First post, by Dochartaigh
Can you load new Soundfonts onto a Dreamblaster X2 in Windows 98? Or does the Serdaco Dreamblaster Loader program only work on newer versions of Windows? (which would make absolutely no sense to me since I'm assuming most people are using Dreamblasters these to play old DOS games with Midi sound on older computers...).
The Dreamblaster works in DOS and gives me Midi sound (it's plugged into my ESS ES1869F ISA sound card ), but I can't get my Windows 98 Pentium III computer to see the Dreamblaster when it's plugged in via USB. I tried plugging in the Dreamblaster when it's already attached to the ESS sound card, and also removed it from the ESS sound card and tried it that way too. Windows 98 Device Manager shows it as such:
There's no Windows drivers on the X2 download section of the Serdaco website, and Windows only seems to use generic "USB Audio Device" drivers (WDMA_USB.INF). I sometimes get a quick pop-up which says "Dreamblaster X2" when I'm trying add new hardware or searching for new/updated drivers, but it's gone so fast I can't read anything else and still doesn't give me the option to use any other drivers.
The drop-down menu of the Serdaco Dreamblaster Loader program doesn't list "Dreamblaster X2" like it's shown in the video by Phil's Computer Lab, I only get these options:
and if I try to load it to the ESS it says "Board does not answer" check the communication link interface... If this simply isn't possible that's fine, but I'll have to figure out something as right now all I have is Mac's at my house (and 3x Windows 98 computers 🤣). ...and again, that would be extremely weird that the Soundfont loader program wouldn't work on the type of computers these midi devices are meant to be used on.
Also wanted so ask a quick question about Soundfonts. These Dreamblasters use proprietary Soundfonts, right? Like you can't just download them from anywhere, they have to be specifically programmed/written for the Dreamblaster?
People are using the Buran v10 one mostly, right (and using it for the X2 and not the Buran model....although it's called the Buran soundfont?? I found some smaller ones linked to on the unofficial Serdaco product page, but those seem to be very small so I thought I'd try the Buran one first. Any advice for which ones to try out?