VOGONS


First post, by bjt

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

I recently got hold of an MM-401 to compare against SoftMPU for music tempo etc.

Bit disappointed to be honest - it doesn't work reliably with Legend Entertainment games at all. Occasionally music will play, but most of the time it's silent. There were also some issues with Laser Squad not detecting the MPU interrupt.

On the plus side, you can run SoftMPU on the MM-401 to fix these problems (although this requires a SB-compatible in the same machine).

All the other games I tried did work fine, however, and it's still one of the only options for 286 and older machines.

Reply 1 of 21, by Mau1wurf1977

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++

I can confirm your issues 😀

Tough I admit I never knew / cared about laser quad and the other "exotic" games. But Gateway made me get a Roland midi card because I absolutely love all the Legend adventure games.

My website with reviews, demos, drivers, tutorials and more...
My YouTube channel

Reply 2 of 21, by carlostex

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

With SoftMPU available, i won't buy any intelligent MPU-401 card, unless i could get a Roland MPU-401AT very cheap which, is never gonna happen. Plus the performance penalty that SoftMPU creates is actually very handy for those games that require a certain CPU speed. With my SS7 K6-III+ i'm building, it helps Wing Commander to run at a perfect speed. A 2x multiplier on a 100MHZ FSB with all caches disabled was still too fast. I needed to downclock the FSB to 66MHZ to get a playable speed. SoftMPU creates a performance penalty enough to keep me from changing my FSB to 66MHZ which would be annoying.

On a 386 DX40 the penalty can be bad for games that require all CPU power so i kept SoftMPU 0.51 for those games and there's only a very marginal performance penalty at best. I actually installed faster cache on the motherboard that compensates for this.

SoftMPU is an essencial tool for all vintage PC gamers that cannot live without a Roland MT-32/CM-32L gaming experience. And now those that couldn't get an intelligent mode MPU-401 card can actually enjoy all the games in all their epic sounding glory.

Reply 3 of 21, by keropi

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++

I have a MM-401 with rom 1.15 for testing against my MPU401AT.
I found (thanks to Mau1wurf1977's help) that you need to turn off completely ACPI to have reliable operation even with the MPU401AT.
Both Laser Squad and Gateway _failed_ with the roland MPU when acpi was ON, it gave the same error as the MM401 , IRQ related.
So, with ACPI OFF the roland mpu works fine on these 2 games. But what About the MM-401?

On Gateway there is no more the error on startup about IRQ, I can see the message led on the CM-32L blinking but it plays nothing unfortunately, the midi messages just stop.
On Laser Squad if you use the parameter " /RI2 " to force roland irq to 2, the menu music works , but when you select a mission and the driver gets reloaded or something then it fails with the IRQ error.

There might be an earlier MM-401 ROM that does not have this problem and there might be a later that fixes it. Mine is 1.15 and behaves like that. Maybe someone here has a different version we can test?

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

Reply 4 of 21, by Robin4

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

So how newer the rom, the more problems there are?

I also have a MM-401 with rom 1.15.. I know someone thats having version 1.14..

~ At least it can do black and white~

Reply 5 of 21, by keropi

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++

^ nope, that's not sure... maybe an older rom behaves better, maybe a newer one... no clue yet

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

Reply 6 of 21, by Mau1wurf1977

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++

Mine has 1.14 and Gateway also gave me trouble. However I have never tried it in a board with ACPI disabled. I only found out about this recently...

My website with reviews, demos, drivers, tutorials and more...
My YouTube channel

Reply 7 of 21, by keropi

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++

^ give it a shot Mau1wurf1977, there is a chance it works without ACPI...

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

Reply 12 of 21, by keropi

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++

I don't have the mm-401 anymore... White can you test with Gateway/Laser Squad and tell us if they work?

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

Reply 15 of 21, by Mau1wurf1977

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++

Guys do you want him to test this for you or not 😀

My website with reviews, demos, drivers, tutorials and more...
My YouTube channel

Reply 16 of 21, by keropi

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++

currently waiting for White to report back, don't derail the thread please

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

Reply 18 of 21, by darry

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++
sliderider wrote:
White wrote:

Please, give me a link for this game

We don't support software piracy here.

In this case, though, it would not be piracy, as original publisher Legend Entertainment released Frederik Pohl's GATEWAY for free over twenty years ago !

http://web.archive.org/web/19970412091805/htt … einfo/lost.html