I can only answer your last question for now: look for Ultramix, that's the Max's mixer under DOS.

Those resource allocations are a bit unconventional. Not sure if that's the issue you're hitting now, but those SB allocations in particular won't work on some games, and MIDI on something other than 2/9 is hit and miss too.

I'd go for:
SB:
A220
I5
D1

GUS:
A240
I 7
D 7 (all four of them!)

As for MIDI, are you using MegaEM or Ultramid? See here for tips on both (and when to use which): https://retronn.de/imports/gus_config_guide.html
EIther way, you probably want to set IRQ to 2/9

The thing that rings a bell here is:
"There exist a few games that do not implement dynamic loading of instrument samples with ULTRAMID. In this case ULTRAMID can be run with -c to preload instruments to the GUS RAM."

The gus can be a pain to set up for sure. I did make a tutorial some time ago, perhaps it can help: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yd4U6wewP4

I've been spent another good few hours on this today. I've changed the settings to 240,7,7,7,7 for GUS and 220,5,1 for the SB clone . Ultramix sorted the line in for me, thanks

With these settings Doom now doesn't work with the GUS. Most other things work fine. Still nothing in Duke. If I start megaem midi emulation works fine in the likes of monkey island but trying to lunch the Duke3D with this enabled resets the machine.

I'll take a look at that video northdale, thanks.

The Gravis Ultrasound card includes a Sound Blaster emulator. Why does this card require an emulator for old games, IO, IRQ and DMA of Gravis Ultrasound and Sound Blaster are compatible (maybe it's something more complicated - someone will try to explain)?

Xmodule999 wrote on 2023-10-18, 05:28:

The Gravis Ultrasound card includes a Sound Blaster emulator. Why does this card require an emulator for old games, IO, IRQ and DMA of Gravis Ultrasound and Sound Blaster are compatible (maybe it's something more complicated - someone will try to explain)?

It might be better to start a topic of your own for this as it has little or nothign to do with the original question in this old topic.

Very short version: it speaks a different language. Unlike in Windows where software talks to the operating system in a uniform way and drivers then handle the translation of that to the hardware, under DOS the software itself has to talk directly to the hardware and different hardware has different ways of making sound and different forms of communication to know which sound to make. Think of it as if a French opera singer lives next to you. Even if you know his address, you won't be able to communicate with him unless you know his language (your software natively supports the hardware), he knows your language (=native hardware level support - in this analogy, like most Sound Blaster clones had) or you have an interpreter to translate for you (=emulation software such as SBOS or MegaEM). Note that translation is not perfect and however beautifully he can sing in his own language, chances of him getting it right with an interpreter in between are significantly lower.

Duke and Doom don't need Ultramid or Megaem for music, just the ULTRASND folder with patches. So for testing leave Ultramid/Megaem out for now. Duke3D doesn't do sound FX with the GUS as well? Try a 8-bit DMA channel (0,1,2,3) to see if that makes a difference. Some motherboards have incompatible 16-bit DMA support.

DOS4GW games often don't support IRQ's above 7, so keep it at 7 if possible. But 5 or 7 is often used by LPT. Disable all serial ports and LPT ports to assure you don't have a conflict there.

Please do not necropost and especially do not hijack threads.