Reply 20 of 35, by Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman
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If only they have clones of SW60XG.... 🙁
Never thought this thread would be that long, but now, for something different.....
Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman.
If only they have clones of SW60XG.... 🙁
Never thought this thread would be that long, but now, for something different.....
Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman.
wrote:If only they have clones of SW60XG.... 🙁
What's so special about that card?
My retro computer stuff: https://lychee.jjserver.net/#16136303902327
@swaaye
[AWE32 isn't any better:
AWE32 and Dark Forces]
Tried it on my ol' rig (IBM PC 330, Intel 430HX, Intel Pentium 200MMX, 128 Mb EDO RAM). On AWE32, AWE64, and some SB Pro compatible+GUS ACE.
The GUS music sounded a lot better. Sounded good on my Yamaha SW20-PC (when it was working!)
🙁
Y2K box: AMD Athlon K75 (second generation slot A)@700, ASUS K7M motherboard, 256 MB SDRAM, ATI Radeon 7500+2xVoodoo2 in SLI, SB Live! 5.1, VIA USB 2.0 PCI card, 40 GB Seagate HDD.
WIP: external midi module based on NEC wavetable (Yamaha clone)
Every Creative wavetable offering is pretty awful for DOS games, IMO... And that doesn't even take into considering the static, pops, clicks and other crap that comes out of those cards. Or how if you attach a SCD-10 or -15 you'll almost certainly have issues with it because the MPU-401 port is bugged on just about every card they've made. They are just not quality products.
I like my Ensoniq Soundscape cards. Their analog circuitry is just so much better. Games simply sound better. If only they had daughtercard headers!
SCD-15 on a Aureal-based card is quite nice tho. Most of them have very decent output quality. I wish they were SB16-complaint, but SBPro is ok and their compatibility is excellent for a PCI card.
wrote:wrote:Is it not possible to use a Soundfont on an ISA-based AWE product in DOS? If you can load it, you should be able to hear it. Some DOS games should have been able to load their own Soundfont banks.
Nope. As swaaye already mentioned, no useable soundfont loading utility exists for DOS. And I'm not aware of any DOS game using extra soundfonts for their MIDI music on AWE cards.
The GUS suffers from a similar problem, but Gravis at least offered plenty of tools and a free SDK, so its capabilities got a bit more attention in the game world.
I think its time to revise our opinions:
wrote:Eradicator does use SF2 for providing high quality sound effects on an AWE32/64. Magic Carpet 2 also has a SF2 used for its midi soundtrack, and it is automatically loaded if you have an AWE32/64 and selected the appropriate driver in its setup program.
I'd have to say these use soundfonts and features of the EMU8k.
I know of no hardware reason why Soundfonts could not be used in DOS.
Intel CC820 | PIII 667 | 2x128MB SDRAM | 3Dfx Voodoo 5 5500 @ Dell P790 | Creative SB PCI128 | Fujitsu MPC3064AT 6GB + QUANTUM FIREBALLlct10 10 GB | SAMSUNG DVD-ROM SD-608 | IOMEGA ZIP 100 | Realtek RTL8139C | Agere Win Modem
wrote:wrote:If only they have clones of SW60XG.... 🙁
What's so special about that card?
Nothing. Except that it is a stand-alone MIDI card instead of daughterboard. Putting daughterboard on the sound card caused my CH Pro Throttle stops working. Apparently it fucks the 2nd joystick axis function. 🙁
wrote:wrote:Eradicator does use SF2 for providing high quality sound effects on an AWE32/64. Magic Carpet 2 also has a SF2 used for its midi soundtrack, and it is automatically loaded if you have an AWE32/64 and selected the appropriate driver in its setup program.
I'd have to say these use soundfonts and features of the EMU8k.
I know of no hardware reason why Soundfonts could not be used in DOS.
Yup. Isn't it possible to load Soundfonts in Windows, and playing them back in DOS? You know, just like Thrustmaster joysticks; you can load the mapping configuration in DOS, and you can still use it in Windows games.
Never thought this thread would be that long, but now, for something different.....
Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman.
Yeah I said earlier that you can load Soundfonts in 9x and then play the games with them. You need to turn on MPU-401 emulation in the AWE control panel and set the game to General MIDI. I believe if you set the game to AWE32 specifically, it will use the awful ROM instead.
It may actually be possible to load the soundfont in 9x and then exit to DOS and still have it in the card's RAM. I think even a warm reboot is safe. I'm not positive, but I seem to recall that working way back when.
One really has to wonder why Creative couldn't just put together a DOS uploader for soundfonts. The lack of hardware MPU-401 support was fascinating too. Probably them wanting to control the market by ignoring Roland's "standard" and defining their own AWE standard. Typical Creative.
The AWE32 did have MPU-401 support just like the Sound Blaster 16. The problem was that the ports could not address the EMU8000 hardware. The reason why is because there was no hardware at the other end of the port to interpret and process midi commands.
ahh k. I would use an AWE32 for my SCD-15 hosting needs if only it worked on there! My AWE, SB32, and 2 SB16s just gave me stuck notes, wrong notes, and other bad things. Nevermind that they have some terrible output circuitry on those Creative cards that gives static, pops, clicks, etc. The people who whined about Live!'s lacking frequency response and IHD resampling nonsense missed out on these babies. 😀
wrote:I think its time to revise our opinions:
wrote:Eradicator does use SF2 for providing high quality sound effects on an AWE32/64. Magic Carpet 2 also has a SF2 used for its midi soundtrack, and it is automatically loaded if you have an AWE32/64 and selected the appropriate driver in its setup program.
😳 Well, I admit this is news to me. I didn't think it was impossible (there are many demo scene productions using the AWE RAM for tracker music samples), but after checking out dozens of games only supporting the crappy ROM on the AWE, I simply couldn't imagine a game programmer attempting it.
Here is a text file explaining the use of EMU8K RAM-based sound effects in the game Eradicator:
SB32, AWE32 AND AWE64 ERADICATOR SOUND CARD SUPPORT INFORMATION
Eradicator has specific support for the above sound cards from Creative Labs.
The SB32, Awe32 and the Awe64 cards have a Digital Signal Processor (DSP)
created by EMU Systems. This DSP is a 32/64 voice synthesizer with 3D sound
placement capabilities.
In the sound options menu for Eradicator there is a menu item labeled
AWE32/64 HI-RES SOUND. If this feature is enabled and your system has one of
the cards mentioned above Eradicator will take advantage of this hardware to
enhance the audio quality of Eradicator.
The Awe32 and Awe64 come with 512K of on board RAM. The SB32 does not come
with any on board RAM but RAM can be added to this card and also to both Awe
cards (up to 28 Megs). If you have an SB32, you must add RAM in the form of
standard SIMM package(s) for Eradicator to take advantage of the cards 3D
sound capabilities. See your sound card manual for details. Currently if you
try to enable your SB32 it will seem as if the HI-RES sound feature is
enabled but you will hear piano, strings and other instruments playing from
the ROM instead of from the RAM unless RAM has been added to your SB32.
Eradicator uses one of two sound font banks to load sound effects for the game into
the RAM on the above mentioned cards. There is a 512K bank named ERAD512K.SF2
and a 2 Meg. bank named ERAD2MEG.SF2. Eradicator will automatically load one
of these two banks into your sound card based on amount of sound card RAM
available.
If you wish to customize these sound font banks with your own .WAV files you
must use Vienna version 2.0 or greater. Below is a list of the sound effects
in the sound font banks. Note that the division line part way thru the lists
indicates where sounds for the smaller 512K bank end.
Preset Name Description Looping
------ ------- ----------------------------- --------
0 TURALRM TURRET ALARM NO
1 DRCLOSE DOOR CLOSE NO
2 DROPEN DOOR OPEN NO
3 EYEDIE CHARACTER DIES NO
4 POWERHUM POWER CONDUIT YES
5 CONVEY CONVEYER BELT YES
6 EXPLODE1 EXPLOSION NO
7 EYEALRM LIL BUDY EYE ALARM NO
8 GLASSBRK BROKEN GLASS NO
9 LSDTREAD LSD TREAD NO
10 SPIDER ELENA'S SPIDERS YES
11 EXPLODE2 EXPLOSION NO
END OF 512K BANK
-----------------------------------------------------
12 EYEBLINK LIL BUDY EYE BLINK NO
13 LIFT ELEVATOR LIKE LIFT NO
14 BIGBOOM EXPLOSION NO
15 FLAME FLAME POTS YES
16 WIND WIND YES
17 THUNDER THUNDER YES
18 ALARM ALARM NO
19 BARRELMV BARREL MOVEMENT NO
20 ZAPS ELECTRICAL ZAPS NO
21 AXE AXE SWING NO
22 PWRHUM2 POWER CONDUIT YES
23 GLASS2 BREAKING GLASS NO
24 SDROPEN SLIDING DOOR OPEN NO
25 MNUDOOR MENU DOOR NO
26 TURLAS TURRET LASER NO
27 GRINDER MECHANICAL GRINDER NO
28 GDIE BOSS GOOR DIE NO
wrote:I know of no hardware reason why Soundfonts could not be used in DOS.
You are correct. However it took me a while to figure out that there was no way to load the SoundFonts (SBK or SF2) files and just 'leave' them in memory for some other DOS program to use. What ever program loads the AWE32 soundfonts has to stick around since all of the pointers to said SoundFonts are part of the currently running DOS program.
Now, you could of course write a TSR which would load the AWE32 SoundFonts and provide an interface for other programs so they could benefit from the loaded AWE32 SoundFonts that the TSR was controlling. Oh, wait. 😮 Creative did that and called it AWEUTIL.
So your three choices for using better sounding sample in either SBK or SF2 format for the AWE32 family was to either have a game or application which would have a custom loader for SoundFonts for its own use; use the Creative AWEUTIL TSR to load the SoundFonts, provide an NMI activated MIDI interface and for DOS let the somewhat large TSR just 'stay resident' to do its job; or finally as outlined by member swaaye
run Win9x to load the AWE32 SoundFonts and provide an emulated MPU-401 interface to the AWE32 for its Dos VDMs and leave Windows in memory to play your DOS games with SoundFont enhanced AWE32 MIDI.
Here is a an attached DOS app, an AWE32 MIDI player which will use loaded SF2 SoundFont files while the song is playing. The MIDI player is called AWEPLAY and the ZIP file is attached.
dvwjr
My retro computer stuff: https://lychee.jjserver.net/#16136303902327
I think it's worth mentioning that protected mode games don't work with AWEUTIL and probably not with the Windows 9x-based MPU401 emulation either. If these games don't have native AWE support, you won't be able to use the synth at all. I believe that was a problem with early versions of Doom.
Tricky cards to use built by the cheap, evil Creative and sold for WAY too much money. 😀
wrote:Got one myself
Heh, I was watching that one and forgot to bid, glad we didn't end up bidding against each other.
Intel CC820 | PIII 667 | 2x128MB SDRAM | 3Dfx Voodoo 5 5500 @ Dell P790 | Creative SB PCI128 | Fujitsu MPC3064AT 6GB + QUANTUM FIREBALLlct10 10 GB | SAMSUNG DVD-ROM SD-608 | IOMEGA ZIP 100 | Realtek RTL8139C | Agere Win Modem
Creative should be SHOT for how they handled their monopoly back in the 90s 🙁
Dell Optiplex Gxpro: Built solely so I could re-live my SB16 days properly with newly acquired sound pieces: MT-32, SCB-55, and DB50xg 😀