First post, by FeedingDragon
- Rank
- Oldbie
I've been working on my vintage system that has an MPU-401 with MT-32 installed. I ran into a problem with Star Wars X-Wing in that it causes the buffer overflow issue on the MT-32. So, after an exhaustive search, I downloaded SoftMPU. I don't need intelligent mode emulation, but it was the only thing I could find that could add in a sysex delay in DOS. However, I cannot get it to work "just" with the MPU-401, it insists that it has to have the SoundBlaster information as well. It then sets up to work on Port 330 IRQ 5 (while my card is Port 330 IRQ 2/9.) Whether this is the cause, or X-Wing MT-32 music is normally like this, the result is that the music rather sucks. Obviously missing notes, some notes extremely quite (even though they obviously shouldn't be,) while others threaten to break my speakers. Instrument names & other messages rapidly appearing/disappearing on the LCD display (as in, I have time to read tamb of "I assume" tambourine - then it's gone, 1/10th of a second or less.)
So, I would like to suggest that maybe you could allow it to load with just the MPU port and /DELAYSYSEX?
On a side note, is there any way to get it to work as a simple re-director? That is, games that are "locked" to port 330 (really, why do that?,) can be re-directed to port 300. I'm thinking X-Wing "might" sound better on my AWE32 WaveSynth (with the right set loaded.) Only, I don't want to have to open my system every time I want to play X-Wing, or one of my other games (that sound best on the MT-32, and also have a locked MIDI port.) I had hoped that the AweUtil could take care of that for me, but it doesn't seem to work that way.
As a final note, though I don't see any way this would ever be needed 😀 Just a FYI - you cannot have AweUtil loaded and use SoftMPU at the same time. Using them in combinations was one of my "attempts" at re-directing the MIDI port 🙁 I didn't think it would work, but I thought it couldn't hurt. Turns out that SoftMPU keeps AweUtil from even loading, and AweUtil makes SoftMPU lock up my system. So, can't say definitively that the combination won't re-direct the MIDI port, but I sort of doubt it would work.
**Locked Port 330** Please don't answer that question, it was rhetorical. I actually know why they did it that way. I just think its stupid 🙁
Feeding Dragon