OK, I know this card is a bit rare ... but is there really no AdLib GOLD owner here who can drop me a line of good advice or at least a thought?

Try to contact Cloudschatze by PM, he is a great guy i'm sure he'll be glad to help. I wish i could help you with this. Have you tried the CD version to see if its any different?

Id say try custom OPL compositions like Note.

Thanks carlostex, I'll try to contact him. Maybe he has some advice. I have the floppy version, not the CD version. The floppy version plays both music and PCM as long as I select "SoundBlaster". When I select the AdLib GOLD it is just playing music but no PCM.

Stojke, I don't know what you are referring to? I want to get Dune running witrh both Adlib GOLD Music and PCM sound.

Mina-san, y u never read my signature? 🤣

Yeah Dune has support for that thingy that I wondered about as well.
But Note program has a whole lot of beautiful songs written in it you could listen to.

Well yes, thanks Stojke... I can use the AdLib GOLD with any tracker program that supports the OPL3 chip but that really doesn't help me with the missing (?) PCM sounds in dune.

I take it that for instance during the game intro you don't hear the sandworm coming through the sand. I wonder if the game is hardcoded for a specific IRQ for AdLib Gold. I'd reccomend you to try IRQ 5 and IRQ 7.

That is exactly what is happening.. undoubtly the most beautiful music but no sandworm noise nor waterdrops.
I've downloaded the program disks and try to configure different settings tomorrow.

While the AdLib Gold is a super rare card, the surround module is ultra rare. Its mainly an effects coprocessor and has nothing to do with surround (that was just the name that AdLib gave it), and you didn't say if you had this bit of unobainium. I hope its not needed for Dune as its one of the best FM soundtracks ever. Let's be honest, for FM to make wavetable sound weak then its reached a pinnacle of perfection. Maybe you just need the CD version or its a configuration issue as suggested above. Keep us informed on what you find out. I really want to know as Dune was my first PC CD game and has always been a favorite of mine.

The Surround module seems to be a rather simple circuit to copy/clone.

Having hacked Dune's AdLib Gold driver to work with plain OPL3, I can say with certainty that it only uses the FM ports (388h/38Ah) and never the DAC ports (38Ch/38Eh). So, nice music, but no PCM.

ripsaw8080 wrote:

Having hacked Dune's AdLib Gold driver to work with plain OPL3, I can say with certainty that it only uses the FM ports (388h/38Ah) and never the DAC ports (38Ch/38Eh). So, nice music, but no PCM.

Wow i wasn't aware of that! I wonder why Cryo didn't support PCM on AdLib Gold. Specially as its 12bit DAC is very much superior to early Sound Blasters and even Sound Blaster Pro's.

Buhuuuu,
thats sad .. but at least I now know what's going on. THANK YOU!

Is there a possibility to use the AdLib GOLD as the FM card and lets say another sound card f.e. a SoundBlaster for the PCM part?
I think we need a generic OPL3 driver so the AdLib GOLD would catch the signals anyways, just without the extra bytes for the "surrond module"...

The CD-ROM version, which allows for separate "music" and "sound" devices, similarly lacks an AdLib Gold option for PCM playback. This seems pretty inexcusable, and while it's tempting to think that the "Tandy Sensation" option could work for the Gold, given use of the same Yamaha MMA chipset, alas no, that option pertains to PSSJ DAC playback.

But at least one can combine the GOLD with another card for PCM and mix the signals. You just gave me a reason to buy the damn CD version 😀
Thanks for clarification.

FGB wrote:

But at least one can combine the GOLD with another card for PCM and mix the signals. You just gave me a reason to buy the damn CD version 😀
Thanks for clarification.

I consider the CD version to be actually pretty good, and the voice acting is quite good, at least compared to other games.