If it says to use MPU-401, they're likely referring to the game's "Roland" setting. For Monkey Island you just start the game with "monkey r" to enable Roland mode.

wildweasel wrote:

If it says to use MPU-401, they're likely referring to the game's "Roland" setting. For Monkey Island you just start the game with "monkey r" to enable Roland mode.

Thanks! Ill try it out. But what about other games? Is every game so specific?

If every game was the same it would be boring, especially gameplay-wise, right?

Nicely said. So... let me rephrase the question - how do I know yamaha works (in DOS)? I managed to get sound up and running by playing with DMA settings, but honestly, midi sounds still pretty bad (much different then the samples I found online).

Correct me if I'm wrong but, yamaha cannot emulate LAPC-I, right?

nope, the DB50XG is a GM/XG daughterboard only... Just install DOOM and select general midi as music. you will immediatelly notice the difference. Or use the Duke Nukem 3D setup, that tests settings on the fly.

elfuego wrote:

Nicely said. So... let me rephrase the question - how do I know yamaha works (in DOS)? I managed to get sound up and running by playing with DMA settings, but honestly, midi sounds still pretty bad (much different then the samples I found online).

For example take any game featured on dosforum.de's nice comparison page and configure it to use General MIDI for the music.

elfuego wrote:

Correct me if I'm wrong but, yamaha cannot emulate LAPC-I, right?

Right. Although the DB50XG has an "MT-32 emulation mode" (which you have to activate first), it will not work correctly with games that are programmed to use the full functionality of a MT-32 or LAPC-I.
This problem is common with General MIDI synths. So if you want to enjoy true MT-32/LAPC-I music, you'll have to get the real hardware.

how do you activate mt-32 mode on the db50xg?

I've never gotten a game's GM settings to work.

OK just downloaded Duke3d shareware demo so I'll give it a go. But I also found a line in my autoexec.bat saying: SET MIDI=SYNTH:1 and something else. Does this mean that the AWE is configured to synth midi all over?

And again - how can one activate mt-32 on yamaha?

Thanks 😀

elfuego wrote:

OK just downloaded Duke3d shareware demo so I'll give it a go...

Holy crap! Yamaha definitely works! Not that it just works, it kicks ass in Duke3D!!! I never, ever heard duke theme played better! WOW.

But there is still one issue to clear out. In Windows 98 I selected "SB16 Midi out" as MIDI device - but midi files sound much worse then on "SB AWE32 Midi synth". Instruments sound either hollow or high pitched, depending on the instrument. How to fix that?

If there is an option for MPU-401 use that. Maybe your getting the OPL-3.

elfuego wrote:

But I also found a line in my autoexec.bat saying: SET MIDI=SYNTH:1 and something else. Does this mean that the AWE is configured to synth midi all over?

No, this line doesn't do anything except if you use Creative's own command-line MIDI file player. You can safely delete it from your AUTOEXEC.BAT file.

elfuego wrote:

And again - how can one activate mt-32 on yamaha?

There are various ways to do this... One of the simplest:

• Download the GS Play DOS Command Line MIDI File Player from the QuestStudios MT-32 utilities page.
• Type "GSPLAY MT32" and off you go!

Games using only the default MT32 instruments (like Monkey Island 1) will sound similar to the MT32. Games with more sophisticated MT-32 soundtracks will play with wrong instruments though.

elfuego wrote:

In Windows 98 I selected "SB16 Midi out" as MIDI device - but midi files sound much worse then on "SB AWE32 Midi synth". Instruments sound either hollow or high pitched, depending on the instrument. How to fix that?

I've got no idea. "SB16 MIDI out" should be the correct selection alright. What do you mean with "hollow or high pitched"? Can you make a recording of this?

I think I can manage the recording too. Though not that fast; I have an exam coming so I won't have much time on my hands 😒

But I ran into one more issue. General MIDI works relatively good on almost every game that supports it, but I noticed that I get occasional "lag" in some games. For example in Duke3D, the sound plays perfectly for 2 minutes, then the music lags for a second or two, then it goes on correctly. This repeats every 2-3 minutes. Similar thing happens in Mortal Kombat 2 - with a difference that the music goes perfectly up until one moment, where it just hangs the whole system (after 2-3 min). And that happens only with GM enabled (not with normal AWE32 midi), so its definitely not HW, but sound issue.

... and unfortunately I finally found out what do "hanging notes" mean. In Realms of Arcania 1 there is an awful hanging notes bug, both on AWE32 3980 and on SB16 CT1750 (here a bit less). I'll try to enable the MT32 support and see if that helps or not. Interestingly, I dont hear any hanging notes in Hexen (the "most problematic game")... Any ideas how to fix the lags?

Forget about the recording for now...
After I've read about your new issues (the lags and the hanging notes), I've got the feeling this is caused by something different. Maybe some configuration error, or hardware incompatibility.
What are your system specs? Are you running the games in a Windows command-line shell or in real DOS?

5u3 wrote:

Forget about the recording for now...
After I've read about your new issues (the lags and the hanging notes), I've got the feeling this is caused by something different. Maybe some configuration error, or hardware incompatibility.
What are your system specs? Are you running the games in a Windows command-line shell or in real DOS?

I am dual booting official and legal 😀 MS DOS 6.0 and Windows 98 SE with:

Asus P5A with official beta BIOS from 2002 (latest I could find)
K6/3 @ 120 (2x60Mhz) - 600Mhz (6x100Mhz) depends on the game
3dfx Voodoo 5 5500 AGP
1x64MB PC100 or 2x256MB PC133 SDRAM, depending on need
1x Realtec NIC 10mb
1x AWE32 ct3890 or SB16 ct1750 ASP with yamaha on them
Maxtor DM45+ 20GB with 2GB FAT16 (DOS) partition, 8GB FAT32 Windows 98 partition and the rest I left unpartitioned for Linux (later)
1x Yamaha CDRW 8/8/24x

powered by Levicom 450W PSU.

In BIOS everything is on default settings, except that I disabled serial and parallel ports to free IRQs and DMAs and I also set the memory timings pretty sharp (2-2-2) since I do have Infineon PC133 CL2.

I tried both on 120Mhz and on 600 Mhz, I get the same result 🙁

I am not sure if I tested under windows yet. I'll try it out. Any other ideas?

Nice K6-3, looks like a twin of mine! 😉
What is your P5A mainboard revision?

OK, try some BIOS settings first:

• Disable Delayed Transaction
  I've had some trouble with ISA cards when this was enabled.
• Disable Power Management
  The P5A was one of the first ACPI systems, so maybe the lags are caused by some buggy power saving option.
• Check PNP and PCI settings
  Check for resource conflicts. Make sure you don't share interrupts between devices.

Good luck!

OK I did some testing again, but to no avail.

I tried turning on delayed transaction (was off), as well as playing with enable 15-16MB memory hole and some other undocumented stuff from the BIOS, but it brought me nothing. I also disabled ACPI and changed the video card and removed NIC, but the result was the same.

I removed AWE32, placed SB16 instead, changed ISA slots, tried different settings in autoexec.bat and config.sys, tried loading up only most basic drivers or none at all, tried loading up MK2 from windows instead of DOS, but apart from getting no picture - music still hang up the whole system in about 90 seconds.

Tried setting GM on port 300 instead of 330, but that's not default port and I get no music at all on that one in MK2 (cant be set up in the game itself).

I'm giving up - maybe in the next few days I'll test GM on my other rig - P1 133, Intel VX and Win95 and see what it comes out of there... So far, I'm at least pleased that GM works on Realms of Arcania 2: Star trail, if not on RoA 1: Blade of destiny. Do you know of any other affordable ISA (100% DOS compatible) sound card that runs Yamaha w/o hanging notes bug? How about Turtle beach Pinnacle?

P5A is revision 1.04, and yes - it does look like a twin of your K6 😁 Seems like you had absolutely the same idea as I did when u built up that system! With both 3dfx V5 and AWE32 w/GM. BTW I am also thinking about getting Promise RAID ATA100 controller and getting RAID-0 on this oldie. Imagine - FAT16, 2GB partition on RAID-0 😁

Oh one more thing - sorry for another post:

While testing and trying to get things to work in DOS, somehow I fixed the "crappy MIDI sound" problem in windows. Apparently, SB16 MIDI out, on CT1750 works quite well in windows. But when I put yamaha on AWE32, MIDI out gets bad. No clue as to why though 😒

...And one more update. Fixed the crappy MIDI out sound quality on AWE+Yamaha combo. What I did - I have honestly no idea. I did a lot, and something must have triggered something in win98.

I am also happy to announce that Duke and company dont have music lags when started in windows 98 DOS prompt. It works flawlessly now. So the issue with MK2 might really be the incompatibility of yamaha with Roland LAPC-I driver of the game itself. Oh well... 😒