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Reply 240 of 438, by Kamerat

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Tested a ForteMedia FM801-AU based PCI card with SoftMPU. Works just fine, also with IRQ 9 (PM2).

DOS Sound Blaster compatibility: PCI sound cards vs. PCI chipsets
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Reply 242 of 438, by zerker

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I don't really have another sound card available aside from the onboard Crystal CS4280-CM. It's a bit of a mess in DOS mode and barely works at all. Right now I have it disabled in the BIOS. When I have time, I'll see if I can track down and set up the proper compiler to insert a pile of printf (or just putc) and isolate exactly what is crashing.

Edit: Doesn't look like there is a reasonable honest source for Microsoft C and MASM.. 🙁 I'll keep my eye out, but I may have to instrument the code and ask you to compile it instead 😀. Also, where the entry point in this application? I couldn't find a "main", so I'm guessing it starts somewhere in the assembly?

Reply 243 of 438, by bjt

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zerker wrote:

Also, where the entry point in this application? I couldn't find a "main", so I'm guessing it starts somewhere in the assembly?

Yes, it's in SOFTMPU.ASM. I'll get you a build with some diagnostic info so we can at least pinpoint the problem.

EDIT: What do you see one the screen before the machine freezes? Any SoftMPU output at all?

Reply 245 of 438, by bjt

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Really strange, the first thing it does is print the welcome banner via int 21h.
If I didn't know better I'd think your exe was corrupt.

https://github.com/bjt42/softmpu/archive/v1.9.zip

Reply 246 of 438, by dehavilland

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Thank you for your brilliant work!

Preliminary test with SimHealth and SimAnt with DOSBOX(Changing MPU401 from intelligent to UART) shows that these two games need intelligent mode to work. I just set up a 486DX33/8M/SB16+NEC XR385 retro machine to test SoftMPU. Unfortunately I failed to launch SoftMPU on the retro machine last night. The system just lock up and if I use LH to load it the machine simply restarts. I am using DOS 6.22 and my EMM386 setting is "DEVICEHIGH=C:\DOS\EMM386.EXE NOEMS RAM I=B000-B7FF" or "DEVICEHIGH=C:\DOS\EMM386.EXE RAM 3072 I=B000-B7FF" (both of them are not working). I will try to compile SoftMPU on the machine to see if it is better.

Anyway, I am going to test these three games.
SimAnt
SimHealth
Princess Maker 1

Also I have bunch of old Chinese games (Paladin, Flame Dragon 2: Legend of Golden Castle, Star Dream 2, etc..), but they all seems to be supporting UART in Dosbox. Paladin and FD2 is confirmed to be supporting UART in the machine but I am going to try Star Dream 2 on my machine for confirmation (Star Dream 2 is released in 1997 so it is highly unlikely that it needs intelligent mode).

Amibay username:winstonwu91
Recent wants:A cheap intelligent midi interface card, a good record player

A young Chinese student studying in US, drives a vintage car, use a vintage typewriter and loves vintage PC.

Reply 247 of 438, by dehavilland

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Also, it seems that the ALS cards are bulldozing all obstacles for Softmpu... I bought one in case that some intelligent games are hard coded to IRQ2/9 (I am afraid Princess Maker 1 will be an unlucky guy) and it is on the way...

And I am planning to test Aztech 138-MMSD802 card as it has "MIDI/JOYSTICK" at the joystick port. I have a SC55ST and I will test it to see whether it works.

Amibay username:winstonwu91
Recent wants:A cheap intelligent midi interface card, a good record player

A young Chinese student studying in US, drives a vintage car, use a vintage typewriter and loves vintage PC.

Reply 248 of 438, by bjt

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dehavilland wrote:

SimAnt
SimHealth
Princess Maker 1

Will be very interesting to see if these need intelligent mode!
Regarding your problems running SoftMPU, did you get any output before the lockup? What command-line parameters did you use?

Reply 249 of 438, by zerker

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Okay, I figured out what was wrong with my download. I downloaded it direct from GitHub and hit the "Download ZIP" button, which gave me a "softmpu-master.zip". Comparing the EXE from that download to the official baselined 1.9 download shows that it appearently did line ending conversions on a binary! E.g. I see a 0x0A (LF) character in the 1.9 exe is replaced with 0x0D0A (CRLF) in the "master" version.

The 1.9 zip version loads just fine. I will test some games tomorrow and report back 😀

Reply 251 of 438, by zerker

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And it works. I tested it with Ultima 6, Martian Dreams, Monkey Island, Loom, Spot and Lemmings 2, and all games worked perfectly. Most games either would freeze or not output sound otherwise. Loom and Monkey Island just output complete wrong instruments until I loaded SoftMPU. I've left my sound card on the default IRQ of 5, and none of the above actually let me select an IRQ for the MPU-401 (or cared, apparently).

Lemmings 2 and apparently Ultima 6 required delaysysex. The rest didn't care.

Prince of Persia 2 freezes after the initial series of MT32 displays. The PC has a black screen while the MT32 says "<<<<<Beware!!>>>>>>". Game manually configured to use IRQ 5 for MPU-401, which is what my AWE64 is on. Game runs fine with FM Synth music. It has the same behaviour if I don't have SOFTMPU loaded (SYSEX displays work), so I suspect the game really just uses UART and has some other problem.

Prince of Persia 1 seems to freeze at random on my machine, but I was at least able to test it to confirm it uses UART.

I also have a bunch of other MT32 games that also worked on just UART, like Creepers, Ultima 7, Ultima Underworld, Fate of Atlantis and The Lost Vikings.

Reply 252 of 438, by bjt

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I believe both Loom and Monkey Island have timing-dependent bugs in their MIDI output routines and your Celeron 500 is certainly fast enough to trigger them. SoftMPU probably just introduces enough delays to prevent the problems. Would be worth trying to slow your machine for these games by disabling caches or similar.

Reply 253 of 438, by zerker

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Yeah, I disabled L1 cache and that fixed the problem too. Either way works, I guess 😀

I also tried X-Com UFO Defense, but it seems to still freeze on startup. Yes, I have patched it to fix MT32 support, which I've tested in DosBox. I'll try changing my IRQ after dinner.

EDIT: So... I can't configure my card on either IRQ 2 or 9. IRQ 2 isn't even a valid choice, and while 9 appears to work initially (the setting is accepted and Windows doesn't see a conflict), the card isn't actually functional in this setup. SOFTMPU and DIAGNOSE.EXE don't see it either, though CTCM didn't complain. I guess I'll just have to continue to see what games work without being able to change IRQ.

I also did a bit more testing, but everything I tried (Jagged Alliance, Relentless/Little Big Adventure, Maniac Mansion: Day of the Tentacle) works fine on UART

Reply 254 of 438, by dehavilland

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Problem fixed. Softmpu loads very well now.

SimAnt definitely works with Softmpu and it seems that it works without IRQ2/9. Without softmpu: hangs at startup. With softmpu/SB16+XR385/irq5: Works like a charm! (Sounds weird with Yamaha XG though as it is an MT32 game...)

SimHealth works without softmpu loading. It seems that it supports UART mode.

Princess Maker 1 hangs at startup without softmpu loading. With softmpu with SB16+XR385, game loads but no sound. Will test ALS100+Roland SC55ST.

Amibay username:winstonwu91
Recent wants:A cheap intelligent midi interface card, a good record player

A young Chinese student studying in US, drives a vintage car, use a vintage typewriter and loves vintage PC.

Reply 255 of 438, by dehavilland

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Now I am testing Aztech Sound Galaxy NX Pro (A220/I7/D1) and ALS100+SC55ST(A240/I9/D3/H7/MPU330/MPUI10)+SoftMPU.

Princess Maker 2 works flawlessly! ALS100+SoftMPU works like MPU401AT.

But...

PRINCESS MAKER 1 LOADS BUT STILL NO MIDI SOUND??!! I really don't know why... Anyone to help?

Amibay username:winstonwu91
Recent wants:A cheap intelligent midi interface card, a good record player

A young Chinese student studying in US, drives a vintage car, use a vintage typewriter and loves vintage PC.

Reply 256 of 438, by bjt

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Hi guys

zerker wrote:

X-Com UFO Defense

I have this one, will test it later. The rest of the games you listed I believe only require UART, timing bugs notwithstanding.

dehavilland wrote:

Problem fixed. Softmpu loads very well now.

SimAnt/SimHealth: Will test these here too.
ALS100: Added to compatibility list, thanks
SG NX Pro: Assume this is a SB Pro clone (requires SB-MIDI mode)? In that case, it will only work with UART games.

Reply 257 of 438, by dehavilland

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bjt wrote:
Hi guys […]
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Hi guys

zerker wrote:

X-Com UFO Defense

I have this one, will test it later. The rest of the games you listed I believe only require UART, timing bugs notwithstanding.

dehavilland wrote:

Problem fixed. Softmpu loads very well now.

SimAnt/SimHealth: Will test these here too.
ALS100: Added to compatibility list, thanks
SG NX Pro: Assume this is a SB Pro clone (requires SB-MIDI mode)? In that case, it will only work with UART games.

I am using a dual sound card setup at this time. The digital sound volume of ALS100 is so low that I have to add the Aztech card alongside it.

Not gonna test SGNX Pro at first. Still struggling to make PM1 work.

Amibay username:winstonwu91
Recent wants:A cheap intelligent midi interface card, a good record player

A young Chinese student studying in US, drives a vintage car, use a vintage typewriter and loves vintage PC.

Reply 258 of 438, by bjt

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zerker wrote:

X-Com UFO Defense

I get a hang here too, when trying to use a SB16 MIDI interface, even when SoftMPU is active.
Tested on two different machines as well.

If I use the Voyetra interface in my PC, or SoftMPU's SB-MIDI or serial output modes, the game starts fine.
If I use the SCP-55 on my laptop (which is UART only), it works fine too.

So I can conclude that while this game works with UART and doesn't need SoftMPU, it certainly doesn't like SB16 MIDI interfaces...

Reply 259 of 438, by bjt

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dehavilland wrote:

SimAnt definitely works with Softmpu and it seems that it works without IRQ2/9. Without softmpu: hangs at startup. With softmpu/SB16+XR385/irq5: Works like a charm! (Sounds weird with Yamaha XG though as it is an MT32 game...)

SimHealth works without softmpu loading. It seems that it supports UART mode.

SimAnt: I get the same hang when using a UART-only interface. Works fine with hardware MPU or SoftMPU. A new game for the compatibility list, thanks!

SimHealth: Confirmed working with UART-only interface.