Demolition-Man wrote on 2024-06-23, 08:30:

Duke3D causes problems with MIDI and effects above 11KHz.

i think this is considered more of a hardware deficiency rather than a bug, and at least it can be worked around by dropping mixing rate as you said. but the question is also to what extent the sound driver authors are to blame, and to what extent they even tested said drivers. other than build games, i can't even think of another DOS game offhand that will even allow you to set CD-quality SFX output while playing MIDI so there is that. and yes, using two cards is still the best way to work around this, use a cheap vibra or something for MPU-401 perhaps, because those things are pretty flawed otherwise.

Demolition-Man wrote on 2024-06-23, 08:30:

When the usual suspects talk about the Creative sound cards (DSP 4.16) being completely bug-free in their videos, they are only referring to the hanging note bug. Correctly?
The stuttering bug affects all SB16/AWE32/SB32/AWE64?

Correct, being bug-free usually refers to the hanging note bug. The MPU-401 stuttering bug affects every real SB16-based sound cards.

How do you get bug-free MIDI in conjunction with a SB32 Creative card? The only solution is a second sound card as a MIDI carrier?

There are only two ways to mitigate this bug:

• Add a secondary ISA sound card for MPU-401 duties or digitized sounds.
• For AWE/SB32 sound cards: Use the EMU8K for MIDI music and/or MPU-401 emulation. Said emulation is useful if running DOS games within a Windows 9x environment as it offers you the option to use SF2 SoundFonts. In DOS, the emulation is limited to AWEUTIL but at least there is DOS32AWE for DOS games using the DOS/4GW extender.

But now my question to you: What do you do if you have an SB32 and want to use AWEUTIL? Does this work in conjunction with UNISOUND?

AWEUTIL isn't needed if you are just initializing the sound card. If you are going to use it for MPU-401 emulation in DOS, then AWEUTIL works after the sound card is initialized.

Can you also use another sound card as a MIDI carrier with an AWE32/SB32, with the original drivers or UNISOUND? Or both?

Yes, another sound card can be used with an AWE/SB32 without problems as long as there aren't any conflicts with the resources.

Can you operate a joystick and MIDI at the same time via the game port? As far as I know, this is possible.

This is possible due to the gameport having redundant pins for joysticks/gamepads.

Sorry was busy, thx for the answers!
The sad part, my new daughterboard (fortunately a cheap one) got lost in tranport by mail.

I also dont know, if i have the space for a second sound card in this machine, but i`ll give it a try.

I`m aware of the possibilities of DOS32AWE, and soundfonts in WIndows, but both have their limitations.
A cheap daughterboard usually does the trick for all midi things.

Awesome that this could work with unisound and with a AWE32/SB32 card.

I have to look for another daugherboard and a sound card that accepts the resource settings from unisound. If that doesn't fit or doesn't work, the only option is the external MPU-401 solution on the SB32.