Installing sound capabilities on my new 486 \ VOGONS

Installing sound capabilities on my new 486

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First post, by Mu0n

Posted on 2020-06-24, 13:37

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I dumped OS/2 and went straight to DOS 6.22. I got the Vibra16 drivers for my CT-2940 SB card.

Goal 1) Make DOSMID output any sound while I play canyon.mid and a bunch of mid files I found in that installation of OS/2. The visualizer bars move around during playback but I hear no sound. Meanwhile, the sb16 diagnose utility works flawlessly. Is it just a matter of these midi files not being of the right format for opl3 playback?

2) patch King's Quest 1 (and then others) with the utility I found here http://www.sierrahelp.com/Utilities/SoundUtilities.html that, if I understand it right, would allow the 3-voice Tandy music to be output to my Sb16 card. The patch goes well with no error message, but then I go from pre-patch 1 voice pc speaker music to absolutely no sound post-patch. I checked the game's interpreter and it did say 2.913, satisfying the requirement.

Am I missing something specific about midi configuration perhaps?

1Bit Fever Dreams: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9YYXWX1SxBhh1YB-feIPPw
DOS Fever Dreams: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIUn0Dp6PM8DBTF-5g0nvcw

Reply 1 of 6, by Jo22

Posted on 2020-06-24, 14:11

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Interesting! I have little experience with a SB16 in OS/2, except for a few experiments in Virtual PC 2007.
Back when I had got OS/2 Warp 3, I had used a Pro AudioSpectrum 16 card.
I reserved SB 1.5 compatible part for DOS and Win-OS/2 sessions.

"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel

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Reply 2 of 6, by Mu0n

Posted on 2020-06-24, 14:34

Mu0n Offline

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Yeah, but OS/2 holds no nostalgia for me so I formatted over it and went to DOS. I got the drivers from this vogons.

1Bit Fever Dreams: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9YYXWX1SxBhh1YB-feIPPw
DOS Fever Dreams: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIUn0Dp6PM8DBTF-5g0nvcw

Reply 3 of 6, by Mu0n

Posted on 2020-06-24, 14:48

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Ok, I uninstalled the vibra16 drivers, which were giving me errors from the config.sys lines anyway and put back some generic Pnp sb16 drivers (also from here) and kq1 definitely plays back more than 1 voice through my speaker (ie not my pc speaker).

Now, to find a better mid file player...

1Bit Fever Dreams: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9YYXWX1SxBhh1YB-feIPPw
DOS Fever Dreams: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIUn0Dp6PM8DBTF-5g0nvcw

Reply 4 of 6, by Pierre32

Posted on 2020-06-24, 14:59

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Good news on the Sierra games.

I'm not overly experienced with DOSMID but I understand it has an OPL mode. You definitely have this selected, and it's on the correct address etc? (The type of midi file should not be a factor here.)

Reply 5 of 6, by Mu0n

Posted on 2020-06-24, 15:08

Mu0n Offline

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Pierre32 wrote on 2020-06-24, 14:59:

Good news on the Sierra games.

I'm not overly experienced with DOSMID but I understand it has an OPL mode. You definitely have this selected, and it's on the correct address etc? (The type of midi file should not be a factor here.)

Dosmid appears to work, it has some text based animations for displaying which instruments are being used during playback. I tried both to run it straight and using /sbmidi, both appear to "run" but I hear nothing.

All the addresses are the default ones the sb16 driver chose anyway. I've tried messing with those, got an error message, went back. No error message.

1Bit Fever Dreams: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9YYXWX1SxBhh1YB-feIPPw
DOS Fever Dreams: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIUn0Dp6PM8DBTF-5g0nvcw

Reply 6 of 6, by Mu0n

Posted on 2020-06-24, 15:51

Mu0n Offline

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Midpak did the trick. I also had to pump up the physical volume to hear it, and not overload it with the nondescript side tsr Utilities that came with it. Dosmid still doesn't work. I'll keep it around for when my mt-32 has the proper cables.

1Bit Fever Dreams: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9YYXWX1SxBhh1YB-feIPPw
DOS Fever Dreams: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIUn0Dp6PM8DBTF-5g0nvcw

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