He probably didn't use oplemu=compat

Any reason why that isnt the default?

Because it isn't fast?

Another change that may help is oplrate=49716. (But in such a case it's better to set rate=49716 as well, and possibly other rates in a similar manner.)

The actual game (DOOM II Map 1) doesn't sound quite like that. DOSBox is built for games, not musicians. The video poster did not include his DOS settings or the model of Sound Blaster 16 he used.

I tried it myself and thought it sounded better on the youtube than reality too. Hmm. I'm sure the Doom II music is famous enough to have some MP3 samples floating around with various sound cards. Anyone know where?

valnar wrote:

I'm sure the Doom II music is famous enough to have some MP3 samples floating around with various sound cards. Anyone know where?

Statements like this make me chuckle... If it were famous enough to have mp3 samples floating around you wouldn't need to ask where to find them instead you'd instantly find them 😉

Pretty much ANY real sound card will sound different. Some slightly, some significantly. So what is the reference? 😀

Also Doom supports MIDI anyway.

Doom: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBm_qK5jvPI

Doom 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKJsseejs2U

If any sound card doesn't sound like it should it is either shitty or broken or both. Different types of cards may use different (analog) filtering, Sound Blaster cards for example use some radical low-pass filtering which is completely absent in YMF71x cards. But if you can hear a difference between two identical cards, one of them must be broken.

ESFM and other clones, that's where things start to get interesting.

Dominus wrote:

valnar wrote:

I'm sure the Doom II music is famous enough to have some MP3 samples floating around with various sound cards. Anyone know where?

Statements like this make me chuckle... If it were famous enough to have mp3 samples floating around you wouldn't need to ask where to find them instead you'd instantly find them 😉

Actually, I think somebody in this forum once, posted several years ago, has a link to a bunch of examples from various MIDI boards. It's hard to search for it though, and I don't remember if FM from a genuine OPL3 was part of the pack.

The best way to compare DOSBox to the real thing is to take a digital capture from an AWE32 or PCI YMF-7xx and compare the output. DOSBox does not emulate analog filters and pre-amps that connect to the DAC.

So I found this thread and for the first time in awhile got all excited.
Windows, Doom, Apogee OPL3 Synthesizer.

I imagine from a DOSBox perspective, the user mode driver adds nothing because DOSBox already emulates FM (unless somebody can tell me it emulates it even better?) However, the kernel mode driver is fascinating.

I don't have a sound card in my Win7 box with a real OPL3, but would the FM from such a card be able to pass directly to DOSBox through this driver? And for that matter, although this is probably a Marvin question, if there was a Win7 supported PCI sound card that had a real OPL3 and DB connector, could I get real FM and a Roland SCD-15 into DOSBox? Would be the best setup possible. No need for BASSMIDI either.

Hal's Megabuild does feature OPL3 passthrough already. Useful to save a bunch of cycles on a Pentium machine running it 😁

Ah...so does ykhwong's build as I see. I guess I never paid attention to the feature because I don't have a sound card currently with an OPL3.

That being said, how does DOSBox pick up the hardware FM if the host Windows OS (sound driver) is not aware of it? Wouldn't that mean you need HAL's build in conjunction with this new kernel mode driver?

On any DOSBOX build supporting OPL passthrough, you assign a port number which contains the device location for your OPL3 device. I believe this does so via porttalk.sys. Of course, if your OS currently does not have a device accessible at that location, it simply won't work.

The kernel mode driver supposedly does a similar thing, in that it uses a miniport(?) invocation to 0x388 to spam OPL3 commands to. Of course, with the absence of any device available at 0x388, it simply won't work.

MaliceX wrote:

On any DOSBOX build supporting OPL passthrough, you assign a port number which contains the device location for your OPL3 device. I believe this does so via porttalk.sys. Of course, if your OS currently does not have a device accessible at that location, it simply won't work.

The kernel mode driver supposedly does a similar thing, in that it uses a miniport(?) invocation to 0x388 to spam OPL3 commands to. Of course, with the absence of any device available at 0x388, it simply won't work.

So there is another way activate it to Dosbox. Set games' sound to General MIDI or MPU-401 like, and hearing as FM-MIDI. But it COMPLETELY emits disgusting sounds that I have never heard in youth.
Lots of games support both MIDI and OPL, but designed music differently in both way. (Attach included, first is pure dosbox emulation and second is FM MIDI via user mode driver.)
But I found out old Windows Falcom games do great FM MIDI output. Anyway Japanese developers are keep in view about gamers only have FM synth.

ik777 wrote:

So there is another way activate it to Dosbox. Set games' sound to General MIDI or MPU-401 like, and hearing as FM-MIDI. But it COMPLETELY emits disgusting sounds that I have never heard in youth.
Lots of games support both MIDI and OPL, but designed music differently in both way. (Attach included, first is pure dosbox emulation and second is FM MIDI via user mode driver.)

Ah yes, KAJA's MML-based PMDIBM music driver for YM3812 is very good. I have a few other soundtracks that was made with PMDIBM. (Mad Paradox, Rusty, Marble Cooking). There's also the terrible ones from JAST like...Seasons of Sakura which sound like MIDI converted to Adlib (badly). haha

BTW, the MIDI soundtrack for Princess Maker 2 was not designed for FM MIDI, but for Roland Sound Canvas (SC-55) I believe.

ik777 wrote:

But I found out old Windows Falcom games do great FM MIDI output. Anyway Japanese developers are keep in view about gamers only have FM synth.

Puyo Puyo 2 windows port was also FM MIDI-targeted. Give these a listen through: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1287967/puyo2-win.zip

Also, I just have to comment on the OP's video. Yeah I've seen it before. It's not even a proper fair test, and it was also using an older sound core. DOSBOX' current emulation sounds very very close to my YM7724F-V (OPL3-SAx) card, which I'd say is a pretty darn good reference.

MaliceX wrote:

DOSBOX' current emulation sounds very very close to my YM7724F-V (OPL3-SAx) card, which I'd say is a pretty darn good reference.

The YMF7xx series have an integrated OPL3-L (YMF289) actually. It is by all means identical to the YMF262, except that the sample rate is slightly different.