Try vocal intition frequencies

I solved this btw, in case anyone else runs into this with YMF cards and general midi, you gotta go in to "MS-DOS Mode" and run Dark Forces from there, then all crunch static disappears from the sound. I wish I understood what the problem was, I suspect someone smarter than me could get it working properly from the Win 95 dos box, but I have a way to play the game now with general midi so I'm happy.

DeathRabbit679 wrote on 2022-09-24, 16:18:

I solved this btw, in case anyone else runs into this with YMF cards and general midi, you gotta go in to "MS-DOS Mode" and run Dark Forces from there, then all crunch static disappears from the sound. I wish I understood what the problem was, I suspect someone smarter than me could get it working properly from the Win 95 dos box, but I have a way to play the game now with general midi so I'm happy.

I don't suspect what your hearing is actually General Midi in Dark Forces running under MS-DOS Mode. The YMF card can't play General Midi in Dos itself, only in a Win9x dosbox.
At least I have never got General Midi to play through a YMF card in real dos.

Most sound cards do not have onboard MIDI synthesizers, only the UART so you can connect a synthesizer such as SC55 or DB60XG to one.
YMF71x cards have a softsynth is Windows driver to allow MIDI music without any MIDI hardware but this will not work in pure DOS, you only get the bare MPU401 interface there like most other sound cards out there.

I'm using a wavetable card, not the softsynth business

If you have a WB card attached to the host card and want to use it instead of the softsynth in DOS games while in WIndows you can choose that in Yamaha control panel (accessible from Control Panel), assuming you are using Yamaha's drivers over ones built into Windows, which do have variety of problems as far as DOS stuff goes.

It's a Dreamblaster X2GS, and yeah using the bog standard YMF drivers in windows set to external midi, sounds great in every game I've thrown at it except Dark Forces which has the crunchy sound when using GM. But yeah the wavetable card works in DOS in every game I've tried, are you guys saying it shouldn't??? I mean at least I'm pretty sure it does. Like 95% sure. The different between that Roland sound bank and OPL3, heh, it's not exactly subtle.

This must be some game incompatibility then, though maybe combination of mulitple factors (computer itself and particular settings also). Windows in the mix can dramatically change the outcome. I avoid running DOS games from Windows for similar reasons, compatibility is nearly always better in pure DOS.