I imagine that the 9x Live! SB16 Emulation, which also provides the DOS box MPU-401 General MIDI support, is using the default.ecw waveset. Essentially it's behaving like an AudioPCI when you use DOS apps.

I'm not sure if you can get around this. In XP before Dosbox, I used VDMSound to access soundfonts for DOS games. That's a pain in the rear though because VDMSound/NTVDM are very flaky.

You can replace default.ecw (2MB) with the AudioPCI 8MB .ecw set with just a little renaming. It sounds a bit better. It's named "eapci8m.ecw".
http://rapidshare.com/files/295186664/eapci8m.7z

I had similar frustrations with a similar setup around 10 years ago. One solution that I thought of but was never able to implement at the time was to:
- install an SB16 (or other MPU-401 compatible hardware interface) alongside the SB Live
- connect the SB16's line out to the SB Live's Line In, and unmute the latter
- disable the SB Live's DOS emulation support
- connect the hardware MIDI Out of the SB16 to the hardware MIDI In of the SB Live
- connect the SB Live software MIDI In to the SB Live soundfont synth via a software MIDI loopback driver

This would in effect be using the SB Live's soundfont synthesizer as an external MIDI synthesizer as far as the DOS environment running inside of Windows is concerned.

swaaye wrote:

I imagine that the 9x Live! SB16 Emulation, which also provides the DOS box MPU-401 General MIDI support, is using the default.e […]
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I imagine that the 9x Live! SB16 Emulation, which also provides the DOS box MPU-401 General MIDI support, is using the default.ecw waveset. Essentially it's behaving like an AudioPCI when you use DOS apps.

I'm not sure if you can get around this. In XP before Dosbox, I used VDMSound to access soundfonts for DOS games. That's a pain in the rear though because VDMSound/NTVDM are very flaky.

You can replace default.ecw (2MB) with the AudioPCI 8MB .ecw set with just a little renaming. It sounds a bit better. It's named "eapci8m.ecw".
http://rapidshare.com/files/295186664/eapci8m.7z

Thanks, seems like it did the trick altough it was not a huge improvement...same "stepping on rodents" when it comes to the strings but now I can finally hear percussion in the Dark Forces intro and some other nice instruments have "appeared" 😀

On second though...I think it still sounds crappy...
I must have been drunk to have missed the percussion before 😜

🤣 ya the ECW wavesets suck. Blame the AudioPCI. It was purely software driven and designed for Pentium 133s or so. Thus the ECW format is simple and limited, making it impossible to make a quality patch set. The Soundscape cards sound better with their 2MB sets and real synth hardware.

The AWE cards actually have similar problems. In windows, you can use a soundfont for DOS games only if you can use the MPU-401 emulation with a game. But it doesn't work much of the time so you have to use the AWE option in games, which always uses the crap ROM. Or something like that (it's been awhile heh.)

swaaye wrote:

🤣 ya the ECW wavesets suck. Blame the AudioPCI. It was purely software driven and designed for Pentium 133s or so. Thus the ECW format is simple and limited, making it impossible to make a quality patch set. The Soundscape cards sound better with their 2MB sets and real synth hardware.

The AWE cards actually have similar problems. In windows, you can use a soundfont for DOS games only if you can use the MPU-401 emulation with a game. But it doesn't work most of the time so you have to use AWE mode, which always uses the crap ROM. Or something like that (it's been awhile heh.)

hehe, it sure sucks..yeah but it won't kill ya 😉

I guess I'm spoiled by using quality midi stuff 😎