NightShadowPT wrote on 2023-03-31, 16:41:

Hi, […]
Show full quote

Hi,

I remember reading on an older post here in VOGONS that the memory upgrade on the Sound Blaster AWE32 was only useful under MS-DOS in games that did not use protected mode - you could then load another sound bank into the upgraded memory and use it in those games.

Is there any list of games that supported the AWE32's GM mode under MS-DOS and at the same time were not operating in protected mode?

I assume this should be a very short list 😀

A significant amount of protected mode games can also make use of the AWEUTIL driver if you run them using DOS32AWE, see DOS32AWE - DOS/4G compatible DOS Extender with Sound Blaster AWEUTIL MIDI synthesizer support for Protected mode,VIASB .

To use soundbanks with games, load the sound bank using AWEUTIL, then configure the game to use general MIDI.

I'd guess upgrade is useless only when you're using AWEUTIL midi emulation.
The game with native EMU8000 support can use larger onboard memory the very same way as Windows would do.
Hypothetical alternative midi driver/emulator (anything that is not AWEUTIL) can use the upgraded ram and work better with protected mode apps.

vstrakh wrote on 2023-03-31, 20:14:

I'd guess upgrade is useless only when you're using AWEUTIL midi emulation.
The game with native EMU8000 support can use larger onboard memory the very same way as Windows would do.

Au contraire. Games with native EMU8000 support almost generally have SYNTHGM.SBK built into the AWE32 driver and won't use any RAM. AWEUTIL on the other hand can load many kinds of soundfonts (there seem to be limits, though), and if a sound font has been loaded by AWEUTIL, it is available to all application using MPU401 UART mode (the usual "General MIDI at 330h"). In Windows (but not in most games) you have an UI to select sound font.

Ok, I was under impression that aweutil emulation only uses onboard 1MB ROM.
Sure, no game would want to include multimeg sound bank for GM, when the game itself fits on a couple of diskettes.

But I was thinking more from the programmer's point of view, having the direct access to the hardware, and allowing myself different ways to utilize the sample "cache" when it's larger.

Some Windows games like Final Fantasy 7 include their own, custom soundfonts in SF2 format. If an AWE card with enough on-board memory is detected and configured in setup, these soundfonts are automatically loaded and used when the game is started.

With regards to DOS games, vert few use this approach. When such games do load soundfonts, they usually use SBK files instead. Some examples are listed in this thread: AWEstruck...

However, the game Eradicator does actually use SF2 files in pure DOS. From the game's documentation, it looks like those contain special sound effects. And it has been stated that Magic Carpet 2 also uses SF2 files in DOS, presumably for enhanced music.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2023-04-01, 08:04:

Some Windows games like Final Fantasy 7 include their own, custom soundfonts in SF2 format. If an AWE card with enough on-board memory is detected and configured in setup, these soundfonts are automatically loaded and used when the game is started.

With regards to DOS games, vert few use this approach. When such games do load soundfonts, they usually use SBK files instead. Some examples are listed in this thread: AWEstruck...

However, the game Eradicator does actually use SF2 files in pure DOS. From the game's documentation, it looks like those contain special sound effects. And it has been stated that Magic Carpet 2 also uses SF2 files in DOS, presumably for enhanced music.

but do any of these titles actually take advantage of the *expansion*? Or more likely do their custom soundfonds only fit in the memory of a stock card

maxtherabbit wrote on 2023-04-01, 13:21:

but do any of these titles actually take advantage of the *expansion*? Or more likely do their custom soundfonds only fit in the memory of a stock card

It depends. For example, Eradicator has two custom soundfonts. One is intended for cards which only have 512 KB memory on-board (ERAD512K.SF2) and another one for cards with at least 2 MB memory (ERAD2MEG.SF2). Normally, a value version of an AWE card with only 512 KB memory on-board would use the corresponding soundfont. However, such a card can use the larger 2 MB soundfont if sufficient memory is added to it. On startup, the game checks for available memory, and automatically loads one of these two soundfonts based on that.

That said, I don't personally know of any games with custom soundfonts larger than 4 MB, which is what Final Fantasy 7 uses. Not saying that there aren't any, just that I haven't encountered them yet.