I don't think Vortex2 supports midi in DOS

@boxpressed seems to have had it working a long time ago: Use Vortex2 without Windows?
and @lilkuz2005 , here: Re: Aureal Vortex 2 no music dos games

fjardest wrote on 2023-10-12, 22:28:

I don't think Vortex2 supports midi in DOS

Indeed, as-is the Vortex 2 has no midi in DOS. Just the MPU-401 interface, leading to nowhere.
You need to connect an external midi module or midi daughterboard to the Vortex 2.

gerwin wrote on 2023-10-12, 22:50:

fjardest wrote on 2023-10-12, 22:28:

I don't think Vortex2 supports midi in DOS

Indeed, as-is the Vortex 2 has no midi in DOS. Just the MPU-401 interface, leading to nowhere.
You need to connect an external midi module or midi daughterboard to the Vortex 2.

Not even in the windows' Restart in MS-DOS Mode Dos ???

B24Fox wrote on 2023-10-12, 22:56:

Not even in the windows' Restart in MS-DOS Mode Dos ???

The Vortex 2 semi-software midi synthesizer is a Windows driver/program. No Windows running means that synthesizer is not running either.
Though, you should already be happy the MPU-401 is fully functional in pure DOS and bug-free, and that a waveblaster header is present. Just need a daughterboard or something.
Examples

gerwin wrote on 2023-10-12, 23:03:

The Vortex 2 semi-software midi synthesizer is a Windows driver/program. No Windows running means that synthesizer is not runnin […]
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B24Fox wrote on 2023-10-12, 22:56:

Not even in the windows' Restart in MS-DOS Mode Dos ???

The Vortex 2 semi-software midi synthesizer is a Windows driver/program. No Windows running means that synthesizer is not running either.
Though, you should already be happy the MPU-401 is fully functional in pure DOS and bug-free, and that a waveblaster header is present. Just need a daughterboard or something.
Examples

I might have one or two crappy midi daughterboards around here somewhere.
Will try again with those, and see if by some miracle, the MIDI port is working... (although the FM side of things was basically non-functional, even if "AU30DOS.com" reported succesfull initialization of the card).

One question though: when a dos program like "AU30DOS.com"initializes the sound card (the CMI8330, also has one; i forget it's name).. on what basis does it set the card's ADDRESS, IRQ, DMA ?
Because I couldn't get those resourses to change, no matter what i wrote in Autoexec.bat... 😕

EDIT:
Because in DOS, the CMI8330 couldn't do Sound Fx in Highway Hunter, although it did music (both are FM, and the game doesn't have a setup program).
While in windows dosbox, both music an Fx, worked fine.

EDIT2:
Oh, and one other question: Does it matter in DOS mode, what IRQs / resources are assigned in windows? Are they tied together in any way?

B24Fox wrote on 2023-10-12, 23:51:

I might have one or two crappy midi daughterboards around here somewhere. Will try again with those, and see if by some miracle […]
Show full quote

I might have one or two crappy midi daughterboards around here somewhere.
Will try again with those, and see if by some miracle, the MIDI port is working... (although the FM side of things was basically non-functional, even if "AU30DOS.com" reported succesfull initialization of the card).

One question though: when a dos program like "AU30DOS.com"initializes the sound card (the CMI8330, also has one; i forget it's name).. on what basis does it set the card's ADDRESS, IRQ, DMA ?
Because I couldn't get those resourses to change, no matter what i wrote in Autoexec.bat... 😕

EDIT:
Because in DOS, the CMI8330 couldn't do Sound Fx in Highway Hunter, although it did music (both are FM, and the game doesn't have a setup program).
While in windows dosbox, both music an Fx, worked fine.

EDIT2:
Oh, and one other question: Does it matter in DOS mode, what IRQs / resources are assigned in windows? Are they tied together in any way?

AU30DOS.com reads settings from %winbootdir%\AU30DOS.INI
When resources overlap with the initialized CMI8330, that is often trouble. CMI8330 takes a lot of resources because it is an ISA SB16 and a WSS card in a single chip.
Actually, when you have a CMI8330 available for pure DOS, there is little reason to bother with a PCI Vortex 2 there too. Unless it is for the Waveblaster header, but alternatively that can be added to the CMI8330 with this or this http://pcmidi.eu/pcmidi.html

gerwin wrote on 2023-10-13, 00:09:

AU30DOS.com reads settings from %winbootdir%\AU30DOS.INI
When resources overlap with the initialized CMI8330, that is often trouble. CMI8330 takes a lot of resources because it is an ISA SB16 and a WSS card in a single chip.
Actually, when you have a CMI8330 available for pure DOS, there is little reason to bother with a PCI Vortex 2 there too. Unless it is for the Waveblaster header, but alternatively that can be added to the CMI8330 with this or this http://pcmidi.eu/pcmidi.html

Oh, so windows resources, and dos-initialized resources mustn't overlap... Gotcha!
All this time, I was intentionally making them the same, by modifying the windows resources to match the DOS ones 🤣 😜

The reason for the Vortex 2, is primarily for DirectX and A3d2. But I thought I could also "milk it" for the midi aspect 😀

The problem with the onboard CMI8330, is that for whatever reason, it's software midi varies it's tempo when playing. Like the musician is tripping very badly while playing the instruments... Audigy 2 has a similar problem on this motherboard. It's sound in dos games is cutting out constantly IIRC, in both windows and dos.
(For the CMI8330, I tried "GeorgeBreese's PCI Latency patch for VIA chipsets", and that kinda helped a little bit, but that introduced some instability, and the actual problem was not really completely fixed, so i uninstalled it.)

Thank you very much @gerwin! And thank you for the links!! 😁

I'm a bit surprised to hear such high praise of Vortex 2's MPU-401... as with it's software midi, I could clearly hear the hanging note bug in both Tyrian and Doom.
Not as bad as in the Audigy2, but it still manifested.

gerwin wrote on 2023-10-12, 23:03:

The Vortex 2 semi-software midi synthesizer is a Windows driver/program. No Windows running means that synthesizer is not runnin […]
Show full quote

B24Fox wrote on 2023-10-12, 22:56:

Not even in the windows' Restart in MS-DOS Mode Dos ???

The Vortex 2 semi-software midi synthesizer is a Windows driver/program. No Windows running means that synthesizer is not running either.
Though, you should already be happy the MPU-401 is fully functional in pure DOS and bug-free, and that a waveblaster header is present. Just need a daughterboard or something.
Examples

Ok, so I dug up the wavetable daughterboard that I have (it's based on a CRYSTAL chip) and connected it to the Vortex 2 wavetable header .
In Windows is heavily exhibits the hanging note bug, and it also has the L & R channels reversed.
But in DOS.. oh man! It initiated right away, and it sounds smooth as silk; no problems! (this is the first time i've ever used a wavetable board, btw).
It IS kinda speed sensitive... so i had to downclock the K6/2+ because in DOS the songs were playing kinda too fast. It also has a bit of slowdown when transitioning from one song to another in Tyrian, when the song fades out.
I don't know if these things are particulat to the Vortex2 or the wavetable board, or what. But overall I'm very happy 😀

If I manage to get the integrated CMI8330 working as SBlaster on top; I think I'm just gonna get a Dreamblaset S2 or X2 or whatever, stick that in the Vortex2, and call it a day 😁

Thank you very much for the suggestions @gerwin ! 🥂

Glad I could help, and glad that the system is making retro tunes!

(no time to comment on the remaining issues now...)

So... moving past my initial excitement, i've got some updates.

Having "AU30DOS.com" loaded, just makes the whole DOS experience a nightmare.
All the games I tried, stutter, no matter how fast the cpu is set, and no matter if i disable all sounds.
Everything is way slower, lower framerates, slower DOS, and it crashes when exiting almost every game
The FM/SBlaster stutters even if i'm using just sound FX that are playing through the CMI8330.

Tyrian is unplayably slow, has soundFX stuttering, and severe MIDI slowdown
Doom has annoying stutter in gameplay and in soundFX (even if it maintains high FPS)
Highway Hunter (being a small game) is less affected, and only has stuttering in the intro, but the gameplay seems fine.

The second that i unload the aureal dos driver "AU30DOS.com -u" everything goes back to normal.

From what I could observe, the values in "au30dos.ini" are set automatically then windows loads, and they reflect the resources that are set in Windows.
You can modify it's values (to a certain extent), and then "Restart in MS-Dos Mode" and those values will be retained for the current session.
So I tried playing around with the line: "cpuspeed=227".
Setting it to "100" slowed things down about twice as much.. and "999" raised the FPS in both doom and tyrian, but still stuttering movement and sound... And it also made Highway Hunter not start anymore.
Replacing it's value with "FFF" or deleting the line altogether, also didn't really seem to improve the situation much.

In summary, my experience seems to reflect this review https://flaterco.com/kb/audio/PCI/#M2A3D which tests the Vortex 1 & 2, and also on different chipsets.
But what I found is that the sound stuttering is also induced in the other sound card that you may have.
And even if you set your game to "No Audio", the gameplay stuttering is still present... even if the fps will then be much higher.

So unless someone comes up with a better driver or something, the Aureal Vortex seems to be a VERY poor choice for DOS.
For in Windows Dos-box, it could be considered ok. But in my case, it *slightly heavily exhibits "DMA clicking/distortion"and the hanging note bug... And it also seems to only use the software *daughterboard midi (in dosbox), even though I selected the wavetable header in control panel.

Sorry about these problems
The Vortex 2 being a PCI card it uses tricks to pretend to be an ISA soundcard in DOS.
AFAIK the Vortex 2 and YMF-724 based cards are the most useful PCI cards for DOS. On my i440BX boards I did not have much issues with them. Like 95% of the games worked fine. That was reflected by other Vogons users as well..
But, when serious about the DOS experience, it is recommended to use an actual ISA-bus sound card that is compatible with DOS sound standards on the hardware level. That is the reason why I hardly use my PCI based sound cards, and my knowledge of them is getting rusty..

That said,
The Vortex 2 troubles you are experiencing may be a motherboard chipset incompatibility. Or it may be an I/O, IRQ or DMA conflict with the CMI8330 chip (SB16 or WSS part).
There are ways to trick Au30dos.com to use an ini file from a different location, as to separate DOS and Windows configuration, that flaterco link illustrated one such trick already.
Though it is up to you to decide whether such investigations are worth your time.

gerwin wrote on 2023-10-14, 12:26:

Sorry about these problems The Vortex 2 being a PCI card it uses tricks to pretend to be an ISA soundcard in DOS. AFAIK the Vort […]
Show full quote

Sorry about these problems
The Vortex 2 being a PCI card it uses tricks to pretend to be an ISA soundcard in DOS.
AFAIK the Vortex 2 and YMF-724 based cards are the most useful PCI cards for DOS. On my i440BX boards I did not have much issues with them. Like 95% of the games worked fine. That was reflected by other Vogons users as well..
But, when serious about the DOS experience, it is recommended to use an actual ISA-bus sound card that is compatible with DOS sound standards on the hardware level. That is the reason why I hardly use my PCI based sound cards, and my knowledge of them is getting rusty..

That said,
The Vortex 2 troubles you are experiencing may be a motherboard chipset incompatibility. Or it may be an I/O, IRQ or DMA conflict with the CMI8330 chip (SB16 or WSS part).
There are ways to trick Au30dos.com to use an ini file from a different location, as to separate DOS and Windows configuration, that flaterco link illustrated one such trick already.
Though it is up to you to decide whether such investigations are worth your time.

Reading other people's experiences these past years, i kinda expected some difficulties with PCI sound in dos. But it kinda got hopeful since i only needed MIDI.

Throughout my testing, for the vortex i've used Port=240 , IRQ=5, DMA=3, FM=388 & 398, and MIDI=330. (Selected these values to get it out of the way of the CMI as much as possible)
And at he end, I tried disabling the onboard CMI in bios. And the DOS slowdown, sped up by a bit... enough to make Doom "seem" normal, but Tyrian showed that the slowdown and stuttering were still there, although less.

I also tried the modded "Au30dos.com" , the one with the "inifiledir" variable, and things behave pretty much the same.

Because in windows Dosbox everything works fine, what I suspect, is that, that's just the way the Vortex 2 DOS-driver functions.
And some motherboards just do a better job at hiding it by doing stuff faster / more optimized.

I'm gonna try again installing the Audigy2 for dos (as i've made some mistakes in my previous attempt), and see if it's onboard midi behaves nicely in dos. Because in windows it was all over the place, the same as the software midi on the CMI.
... In the worst case, i'll just get this adapter that you pointed out https://www.serdashop.com/CHiLLandPhilAdapter , and stick it on the CMI with a wavetable board, and hope for the best.

BTW, is the CMI8330 's MPU-401, bug free?

B24Fox wrote on 2023-10-14, 13:27:

BTW, is the CMI8330 's MPU-401, bug free?

Don't know of any issues with the CMI8330 MPU-401.
There was a recent remake sound card based on this chip:
http://pcmidi.eu/mk8330.html

gerwin wrote on 2023-10-14, 14:10:

Don't know of any issues with the CMI8330 MPU-401. There was a recent remake sound card based on this chip: http://pcmidi.eu/mk […]
Show full quote

B24Fox wrote on 2023-10-14, 13:27:

BTW, is the CMI8330 's MPU-401, bug free?

Don't know of any issues with the CMI8330 MPU-401.
There was a recent remake sound card based on this chip:
http://pcmidi.eu/mk8330.html

This review https://ctrl-alt-rees.com/2022-06-30-mk8330-i … ce-orpheus.html says that this sound card doesn't suffer from the hanging note bug. So i might be good.

Some small corrections to my previous posts, in light of new events, in case someone stumbles across this thread:
Today after turning back on the onboard CMI sound from the BIOS...
- At every boot i now get the "Updating ESCD… Success" message. Not just after I modify something 🤔 Don't seem have any resource conflicts though.
- In Windows, with the Aureal SBPro Emulation turned ON, and playing through it; (Tyrian & Doom) FM music doesn't distort any more. And also the midi hanging note bug is manifested less (but not in the DirectX Diag test though.. Here only on the softMidi behaves fine)
- Also, if it's connected, only the wavetable board can be used in dosbox; and not the softmidi.... as i wrongly stated in my previous post.

Otherwise, yeah.. the windows experience with sound in dos gaming, seems to be good .
DOS is still unchanged though.

As a conclusion to this thread...

In the end I settled (at least for the moment) for an "Audigy2 Value" (SB0240). (L.E.: I upgraded to the ZS (SB0350), and it also works identical)
I installed it loosely following this guide: Guide: Installing Windows 9x and DOS drivers on Audigy cards (version 3.1) (also didn't upgrade DirectX, as it works perfectly with 7.0a)

The DOS initialization tool/driver functions very well, and the onboard MIDI doesn't sound half-bad!
Through sheer persistence, i managed to get the resources to play nice with both cards functioning simultaneously.
WSS, ADLIB, and SB16, have the ideal resources/values set on the onboard CMI8330. And Port 330 midi, set for the onboard midi of the Audigy2.
In DOS, Doom is the only one that screws up the sound effects if the Audigy is initialized. Otherwise, about 10 Dos games I tested, and they all work fine as long as the Audigy is used as MIDI.. If it's used as SB or AdLib, somehow both cards output the music at the same time (each with it's own hardware)... Was actually interesting comparing in some games.. But obviously not an ideal situation, as I would like to be able to plug the output of the CMI into the input of the Audigy2. So i made a separate Batch file that I execute once i'm in DOS, only if i need to initialize the Audigy2 for MIDI. (L.E.: I still kept the "SET CTSYN=C:\WINDOWS" variable at the start of Autoexec.bat, though)
Also beware that for some reason, after initialization, the SET BLASTER setting in the Autoexec.bat, is reset to the values of the Audigy2. So you have to set it again to your desired values, once you entered DOS (I just included it again at the end of that separate batch file i mentioned).

So, yeah... As a beginner, I quite recommend the Audigy2 as a 2 in 1 (for DOS + DirectSound/EAX), along side an OPL card.
Has pretty nice sounding MIDI, also works as an MT-32 in old games and doesn't sound THAT bad (just don't bother with the mt-32 "check-box" in the mixer, it makes the sound worse for some reason), no hanging note bug, no weird driver bugs, and it's pretty easy to get going if you follow the tutorial.