Do you have any idea what makes the PC freeze with General MIDI and AweUtil /EM:GM or GS ? How is AweUtil with that parameter supposed to work ?

No idea. You're doing the command right though, as far as I know. That's how I did it and I got the same results. Apparently AWEUTIL is generally known to be crap.

Nice, there must be another software then 😁

IIRC aweutil /EM: works only for real mode games. Protected mode and DOS extenders aren't supported.

What's an example of real mode DOS game that has MIDI support so I can try it ?

Pretty sure Hocus Pocus is real mode. But I have tried a billion real mode games and programs with it; they don't work either. Usually they sort of work, and then crash sometime later.

Believe it or not, General MIDI in Hocus doesn't work even in DOSBox !!!
I just tried: General MIDI as music (I tried EVERY single one of the ports) and Sound Blaster as sounds, I only hear the sound effects and no music.
If I use Sound Blaster on both I hear both music and sounds, if I use Ultrasound, I only hear the sounds aswell without music.
It's incredible how General MIDI doesn't produce any music in Hocus even in DOSBox

Elia1995 wrote:

if I use Ultrasound, I only hear the sounds aswell without music.
It's incredible how General MIDI doesn't produce any music in Hocus even in DOSBox

If you use Ultrasound - you must run the game with hocusg.bat.

1@ultmamid -q
2@__hpgrvs
3@ultmamid -q -f

Have tested Hocus Pocus in DOSBox, General Midi + Sound Blaster settings. The music is ok.

Elia1995 wrote:

What's an example of real mode DOS game that has MIDI support so I can try it ?

Any game that doesn't load DOS/4GW (your DOS extender that puts it in protected mode) and that has a General MIDI option in its setup menu.

Try Leisure Suit Larry 6 (floppy version) or Quest for Glory 1 (VGA).

Elia1995 wrote:

Do you have any idea what makes the PC freeze with General MIDI and AweUtil /EM:GM or GS ? How is AweUtil with that parameter supposed to work ?

It's possible your motherboard doesn't have support for non maskable interrupts (NMI's).
Try enabling memory parity error checking in your BIOS (if that option is there).
Otherwise, you're out of luck.

Yeah, unfortunately it doesn't have that setting in the BIOS…

I don't remember how I edited autoexec.bat, but I ran a AWE32 for years with Hocus Pocus, both Adlib with FX and a SC-55 with FX..

I think the problem is simple. You need to use SETBLASTER command without awe32 parameters.

Basic command works for me, example: "set blaster=a220 i7 d1 h5 p330 e620 t6" without e620 and p330 parts should fix all issues. At laest in Hocus.