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How to get Virtualmidi Synth worked in Dosbox under Win10

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First post, by Saotome Ranma

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Hello everyone, I am a Chinese and living in Japan now. This is my first post here. I LOVE VOGONS a lot since I like retro games and old hardware so much and have been viewing here for quite long time.

I registered for a quite suck question confusing me for a while. I want to play some old dos games such as Theme Hospital bought from GOG and wish to improve the poor midi quality by using Virtualmidi Synth with some nice soundfont.

Although, I've got my owned Roland SC-88 and Pro already, I still want to play those games before establishing my first real DOS game PC here. Some articles said that dosbox will use the default midi device automatically, but it seems doesn't work for me under windows 10, eventhough I've installed Virtualmidi Synth and its Coolsoft Midi Mapper already. I've tried to play some midi music directly through Potplayer and it works perfectly so I think Virtualmidi Synth has been installed correctly. But when it comes to the dosbox, the midi mixer doesn't show anything but shit... I've even tried to edit the "midiconfig= " in config file by specifying the device id listed in dosbox manually but still failed. No matter what I did, the Virtualmidi Synth doesn't work at all in dosbox...

So could some nice guy tell me how to get Virtualmidi Synth worked correctly in DOSbox under win10 plz..... (T_T)

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Reply 1 of 13, by PhilsComputerLab

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Uninstall it and give Falcosoft MIDI Player a go: http://falcosoft.hu/softwares.html

It's my go-to MIDI Synth now 😀

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Reply 3 of 13, by Saotome Ranma

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PhilsComputerLab wrote:

Uninstall it and give Falcosoft MIDI Player a go: http://falcosoft.hu/softwares.html

It's my go-to MIDI Synth now 😀

wow!!! The God-like PhilsComputerLab replied me!!!!! Thank u so much!!!

Thanks for ur advice, I'll try this now!!

James-F wrote:

A big +1 for FSMP.

This seems like a solid choice, thank u too!

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Reply 4 of 13, by Saotome Ranma

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Damn it, still cant get FSMP worked.

I installed loopMIDI and use it as the midi input of FSMP, and specified loopmidi as the default input device in DOSbox. Everything is done and even dosbox shows the message that loopmidi has been specified... but still nothing improved, no data transferred in loopmidi and no reaction in FSMP at all....

sigh... I have no idea what should I do now....

Anyway, thank you guys.... I did my best....

Last edited by Saotome Ranma on 2017-05-09, 11:10. Edited 1 time in total.

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Reply 5 of 13, by PhilsComputerLab

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Hmm here is a checklist that you can try:

- Install loopMIDI, run it, and add (+ button) a virtual device, don't close it
- Run MIDI Player and configure the input (loopMIDI) and output (Use Bass and load a .SF2 SoundFont)
- Run DOSBox, and type mixer/listmidi (it should show loopMIDI) and note down the ID number
- Edit DOSBox config and make sure midiconfig=ID number from previous step. In my case midiconfig=3
- Run SETUP or INSTALL of your game and configure it for General MIDI

I think that should do it. Below are some images for reference.

Attachments

  • DOSBox.PNG
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    DOSBox.PNG
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    15 KiB
    Views
    5793 views
    File license
    Fair use/fair dealing exception
  • MIDI Player.PNG
    Filename
    MIDI Player.PNG
    File size
    98.78 KiB
    Views
    5793 views
    File license
    Fair use/fair dealing exception
  • loopMIDI.PNG
    Filename
    loopMIDI.PNG
    File size
    7.45 KiB
    Views
    5792 views
    File license
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Reply 6 of 13, by Saotome Ranma

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PhilsComputerLab wrote:
Hmm here is a checklist that you can try: […]
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Hmm here is a checklist that you can try:

- Install loopMIDI, run it, and add (+ button) a virtual device, don't close it
- Run MIDI Player and configure the input (loopMIDI) and output (Use Bass and load a .SF2 SoundFont)
- Run DOSBox, and type mixer/listmidi (it should show loopMIDI) and note down the ID number
- Edit DOSBox config and make sure midiconfig=ID number from previous step. In my case midiconfig=3
- Run SETUP or INSTALL of your game and configure it for General MIDI

I think that should do it. Below are some images for reference.

I've already did that but still failed, this is why it confused me a lot.... T_T

Please see my attachments

Attachments

  • working.jpg
    Filename
    working.jpg
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    537.7 KiB
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    5789 views
    File license
    Fair use/fair dealing exception
  • midi.jpg
    Filename
    midi.jpg
    File size
    87.22 KiB
    Views
    5789 views
    File license
    Fair use/fair dealing exception

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Reply 7 of 13, by PhilsComputerLab

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Yea that all looks good. And the game is configured to play General MIID? Maybe try another game, or setup program test, like in Descent.

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Reply 8 of 13, by Falcosoft

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The most important question is: What is exactly happening?
1. You do not hear anything.
2. You get MIDI through MS GS Synth. (So you hear music but not through your selected port).

In case 1. Phil's suggestion should work.
In case 2. further investigation is required 😀

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Falcosoft Soundfont Midi Player + Munt VSTi + BassMidi VSTi
VST Midi Driver Midi Mapper

Reply 9 of 13, by Saotome Ranma

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PhilsComputerLab wrote:

Yea that all looks good. And the game is configured to play General MIID? Maybe try another game, or setup program test, like in Descent.

Thank you so much dude, problem solved.

The next step for me is to build a real DOS gaming PC myself I think. It is really hard to find some nice old hardware in Japan since DOS pc was beaten by NEC's PC-98 Series at that time especially for isa sound card....

But it is relatively easier here to find some nice Roland and Yamaha midi devices in a cheaper price here, except Roland MPU-401 isa adapters... almost every MPU card here are designed for PC-98 with totally different layout....

I wish I can help u guys find some midi devices here and some could help me for some really nice sound cards and midi adapters. 😊 😊 😊

Last edited by Saotome Ranma on 2017-05-09, 13:53. Edited 3 times in total.

The NOOB of noobs!!

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Reply 10 of 13, by Saotome Ranma

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Falcosoft wrote:
The most important question is: What is exactly happening? 1. You do not hear anything. 2. You get MIDI through MS GS Synth. (So […]
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The most important question is: What is exactly happening?
1. You do not hear anything.
2. You get MIDI through MS GS Synth. (So you hear music but not through your selected port).

In case 1. Phil's suggestion should work.
In case 2. further investigation is required 😀

My case is the 2nd situation, but I've made it fixed already.

Thank u for ur advice dude! 😊

The NOOB of noobs!!

Retro Games & Hardware サイコウ！

Reply 11 of 13, by James-F

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Saotome Ranma wrote:

in Japan since DOS pc was beaten by NEC's PC-98 Series at that time especially for isa sound card....

Never heard of it....
That goes to show the massive difference between the cultures.
Amazing stuff. 😀


my important / useful posts are here

Reply 12 of 13, by Malik

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Uh...just a heads up... Coolsoft's VirtualMIDISynth has been my favourite and works in my Win10 systems (Desktop, laptop and tablet). It's been my favourite since I first used it. Never had problems with it. Don't know why it didn't work with you though.

And how was the problem solved? What happened that made FSMP finally show up in Dosbox?

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Reply 13 of 13, by Saotome Ranma

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Malik wrote:

Uh...just a heads up... Coolsoft's VirtualMIDISynth has been my favourite and works in my Win10 systems (Desktop, laptop and tablet). It's been my favourite since I first used it. Never had problems with it. Don't know why it didn't work with you though.

And how was the problem solved? What happened that made FSMP finally show up in Dosbox?

I don't know either. I just reinstalled the latest version of Dosbox separately and configured it and launched games manually and it's solved..... maybe some of pre-packaged dosbox in GOG's games are not properly configured I think...

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