HardMPU with Roland MT-32 and P2-266 \ VOGONS

HardMPU with Roland MT-32 and P2-266

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First post, by monsterbaldy

Posted on 2020-05-22, 19:20

monsterbaldy Offline

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I have a hardmpu with a Roland MT-32 and a P2-266 and I am having a heckuva time getting it to run without issues.

I have various slowdown software, slowdos, setmul, etc.
I played through all of KQ4 but I don't remember what I did slowdown wise, if anything. I may have just run it with extended memory and no slowdown.
KQ5 will lock up no matter what I try. It seems to do best with L1 cache disabled, but even that locked up when I got to the town. Slowdos also had lockups.
Sam and Max likes the L1 cache disabled for the Roland, but if I slow it down enough for the Roland to work (which man does it sound good) the game just runs too slow to be fun for me.

When I disable the Roland and just use Adlib/SB settings in the game I seem to have no issues, so fairly sure the issue is related to Roland timing.

Are there any hardmpu settings I need to be aware of? Any advice here at all? Thanks in advance.

-ben

Reply 1 of 5, by keropi

Posted on 2020-05-22, 19:27

keropi Offline

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I'm afraid all those issues you are experiencing is because your system is too fast. Keep in mind all those MT-32 games are late 80s and early 90s ones - where a P2 is way overkill. It is not the hardware that fails but the game drivers crap out because of speed.
One other thing to consider is if your system truly has IRq2/9 free to use - the recommended IRQ for mt-32 gaming. By that time that IRQ was hardcoded to ACPI but some mobos allowed it to be freed by choosing APM for power management. I even have a couple of PCI 486 mobos that IRQ9 cannot be freed and thus you are forced to use another IRQ that some games might not like...
I know it's not the answer you might want to read but it is my opinion that a slower system will work way better with these older games.

🎵 🎧 ⏳ ⚡ PCMIDI MPU , OrpheusII , Action Rewind , Megacard and 🎶GoldLib soundcard website

Reply 2 of 5, by monsterbaldy

Posted on 2020-05-22, 23:51

monsterbaldy Offline

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Yeah I fully agree with you, but the 266 is what I have and the MT-32 is what I love...

Any advice on the best way to slow the system down? I've mostly played around with setmul and slowdos.

Reply 3 of 5, by gdjacobs

Posted on 2020-05-23, 04:10

gdjacobs Offline

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You can try throttle. It uses ACPI hardware features to slow down newer systems.
http://www.oldskool.org/pc/throttle/DOS

All hail the Great Capacitor Brand Finder

Reply 4 of 5, by keropi

Posted on 2020-05-23, 06:45

keropi Offline

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I have no good solution slowing down p2+ systems, personally for pure dos my max setup is a 233mmx p1 which one easily slows down so all Roland stuff work

🎵 🎧 ⏳ ⚡ PCMIDI MPU , OrpheusII , Action Rewind , Megacard and 🎶GoldLib soundcard website

Reply 5 of 5, by monsterbaldy

Posted on 2020-05-26, 11:48

monsterbaldy Offline

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I think my issue may actually be related to a hardmpu conflict. Going to move my issue to that main thread.

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