Perplex wrote:

I am building a Win98 system on a PCI only motherboard (P4).

Which motherboard?

Perplex wrote:

I have SB16 PCI (CT4740, Ensoniq clone). My plan was (is) to use a MIDI cable breakout from the Gameport to my Roland SC-55.

Won't work for DOS games under DOS. Only way to make it work is to run VDMSound for Windows 9x or with Windows 98SE own MPU-401 emulation of your card got WDM drivers.

Perplex wrote:

I have an ISA AWE64 gold as back up, but that would require a complete re-think on the machine. I also have a Sound Blaster Audigy SB0570, but that doesn't have a gameport so obviously cannot extract MIDI...

The DOS emulation part of the Audigy are still based on the stuff from Ensoniq, so it wouldn't work even with a game port.

Hi Kamerat, thank you for your quick comments!

The PC is currently...
- Motherboard: PCCHIPS m925 rev. 1.3B
- P4 3.0Ghz
- 512mb ram
- IDE CD ROM Drive
- IDE HDD (but this will evolve, have SATA ports on MB, a PCI SATA card, a Compact Flash PCI Card to experiment with)
- Radeon 9550
- SoundBlaster 16 PCI

[Edited out old speculation / ramble in case it confuses future reader]

Hi, with your helpful comments i’ve been able to zero in more on what I need to be searching for and I think I understand what the VDM and MPU-401 emulation approaches attempt to do. I will experiment tonight. Thank you!

I have had some success with VDMSound. I have not changed any of the configuration but in its default form, running DOOM2 and selecting “GENERAL MIDI” for music and “SOUNDBLASTER” for sound... so far I get MIDI sent to the SC-55. I have however lost sound effects. I need to do more investigation.

But a great first step, thank you! I think I might just buy a DOS machine, P1 or P2 and go the AWE64 gold ISA route in the future as I suspect this approach is subject to major user error and misconfig per game.

Edit: I would add that I have turned up a blank on your second suggestion about finding MPU emulation drivers for the card. I’m probably searching poorly again

Perplex wrote:

I have had some success with VDMSound. I have not changed any of the configuration but in its default form, running DOOM2 and selecting “GENERAL MIDI” for music and “SOUNDBLASTER” for sound... so far I get MIDI sent to the SC-55. I have however lost sound effects. I need to do more investigation.

You can try to comment out the stuff listed under [SB Controller.config] in VDMS.INI to disable VDMSound's Sound Blaster emulation.

Perplex wrote:

But a great first step, thank you! I think I might just buy a DOS machine, P1 or P2 and go the AWE64 gold ISA route in the future as I suspect this approach is subject to major user error and misconfig per game.

As your motherboard got a VIA chipset you should really get an ESS Solo-1 based sound card for use with DOS games, the Terratec ones are nice.

Perplex wrote:

Edit: I would add that I have turned up a blank on your second suggestion about finding MPU emulation drivers for the card. I’m probably searching poorly again

It's actually Windows' own emulation that kicks in when using WDM drivers. You actually get Sound Blaster Pro emulation when using a generic USB sound stick. 😜

Kamerat wrote:

Perplex wrote:

But a great first step, thank you! I think I might just buy a DOS machine, P1 or P2 and go the AWE64 gold ISA route in the future as I suspect this approach is subject to major user error and misconfig per game.

As your motherboard got a VIA chipset you should really get an ESS Solo-1 based sound card for use with DOS games, the Terratec ones are nice.

Specifically this one:
http://www.amoretro.de/2012/03/terratec-solo- … dkarte-pci.html

Thank you for the advice!

I will try your VDM .ini file suggestions

I’ve been a bit reckless but have decided this forum seems to know it’s stuff, so i’ve just blindly bought one of those ESS cards without researching what relevance having a VIA chip means.

My guess is that I should be able to reboot in DOS mode with this card and play games with sound and music piped to the SC-55. If not, never mind, my fault for lack of research.

Assuming that works it does mean I will have a few parts lying around that are screaming for another retro pc build... voodoo 3, voodoo 2, awe 64 gold... but I’ve promised myself it would just be one old PC and not a collection ... 🤣

Anyway ... thanks again both.

ESS Solo-1 'just works', both in DOS and Windows. I had one recently (the Terratec Solo-1) but sold it to someone who asked me to solder a Wavetable header to it. No problem, did that, then tested it with both a Korg daughterboard and my Yamaha MU50EX external module. In Win98 you get the (IMHO crap) ESFM GM synthesis by default, but go to multimedia properties and you can also choose MPU-401. Do that and it will send MIDI over gameport and wavetable header. If there's anything there, it should play it. In DOS it's even easier - just install the drivers and go.

The Solo-1 supports SBLink, but I wasn't able to notice any difference in behaviour with it attached or not, it worked fine in DOS without it.