First post, by Gahhhrrrlic
I just finished my base setup for my computer with an ESS1868 sound card in it. I had screwed this up once before but with lessons learned, everything went well this time. Except, now that I am testing the hardware (starting with the sound card), things aren't looking great.
I fired up doom to see if the sound card is working. In the setup, under music, I tried to pick general midi on port 330 but that didn't work in the game (no music). I was getting sound effects however. So I went back into the setup and used the same "sound blaster" settings for the music as I picked for the sound FX. In game, this did work but the music was of horrendously bad quality. The FX sounded just fine.
1) So the first matter is why the music doesn't play when I pick general midi on port 330 in doom's setup. The ESS was configured correctly at boot with these settings.
2) Why is the midi so ass? I mean I wasn't expecting anything great but it's really awful. Is there a way to upgrade the soundfonts in dos? I have not installed windows just yet so I'm just wondering where these midi instruments are coming from. Are they coming from on the chip itself or from software on my PC? Is there any way to upgrade the soundfont? Also, why would the midi play at all when selecting "sound blaster" and "220" as my music settings, when the FX is set to the same thing? Doesn't the midi need to go through 330 via general midi?
Bit confused here. Thanks for the advice in advance.