Hi! Me again 😀

Today I have installed and Setup my AWE64 Sound card into another pc! The system is a Pentium 166mhz based machine. I wanted to see if my sound card issues are related to the other pc setup. I have the same issue on this P166 machine as I do with my 486 PC! I used the AWE64 setup cd rom this time round, and its all setup by default, interrupts, DMA etc. Yet I can only use one or the other type of sound and not both as previously mentioned!!! Could this somehow be a damaged soundcard? Is there anyway of proving this?
I am using Phils Ms-dos 7 installation, same setup as on other pc.

As there has been no replies as of yet I take it that this hasn't happened to anyone before?

I hope someone can shed some light ?

Many Thanks

Mike

Setting aside the SC-55 for the moment, you mention an issue even when using AWE32 MIDI and SB16 for effects on the AWE64 Gold in Doom. That should not happen .

Just to be safe and to eliminate one variable, could you retry that with the joystick MIDI adapter disconnected from the AWE64 and see if the issue still occurs ?

Also, I imagine the AWE64 successfully passes all tests in the Diagnose utility ?

If the issue still occurs, it feels like it may be a hardware problem with the card . Simplest test would be to try a cheapish (unfortunately not that cheap anymore) AWE64 Value instead .

EDIT : Oh and while this is unlikely to be the issue are you per chance using irq7 for the card with an LPT port using the same irq ?

I see two issues here:

1. The AWE64 Gold's MPU-401 interface, and its DSP, both share there same IRQ level. Games that are not prepared for that situation will behave erratically when both are used together. The solution for that issue is to disable the MPU-401 interface's IRQ using Creative Labs' SBMPU.EXE utility.
2. The DSP on the AWE64 Gold (v4.16) has a particular quirk that it will not accept MIDI data from the MPU-401 interface as long as a DSP IRQ is pending. Because MIDI data is normally written into the MPU-401 by the Timer interrupt service routine, and the Timer IRQ has a higher priority than the DSP IRQ, the games' MIDI output routine will time out whenever music data is to be sent while the end of a PCM buffer is reached. This explains why you are not experiencing the problem with either MIDI playback or PCM playback alone, only with the two together. It is a hardware limitation of the AWE64 Gold, and there is nothing you can do about it except switch to using a second MIDI interface card to which to connect the SC-55mkII.

Earlier DSP versions had another issue causing the last received MIDI byte to be re-sent to MIDI Out whenever a DSP IRQ is acknowledged, both on the back of the card and the Wave Blaster header, causing erratic notes to be played. This is commonly known as the "hanging note bug". No AWE64 Gold is affected by this problem to my knowledge, but it is a problem that you may encounter should you decide to try another Sound Blaster card.

Hi thanks both for your replies, I will test out what is mentioned here soon and update. One other thing I tried yesterday but never updated on the forum; I swapped out the AWE64 with a Creative SB16 pnp card. But I still experience the exact same issues. Midi or Sound effects, but not both. I will re-visit this hopefully later on today so will keep you posted. I will also grab a screen shot of the IRQ settings.

Thanks

Mike

TheGoose81 wrote on 2020-10-25, 09:09:

I swapped out the AWE64 with a Creative SB16 pnp card. But I still experience the exact same issues. Midi or Sound effects, but not both.

Check out this thread if you haven't already: Sound Blaster 16 Bugs and Deficiencies Summary

In short, if you want to use an external MIDI device, SB16/AWE cards are not the best choice.

Hi again, well I pulled my finger out and have fired up the 486 again, except this time I have unplugged the Gameport Midi cable going towards the SC-55. And what do you know, its working! AWE32 midi and Soundblaster effects all working, and DOOM is running sweet!

Not sure if anyone can work out why this is?

Oddly this used to work brilliantly which is why this is boggling me! Is there some kind of stand alone MPU-401 (Gamport/Midi) card which I can run alongside with my AWE64 Gold?

Many Thanks

Mike

Would running a second soundcard just for the MPU-401 Gameport output be a solution? For Example my SB16? Or is there a better ISA Soundcard out there that I could use instead of the AWE64, in order to achieve the goal of SC-55 midi and Sound effects?

Thanks

Mike

Well well well, i appear to have found a solution which is working! And a hell of a lot cheaper than buying an MPU-401 stand alone card. I have added in a second soundcard (Creative SB16), I have configured the AWE64 to standard settings, then on the SB16 I have changed out all of its settings so that they dont conflict with the AWE64. I set the MPU 401 to 300 on the SB16. I had to change the Gameport address of the AWE64, simply because i cannot change the SB16 gameport for some reason. And wow! Its working like a champ!! SB16 to handle the Gameport midi out, and the AWE64 for Soundblaster sound effects!!

Hopefully this continues to work! Apologies if this method has already been discussed on the forum 🤣

Thanks

Mike

Have you considered that there may be something wrong with the gameport to MIDI cable that you are using ?

This behavior is not normal (in Doom, for instance, it should work fine, some other games have known issues with simultaneous MIDI and FX on SB16s and AWEs, but not Doom) or expected and the fact that it affects multiple sound cards points toward something other than the actual soundcards being at fault .

Hi yes I agree it could be something to do with the cable. It has a gameport passthrough attached and midi in/out Din cables. I have inspected for any obvious signs of damage and I cannot see any. As I mentioned before the setup used to work flawlessly, over the months I haven't moved any cabling or damaged etc. Unfortunately I do not have another cable to test with, so I guess its worth trying to find one. I would rather it be a simple fix like this, so I could return to using just one AWE64 card.
A few months back when the system worked correctly midi/sound effects worked on the following game I tried:
Doom
Doom 2
Heretic
Z
Rise of the Triad
Duke Nukem
Descent 1 & 2
Plus a few other, all in pure dos mode. Hence the reason why I am a tad baffled?! I always used the default Blaster settings:

Base I/O address: 220
MIDI Port address: 330
Interrupt setting: 5
Low DMA setting: 1
High DMA setting: 5
I also ran CTCU.exe to make sure there were no conflicts, which there isn't.

Thanks

Mike

Doom is a game that will barf when MIDI IN cable is connected, maybe that was the problem.

I do have both Midi In and Midi Out din connectors attached to the Roland, should I not have both connected?

TheGoose81 wrote on 2020-10-25, 18:26:

I do have both Midi In and Midi Out din connectors attached to the Roland, should I not have both connected?

Only computer's MIDI out to module's MIDI in is required for playing game music on the module .

Hi all,

I would like to thank everyone for their help with my issue. It appears that all the issue was in the end was the fact that I had both the Midi IN and Midi OUT cables connected to my Roland, which was causing me the issues!. The reason I was confused over this was because the sound used to work flawlessly with both these midi plugs connected!!!
I have reverted back to one AWE64 Gold soundcard, and I have reset the configuration by means of deleting CTCM and SB16 directories and returning autoexec.bat and config.sys files back to standard. I have reinstalled the AWE64 software from my CD. and everything is working as it should!

Thanks again

Mike

Tiido wrote on 2020-10-25, 14:34:

Doom is a game that will barf when MIDI IN cable is connected, maybe that was the problem.

I had no idea why my other games worked yet Doom would essentially slow to a halt and breakdown.. unplugged the midi in cable and it all worked perfectly! Thank you!