cambalinho wrote on 2025-11-09, 22:03:

the OPL-3\FM, on Windows XP, is disabled... can i enable it?

Can you provide more details? What kind of sound card? ISA? Or PCI card with integrated OPL3?

In case of the latter, some cards (Yamaha YMF7x4 in particular) can't use OPL3 if you use vendor drivers instead of the one came with Windows.

This is the first time I am seeing a discussion of OPL and XP in the same sentence

Hi! OPL3 was supported in XP with the Sound Blaster 16 driver.
The TTSolo PCI cards had an ESFM synth that was OPL3 compatible, too.
So yes, OPL3 on XP used to be normal, I think.

At least in the early years, when most XP PCs were just upgraded Windows 98SE PCs. 😀
They not seldomly had cheap SB16 Vibra ISA soundcards installed, still, at the time.
Or on-board SB16 soundcards (some Pentium II/III motherboards).

Anyway, there's also an OPL3 emulator for Windows 2k/XP..
https://github.com/datajake1999/OPL3EMU

i have 2 sound cards on Windows XP:
1 - Sound blaster live! PCI for Windows(predefined);
2 - ESS ES1868 ISA configued on c:\windows\system32\autoexec.nt.... for use it on CMD(windows xp don't have MS-DOS)...
my sound card have EAX, but no OPL... i need both on these desktop setup 😉
using autoexec.nt can i activate the OPL?
for exemple: i can't get sound on Keen 4

The confusing thing is that the ms synthesizer was always set as the default.

FM was still a selectable option for cards that *HAD* an FM chip, but by that day and age, AC'97 and pals had taken over, and most systems just didnt even *have* an FM synth chip at all.

cambalinho wrote on 2025-11-10, 19:25:

i have 2 sound cards on Windows XP: 1 - Sound blaster live! PCI for Windows(predefined); 2 - ESS ES1868 ISA configued on c:\wind […]
Show full quote

i have 2 sound cards on Windows XP:
1 - Sound blaster live! PCI for Windows(predefined);
2 - ESS ES1868 ISA configued on c:\windows\system32\autoexec.nt.... for use it on CMD(windows xp don't have MS-DOS)...
my sound card have EAX, but no OPL... i need both on these desktop setup 😉
using autoexec.nt can i activate the OPL?
for exemple: i can't get sound on Keen 4

Oh, you need FM in DOS games on XP? That's what VDMSound used to be made for.
It was popular before DOSBox and can improve NTVDM of Windows XP.
It had added Sound Blaster 16 emulation, too. Previously, XP merely had gained SB 2.0 emulation over Win 2k, I think.

PS: By the way, in order to get direct hardware access back in Windows 2k/XP, there's PortTalk driver.
It allows direct port writes on Windows NT, so Windows 9x and 3.x applications can directly access PC Speaker, parallel port (such as 378h) or serial port.
It probably also works with the OPL ports at 388/389h!

Back in the day I've used PortTalk for my electronics hobby.
When I tinkered with Visual Basic 6 on Windows 98SE, I had to access the i/o ports directly.
On Windows XP, it nolonger worked until I've installed PortTalk.
It also brought back sound effects of Windows 3.x shareware games that used PC Speaker.

why not 1 sound card that works correctly, the OPL, on Windows XP?
yes i have VDMSound and it's excelent... except on Doom(WAD files)
using the autoexec.nt.. can i enable the FM\OPL?

cambalinho wrote on 2025-11-10, 22:50:

why not 1 sound card that works correctly, the OPL, on Windows XP?
yes i have VDMSound and it's excelent... except on Doom(WAD files)
using the autoexec.nt.. can i enable the FM\OPL?

I don’t know. Is that even possible?
Does NTVDM support anything besides PC speaker and SB 2.0 SFX by default?
I've used the real OPL3/ESFM synth on Windows XP back then, but for music (MIDI) playback and for Win32 games.

It didn't cross my mind to play DOS games here,
since I had just moved from over Windows 98SE platform and just dicovered DOSBox at the time.
I mean, I did try out VDMSound because of a class mate and used it sometimes..

DOSBox was so cool though, because I could run my old Windows 3.1 (!) in a window! 🥳
Via WIN /2 in Standard-Mode only, at the time, because DOSBox wasn't compatible with 386 Enhanced-Mode at the time (unless being compiled from source accordingly).

Anyway, how about using Windows 98SE instead? It has good DOS compatibility and can use VXD drivers. 😃
And it supports up to DirectX 9c like Windows XP does.
By installing KernelEx, gdiplus.dll and unicows.dll it even will run Windows XP era software.

It's just an idea. A dual-boot with WinXP might be an option.

Edit: Again, my best guess is installing PortTalk and trying it out.
Since it worked for me with Windows 3.x games using physical PC speaker, it might be possible.
Because Windows on Windows (WoW) runs atop NTVDM itself.
So if it works for the Windows 3.1x compatibility system, so it will for DOS emulation.

Well, provided that the ESS driver enables the SB Pro 2 "legacy block" inside the silicon chip of the ESS card (if there's any to be enabled).
Because that might be a separate circuit that's left disabled unless needed.
Some late sound cards featured that, in additon to the native mode that had priority (on Windows mainly).
Or is there a SB Pro/ESFM driver in device manager, by any chance?

Edit: https://web.archive.org/web/20111230195819/ht … lk/porttalk.htm

IIRC NTVDM (as well as SBEMUL.SYS for Win9x WDM drivers) doesn't really emulate FM/OPL.

It only fakes the presence of it. Can't remember whether it would pass commands to actual FM hardware if there is one.

how can i use the porttalk?
"Anyway, how about using Windows 98SE instead?"
i tried without success 🙁
lest continue with XP 😉
i know VDMSound.. it's the only solution that i found until now(even better than SoundFX 😉 )

cambalinho wrote on 2025-11-11, 19:35:

how can i use the porttalk?

Hi! Just install the device driver manually via hardware wizard, it's same procedure like installing the OPL3 driver, if memory serves.
When PortTalk is installed, Windows 9x software can access things like parallel port and other things as if it was run on Windows 9x.
Same basically goes for 16-Bit software run in WoW or NTVDM, I think.
(Though I don’t know the restrictions of NTVDM. OS/2 had IOPL=YES in config.sys to allow direct i/o, for example.)
So you can control your relay card or LC display attached to parallel port, for example.
That's important, because Windows has no API for parallel port.
All software using it must make direct i/o access, thus. Same principle goes for OPL3 (FM, not MIDI) or PC speaker.
The registers must be directly accessed - that's why PortTalk was written.
To make industrial or hobbyist software work on Windows NT platform.
The website describes the functioning in great detail, I think.
There's no further configuration needed, as far as I know.

Well I hate to interrupt but can PortTalk help access VGA registers in Win32 games like 0x3d4h

and more: for work correctly with VDMSound, the best is using, with my sound blaster live 5.1, too, a Sound Blaster old or Solo-1...
1 - for windows it's predefined: sound Blaster live 5.1;
2 - for cmd, with autoexec.nt, we use, for exemple, Solo-1..
the second sound card is for VDMSound it 😉 (tested)
is the best that i can get 😉