1) To use GM in bare DOS in protected mode games that do not support AWEs correctly.
2) To use in games that do support AWEs but you'd rather have the sound of a Yamaha or Roland DB (the original WaveBlaster isn't exactly a very popular option when it comes to daughterboards)
4) You don't have appropriate 30-pin SIMMs to load a really good soundfont.
3) Because you can xD

As above. Or put another way, for the same reasons why one would buy a Roland or Yamaha MIDI module.

Agree with alexanrs as well. Creative Labs added the wavetable connector for those that wanted and could afford a MIDI board; it was just another option.

ElBrunzy wrote:

My understanding is that you cannot program the soundfont on the waveblaster, am I right?

In real DOS, when the AWE's Windows 9X MPU-emulation driver is not running: the AWE is not able to program a soundfont either*. In that case one is limited to the mediocre 1MB ROM set of the AWE cards. That is if the AWEUTIL is compatible with the game, or if the game has build-in AWE drivers, otherwise it is back to FM.

A Card with proper unbuggy MPU-401 interface and a fixed hardware GM synth like a Roland/Yamaha/Korg, ensures you have good midi music in any situation.

The AWE EMU8000 Synth is actually not suitable for real DOS. It is suited to early Windows systems, those that do not have the CPU Power to do Soundfont Midi in software.

*(Besides some experiments with AWEUTIL and certain SBK files)

gerwin : what ... WHAT WHAT WHAT ? I never load anything in dos but command.com and soft like awemp and awemp32 can very well play big module that goes like 8 megabites with large samples very well, unlike the GUS that always remind me it's limitation with white noise SHHHH!

btw I run real dos : msdos6.22, msdos7, linux kernel 2.4's OSS, freedos... everyone is capable of taking advangate of the many ram in the emu8k and use it to play huge modules music. I'm puzzled and choked by your affirmation, please can you confirm ?

For DOS Music players the situation is better, because there are some that took the effort to write a driver for the AWE including SoundFont uploading.

For games it is not like that. Hardly any DOS game have an AWE driver that supports the uploading of SoundFonts. Creative Labs anticipated that, and added the preloaded 1MB ROM set for that reason. (For games lacking AWE drivers this won't help much either because they expect an MPU-401 interface, Creative Labs wrote AWEutil for this, but again it is not a reliable solution)
There was some hope that a DOS program can upload a SoundFont, exit, then run a game to use that SoundFont. But that is technically impossible because the SoundFont remains tied to the program that loaded it.

In windows the situation is better because the windows driver model allows for more reliable MPU-401 emulation.

gerwin wrote:

For DOS Music players the situation is better, because there are some that took the effort to write a driver for the AWE including SoundFont uploading.

For games it is not like that. Hardly any DOS game have an AWE driver that supports the uploading of SoundFonts. Creative Labs anticipated that, and added the preloaded 1MB ROM set for that reason. (For games lacking AWE drivers this won't help much either because they expect an MPU-401 interface, Creative Labs wrote AWEutil for this, but it isn't a reliable solution)
There was some hope that a DOS program can upload a SoundFont, exit, then run a game to use that SoundFont. But that is technically impossible because the SoundFont remains tied to the program that loaded it.

Im pretty sure that as long as you use "aweutil /em:gm" to load your SoundFont in real mode DOS it should work in most real mode games supporting GM even if the games cant modify the patchset or upload patches.

edit +f

Yeah, but that is with three limitations:
- DOS memory management for large TSRs.
- Real mode games only.
- IIRC only older .SBK soundbanks can be read by AWEutil.
(Note: I prefer my DOS systems without any memory managers/tricks and only used AWEutil briefly...)

gerwin wrote:

Yeah, but that is with three limitations: - DOS memory management for large TSRs. - Real mode games only. - IIRC only older .SB […]
Show full quote

Yeah, but that is with three limitations:
- DOS memory management for large TSRs.
- Real mode games only.
- IIRC only older .SBK soundbanks can be read by AWEutil.

I have found that I can live with the large TSR and .SBK limitation and luckily most newer games supports the EMU8000 natively. Truth be told I mostly use the GM-emulation to play MIDI-files in DOS using my 286.

I dont remember any names, but I'm sure some games specify "sb awe" in the game config, then the music was made with a soundfont. I never really paid so much attention, but I'm sure thoses games try to load a soundfont, as if you change the config after setting the game it fail with something like "cannot talk to the wavetable"

DOS games don't load soundfonts. They COULD, but they didn't, they just used the ROM samples. To use soundfonts in DOS games you have to start Windows 9x, load a soundfont, make sure the AWE is configured to emulate the MPU-401 interface (instead of exposing its actual external one) to DOS applications and configure the game to use MPU-401 instead of the AWE directly.

alexanrs : what the, what the, what, what, whawhawha what the fuck ?

My guess is a game like Tyrian and Raptor use the gus full blown out, and I didnt even check my sources on that, so feel free to challenge me if you want

Thanks, Creative!

ElBrunzy wrote:

alexanrs : what the, what the, what, what, whawhawha what the fuck ?

My guess is a game like Tyrian and Raptor use the gus full blown out, and I didnt even check my sources on that, so feel free to challenge me if you want

Sad but true.

It's true for the EMU chip under DOS. Perhaps that should be made more clear and explicit.

The EMU8000 might not have very impressive specs but still it's the synth that sounds "best" in a game like Tyrian. 😀

The EMU8000 is technically not the best MIDI synth but it was very common and the music in many late DOS games was more or less written for it. Just like the music a few years earlier mostly was written for the Roland Sound Canvas and if you go back a few years more the MT32.

If the games are old enough they will run in real mode DOS and therefore support aweutils GM and/or MT32 emulation with the built in ROM or with the avalible 2MB or 6MB SBK SoundFonts. Most of the newer games will run fine inside Windows 9x with what ever SounFont you want. 😀

The GUS might be alot smarter when it comes to handling samples by only loading what it needs from a big SoundFont placed on the HDD but on the other hand the support for the GUS is much more limited and its SB emulation is perhaps not something you want to mess with if you think aweutil is a hassle. I like my GUS but I mostly use it for demoscene stuff, for late DOS era gaming I want a Creative card or perhaps an ESS Audiodrive with a Roland or Yamaha wavetable daughterboard.

alexanrs wrote:

DOS games don't load soundfonts. They COULD, but they didn't, they just used the ROM samples.

It's a small list, but DOS titles known to employ the use of SoundFont banks include:

• Battle Arena Toshinden (Takara)
• Dungeon Keeper (Bullfrog Productions)
• Eradicator (Accolade)
• Hi-Octane (Bullfrog Productions)
• Magic Carpet 2 (Bullfrog Productions)
• Nerves of Steel (BnB Software)
• Perfect General II (Quantum Quality Productions)
• Terra Nova: Strike Force Centauri (Looking Glass Technologies)

Not all of that support is music-based, mind you. Eradicator, for example, loads a bank of sound-effects that are further subjected to realtime "3D positional audio" processing by the EMU8000.

gdjacobs wrote:

It's true for the EMU chip under DOS. Perhaps that should be made more clear and explicit.

now that you mention it, I dont remember seeing any soundfont file in any game that pretend to support the emu8k