Which version of Windows are you using?

Just realized I posted in the wrong forum section...
I tried it with Win95 and 98. After experimenting for a couple of hours I found out that during the driver installation windows installed every piece of the drivers correctly except for the midi device. For the midi device windows installed a generic midi driver. After changing the driver to the turtle beach one almost everything works now. I can load sound banks etc. and also play midi music.
However, one thing is still not working: Selecting General Midi does not provide any sound in a windows dos box. No matter which port I chose, there is no sound in a windows dos box. Any ideas how to resolve that issue?

Can't say that I know how to fix that.
Documentation says:

Compatibility
* Windows 95 Plug'n'Play
* SoundBlaster and SoundBlaster Pro compatible
* MPU-401 compatible MIDI interface (DOS and Windows)

That might just mean that you can use the Game/MIDI port as an MPU-401 in DOS (or possibly in a DOS box under Windows 95), not necessarily that the card will play MIDI music. I never tried it myself, but when I have some time I could give this a try.

Playing music works in windows. It's just not working in Games within windows. Is that a normal behaviour? Would be nice if you could try it out with your card!

I just tried it out with my Tropez Plus running under Windows 98SE. I managed to get sound from the internal WaveFront synthesizer in both Windows applications and inside a DOS box within Windows. So it's definitely possible.

One thing to be aware of is that Windows may allocate very unconventional ports to the MPU-401 interface of the Tropez Plus (hooray for Plug-n-Play 🎉). In my case it was assigned port 250, which is often not selectable in DOS applications. Check the Windows device manager to see which port it is using. Perhaps you can override it to use port 330 and IRQ 2/9 there. Otherwise I would suggest to just boot to DOS for those applications, as you said that you got it working in pure DOS.

Hope this helps!

Hm... for some reason I cannot select the port 330 for the MPU-401 in the device manager. The ports available are 350 and up. 300 to 330 are only available for the tropez wavetable midi synthesizer device. Any idea how I can fix that?

Edit: I think the tropez wavetable midi synthesizer device is the right onw with the port range 300 to 330. However, I just get no sound in a dos box within windows. The midi player is able to play midi files though...

You're right, the Tropez wavetable MIDI synthesizer device is the one that you need.

Which DOS software are you trying to get to work inside a DOS box in Windows? Perhaps you can try out some software that allows you to freely specify the MPU-401 port address. Then you don't have to manually override the settings in the device manager and just use whatever Windows automatically assigned to the device. I tried it with the Warcraft II setup program. I filled in the 250 port address that the device manager reported and it worked fine.

Oh, and obviously don't forget to init the WaveFront synth first by uploading the firmware and sound bank to the card. It doesn't do that automatically with my Windows setup. I have to open the Tropez Plus control panel first. You mentioned that you got it to work in Windows, so I'm assuming that you did this, but just in case 😀

OMG... I didn't realize I had to upload the sound bank manually... I knew I was missing something very simple 😁 Now it works like a charm 😀
Big thanks!

Haha, often the solution is easier than you'd think 😅

Glad to hear it's working now 👍 Enjoy your Tropez Plus, it's a really nice card!

But I figured it is simply a driver issue which was not properly implemented. I guess this problem is the reason, why you get shurtcuts on the desktop to start in pure dos mode.

skel2raw wrote on 2020-09-13, 21:31:

Just realized I posted in the wrong forum section...

Moved. 😀

Hello friends,

In the hope of help, I am pulling up this thread again.
My starting point is similar to that of the author of this thread.
It is driving me to the brink of despair.

I have a Turtle Beach Tropez Plus which works perfectly under MS-Dos.

Environment:
Mainboard: Gigabyte GA-7 IXE
CPU: Slot A AMD
OS: Windows 98SE

Here's the problem:
In a nutshell, MIDI without sound.
FM (OPL3) sound OK
Wave Sound ok.
MPU interface established. (according to device manager)

I have configured config.sys and autotxec.bat so that the WFOS2001.MOT is loaded successfully before Windows is started.
Nevertheless - no Midi sound.

It would be great if someone here could give me a tip on how to get this wonderful sound card to work under Win98.

- Backfire -

I figured out what the actual issue with my card was:
There are different firmware and driver versions for the card. Back then I had the later firmware update installed on the card but was using the older driver versions. Subsequently MIDI was not working under Windows98. Once I switched to the latest drivers everything worked fine. Maybe you are making the same mistake or are even doing the opposite: Using the never drivers with the older firmware.

Hey - thanks, that's it man!

1st.
I updated the onboard EEPROM of the BT Tropez Plus in a DOS environment.
*Shtutdown/ Restart (Win98SE)

2nd.
Copied all content of the two Win95 Install Disks in created folder C:\tbeach, additionally the "tropdos.doc" file.
*Shtutdown
*Installed the card
*Restart

PnP is about to install but point to the folder c:\tbeach, and let do the installation.
A Programm Group named "Tropez Plus" has been be created at the end.

Important is that in the device manager is the following to be found:
=>Audio-, Video-, and Gamecontroller
1. Gameportjoystick
2. MPU-401 Compatible Device
3. Tropez Plus PnP Audio Hardware
4. Tropez Plus PnP Control Registers
5. Tropez Plus Wavetable Midi Synthesizer

3rd.
To playback with the Onboard Wavetable go to...
=> Properties of Multimedia => MIDI
Choose TBS-2001 Sample Player 1

4th.
Start Playing a Midi music file...

Well...
Thank you very much for this hint, that leads me to the solution. =)

- Backfire -