS

Does anyone know if (the DOS versions of) WC3 and 4 can be run entirely from hard drive, rather than CD? Yes it's 10 CD's worth altogether (4 for WC3, 6 for WC4), but with modern drives it's still only single percentage points of the size of large FAT32 partition!

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