First post, by Ozzuneoj
- Rank
- l33t
I didn't have time to do a recording of this yet, but I figured I'd just toss the question out there in case someone knew what would cause this.
I have an SW1000XG with a PLG150-PF (Piano Plug-In Board), and I installed the 3.5.0b VXD drivers (someone else reported having success with these so I used them) in Windows 98SE.
When I play some of the built in .mid files in Windows most of them sound great, but passport.mid has this very clear and loud piano sound that should not be there in the main "bass" riff, like some of the notes just come through as a piano.
I tried disconnected the Plug-In board and it made no difference, so it isn't a matter of the PLG150-PF overriding anything. There are four midi devices available on the card, one is midi output (external) and three are midi synths numbered 1-3. The first two of those sound the identical and the third has no output.
Is there something wrong with the card or is this some kind of midi mapping issue with XG synth in Windows? Supposedly this should sound just like an MU100, but I have not read anything about the MU100 playing something as ubiquitous as passport.mid incorrectly. Some other midi files included with 98SE sound a bit "off" as well, compared to other synths I have used.
Additionally, when I tried to play Descent 3 to test the sound, there were sounds in the launcher before the game loaded, but in the game there were no effects or music at all. I know this is a music production card, but is this just a quirk I happen to have found or is the card incapable of doing audio playback in games? The game may use DirectSound, but I'm not sure. It's from 1999. No hardware audio settings were enabled as far as I could tell.
EDIT: I'm an idiot. I just checked the launcher for the game and it had "No Sound" selected as the output device. There are no hardware accelerated options available at all with this card, just DirectSound, but it works fine once you actually tell the game to use it. Derp! 🥹
Any help is much appreciated, as information about this card is a bit sparse.
