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Yamaha YMF7x4 Guide

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Reply 40 of 324, by Kamerat

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Zup wrote:

- Jazz Jackrabbit CD and Traffic Department 2192: Runtime Error 200. Definitely a CPU speed problem.

Use TPPATCH to patch the .EXE files, works for Jazz Jackrabbit at least: http://www.ipnet6.org/tppatch.html

Zup wrote:

I've disabled both MIDI and joystick port (because my computer have no external MIDI/joystick port). DSDMA.EXE don't work, it hangs my computer but I think I don't need to load it. Also I've got a FMMIDI.EXE program... what does it do? I've tried to run it but give me errors.

There's no need for the DSDMA TSR when SETUPDS supports your chipset and your chipset supports DDMA and/or PC/PCI. The LOADTSR.BAT batch file won't load DSDMA.EXE if SETUPDS detects a supported chipset.

DOS Sound Blaster compatibility: PCI sound cards vs. PCI chipsets
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Reply 41 of 324, by SaxxonPike

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I wish to connect one of these to my motherboard. I'm having trouble finding the necessary cable, though. These are the kind headers I'm talking about (not necessarily the same ports I'll be using). Motherboard is on top, and what's on my YMF724 card is on the bottom.

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Sound device guides:
Sound Blaster
Aztech
OPL3-SA

Reply 42 of 324, by Tertz

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Stretch wrote:

Tertz, do you know of a translated GUI for YMF7x4Utilities?

No, I don't. Maybe there is chance to do resources hack for translation, but I never messed with such.
The other way - to use OCR on screenshots and then translate it by translator app. Or to find a dude with the knowledge of both languages.

Last edited by Tertz on 2016-10-10, 15:14. Edited 1 time in total.

DOSBox CPU Benchmark
Yamaha YMF7x4 Guide

Reply 43 of 324, by jarreboum

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I'm trying to use a Maxi Sound Fortissimo in pure DOS and either I'm missing something, or DOS support is quite lacking.
- No MIDI (without an external device?)
- "sound blaster 8bit sound" is disabled in the sound setup, leaving only "native audio 16bit sound" and "fm sound".
- CD audio is disabled by default for no reason (enabled by going into "volume")
- I can only get adlib-like music in games, nothing better
- I can't get any sound effect to play
I'm using Duke Nukem 3D sound setup to test stuff.

Reply 45 of 324, by jarreboum

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I read it, but apart from "connect your PC/PCI cable!" there isn't much to take from it 😒
Unfortunately neither my sound card nor my motherboard have it.
I'll have win98 on this computer eventually, but it's such a shame that normal PCI cards just don't work in DOS apart from some very basic music support. I got to play a bit with Tyrian, even without the sound effects the chiptune soundtrack is good enough to make you keep going, but that's more like an exception.

Reply 46 of 324, by j^aws

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^^ Well, that's the key: If you don't have a PC/PCI (SB-LINK) connection on your board, then I wouldn't recommend this card for DOS. You are better off with an ISA equipped board.

You can try your luck using DSDMA - a TSR found in the installation directory. Otherwise, try running a DOS session within Windows, with its Win9x drivers. I doubt the compatibility being high.

Reply 47 of 324, by ElBrunzy

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Stretch wrote:

Tertz, do you know of a translated GUI for YMF7x4Utilities ?

I was able to use the program to enable FM MIDI output on my YMF-744 under Windows 98SE, so now I can play MIDI with FM or the XG Synth.

I am curious what else I can do with this program.

The download link of Y7x4Util10.lzh on waybackmachine dont work and I've spent the night to search for that file with no succes 😢. I would very much like to get the FM midi part of the card in windows98. I understand you have that file, do you? Maybe an japanese ftp search of archive could help.

Tertz wrote:

The other way - to use OCR on screenshots and then translate it by translator app. Or to find a dude with the knowledge of both languages.

I think greenshot can do that, I would be very pleased to give it a try if I can put my hand on that file!

Reply 48 of 324, by zyga64

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ElBrunzy wrote:

The download link of Y7x4Util10.lzh on waybackmachine dont work and I've spent the night to search for that file with no succes 😢. I would very much like to get the FM midi part of the card in windows98. I understand you have that file, do you? Maybe an japanese ftp search of archive could help.
!

http://web.archive.org/web/20070218005227/htt … /Y7x4Util10.lzh

1) VLSI SCAMP /286@20 /4M /CL-GD5422 /CMI8330
2) i420EX /486DX33 /16M /TGUI9440 /GUS+ALS100+MT32PI
3) i430FX /K6-2@400 /64M /Rage Pro PCI /ES1370+YMF718
4) i440BX /P!!!750 /256M /MX440 /SBLive!
5) iB75 /3470s /4G /HD7750 /HDA

Reply 49 of 324, by ElBrunzy

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zyga64 wrote:

Thanks zya64, and stretch who PM me the info. I feel like I should know better how to use waybackmachine. I'm building a computer to drive a soundblaster1.5 (received today!) with saa1099 (still in order) and I decided I would give my ymf724 a try as I never had the chance to use it. This card on freedos can drive a mt32 no problem, play like an adlib very well and every part of the chip could be disabled out of the box so I think it will play well with the soundblaster 1.5/cms. On windows98 the midi synth sound good but I wonder how assisted by the card the midi playback is. I just had the chance to test it for the first time yesterday. I will read this guide thoroughly as I apprehend to find many usefull informations about this card.

I wonder why yamaha did hide the fm part of the card on windows? Maybe they fear that people might use it by mistake and give bad word to the card sounding awfull, but that is just my guess.

Reply 50 of 324, by ElBrunzy

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I just received the sb1.5 to put with that soundcard and I found a strange bug in windows. Multimedia midi device seem to confuse the "yamaha opl2/opl3" device (what is that? I havent installed the y7x4util10 yet) with the "soundblaster or compatible" midi device. And play midi on the soundblaster via the yamaha opl2/opl3 device... When I boot to freedos things get a bit more clear, unlike what the setupds.exe might suggest, you cannot change the 388h baseport or disable it on, it always get back to enabled port 388h and hence conflict with soundblaster 1.5 (wich has upper hand on that project). Maybe setupds.exe text-GUI allow me to disable or change the fm port, but it's unsupported with my specific model ?

Reply 51 of 324, by Stretch

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I found a message board kenken2ch.com/nt/jisaku/1317090967/t1 explaining how to install the YMF7x4 sound card at least up to Windows 8 32 bit (64 bit will never work since Yamaha never released a 64 bit driver).

I have tried to summarize the steps, but I have not tried this procedure.

  • Download and unzip wdm754_5245.zip from Hoontech
    Decompress data1.cab with i6comp with "i6comp e data1.cab"
    Delete NLDS1Y03.INF
    Download the following file to the installation directory and rename it to NLDS1Y03.INF
    scargo.com/nshim/ymf/custom/NLDS1_WDM5245b2.inf
    Disconnect lan cable
    Install from the device manager by pointing to the extracted directory
    Y7x4Utilities needs to run in WinXP compatibility mode

Here's a screenshot posted in that message board showing the device manager with properly installed sound card.
YMF 754 (Hoontech DIGITAL-XG Gold) with Win8DP x86 version

Win 11 - Intel i7-1360p - 32 GB - Intel Iris Xe - Sound BlasterX G5

Reply 52 of 324, by j^aws

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ElBrunzy wrote:

I just received the sb1.5 to put with that soundcard and I found a strange bug in windows. Multimedia midi device seem to confuse the "yamaha opl2/opl3" device (what is that? I havent installed the y7x4util10 yet) with the "soundblaster or compatible" midi device. And play midi on the soundblaster via the yamaha opl2/opl3 device... When I boot to freedos things get a bit more clear, unlike what the setupds.exe might suggest, you cannot change the 388h baseport or disable it on, it always get back to enabled port 388h and hence conflict with soundblaster 1.5 (wich has upper hand on that project). Maybe setupds.exe text-GUI allow me to disable or change the fm port, but it's unsupported with my specific model ?

If you have multiple FM devices in Windows and have issues with ports, try switching between devices by disabling one using Windows Device Manager. Switch between them when you need them.

Reply 53 of 324, by ElBrunzy

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j^aws wrote:

If you have multiple FM devices in Windows and have issues with ports, try switching between devices by disabling one using Windows Device Manager. Switch between them when you need them.

I discarded the ymf724 a bit too hastily and decided to give it a second look. On windows98se what I understand is that the “Yamaha opl2/opl3” is in fact the name windows give to the soundblaster 1.5 FM1312 opl chip, which is correct but a bit misleading for the noob in me trying to install a Yamaha ymf724 and a soundblaster 1.5 in the same computer. After I installed the Y7x4Util10 I could even switch my favorite midiplayer (that is virtual jukebox of course) from the sb1.5 opl2, sb1.5 midi out, ymf724 opl 3, ymf724 midi out and ymf soft synth in windows, everybody was happily living together. I guess I could even made a midi mapper with all of them but didn’t went that far.

On freedos it is another story. The sb1.5 was all right playing opl2 and audio with doctor sbaitso (which didn’t help me at all with my dual card problem, maybe the doctor was biased upon using another product not from creative labs 🤣 ). But as soon as I init the ds-xg with setupds /s, I can play midi from the opl3 of the ymf, that is fine, but the opl2 and pcm of the sb where not usable anymore even if I did put the ymf baseport to 240h and the sb at 220h. I did read many times that both soundcard on port 388h would play at same time, but that turn out to not being the case in my setup. Maybe it’s an ymf legacy irq conflict that I cannot change on dos? Why I need to init the ymf on dos to listen to the sb is because I want to route the output of the sb to the cd-in of the ymf and the mixer don’t work if the card has not been initiated.

What I will try now is to put the bios pnp os to yes and see if by any chance this would init the mixer of the card. Also I could try to disable the legacy part of the ymf and see if I can still use the mixer after I initialize it. I will try to post the result of that tonight, but at this point I searched for another card to coexist with the sb1.5 and I found a awe64value in my pcboard drawers which I think I will give a try. I just wanted to leave this very good thread with correct information.

Reply 54 of 324, by j^aws

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^^ From experience, it's easier getting non-Sound Blaster cards (e.g. GUS, Ensoniq etc.) that have different port requirements working alongside Sound Blaster cards.

Rather than routing Ins and Outs of multiple sound cards, investing in an external mixer makes it so much easier when working with multiple cards. The mixer doesn't need to be anything fancy, or you can even use a simple two-way audio switcher instead.

Reply 55 of 324, by ElBrunzy

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Thanks for the idea j^aws but, for reasons that are off-topic, I dont want to do that for this projet.
Anyway, putting the bios in pnp mode didnt help the ymf724 init it's mixer. What I found is that on the dos text-gui you have to set the mixer first because if you disable the legacy audio it "gray out" the mixer, what a design flaw because then the mixer of the ymf is used to the output and as the legacy is disabled, the sb1.5 work allright. That config could suffice my need, but as half the fun is to setup the computer, I think I will try my luck with an awe64value to go with the sb1.5 and if I dont find any better I might very well get back to this setup.

Reply 57 of 324, by DragonSlayer

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@Stretch: I just spent the last several hours trying the method that you posted and I've come closer with it than I have by any other method so far; however, I still can't seem to get the ports opened up for FM passthrough to DOSBox. Everything else is working flawlessly under Windows 7 32bit.

I'm still not 100% sure that I was able to successfully follow the method that you posted because I didn't get everything looking like the picture, but I got close. It was really hard to follow that very poor Japanese Google translation. I got the drivers installed, but couldn't seem to get to the point that I could run the YMF tools.

I didn't even see all of the tools that were in the picture such as the "YMF7x4 Utilities". I'm still trying to find a working link to download those elusive "YMF7x4 Utilities" like in the picture.

The funny thing is that when I Peek port 388 I get a return value of 88. I thought that the value would have to be either FF for closed or 00 for open. So what exactly does 88 mean? Half open??? This is where I'm currently stuck.

I'm also able to install PowerYMF under this setup, even though I've read that it only works under XP, but I can't seem to find any way to use it to open up the ports either.

I've also used Diagnose.exe to try to initialize the ports, but to no avail.

"There are only 10 types of people in the world; those who understand binary, and those who don't."

Reply 58 of 324, by DragonSlayer

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Bingo! I finally found a working link to the very elusive YMF7x4 Utilities 1.0 AKA "Yamaha Utilities"! 😀

http://www23.tok2.com/home/muvosquare/test/y7x4util10.lzh

The only problem is that it is half in English and half in Japanese. Do we have any members here that can translate the Japanese parts into English and post translated pictures for those of us that can't read Japanese?

The program seems to work, but I'm fumbling around trying to make sense of it.

Unfortunately; however, I've still not yet been successful at FM passthrough in DOSBox.

Perhaps someone else here that can read Japanese will be able to use the Yamaha Utilities and figure out a way.

Edit: I just found out through translating the readme using Google Translate that it says that many of the settings require a reboot to take effect. I was not taking this into account before and so that may play a major role in getting the desired results. Anyone that plays around with this software should definitely take this new info into account.

Edit: I just discovered through the Yamaha Utilities that the driver YDSXGDK.SYS didn't automatically install using the previously posted install method so I manually moved it to the System32 and System32\drivers directory. So far I've not noticed any difference this has made, but it must play a role in something or else Yamaha Utilities wouldn't have had it grayed out before and now it's not grayed out. Anybody know what YDSXGDK.SYS does and if it's important?

Edit: I finally did it!!! I successfully got OPL3 FM passthrough to DOSBox inside Windows 7 32bit! I will be writing a full guide in a new post soon.

Edit: The guide is finished and posted. I hope it will be of help to others struggling to get this working. DOSBox Guide To OPL3 Passthrough Using Yamaha YMF7x4 Series Sound Cards (Unsupported)

"There are only 10 types of people in the world; those who understand binary, and those who don't."

Reply 59 of 324, by VEG

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1040: support of EAX 2.0 and DirectX 7, the best version for quality MIDI

Is it better than with WDM versions of the drivers? Can someone descript the difference or provide a recording of some example, which will show why this version is the best?

BTW, it seems that it is possible to port all tables from the drivers of the YMF7x4 to the Yamaha S-YXG50 SoftSynth. It would be nice to record how YMF7x4 plays some interesting MIDI files, especially where the difference is noticeable in comparison to the S-YXG50 2MB/4MB. It will be helpful for understanding if S-YXG50 can produce the same sound as YMF7x4 using the tables from the YMF7x4 drivers.

Also I've decrypted the dsxgwave.tbl (or ydsxg.dat), you can download it here: http://veg.by/files/midisynth/yamaha_dsxgwave.7z. It contains all samples.

Here I've found such information:

Wavetable size: 4MB (2MB in hardware, 2MB in software)

That's strange. It seems that these audio cards don't have any onboard WAVE ROM. Is it a mistake? It seems that all YMF7x4 cards use the same 2.4MB wavetable.

Best regards, Evgeny