Huh, feeling kind of embarassed — right after I've recommended the card, I've decided to put it into a new 386DX33 build, and run a Wing Commander test.

This is what I get.

Now I know for a fact that both the card and MT-32 are working, but for some reason on this system they produce real mess instead of proper music. What am I doing wrong?

IRQ or address conflict? a bad cable? It seems to me that half the notes are missing or something
I assume the exact same card+mt32+cable work OK in another system? did you try another game? can you try in another isa slot (corrosion reasons perhaps?)

Check to make sure that you don't have any conflicts on there between the card and any other components that are installed and change them if necessary. If you have a network card that uses port 330h, change it to another one, such as 280h, check for IRQ conflicts as well. Remember: the Sound blaster cards's MPU401 uses port 330h for the MIDI portion and sometimes IRQ 2/9.

It seems to me that half the notes are missing or something

Yes, and the one that are playing sound wrong, too.

I assume the exact same card+mt32+cable work OK in another system?

Yes, they did

can you try in another isa slot

I already did

If you have a network card that uses port 330h, change it to another one, such as 280h, check for IRQ conflicts as well

I actually had a 3COM installed, but I removed it.

Remember: the Sound blaster cards's MPU401 uses port 330h for the MIDI portion and sometimes IRQ 2/9.

I have an SB Pro 2, so I don't think it has MPU401

check for IRQ conflicts as well

Here's msd.exe IRQ section. I don't think I have any conflicts?

Gonna test Silpheed soon.

No conflicts there in the IRQ area. What is Second 8259A? Is it for the Music Quest MPU-401 card, or am I wrong?

that's normal for AT systems to have a 2nd 8259A there... jheronimus can you try with port 300 and IRQ5 for example? just to rule out resources
maybe also have bios back at stock settings? some isa timings wrong?
have you tried another game? maybe game files are corrupted? some driver affecting the system?
can you do a visual inspection on the card? maybe some debris sorts an IC leg or something?
we will find it and resolve it don't worry - just looking for stuff you can do there locally 😀

Okay, so I've noticed something weird about this chip. It's kind of impossible to catch this on camera, but this is what I have:

The legs of the smaller chip are soldered somewhat weird. Looks something like this.

1    \
2 ||||  Ч
3[       ]
4 ||    |
5

Here is the overall view of the card (both pictures are clickable):

that is normal for this version of the card, it is a fix like the resistor at the back in relation to the wavetable header stability, it does nothing for the classic mpu part...
does this happen only on Wing Commander? did you by any chance try another game on the same system?

btw, I will gladly exchange this card for a new one if you feel it will help - don't think it twice!

keropi wrote:

that is normal for this version of the card, it is a fix like the resistor at the back in relation to the wavetable header stability, it does nothing for the classic mpu part...
does this happen only on Wing Commander? did you by any chance try another game on the same system?

btw, I will gladly exchange this card for a new one if you feel it will help - don't think it twice!

I've tried Silpheed — same result.

I've also plugged this into a different 386 system (don't have anything else at hand right now), but with same SB Pro2/VGA card/multi I/O — same result.

I've also reset the motherboard BIOS. I'm trying the IRQ5/330 combination, but I'll have to figure out how to free up IRQ5 (it's occupied by LPT right now). BTW, with an actual IRQ conflict the card simply doesn't work. The mqsetup says that the MIDI interface was not found, and Wing Commander can't initialise the game.

ah, so it seems to be a hardware failure. I will send you a new card, will PM you shortly.

just an update on jheronimus 's card - it was indeed a hardware failure (that I will determine once I receive his card) and the replacement works fine as expected 😀

Yes, thanks a lot for your support, keropi!

don't mention it, support will always be given to people that supported the project 😀

You are doing this community and hobby a great service man. I wish I could afford your stuff 🤣 Keep up the good work!

I am calling this composition "Attack of the DreamBlasters" 🤣 🤣 🤣

Basically 50% of my test setup (buran replaced x3m) , the other 50% is roland stuff - just what I use to make sure cards work before shipping 😎

Amazing! This hobby has changed a lot in the last 5 years thanks to these awesome hobbyist projects.

So what is the best way to use this to avoid the hanging note bug? I have been using an SC-55 with Soft MPU with various SB16's using the line in on the SB16. If I have this card, do I just do the line in into the SB16 and there will be no hanging note bug or do I need a mixer to pipe the SC-55 and SB16 together to the speakers?

You can hook up the Sound Blaster 16 output to the SC-55 input and hook up the speakers to the SC-55 output. You won't get hanging note bugs whatsoever. They only occur if your sound card is the following model and DSP version according to this list: Hanging note bug - Vogons Wiki

if you have the hanging note bug and it's an issue for you then using the MPU to drive the SC-55 will fix this, routing the sound either to SB16 or external mixer or through sc-55 will have no impact on hanging notes, the bug exists when using the SB16's mpu not it's sound mixer. bjwil1991 provided all the info on it 😀

All right, I have a better understanding of it now. I'll try this when my two new MPU's arrive. Thank you. 😀