VOGONS


First post, by Nagra

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Hi folks,

first of all: My real MT32 works great now with the latest CVS of SCUMMVM for the MAC.

But I am having problems in getting the device to play music under DOS Box 0.6.3-1 for MAC OS X. In fact - nothing happens.

I have an Edirol UM2/EX USB-MIDI-Adaptor connected to my G4 with OS 10.3.9. There is a switch on the device and it is set to: Advanced driver (already tried the other option: OFF, but there were no changes).
Unfortunately in the midi assistent of MAC OS is no option for setting the adaptor to MPU 401 output.
From the adaptor leads a single MIDI-Cable to the MIDI input port of the MT32.

The MT32s L/R audio-output are connected to my audio mixer. Well this setup works extremely good with SCUMM VM. But playing a game in DOS BOX gives me no audio-output.

I have read a lot of posts here and came to the answer, that no modifications within DOS Box (incl. emulators) have to be set or executed to get a real device to work. So, whats wrong here?

Can somebody help? I am so exited by the thought of playing Ultima Underworld 1 with Roland music again.

Nagra

Reply 1 of 16, by HunterZ

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If it works with SCUMMVM, then the same hardware setup should work with DOSBox. You may have to play with the options in your dosbox.conf to make it work though.

Reply 2 of 16, by Nagra

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Thanks HunterZ,

well, I created a dosbox.conf file. It is located in the dosbox-application folder.

I modified the midi part like this:

mpu401=true
intelligent=true
device=coreaudio
config=

I named the device "coreaudio" cause that made sense to me. I think that coreaudio is an apple technology.

I made no other changes or entries.

I saved the file and restarted DOSBox - still my MT32 doesn´t play anything.

I must admit that I am far from understanding this dosbox.conf file. There are lots of examples written in it. I think they won´t have any effect because there is a "#" in front of all of these textlines.

Will DOS Box automaticly use the settings in this file when it get´s started? Or do I have to execute a special command or so?

Nagra

Reply 3 of 16, by HunterZ

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That may be the wrong place to put your dosbox.conf. I think DOSBox creates one automatically, so it should already exist somewhere.

Hopefully someone who uses DOSBox on Mac can help (I'm a Windows user).

Reply 4 of 16, by Nagra

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No Hunter, the dosbox.conf is in the right place. 😀 Found that out by changing some settings like cycles or making entries at the end for the autoexec.bat. DOS Box responded immediately to my changes after it´s next run.

Am I right Hunter, that you own a real MT-32 too and that the device does work with DOS Box for you? If so, what changes or additional entries did you make in dosbox.conf to get the unit play music?

Here are my settings:
mpu401=true
intelligent=true
device=default
config=

But all I get is some kind of emu of the MT32. The device itself doesn´t play anything.

Once again, when I switch over to SCUMM VM 0.9.0CVS the MT32 works fantastic!

Regards
Nagra

Reply 5 of 16, by HunterZ

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Yes, I have a real MT-32 that works with DOSBox.

I'm using the plain CVS version of DOSBox, which doesn't include an MT-32 emulator built in. If your version of DOSBox has an MT-32 emulator built in, it could be interfering with your real one (but not likely unless you have device=mt32 in your dosbox.conf).

Also, what game are you trying to run inside of DOSBox? Have you configured the game to use MT-32 for music?

Reply 6 of 16, by Nagra

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Hello Hunter,

sorry for the absence, but I had to earn some money to get my bills paid. 😊

Well, I am using the CD-ROM Classics version of Ultima Underworld 1 + 2. Both of em on one CD.

In the sound setup menue I choose Roland for music and sound and Soundblaster for Speech. Before exiting the sound installation menue the program tells me, that both Roland and Soundblaster device were detected.

When I start the game I hear something that sounds like an MT32. It must be some kind of emu. I have heard that one need these two rom-files to get the emu to play music.

But I don´t have these rom-files! So what the h..l is going on here? Perhaps the apple quicktime technology is taking over in the background, or so. I have no idea.

Regards
Nagra

Reply 7 of 16, by HunterZ

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Yes, it must be interfacing with some other MIDI synthesizer in your system (software or hardware).

In Windows you can choose a default MIDI device, which I set to my USB-to-MIDI cable (which is connected to my MT-32). I'm not sure how or if this can be done on a Mac.

Reply 8 of 16, by Nagra

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Unfortunately there is no such option on a Mac. I am working with OS 10.4.4 apples latest OS.

All I could do is set the quicktime music synthesizer (which is the default setting) to a soundfont perhaps.
But I don´t want any more emus, I want the real thing!

I found no way to tell the Mac OS to send midi-data directly to my external device. I assume that it will require a modification within the DOS Box code itself to make a real Midi-device play music on a Mac.

Fingolfin, one of the SCUMMVM developers and an audio export on Mac OS X did exactly this a few weeks ago. And since then my mt32 works fantastic.

I think I will contact him next.

Nagra

Reply 9 of 16, by `Moe`

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I have no idea what belongs into the "config=" line on the mac, but that line tells DOSBox which MIDI device to use. You need to find out what values can be written there. DOSBox tries to guess the right value, but it might simply guess wrong.

Reply 10 of 16, by Nagra

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And back I am.

I displayed my problem at the queststudios-forum and I was told there that:

"DOSBox only supports QuickTime and the CoreAudio softsynth. It doesn't support CoreMIDI, which is what would need to be used on Mac OS X for real hardware MIDI."

Since the coremidi-support was implemented into scummvm, my real MT-32 works fine with that emulator, so I am sure that COREMIDI is definately the clue to this problem which only Mac-users have.

Nagra

Reply 11 of 16, by Nagra

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Hi,

I want to bring some new life to this thread here.

Even with the latest version of DOSBox for Mac OS X it is not possible to send midi-data to external devices via an usb-midi-adaptor.

Dear DOSBox-Authors, if you can, then please add this feature in one of the upcoming versions. My dream is to play dosgames on my Mac and listening to an MT-32, CM32L or SC-55.

Thanks, Nagra

MacMini 2018, DOS Box, SCUMM VM, Munt

Reply 12 of 16, by MiniMax

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I am not sure if DOSBox itself deals with these devices. Most likely it is the SDL-library (another piece of free software that DOSBox relies on) that needs to extended to support CoreMIDI.

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Reply 14 of 16, by Amdahl

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I hope I'm not causing trouble by replying to this thread so many years later, but since it did come up in my search for this problem, I figure a response is useful.

DOSBOX does support coreMIDI now, so if you need to get your MT-32 working with a USB to MIDI adapter, just change mididevice=coremidi in your preferences file. If that alone doesn't do it, then you probably need to fiddle with the Audio MIDI program in the Mac OS X Utilities folder.

mixer /listmidi still doesn't work on OSX, so don't expect that to help.

I am using 10.5.8 and DOSBOX 0.73 on Intel.

Reply 16 of 16, by dr.zeissler

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how do I root the mt32 with the UM-ONE to "coremidi" there is no option for that in 10.3.9 ?
a can choose anything in scummvm, I do not get sound from my mt32.

Retro-Gamer 😀 ...on different machines