Interesting. I don't think I've tried that / tested this.

The MIDI RX and TX pins in the game port were not originally meant for data. Pin 12 is a redundant GND pin, pin 15 is a redundant VCC pin. If the joystick is old enough, the design may assume the use of these pins for their original purpose either fixing the pin voltages or corrupting the datastream unpredictably.

Now that you have the daughtercard, if you like you can download the Hexen demo and run it with hexen -warp 2. See if you're impacted by hanging note. See how much it bothers you.

You could disable the gameport on the sound card, assuming that still allows MIDI to work, then install a separate gameport card and plug your joystick into that?

Yes that would work. Creative PnP cards, you can turn off everything but the game port 😀 Turning a Sound Blaster 16 into, well, a game port 🤣

If you've got the soldering skills to make a cable, this is easy enough to fix. Look at the pinout here. If you make a cable with a DA-15 male at one side and a female on the other, then solder all the pins from one to the other except 12 and 15, you should have no issues with any joysticks/gamepads connected through that cable.

Alternatively, you can just remove (break) pins 12 and 15 in your joystick with pliers... though I tend to favour the cable approach because I dislike breaking stuff.

Great ideas. I looked at my joystick pinout and there are pins at 1-4, 6,7, 12 and 13. So it sounds like pin 12 is my culprit.

This is my joystick from the old days. It's a pretty low-end deal, but I've gotten so used to it that it is like an extension of my arm. After setting my DOS retro rig up a few weeks ago and plugging this in, despite the fact I hadn't used it in 20 years, it was like that 20 years never went by. To me, it is the *perfect* 2-button joystick. It is a CH Products Mach I. Here is what it looks like (though in the photos this one appears to be missing either pin 12 or 13--can't tell from the angle of the photo):
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-CH-Products-M … VkAAOSwpdpVZST1

My first thought was to use the gameport on the Aztech sound card I still have. I guess I'll have to play with that and see what works. Phil mentions you can't disable the gameport on Sound Blasters--will that create a conflict that won't let me use the gameport on the Aztech?

Seems the simplest option would be to just snip pin 12, but it also makes me nervous. 😉 I'll try using the Aztech first.

Odds are they will conflict. Unless either Aztech or the Sound Blaster can change the gameport's IO address, its a no go. And unless the Sound Blaster is the one than can do it, most games are hardwired to the standard IO addresses and will not pick up the Aztech unless it is the one set to those.

I ended up snipping pin 12 and it worked like a charm. 😀 Thanks guys.

gdjacobs--I've already experienced the hanging note in Doom. It is a little annoying, but not a deal breaker (yet). I thought I heard it in Aces of the Pacific and Aces over Europe, but those don't have General Midi support, only MT-32, so I'm not sure if it was due to trying to emulate MT-32 or an actual hanging note bug. I noticed the Wing Commanders just lock up if I set the music to MT-32 (they don't offer GenMID), but the Dynamix flight sims work (but the instruments sound off) when set to MT-32.

Great outcome 😀

Wing Commander requires intelligent mode, you can try out SoftMPU for that.
SoftMPU
https://github.com/bjt42/softmpu

clueless1 wrote:

I thought I heard it in Aces of the Pacific and Aces over Europe, but those don't have General Midi support, only MT-32, so I'm not sure if it was due to trying to emulate MT-32 or an actual hanging note bug. I noticed the Wing Commanders just lock up if I set the music to MT-32 (they don't offer GenMID), but the Dynamix flight sims work (but the instruments sound off) when set to MT-32.

I'm glad to hear your MIDI and Joystick are cooperating again, and I'm really glad you're not suffering from too much stuck note syndrome! It will make your life easier to be able to use everything from one card. I've noticed the same thing regarding MT-32 and GM compatibility. Fate of Atlantis and F-117 2.0 both seem to make use of GM boards without sounding like cats being tortured. Many others just sound totally wrong. I suspect composing to maintain compatibility across different sound modules was quite arcane in the day.

My wife was out of town today so my son and I had a gaming day. 😀 I'm really starting to notice those hanging notes. 😉 X-Wing and Duke3D mostly. So far, it's been noticeable, but only mildly annoying. But I can see it possibly becoming a thorn in the side. Perhaps an Audician is in my future...

Usually for MT-32 games on my DB50XG I have to download GSPLAY and run "GSPLAY MT32" before running those games to put the DB in MT32 emulation mode (and run "GSPLAY GM" to put it back in GM mode) or else instruments sound off. Of course games that use advanced features of the MT32 will not sound quite right either way. Oh, and you'll need SoftMPU.

That shop also sells an external wavetable adapter. But you'll need a joystick splitter, or a MIDI cable that splits out the game port.

That will allow you to use the DreamBlaster on sound cards that don't have a wavetable header, like an AWE64. There was also the Chill and >Phil< adapter, but I think that's sold out.

gdjacobs wrote:

clueless1 wrote:

I'm glad to hear your MIDI and Joystick are cooperating again, and I'm really glad you're not suffering from too much stuck note syndrome!

After playing X-Wing for a couple of hours, I ended up switching the music back to FM. 🙁 It's really bad in X-Wing...it starts immediately when you load the game and continues non-stop until you quit to DOS. It's been non-existent so far in System Shock, and a little annoying in Duke3D.