If you currently have Windows installed, does playing a wav file with a Windows application work in stereo ?

EDIT : Try initializing the card with SETYMF.EXE and make sur DSP version is set to 3 . Also, I imagine you are setting DN3D for a Sound Blaster Pro ? Are you using 22KHz ou 44.1KHz mixing ?

darry wrote on 2020-04-30, 01:34:

If you currently have Windows installed, does playing a wav file with a Windows application work in stereo ?

EDIT : Try initializing the card with SETYMF.EXE and make sur DSP version is set to 3 . Also, I imagine you are setting DN3D for a Sound Blaster Pro ? Are you using 22KHz ou 44.1KHz mixing ?

44.1 if I remember, and other games have no issue with stereo sound effects, with dark forces and TIE Fighter being recent examples.

BetaC wrote on 2020-04-30, 03:03:

darry wrote on 2020-04-30, 01:34:

If you currently have Windows installed, does playing a wav file with a Windows application work in stereo ?

EDIT : Try initializing the card with SETYMF.EXE and make sur DSP version is set to 3 . Also, I imagine you are setting DN3D for a Sound Blaster Pro ? Are you using 22KHz ou 44.1KHz mixing ?

44.1 if I remember, and other games have no issue with stereo sound effects, with dark forces and TIE Fighter being recent examples.

The Sound Blaster Pro (which is what the YMF719 emulates) only supports STEREO output up to 22KHz . I do not know if, in DN3D, setting the mixing rate to 44.1 KHz also sets the output rate to 44.1KHz, but if it does, that would explain the MONO sound .

darry wrote on 2020-04-30, 03:09:

The Sound Blaster Pro (which is what the YMF719 emulates) only supports STEREO output up to 22KHz . I do not know if, in DN3D, setting the mixing rate to 44.1 KHz also sets the output rate to 44.1KHz, but if it does, that would explain the MONO sound .

Unlikely that it did that when detecting the card correctly. The SB Pro driver in DN3D should know the limits of the card.

The question is: what sound card did it actually detect and did you try changing it manually to SB Pro?

I just tried it .
I can confirm that at least with a YMF715, when you configure for a SB Pro II, DN3D setup lets you choose 44.1KHz mixing, but still plays back in STEREO, so it probably down-samples the output to 22KHz , so that isn't the issue .

Mixing frequency is for internal calculation and has nothing to do with sample rate. So it's (of course) obeying the limits of the SB Pro.

BetaC wrote on 2020-04-30, 01:26:

As per the title, I have been having some problems with the YMF719 based card that I’ve had for most of a year now. Specifically, when I get to the setup portion of installing Duke3D on my system, it properly detects the card, but when I try to play the sound effects in the test, I only ever get mono from them. If this is just some random issue caused by the driver being improperly set, please let me know so I can get things right when I set up my system again without needing to have Windows 98 on top, and or using a pre-set dos loader.

I had this issue not long ago, turned out my fault was selecting Sound Blaster 16 instead of Sound Blaster in the setup. When you select Sound Blaster it later allows you to specify Sound Blaster Pro 2.0 which solves everything.

YMF71x cards actually can go up to around 500KHz in SB mode. The cards shouldn't have any issue with stereo sound in Duke3D, except when you use WDM drivers in Windows, in which case DOS support is borderline broken. Use the VXD drivers provided by Yamaha if you also plan to use the card in Windows.
For DOS one can use my SETYMF utility as pointed out prior, it should be far more user friendly than Yamaha's SETUPSA.

Tiido wrote on 2020-04-30, 12:13:

YMF71x cards actually can go up to around 500KHz in SB mode. The cards shouldn't have any issue with stereo sound in Duke3D, except when you use WDM drivers in Windows, in which case DOS support is borderline broken. Use the VXD drivers provided by Yamaha if you also plan to use the card in Windows.
For DOS one can use my SETYMF utility as pointed out prior, it should be far more user friendly than Yamaha's SETUPSA.

So I switched over to explicit DOS, albeit with Windows 3.1 available for things that are just easier to install/use in there, and am using you SETYMF utility. I am now having a problem where things are playing properly, but they're at an exceptionally loud volume in every game I play. This seems to happen when I use SETYMF exclusively, because when I use SETUPSA, and reduce the SB Mixer to 1, I get proper audio levels, albeit without sound effects playing in duke and the Doom games.

By default, SETYMF sets all sound sources to 0db (highest SNR, no clipping), but you can change things to your liking on the mixer screen and use the sound tests as reference for getting the balance right.

Tiido wrote on 2020-05-15, 09:17:

By default, SETYMF sets all sound sources to 0db (highest SNR, no clipping), but you can change things to your liking on the mixer screen and use the sound tests as reference for getting the balance right.

Okay, so what would be the equivalent of SBMixer 1 within it, if you don't mind me asking.

That "1" is done behind the scenes, all you care about are the presented settings for each source (i.e SB DAC, FM, MIDI input etc.). If the SFX are way too loud you can move the DAC L+R slider toward left, 6db difference halves the volume for example. Pressing "S" will play a sine on SB side and SB mixer settings are automatically used instead of WSS side ones above, and you get a reference volume. Games can override the mixer settings though if they wanted, I'm not sure what games do so.

Tiido wrote on 2020-05-15, 16:05:

That "1" is done behind the scenes, all you care about are the presented settings for each source (i.e SB DAC, FM, MIDI input etc.). If the SFX are way too loud you can move the DAC L+R slider toward left, 6db difference halves the volume for example. Pressing "S" will play a sine on SB side and SB mixer settings are automatically used instead of WSS side ones above, and you get a reference volume. Games can override the mixer settings though if they wanted, I'm not sure what games do so.

Never mind, as it turns out, I just had the jumpers set to the wrong output level.

Ok, that is really strange and definitely not normal. What is the chip on the card that you have (YMF711/715/718/719/741) ?
I'm not sure what could be going wrong, there shouldn't be any speed sensitivity on the card either...

Tiido wrote on 2020-05-15, 17:18:

Ok, that is really strange and definitely not normal. What is the chip on the card that you have (YMF711/715/718/719/741) ?
I'm not sure what could be going wrong, there shouldn't be any speed sensitivity on the card either...

It's a 719, and as it turns out, the volume problem was the system putting out Speaker level instead of line level. I was getting confused by the music being at a lower level through my SC-55. Now the only problem I am still having is related to TIE Fighter crashing when I try to use General MIDI.

BetaC wrote on 2020-05-15, 23:16:

Tiido wrote on 2020-05-15, 17:18:

Ok, that is really strange and definitely not normal. What is the chip on the card that you have (YMF711/715/718/719/741) ?
I'm not sure what could be going wrong, there shouldn't be any speed sensitivity on the card either...

It's a 719, and as it turns out, the volume problem was the system putting out Speaker level instead of line level. I was getting confused by the music being at a lower level through my SC-55. Now the only problem I am still having is related to TIE Fighter crashing when I try to use General MIDI.

Are you able to test Dark Forces? That also uses iMuse, is it crashing on the midi test? If so it could be a resource conflict have you set it to MPU401 / General Midi?

synrgy87 wrote on 2020-05-16, 10:41:

Are you able to test Dark Forces? That also uses iMuse, is it crashing on the midi test? If so it could be a resource conflict have you set it to MPU401 / General Midi?

Yeah, Dark Forces has no issues. I went through the intro level just in case as well. And before someone asks, my install of TIE Fighter is the Collector's CD version, straight from a legitimate disc.

BetaC wrote on 2020-05-17, 08:53:

synrgy87 wrote on 2020-05-16, 10:41:

Are you able to test Dark Forces? That also uses iMuse, is it crashing on the midi test? If so it could be a resource conflict have you set it to MPU401 / General Midi?

Yeah, Dark Forces has no issues. I went through the intro level just in case as well. And before someone asks, my install of TIE Fighter is the Collector's CD version, straight from a legitimate disc.

My card with a YMF718 while not locking up will fail to autodetect with Tie Fighter Collectors CD, that said I'm using a Dreamblaster midi wavetable board and not directly out to a SC55 or anything.

synrgy87 wrote on 2020-05-17, 14:02:

BetaC wrote on 2020-05-17, 08:53:

synrgy87 wrote on 2020-05-16, 10:41:

Are you able to test Dark Forces? That also uses iMuse, is it crashing on the midi test? If so it could be a resource conflict have you set it to MPU401 / General Midi?

Yeah, Dark Forces has no issues. I went through the intro level just in case as well. And before someone asks, my install of TIE Fighter is the Collector's CD version, straight from a legitimate disc.

My card with a YMF718 while not locking up will fail to autodetect with Tie Fighter Collectors CD, that said I'm using a Dreamblaster midi wavetable board and not directly out to a SC55 or anything.

Do you have anything set specifically with your manual setup? could this all be fixed by moving the DF iMuse over to TIE Fighter?