I am a huge fan of using external midi devices to internal ones. With an external module, you are not shackled to ISA devices or one computer system.
wrote:I am a huge fan of using external midi devices to internal ones. With an external module, you are not shackled to ISA devices or one computer system.
This is absolutely true. I was considering getting myself a Roland SCD/SCB-15 daughterboard for a long time... But there were three things that bugged me:
1) Daughterboards need "mothersoundboards", meaning that I would either have to stick to old ISA/mainboards and soundcards or get a PCI version of some Wavetable-connector equipped SB, if I wanted to have decent MIDI through DOSBOX on a modern system.
2) Roland daughterboards are extremely rare on ebay and when they do show up, they reach sick prices (even >100eur).
3) You cant easily modify anything on the daughterboard -> you cant change mode (MT-32/SC-55) on the fly, you cant modify volume, nor chorus, nor reverb.
So, because of this I dropped the idea of getting a daughterboard and I got myself a full blown SC-55 for less then 100e and it works as good on my oldie equipped with AWE32 3980 as well as on a "newy" core 2 duo with Terratec DMX 6 Fire 24/96 through the midi port.
One more thing. Most of more modern DOS games (games that support GM) work flawlessly under windows, meaning that GM emulation through AWE32/64 works awesome. Just grab a suitable sound fond and enjoy! For example, even though I have both yamaha db50xg and SC-55 I still prefer playing settlers 2 with a 8MB sound font for AWE32. Sounds really impressive. But with AWE64 value - you cant do much 😒
wrote:Most of more modern DOS games (games that support GM) work flawlessly under windows, meaning that GM emulation through AWE32/64 works awesome. Just grab a suitable sound fond and enjoy! For example, even though I have both yamaha db50xg and SC-55 I still prefer playing settlers 2 with a 8MB sound font for AWE32. Sounds really impressive.
That's really interesting - thanks for the tip! 😀 I must try this out. I have an AWE64 gold card, which I think has 4mb of RAM onboard. Is this good enough? Can I pick a 4MB sound font?
wrote:wrote:Most of more modern DOS games (games that support GM) work flawlessly under windows, meaning that GM emulation through AWE32/64 works awesome. Just grab a suitable sound fond and enjoy! For example, even though I have both yamaha db50xg and SC-55 I still prefer playing settlers 2 with a 8MB sound font for AWE32. Sounds really impressive.
That's really interesting - thanks for the tip! 😀 I must try this out. I have an AWE64 gold card, which I think has 4mb of RAM onboard. Is this good enough? Can I pick a 4MB sound font?
Of course, why not. I havent really tested on AWE64 (dont have one), but I guess it uses the same AWE control panel as the AWE32. Go to the control panel, load up a good sound font, go to device settings and check two checkboxes:
"allow wavetable synth only" and "allow MPU-401 emulation". Then start the game from windows / dos prompt and select "general midi" as music output. I played a lot with this and it turns out it works quite good! Try 😀
On more modern games, where it gives an option for AWE32 as a MIDI card, should I select that or select General Midi? Will selecting either one of those with my AWE64 value give pseudo-General Midi or will it just do FM synthesis like SB16?
I havn't been able to test any of these settings because my AWE64 value is still being shipped. The seller couldn't find it for a whole week; it's going on 3 weeks now! Argh!
Select the AWE32 option whenever possible. Most newer DOS games support this.
In order for General MIDI to work under MS-DOS, you'll have to load the AWEUTIL TSR utility first. This tool is not compatible with protected mode games (unfortunately most late DOS games fall into that category).
Both of the above options provide General MIDI music.
The EMU8K synth onboard the AWE cards can sound excellent if programmed correctly. Unfortunately almost no game takes advantage of this.
wrote:The EMU8K synth onboard the AWE cards can sound excellent if programmed correctly. Unfortunately almost no game takes advantage of this.
It would help if the patch set wasn't like the worst there ever was, too. 😀 I wonder if it's worse or better than the original Waveblaster? That DB was known for it's horrific patch set....
wrote:Select the AWE32 option whenever possible. Most newer DOS games support this.
In order for General MIDI to work under MS-DOS, you'll have to load the AWEUTIL TSR utility first. This tool is not compatible with protected mode games (unfortunately most late DOS games fall into that category).
Both of the above options provide General MIDI music.
I agree to a certain degree but only for AWE32/64 Value editions. For normal AWE32 and AWE64 gold forget about crappy AWEUTIL TSR and use dos prompt from windows 98 to run newer DOS games (supporting native AWE32 or GM). Then, assuming that a good sound font is loaded, general midi on AWE32 will sound better then standard AWE32 sound.
If anyone disagrees, just download settlers 2 and try out the midis. You will see what I mean. Settlers 2 support natively AWE32, Yamaha db50xg, roland SC and a lot of other midi options (the most complete support i ever saw).
wrote:If anyone disagrees, just download settlers 2 and try out the midis. You will see what I mean. Settlers 2 support natively AWE32, Yamaha db50xg, roland SC and a lot of other midi options (the most complete support i ever saw).
The game probably uses a late DOS version of the miles sound system. Many of the soundcard options such as Roland SC, GM, DB50XG and SB-Live just point to the same general midi driver file, so it seems like more than it actually is. Nonetheless the miles sound system is very flexible and compatible.
Here are equilavent sound cards and their modules (midi-only):
Roland LAPC-I = Roland CM-32L, CM-64 or CM-500
Roland SCC-1 = Roland SC-55, CM-300, CM-500
Yamaha DB50XG/SW60XG = Yamaha MU-10XG, MU-50XG
IBM Music Feature Card = Yamaha FB-01
Roland SCD-10/SCB-7/RAP-10AT = Roland SC-7
Roland SCD-15/SCB-55 = Roland SC-55mkII, Roland SC-55ST
wrote:On more modern games, where it gives an option for AWE32 as a MIDI card, should I select that or select General Midi? Will selecting either one of those with my AWE64 value give pseudo-General Midi or will it just do FM synthesis like SB16?
I havn't been able to test any of these settings because my AWE64 value is still being shipped. The seller couldn't find it for a whole week; it's going on 3 weeks now! Argh!
Don't worry. Your AWE64 card will be playing the wavetable sysnthesis sounds when choosing the AWE32 option in the game setups.
General MIDI will only work with an AWE32/64 in Real-mode games, provided the AWEUTIL utility is loaded.
Do you have another Windows based machine in your home? If you use Dosbox with your DOS games, you can get a "preview" of the FM and GM sounds with it. Since the most basic MIDI synthesizer in Windows is a Microsoft GS based software synth, you can get a fairly good idea of how the GM or AWE32 will sound in your AWE64.
