MrD wrote on 2021-06-08, 15:47:

Riikcakirds wrote on 2021-06-05, 17:55:

MrD wrote on 2021-06-02, 19:55:

Posting to second this. The SB Live's soundfont support on the emulated MIDI device for late protected mode games makes it a very good fit for Duke3D and Doom. 😀 I think it's quite likely that it's the main reason the SB16 DOS emulator exists.

Do you mean soundfont support in real dos or win9x dos prompt.

I mean using SBEINIT.COM in real dos, freedos or rebooting into ms-dos mode.

I have now run it with the 8mb .ecw soudfont in dos but to be honest can't notice any difference in quality between the 2mb, 4mb and 8mb soundfonts. It does sound much better as a GM option that an awe32 or awe64. The mt-32 option worked well on the only game I tested with it, exterminator,1990.
Opl3 emulation is terrible though, and there doesn't seem any way to disable it (by hex editing the binary?). If this could be done it would be an option to use the sblive as a GM sound card in dos and pair it with another card that has real opl3.

Riikcakirds wrote on 2021-06-10, 15:06:

MrD wrote on 2021-06-08, 15:47:

Riikcakirds wrote on 2021-06-05, 17:55:

Do you mean soundfont support in real dos or win9x dos prompt.

I mean using SBEINIT.COM in real dos, freedos or rebooting into ms-dos mode.

I have now run it with the 8mb .ecw soudfont in dos but to be honest can't notice any difference in quality between the 2mb, 4mb and 8mb soundfonts. It does sound much better as a GM option that an awe32 or awe64. The mt-32 option worked well on the only game I tested with it, exterminator,1990.
Opl3 emulation is terrible though, and there doesn't seem any way to disable it (by hex editing the binary?). If this could be done it would be an option to use the sblive as a GM sound card in dos and pair it with another card that has real opl3.

It's still a working option since without SBEINIT loaded there is no SB Live OPL3 emulation. So it's just about a config.sys menu. Without SBEINIT loaded you can use your hardware OPL3 without problems. I'm using my SB Live with an ISA ESS1868 this way. You can also use the other card's OPL3 :
1. By configuring its SB address e.g. to 230h (while SB Live's emulation is at 220h) and use this address for programs that support customized ports.
2. By muting the SB Live (this utility is great for this: Multichannel DOS mixer for DOS sound builds v0.49 for Live, v1.01 for Audigy) and use standard OPL port 388h.