I am not sure I get it right - do you own a MT-32 or only SB16? Without MT-32 or a similar external MIDI card you wont be able to play the "funky" music and maybe thats the reason the game freezes.

I do have an MT-32 connected to the midi port, but it remains idle when I start the game (no INSERT BUCKAZOID message).

And even if I wouldn't have got an MT-32, the game should start the same, because it's the midi port it should use, not *directly* the MT-32.

And yes, other games work. I can't think of anything else than an outdated driver that doesn't support MPU-401 🙁

The problem is that the MIDI port on Creative's SB16 cards is not 100% MPU-401 compatible.

The good news: There is a patch fixing this for most Sierra games. You can get it from the Quest Studios MT-32 utility page.

I overwritten the old MT32.drv with the new one, but it doesn't do any better.

Now the arrow doesn't appear in DOS, while in Windows 95 it doesn't even start giving me an error like "The program is executing an invalid instruction thus it will be shut down."

Maybe I downloaded the wrong application or did I miss something?

I have the exact same issue Capelino. When having MT32 selected as the audio option the game hangs upon load with a cursor. Thats it. Tried with the Sierra MT32.drv file but no cigar. Any options out there?

Capelino wrote:

I do have an MT-32 connected to the midi port, but it remains idle when I start the game (no INSERT BUCKAZOID message).

And even if I wouldn't have got an MT-32, the game should start the same, because it's the midi port it should use, not *directly* the MT-32.

And yes, other games work. I can't think of anything else than an outdated driver that doesn't support MPU-401 🙁

Note that it is generally better to start your own thread than to resurrect a nearly 10 year old thread. Also, if you are using period hardware you should ask in Marvin ( Marvin, the Paranoid Android ). this forum is for DOS games on modern systems. If you are using DOSBox ask in the DOSBox forum ( DOSBox ).

Moved to Marvin -> Software, I guess.

Isn't SoftMPU required here anyway? UART + MT-32 never works without SoftMPU, afaik.

That's not correct. The MT-32 can (and does) work with UART mode MPU-401 interfaces for specific titles. IJFA, for instance. Many titles that utilize MT-32 audio require normal (intelligent) mode MPU-401 for performance reasons or simply because that was overwhelmingly the form of MIDI interface in PCs of the time, not for any requirement of the MT-32.

gdjacobs wrote:

The MT-32 can (and does) work with UART mode MPU-401 interfaces for specific titles. IJFA, for instance.

Any others? And what does IJFA stand for, btw?

Anyway, I'm pretty sure SQ3 does require intelligent mode.

At least the original SB16 models should be compatible to the old DSP-driven SB-MIDI interface.
As 5u3 posted years ago, there's a driver package for Sierra games.
It will work with the old SB-MIDI interface (but maybe not w/ SB clones).
The only downside is, that it may interfere with sample playback (not checked).

It can be found here:

Sierra Sound & MIDI Utilities
http://www.sierrahelp.com/Utilities/SoundUtilities.html

(See SOUND BLASTER MIDI PORT UTILITY by Anders Olsson, mt32sb.zip)

Alternatively, there's also SOFTMPU (386+)..

derSammler wrote:

gdjacobs wrote:

The MT-32 can (and does) work with UART mode MPU-401 interfaces for specific titles. IJFA, for instance.

Any others? And what does IJFA stand for, btw?

Anyway, I'm pretty sure SQ3 does require intelligent mode.

Yes, it does require an intelligent mode MPU-401 MIDI interface. SoftMPU will overcome this problem (on a supported sound card).
However, back in 2009, you either required an intelligent mode MPU-401 MIDI interface or, the patch as referred to by 5u3.

derSammler wrote:

Any others? And what does IJFA stand for, btw?

IJFA == Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis