The games have to support MT-32 and you have to configure the game for MT-32, too. The "unable to initialize your music hardware" error is one that you would get form your SB audio on a system that was too fast, not for your MIDI hardware. Also, keep in mind, if a Sierra game supports General MIDI, the music will sound much better with GM than MT-32, such as with SQ4. At that time, Sierra's MT-32 support was not much more than an after thought.

Well, Monkey Island 1 for example supports only the Roland MT32 in addition to the regular SB16/Adlib Music. I've startet the game with the "monkey r" command, used to enable the MT32 music (there's no config file or setup utility for the game).

SQ4 was just another example for the strange acting of the MT32 unit, older SQ games show a similar behaviour.

Some other games seem to work, like Monkey Island 2 or Wizardry 7, so I don't know why games like Monkey Island 1 wouldn't work and play the wrong instruments (if something plays at all).

use your mt-32 with dosbox

Well that might work, but I've set up the Pentium1 DOS PC specifically for maximum compatibility with old games using original hardware, so I'm trying to get the MT32 to work on this machine.
I'm not really interested in using DosBox, except for some older titles that run to fast on the 233MHz P1.

mt-32 was for 286 and 386, not 233MHz P1

Alright, but that still doesn't explain the unusual behaviour of my MT32.
Why do some games work flawlessly with it, while others which also have MT32 support, don't?

I'm guessing that it's a configuration issue, as the MT32 itself doesn't seem to be faulty, so I was hoping to get some help here.

so try these problematic games in dosbox

Since DosBox won't run on the 233MHz System and since I don't have the option of connecting the MT32 to another computer, that's not a solution.
Besides, that's not the point, as I'm trying to get the MT32 to run on the old computer with the supposedly compatible games.

It really sounds like the games are trying to pipe General MIDI to the MT-32, or maybe SysEx messages aren't making it through. It could be the latter because Wiz7 uses the default MT-32 patch set, while most games send SysEx data to reprogram it for custom sounds.

Do you see text messages appear on the MT-32's display when starting any games? I can't remember off-hand which games do that other than Space Quest 3, but I know some do.

Maybe look for some way to change the behavior of the MPU-401 interface on the AWE32, and triple-check that you have the games set to MT-32/CM-32/CM-64/LAPC-I.

Also, are you using a proper gameport<->MIDI adapter, or did you just rig something up? If it's the latter then I strongly suggest that you disconnect your MT-32 now and get a proper cable to avoid damaging it, because it's not supposed to be a direct connection (MIDI uses optocouplers and such to electrically isolate devices so that they don't have to be voltage-matched and to reduce chances of one device damaging another).

The games that work show messages on the MT-32 display, for example Monkey Island 2.

The games were correctly set up and as far as I know the AWE32 even supports the intelligent MPU-401 interface. The AWE32's own MT-32 emulation was disabled and I used a proper gameport<>MIDI cable (I've got two, exchanging them didn't do anything).

But it seems that the whole problem was "just" the usual overflow due to the high CPU speed. Disabling the cache and lowering the clock to 100MHz fixed the problem in most games.

What really threw me off was the fact that I never got a single error message on the MT-32 display, so I assumed that this couldn't have been the problem. I'm sorry that I've bothered you with such a trivial problem, but the lack of error messages pointed me in the wrong direction.

But fiddling around with the jumpers every time I want to play some Sierra games isn't really an option. Are there any tools for pure DOS that slow the system down considerably? I once tried MoSlo (for getting Ultima7 down to a playable speed), but with little effect, so I'm somewhat sceptical of their efficiency.

A good collection of slowdown utilities exists here, might be worth trying each of them: http://www.sierrahelp.com/Utilities/SlowdownUtilities.html

I'll give these tools a try. MoSlo works at least with some of the affected titles, so I'm sure the others will do the trick for the rest of the titles somehow.

Again, thanks a lot for the help!

As I said, the Sierra games need to be configured to MT-32. Run INSTALL.EXE first and choose MT-32 for your audio hardware. Otherwise, you are doing what HunterZ suggested of sending GM to the MT-32. The MT-32 needs the SysEx messages from the game to sound right.

Oh, and by the way, of the games that you mentioned, you will get better results with DOSBox on a modern PC. As mentioned, the MT-32 era games were for the 286 - 386 era. On a Pentium 233 you might get buffer overflow errors when the game sends its SysEx data to the unit. Save your dinosaur for the Windows 9x games that don't run right on the NT kernel.

Sending GM to the MT-32 is not ideal. Sending MT-32 to an MT-32 is ideal. If you want to send GM to the MT-32, it is best if you first send the MT-32 a MIDI file that reprograms the patch mapping to as close to GM as the MT-32 can do. There are MIDI files that do this on queststudios.com

The original problem was obviously that some of the MIDI messages weren't getting to the MT-32. I think I used my original Roland MPU-401 card and unit with MT-32 with a Pentium-90Mhz and never had any problems like this. It is possible that the AWE32 doesn't implement something that kept the message rate to a reasonable level. (Like an 8-bit ISA bus, for instance. 😀

In the 21st century, Dosbox is definitely a lot easier than fiddling with old hardware. When Win3.1 is needed, I like to do Win98SE in a virtual machine platform, although that may not be ideal for 3D. I also haven't tried doing MIDI out in a VM.

Amdahl wrote:

When Win3.1 is needed, I like to do Win98SE in a virtual machine platform, although that may not be ideal for 3D.

Win3.1 and 3D ??

Well, as I already mentioned, the problem is more or less solved. There was no GM data going to the MT-32 (although it sounded like it), the midi messages were just coming in too fast, which seems to be a common problem with the earlier revisions of the MT-32. The games were all set up properly.

But I want to add one thing to the DosBox comments:
I really like dosbox. I think it's an amazing tool with great possibilities, ensuring the preservation and usability of old games for years to come.
But I've grown up with these games when they were new, so playing them through an emulator isn't quite the same for me, no matter how close the emulation is.
That's why I've built the DOS PC, to have original hardware for playing DOS and Win9x games. It's not perfect for all titles, but I can get most of them to run flawlessly. For the remaining few, I use DosBox on my main computer.

Besides, I really enjoy building and improving that old computer 😉

I use DOSBox myself because it's more convenient, but I've always thought about building a retro machine. I don't think I'll ever get around to it, though, even though I've been holding onto some nice parts (Tseng ET4000 and S3 Virge, SB16 and AWE64 Gold, a couple of nice CRTs, etc.).

Win3.1 and 3D.. I was a bit confusing there.

Rather than go to the trouble of setting up old hardware, what I meant is that I prefer to use Win98SE in a VM for all Windows games that don't play in XP. That can mean anything from old games that were written for Windows 3.1, up to newer 3D Win98/ME games that may not run in XP either. Except that I've never tried to play a 3D game in Win98SE in VMware. 😀 Probably because most all of them work in XP.