Problem with General Midi on ESS 1688F \ VOGONS

Problem with General Midi on ESS 1688F

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First post, by 650Drew

Posted on 2016-03-30, 06:46

650Drew Offline

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So I'm having trouble with this card. I'm using it in DOS and I have the drivers loaded. The driver says IRQ is 7, DMA is 1, MPU401 address 330 MPU401 enabled with no IRQ channel. I have tried changing the settings for the MPU401, I've disabled it, I've enabled it with different IRQs, set it to share the IRQ, tried setting it to 300, tried my games on both 300 and 330 when the MPU401 was on different addresses and same address and nothing seemed to help. I'm not trying to use the MPU401 port, but I figured maybe it was routing the midi to it or something. I was just trying everything I could think of. If I set music to sound blaster or adlib it works fine but every game I try to use General Midi on it won't work. I attached pictures of the card and of the DOS driver settings. I also attached pictures of the MIDI settings and device resources under Windows 98. The card plays midi under Windows 98 perfectly which is quite confusing to me but it does say it using ESFM Synthesis (220) does that mean that it is using port 220 to do it's midi, shouldn't it be 300 or 330? I'm pretty good with Windows 9x but this DOS sound card stuff has me lost. The card has a wave table header which makes me wonder if it is trying to use that for the midi or something but since midi is working under Windows 98 I'm not sure what to think. Feel like I'm missing something here... Any advice would be GREATLY appreciated or I'll have to go back to my AWE64... NOOOO! (I jest, I love my AWE64, but I really like the sound of this card's midi and would love to use it!)

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Reply 1 of 6, by gdjacobs

Posted on 2016-03-30, 06:58

gdjacobs Offline

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Which daughterboard or MIDI module are you using? Something needs to be there to receive and interpret the MIDI data.

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Reply 2 of 6, by keropi

Posted on 2016-03-30, 07:20

keropi Offline

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yep, you need a daughterboard or an external midi device in order to use the MPU401 interface , this is true for all soundcards out there that don't have an onboard wavetable synth.

🎵 🎧 ⏳ ⚡ MK1869, PCMIDI MPU , OrpheusII , Action Rewind , Megacard and 🎶GoldLib soundcard website

Reply 3 of 6, by 650Drew

Posted on 2016-03-30, 07:30

650Drew Offline

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See, yes that would be the part that I was missing then! So even though it will play midi with the ESFM Synthesis under Windows 98I can't use that same functionally under DOS?

Reply 4 of 6, by keropi

Posted on 2016-03-30, 07:47

keropi Offline

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"ESFM Synthesis" is just a fancy name for the AdLib/Soundblaster OPL music you are hearing under DOS , windows use port220 as this is the one used by SoundBlaster and compatible cards.

Your card can only play 2 things atm:
- samples in a SoundBlaster compatible way
- music with the ESS's own OPLx hardware emulation, what they call "ESFM Synthesis"

🎵 🎧 ⏳ ⚡ MK1869, PCMIDI MPU , OrpheusII , Action Rewind , Megacard and 🎶GoldLib soundcard website

Reply 5 of 6, by gdjacobs

Posted on 2016-03-30, 07:54

gdjacobs Offline

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Windows has the capability of redirecting MIDI ports, often using software wavetable output (MS synth). Creative AWE cards can redirect data from an emulated MPU-401 interface (presented by a DOS driver) to the EMU chip, but this is not completely perfect.

Perhaps a TSR could be made to interpret MIDI via FM synthesis, but i would anticipate this being imperfect as well. With the plurality of DOS games and DOS software applications supporting FM synthesis (sometimes by translating or interpreting MIDI data), I don't believe many people will need one.

All hail the Great Capacitor Brand Finder

Reply 6 of 6, by 650Drew

Posted on 2016-03-30, 08:04

650Drew Offline

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keropi wrote:
"ESFM Synthesis" is just a fancy name for the AdLib/Soundblaster OPL music you are hearing under DOS , windows use port220 as th […]
Show full quote
"ESFM Synthesis" is just a fancy name for the AdLib/Soundblaster OPL music you are hearing under DOS , windows use port220 as this is the one used by SoundBlaster and compatible cards.

Your card can only play 2 things atm:
- samples in a SoundBlaster compatible way
- music with the ESS's own OPLx hardware emulation, what they call "ESFM Synthesis"

Thanks you so much for the information. I was thinking that since games sound much better on my AWE64 as General Midi then they do under Sound Blaster or Adlib then that was how I wanted to set this card up. I thought there were 2 ways cards did General Midi either as FM synth or Wavetable, I didn't realize FM synth was Adlib/Soundblaster. Thanks again for clearing that up for me!

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