Is it possible to get the good old glorious sounds back that RAP-10/MT-32 could produce? (my RAP-10 made music 100 times better than the best AWE-32 could produce in most DOS games)

Two separate issues which require different responses. First, the RAP-10 is a General Midi wavetable device, the MT-32 is not General Midi compatible and uses an older technology only somewhat reliant on the samples used by a wavetable device, which it combines with analogue waveforms.

As you may have noticed, DOSBox has built in MT-32 emulation, but it requires the downloading of copyrighted ROMs to use. Once you have found them, you can set it in the config file. The emulation isn't bad and is certainly much better than the "emulation" of the AWE32.

The RAP-10 card has a general midi wavetable synthesis sound component and a 16-bit digital sound processing component like, but compatible with, the Sound Blaster. DOSBox doesn't emulate the digital component, you can use the Sound Blaster 16 emulation instead. As for the midi, you will have to use whatever midi support you have on your current sound card.

I have the RAP-10 Card somewhere still, but my computer doesn't have ISA slots, so its somewhat useless. Sad

Find a small junk computer with ISA slots. The computer provides power and will reset the card on bootup. DOSBox has a midi interface that can communicate with external hardware. The digital sound processing component will be useless but your current sound card should sound better. The general midi component can be accessed externally with a gameport to midi adapter. Connect the midi in of the adapter to the midi out of your sound card (if it has one.)

Better yet, the midi synthesis of the Roland SC-7 Midi Module and the Roland SCB-7 waveblaster daughterboard is identical to the RAP-10's. (Actually its slightly better because there is no stereo DSP component which shares takes two voices that the midi should use on the RAP-10.) These can be a bit of a task to find but shouldn't be too expensive and easier to use with current technology.

Also, DOSBox works great with a real MT-32.

As you may have noticed, DOSBox has built in MT-32 emulation, but it requires the downloading of copyrighted ROMs to use. Once you have found them, you can set it in the config file.

You need to download special DosBox builds. The offcial versions don't have the MT-32 emulation built in (AFAIK).

collector wrote:

Also, DOSBox works great with a real MT-32.

And sounds better than the emulated one.

You haven't heard Munt lately, have you.

95DosBox wrote:

collector wrote:

Also, DOSBox works great with a real MT-32.

And sounds better than the emulated one.

It's very difficult to tell the difference between an MT-32 and Munt, and the differences shrink with every release.

gdjacobs wrote:

95DosBox wrote:

collector wrote:

Also, DOSBox works great with a real MT-32.

And sounds better than the emulated one.

It's very difficult to tell the difference between an MT-32 and Munt, and the differences shrink with every release.

Hmmm... that's quite an update. I think the last time I may have used Munt might have been at least 3-5 years ago range. It wasn't awful but also it wasn't exact either at the time. Downloaded v2.1.0 for now.
Dug around my hard drive. Looks like the last version I had used or at least downloaded was v1.3.0.

Does Munt or has Munt been adapted to work on Windows 98?

Not sure. Ask Sergm in the munt thread.

Ultimately, it doesn't matter too much, as you can just run Munt on another machine with some sort of MIDI input (game port, USB midi adapter, etc).

gdjacobs wrote:

Not sure. Ask Sergm in the munt thread.

Ultimately, it doesn't matter too much, as you can just run Munt on another machine with some sort of MIDI input (game port, USB midi adapter, etc).

The reason I asked is if a simple 98SE bootable install could be done then you could simply go to any computer and boot via external usb and use the Munt in 98SE to do the MT-32 MIDI support. I'm still trying to see what's causing 98SE not detecting PCI sound and video cards on Z68/Z77 chipsets.

Also I tried out the v2.1 Munt. It doesn't work for some reason. I just went back to v1.3 just now and it works. I have to try each version all the way in between to see where compatibility broke in XP.

I recommend using git bisect to track the issue down to the exact patch which broke compatibility, although you do need a build toolchain for this to work.