AWEUTIL /S

Good catch, I must of changed that troubleshooting and forgot to change back.
Sadly that's not the answer though, still no change

No one else got any ideas? Have I managed to stump all of vogons?!

I'm having the same issue, but with AWE32

Have you tried to make a temporary MS-DOS-6.22 installation on a different harddrive, to rule Win98 out as the cause of the trouble?

brostenen wrote:

Have you tried to make a temporary MS-DOS-6.22 installation on a different harddrive, to rule Win98 out as the cause of the trouble?

It would surely be easier to use a boot floppy. Either way, that sounds like a highly unlikely cause, but I guess it's not impossible.

Just from the top of my head:

ROTT is a protected mode game and under real mode DOS (not a command prompt) requires native AWE support.
Did you, in the sound setup, select AWE32 as your music device?
Since this is a protected mode game, you're only required to initialise the EMU8000 synthesis chip via the Aweutil /S parameter.

If you're playing ROTT from a command prompt, then you must select General MIDI as your music device, but there is no guarantee that it will work (since it's still a DOS game).
Also check in your AWE Control Panel (if you're playing it from a command prompt) that the MPU-401 emulation tick box is ticked.

Jorpho wrote:

brostenen wrote:

Have you tried to make a temporary MS-DOS-6.22 installation on a different harddrive, to rule Win98 out as the cause of the trouble?

It would surely be easier to use a boot floppy. Either way, that sounds like a highly unlikely cause, but I guess it's not impossible.

Yes. Floppy can do. I was just referring to that thing, of positively ruling out Win98 as the cause of trouble.

I believe that Win98 is the cause of the problem, because when I boot in Dr. Dos 7.03 it works just fine...

just wondering... how can I get AWE32 to load and work properly under Win98 at this point ?

Elia1995 wrote:

I believe that Win98 is the cause of the problem, because when I boot in Dr. Dos 7.03 it works just fine...

While Windows 98 might cause problems, it would be unexpected for there to be any difference between booting into DOS7 vs booting into MS-DOS 6.22 (or DR-DOS).

just wondering... how can I get AWE32 to load and work properly under Win98 at this point ?

As I recall, Creative actually provided a specific download package for the AWE32 and AWE64 for use in DOS sessions, and the normal DOS drivers wouldn't even install unless you used SETVER.

But as this has nothing to do with ROTT, this discussion is best suited for another thread.

could you try the game with a lesser synth than the emu8k from the awe64. I think this card only has sbemulation but that would be a start. Last time I had a similar odd problem I disabled some IRQ, why not do some cleanup on your bios about what's useless, re-configure it all. If there is really no room left, disable/remove some device that use IRQ, remap the bios pnp table if you use it and try that setup again.

I think I remember having similar problems with ROTT on my AWE64 Gold. Didn't look too far into as I have an SC-55.

I solved this by using General MIDI instead of AWE32 in the game's sound setup.

First (I did that on Windows 98), go to Control Panel -> Multimedia -> MIDI and make sure to enable the middle one (for me it was the middle one), or at least the one saying AWE32 or AWE64 [620].

That way, when you play any MIDI, it plays back from the sound card's integrated AWE synthesizer, when you choose General MIDI (or whatever else, Sound Canvas for example, it's the same), it will sound exactly like the AWE32 option would sound !!!

I think you should play ROTT from dos using the emu8k hardware, not with a windows 98.

The ROTT music is so sharp, it have to be taken seriously!

Gentlemen, I stumbled upon the AWE32 problem again... now on MS-DOS 6.22.

I get AWE32 to work just fine in any other game, it works in Blood, it works in Duke Nukem 3D, Raptor, Eradicator (even though I prefer to use CD music), it works even as internal MIDI synth under Windows 3.11, but... on ROTT it gives me the nightmares.

"MPU-401 failed to initialize in AWE32", this error... this... HORRIBLE 7-words-long text message... it is pure torture.
Why ? WHY ?!

I could play ROTT just fine with AWE32 "natively" working when I used Dr. DOS 7.03 this Summer... and now that I'm using MS-DOS 6.22, which is PRAISED by everyone as the "best MS-DOS", I get this damn error ?!

No matter what I try, no matter how much I use AWEUTIL with whatever "/" parameter, it just DOESN'T WANT TO WORK on my Creative Sound Blaster CT3670 (or CT3760 I sometimes get the numbers backwards, never sure which is the right one here, guess I'll check that personally when I'm not lazy to open the chassis 🤣 ) AWE32 PnP sound card !!!!!

The SNDSETUP of ROTT is mocking me with the "AWE32" option under the Music settings just to then play me this dirty trick of the MPU-401 failed to initialize in AWE32 message.

I tried to run AWEUTIL without any parameters: I got this error.
I tried to run AWEUTIL /S: I got this error.
I tried to run AWEUTIL /R:50 /C:50 /S (which is my "standard", I kinda like the reverb and chorus in Adlib games): I got this error.

I even tried with a batch, same thing.

How the hell am I supposed to get "Awe32" under the music settings to just work right away in MS-DOS 6.22 ??? I remember you that it works just fine with any other game.

You have the CT3670 - a version of Sound Blaster 32 PnP, based on AWE64 chipset.

1Relevant lines from my Autoexec.bat
2c:\drivers\ctcm.exe
3set sound=c:\drivers
4SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 H5 P330 E620 T6
5SET MIDI=SYNTH:1 MAP:E
6C:\DRIVERS\DIAGNOSE.EXE /S
7C:\DRIVERS\MIXERSET.EXE /P/Q
8C:\DRIVERS\AWEUTIL /P/Q

Get rid of this. PnP versions of AWE32/64 cards only require CTCM to run. So, add DEVICE=C:\DRIVERS\CTCM.EXE to your config.sys file.

1SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 H5 P330 E620 T6

This specific string should only be used for non-PnP cards (like, CT2760 or CT3900). But for PnP cards BLASTER variable is set automatically by CTCM. You should not set it manually.

ehmmmm... that autoexec isn't mine...... 😁

in my autoexec I only have the CTCM stuff the installation CD automagically put there and aweutil, I don't have any BLASTER parameter because they're set automatically by CTCM.

Elia1995 wrote:

Gentlemen, I stumbled upon the AWE32 problem again... now on MS-DOS 6.22. […]
Show full quote

Gentlemen, I stumbled upon the AWE32 problem again... now on MS-DOS 6.22.

I get AWE32 to work just fine in any other game, it works in Blood, it works in Duke Nukem 3D, Raptor, Eradicator (even though I prefer to use CD music), it works even as internal MIDI synth under Windows 3.11, but... on ROTT it gives me the nightmares.

"MPU-401 failed to initialize in AWE32", this error... this... HORRIBLE 7-words-long text message... it is pure torture.
Why ? WHY ?!

I could play ROTT just fine with AWE32 "natively" working when I used Dr. DOS 7.03 this Summer... and now that I'm using MS-DOS 6.22, which is PRAISED by everyone as the "best MS-DOS", I get this damn error ?!

No matter what I try, no matter how much I use AWEUTIL with whatever "/" parameter, it just DOESN'T WANT TO WORK on my Creative Sound Blaster CT3670 (or CT3760 I sometimes get the numbers backwards, never sure which is the right one here, guess I'll check that personally when I'm not lazy to open the chassis 🤣 ) AWE32 PnP sound card !!!!!

The SNDSETUP of ROTT is mocking me with the "AWE32" option under the Music settings just to then play me this dirty trick of the MPU-401 failed to initialize in AWE32 message.

I tried to run AWEUTIL without any parameters: I got this error.
I tried to run AWEUTIL /S: I got this error.
I tried to run AWEUTIL /R:50 /C:50 /S (which is my "standard", I kinda like the reverb and chorus in Adlib games): I got this error.

I even tried with a batch, same thing.

How the hell am I supposed to get "Awe32" under the music settings to just work right away in MS-DOS 6.22 ??? I remember you that it works just fine with any other game.

From the Rise of the Triad FAQ:
"If you have an AWE32 Sound Card, and get the error "MPU-401 Initialization Error", you will need to turn your computer totally OFF, wait about 5-10 seconds, and then turn it back on again. Delete SOUND.ROT, and try reselecting your music/sfx again. This error is caused by picking incorrect settings; if you pick the wrong settings for an AWE32, you need to power down and retry, not just reboot."

Just remember that an AWE64 (and AWE32 cards that are Plug 'n Play), requires CTCM to be loaded as a device driver in the Config.sys file.
Under MS-DOS 6.22, you need to run CTCU to configure your sound card's settings (the Diagnose utility purely tests those settings - you cannot select anything else).
Under DOS 7.x, these configuration settings are stored in a file called ctpnp.cfg under your Windows folder (Windows configures the settings for DOS).

Doing so now the error is different.
I set up awe32 as sound card and as music device, now I HEAR the music in AWE32 format (cool drums 😁 ), but it says "Playback failed, possibly due to an invalid or conflicting IRQ"

WTF ? It's all correct, IRQ 7 as every other game...

Although if I listen close, I can hear a bunch of notes misplayed... interrupted cropped notes in this AWE32 playback...

basically now I have only music and no sound effects in ROTT, the opposite as it was before.