VOGONS

Sound Blaster Live! 5.1 + Roland SC-55 (actually working with VDMSound)

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First post, by Dictator

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Hi Everyone,
I thought I would just pass on a bit of experience here to those searching for it so that a thread exists for posterity. After reading a number of VOGONS' threads about the Sound Blaster Live! 5.1 and otherwise, the general consensus is indeed that the emulated SB16 support of the live! prevents output to a general MIDI device like the Roland SC-55: I myself struggled for a while in both windows 98 DOS mode, and in Pure DOS mode to try and get the Sound Blaster Live! to output to my Roland SC.55 under SB16 Emulation.
I did find a work-around though for Windows 98 DOS here that I found particularly useful and effective - combining the SB16 Emulation in Windows from the Live! with VDMSound emulating an MPU-401 at 0x300 instead of the default 0x330. Perhaps this is already common knowledge or common sense, but I might as well post my findings!

Essentially to get Windows 98 DOS outputting properly to a general midi device attached to Joyport on a Soundblaster Live! you need to:
1. Have the default Soundblaster Live! driver installed on windows 98 with active SB 16 Emulation as seen in the device manager
2. Properly setup a user configured General MIDI output in the Multimedia options in Windows. (Control Panel/Multimedia/MIDI/User-defined Configuration/All 16 Channels out putting to "SBLive! MIDI Out (1040]
3. Installed VDMSound for W9x with properly executed autoexec.bat as described in this topic. (Win9x + VDMSound **ALPHA**]
4. Comment out all Sound Blaster Emulation in the the "Vdms.ini" in "c:/VDMSound" main directory with ; to prevent Soundblaster emulation through VDMSound.
img_20210418_093330k6jz2.jpg
5. Change MPU-401 port to 0x300 from 0x330 in "Vdms.ini" in "c:\VDMSound" main directory.
img_20210418_09334107j4o.jpg
6. Run VDMSound dosdrv after boot in DOS Terminal in Windows 98 DOS. (cd c:\VDMSound -> dosdrv)
7. Enter setup.exe for desired game. Set up normal Sound Blaster settings for FX (Port 220, IRQ 5, DMA 1, etc.)
8. Enter setup.exe for desired game. Set up General Midi or Sound Canvas settings with port directed at 0x300.
9. Enjoy the SB Lives!'s SB16 Emulation + VDMSound properly outputting the general midi to your attached sound canvas.

This is just a small instructions manual on how to get it to work - if anyone has questions or needs more clarification, please do ask! I have tested it so far with build, idgames and a few other and so far have seen 100% success of having the midi device actually be playing back the game's music + combining perfectly well with the SB16 Emulated game sounds.

Reply 1 of 6, by jedikwon

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I've been looking for getting SB Live! midi out work in pure DOS too. So the way you did is basically running games under Window98 DOS mode instead of pure DOS right? Well, that is easy. From my experience, you don't even need to use VDMSound. Just change midi output from Control panel as you mentioned. Control Panel/Multimedia/MIDI/User-defined Configuration/All 16 Channels out putting to "SBLive! MIDI Out (1040]

That just gives me midi out to my midi modules in Windows DOS mode. The real problem is in pure DOS mode. I just can't turn off the midi emulation.

Reply 2 of 6, by mtest001

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I'm glad to find this topic as I have been struggling with this issue for a while. I am not sure to understand this work-around with VDMSound but I will give it a try!

/me love my P200MMX@225 Mhz + Voodoo Banshee + SB32 PnP + Sound Canvas SC-55ST = unlimited joy !

Reply 3 of 6, by mtest001

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jedikwon wrote on 2021-04-21, 04:58:

you don't even need to use VDMSound. Just change midi output from Control panel as you mentioned. Control Panel/Multimedia/MIDI/User-defined Configuration/All 16 Channels out putting to "SBLive! MIDI Out (1040]

Ok doing this alone in my case does not fix the issue. That being said in the control panel I see "SB Live! MIDI Out (6600)" and not "1040"... Not sure if this makes any difference.

Still need to try after installing VDMSound...

/me love my P200MMX@225 Mhz + Voodoo Banshee + SB32 PnP + Sound Canvas SC-55ST = unlimited joy !

Reply 4 of 6, by Razgriz

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I don't know if OP is still around but it would be wonderful if they or anyone else could update this topic with which version of VDMSound for Win9x they were using as there's been multiple attached versions in the linked thread and I've recently starting trying to get my own 98se machine working with an 8820 and a SBLive! (4870), and only running into the same obvious issue of DOS and DOS in Windows not playing to the 8820 (tested with sample midis and i can get it to play with no problem otherwise)

MARANAX INFIRMUX

Reply 5 of 6, by DJonekill

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Just tested this, and it works, as a far as loading games from the Win98 CMDprompt, and it is a good proof of concept - but there's an obvious streamline flaw. This method could really use a launch script, where you create a custom launcher shortcut for every DOS game, that loads this driver before the game, or before the setup for the game, so you don't have to first load the driver manually from the command prompt and subsequently "cd" to the game folder and launch the game from there.

Cheers!

Edit: I've also tried to load VDMsound in the autoexec.bat in win98, but i tink the order of things gets messed up, so that vdmsound works, but only outputs MIDI back to the SB16 emulation leading nowhere, and you're back to square 1.

All in all, I'm surprised that this thread hasn't evolved more that it has, because other than buying a Vortex 2, there's not many other options for getting MIDI output to external devices with SB16 emulation in win98.

Last edited by DJonekill on 2025-10-28, 13:48. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 6 of 6, by NeoG_

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jedikwon wrote on 2021-04-21, 04:58:

I've been looking for getting SB Live! midi out work in pure DOS too. So the way you did is basically running games under Window98 DOS mode instead of pure DOS right? Well, that is easy. From my experience, you don't even need to use VDMSound. Just change midi output from Control panel as you mentioned. Control Panel/Multimedia/MIDI/User-defined Configuration/All 16 Channels out putting to "SBLive! MIDI Out (1040]

That just gives me midi out to my midi modules in Windows DOS mode. The real problem is in pure DOS mode. I just can't turn off the midi emulation.

My understanding is that the SB Live has no way to output MIDI from the joystick port in DOS at all

Retro Rig: BabyAT AladdinV, K6-2+/550, V3 2000, 128MB PC100, 20GB HDD, 128GB SD2IDE, SB Live!, ES1868F, PicoGUS, WP32 McCake, iNFRA 6000 CD

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