VOGONS


First post, by strygo

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie

I recently got the original MT-32 and have been tinkering with it. I'm using it with a Windows 98 computer that has a Yamaha Audician 32 Plus sound card (set to IRQ5). I am also using SoftMPU.

If I first boot to Windows 98 and then restart in MS-DOS mode, run SoftMPU and then play a game (e.g.: Doom or King's Quest 4) the music works great.

If I boot directly into MS-DOS mode directly, run SoftMPU and then play a game, I don't hear any music.

Does anyone have any idea what Windows might be doing to properly initialize things? I've read something about IRQ9 - should I be using that instead? Thank you for your time!

Steve

Reply 1 of 5, by strygo

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie

I thought I found a lead when reading http://www.flaterco.com/kb/audio/ISA/index.html.

Having jumped through that hoop, the YAMAHA SAx Setup Utility 2.20 (SETUPSA.EXE) does work, albeit with the inconvenient behavior of trashing AUTOEXEC.BAT each and every time the card is initialized.

Unfortunately, this doesn't appear to be the case. It's an interestingly issue though, which makes me wonder if my problem is similar to this.

Anyone with an MT-32 and an Audician observe this problem?

Reply 2 of 5, by strygo

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie

I'm still at a loss here. Is anyone aware of any behavioral differences between restarting from Windows 98 into DOS mode the first time and starting in DOS mode subsequent restarts? I speculated there might be differences in when AUTOEXEC.BAT vs. DOSSTART.BAT gets run, but none of my testing has led anywhere.

Reply 3 of 5, by Jo22

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++

Sorry, I haven't tried SoftMPU that much yet. It sure is a great piece of software,
but sadly it doesn't work with my little 286 PCs or my 486 laptops (no sound/MPU-401).
Sure, I also have 386/586 stuff for testing.. But that's boxed.. 🙁

Anyway, maybe the problem is that you haven't loaded EMM386 or Qemm ?
Windows 9x does have got some sort of EMM386 built-in,
maybe that's why it still works after falling back to DOS.

According to the SoftMPU website either
EMM386 v4.46 (or higher) or QEMM 7.03 (or higher) is required.

https://bjt42.github.io/softmpu/

strygo wrote:

I thought I found a lead when reading http://www.flaterco.com/kb/audio/ISA/index.html.

What a coincidence, I've stumbled upon that same site this very midday (for the first time) ! 😳

"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel

//My video channel//

Reply 4 of 5, by strygo

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie

I finally figured out my problem and it ultimately wasn't directly related to the MT-32. The problem turned out to be related to resource conflicts. Every time I started the PC, I believe IRQs were being assigned randomly and in certain cases, they conflicted with the Yamaha card. For some reason, restarting from Windows seemed to be more reliable, and could have been tied to the randomness I observed.

My solution was to configure my BIOS to reserve specific IRQs for my ISA cards and once I did that, I haven't had any problems since.

Reply 5 of 5, by Jo22

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++

I'm glad you figured out the problem.
Also thank you very much for reporting back! 😀

"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel

//My video channel//