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DOS32AWE - DOS/4G compatible DOS Extender with Sound Blaster AWEUTIL MIDI synthesizer support for Protected mode,VIASB

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Reply 200 of 286, by maxtherabbit

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georgel wrote on 2021-11-17, 17:30:
maxtherabbit wrote on 2021-11-17, 02:11:

Any idea why DOS32AWE would not work on a dual Pentium Pro system (with APIC)?

I have a pair of almost twin systems, same software, both 440FX Pentium Pro builds. It works great on the single processor machine but doesn't on the dual one.

What error do you get? If you move a CPU from one machine to another does it change the situation? Or at least if you remove the second CPU? Does the DOS32A exhibit the same problem as DOS32AWE?

It hangs up as soon as the first MIDI note is attempted to play. If I run DOS32AWE <game executable> without AWEUTIL loaded there is no hanging. If I load a real mode game with AWEUTIL loaded it works fine.

I'm sorry but I'm not really willing to move physical CPUs around for troubleshooting purposes. May it suffice to say the CPU and chipset in the working machine are the exact same. The only differences are the presence of the second CPU and the presence of the intel S82093AA APIC (which I strongly suspect is the root of the incompatibility)

Reply 201 of 286, by georgel

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So I am attaching a 4MB font that generates the notorious Divide overflow obviously this is not related only to 28MB soundfonts and with this example font I attached more people with less sound blaster RAM can explore it.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/10ftP-goaZLkO … iew?usp=sharing

The AWEUTIL is neither packed nor protected so feel free to analyze it and help.

The offending instruction in AWEUTIL V1.36 is IDIV at 4A3A. And is part of signed multiplication of data by 1.3 (64h/4bh) in 4AB4 (branch 4BC8) procedure. It multiplies hundreds of values all below or equal to (positive) 63h but suddenly a negative large number appears at some point which leads to the overflow.

The multiplied data starts always with these 7,9,a,fh,11h,12h,13h,14h,12h,14h,16h,18h,19,1ah,1bh,1ch,1dh,1eh,20h,20h,21h,2,3,5,7,9,ah,bh,ch,fh,12h,12h11h,12h, etc...

IDIV when overflows generates INT 0 fault so depending on your handler may show Divide overflow error (DOS/BIOS) or hang or whatever.

The multiplication (along with other computaions many of them with fixed constants) starts after the sound font is uploaded to the SB's RAM while building some AWEUTIL's data structures I guess.

Last edited by georgel on 2021-11-24, 09:38. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 202 of 286, by Arvid

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Can someone give me a quick rundown on how I can load SBK soundfonts in DOS and use them with this program.
I´ve been trying for a little while now but I guess some configuration is wrong on my part.
I have replaced the stock SYNTHGM.SBK file with the FANTAGM2.SBK file someone posted here just to test. When AWEUTIL runs with the /EM:GM setting during boot it takes longer than usual so it seems to load fine into memory.
However when running Doom everything sounds like normal without the soundfont so I guess I´m doing something wrong. What are the settings needed for this to work and what is the whole procedure from start to finish?

Reply 203 of 286, by Gmlb256

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Arvid wrote on 2021-12-09, 13:30:

I have replaced the stock SYNTHGM.SBK file with the FANTAGM2.SBK file someone posted here just to test. When AWEUTIL runs with the /EM:GM setting during boot it takes longer than usual so it seems to load fine into memory.

Larger SoundFonts usually takes more time to load and it's normal with AWE cards assuming that it didn't crash.

However when running Doom everything sounds like normal without the soundfont so I guess I´m doing something wrong. What are the settings needed for this to work and what is the whole procedure from start to finish?

Did you select "Sound Blaster AWE32" instead of "General Midi" on setup? If so change it because it won't use any SoundFonts on DOOM with the "Sound Blaster AWE32" option.

VIA C3 Nehemiah 1.2A @ 1.46 GHz | ASUS P2-99 | 256 MB PC133 SDRAM | GeForce3 Ti 200 64 MB | Voodoo2 12 MB | SBLive! | AWE64 | SBPro2 | GUS

Reply 204 of 286, by Arvid

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Gmlb256 wrote on 2021-12-09, 14:01:

[Did you select "Sound Blaster AWE32" instead of "General Midi" on setup? If so change it because it won't use any SoundFonts on DOOM with the "Sound Blaster AWE32" option.

Oh it was that easy huh *slaps forehead*

After choosing General MIDI instead in Doom the music sounds different. However it sound absolutely horrible, I tried two different soundfonts and it´s painful to listen to, are there some other settings that might be wrong? It almost sounds like the instrument mapping is way off or something.

Reply 205 of 286, by Gmlb256

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Arvid wrote on 2021-12-09, 14:15:
Gmlb256 wrote on 2021-12-09, 14:01:

[Did you select "Sound Blaster AWE32" instead of "General Midi" on setup? If so change it because it won't use any SoundFonts on DOOM with the "Sound Blaster AWE32" option.

Oh it was that easy huh *slaps forehead*

After choosing General MIDI instead in Doom the music sounds different. However it sound absolutely horrible, I tried two different soundfonts and it´s painful to listen to, are there some other settings that might be wrong? It almost sounds like the instrument mapping is way off or something.

Likely a completely different issue. Which model of the AWE card are you using and how many amount of RAM it has installed? Does loading SoundFonts elsewhere (such as using SBK or SF2 on Windows 9x) works fine on that AWE card?

VIA C3 Nehemiah 1.2A @ 1.46 GHz | ASUS P2-99 | 256 MB PC133 SDRAM | GeForce3 Ti 200 64 MB | Voodoo2 12 MB | SBLive! | AWE64 | SBPro2 | GUS

Reply 206 of 286, by Arvid

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Gmlb256 wrote on 2021-12-09, 14:42:

Likely a completely different issue. Which model of the AWE card are you using and how many amount of RAM it has installed? Does loading SoundFonts elsewhere (such as using SBK or SF2 on Windows 9x) works fine on that AWE card?

I have two cards that I have tested in two different systems. SB32 PNP CT3600 and a SB32 AWE CT2760. Both cards have two 16mb memory sticks installed for effectively 28mb available.
The CT2760 sort of works in the way that I get music but the mapping seems off as I said earlier. The CT3600 gets no music at all after i selected General MIDI in Doom, in addition the game is extremely choppy and seems to run at less than 1 FPS and all SFX is also extremely choppy (sounds a bit like an extreme echo).

Both systems are DOS/WIN 3.11 systems so I have not tried loading soundfonts in Win9x.

Reply 207 of 286, by georgel

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Arvid wrote on 2021-12-09, 15:12:
I have two cards that I have tested in two different systems. SB32 PNP CT3600 and a SB32 AWE CT2760. Both cards have two 16mb me […]
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Gmlb256 wrote on 2021-12-09, 14:42:

Likely a completely different issue. Which model of the AWE card are you using and how many amount of RAM it has installed? Does loading SoundFonts elsewhere (such as using SBK or SF2 on Windows 9x) works fine on that AWE card?

I have two cards that I have tested in two different systems. SB32 PNP CT3600 and a SB32 AWE CT2760. Both cards have two 16mb memory sticks installed for effectively 28mb available.
The CT2760 sort of works in the way that I get music but the mapping seems off as I said earlier. The CT3600 gets no music at all after i selected General MIDI in Doom, in addition the game is extremely choppy and seems to run at less than 1 FPS and all SFX is also extremely choppy (sounds a bit like an extreme echo).

Both systems are DOS/WIN 3.11 systems so I have not tried loading soundfonts in Win9x.

I guess most likely you are forgetting to start the DOS32AWE at all and instead the games are using their default DOS4GW DOS extender... If you have problems with FANTA soundfont try first not to replace the default Creative soundfonts. You can switch between the three default sound fonts with the AWEUTIL's switches (/EM:GM , /EM:GS, /EM:MT32). I used to test DOS32AWE with CT3600 when I had one and it worked perfectly. Does AWEUTIL install the MIDI emulation with it properly without errors? If not make sure the MBFEN jumper is present. How fast are your computers?

Reply 208 of 286, by Arvid

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georgel wrote on 2021-12-09, 21:38:

I guess most likely you are forgetting to start the DOS32AWE at all and instead the games are using their default DOS4GW DOS extender... If you have problems with FANTA soundfont try first not to replace the default Creative soundfonts. You can switch between the three default sound fonts with the AWEUTIL's switches (/EM:GM , /EM:GS, /EM:MT32). I used to test DOS32AWE with CT3600 when I had one and it worked perfectly. Does AWEUTIL install the MIDI emulation with it properly without errors? If not make sure the MBFEN jumper is present. How fast are your computers?

I used the DOS32AWE to start Doom and that worked fine, if I try without the DOS32AWE the game locks up. When AWEUTIL is used for the MIDI emulation it completes without any errors, and the length of time it uses depends on the size of the soundfont so that part seems to work fine. MBFEN jumper is also correct.
The computers are a Pentium 133 for the AWE32 card and a AMD DX4 100mhz for the SB32 card.
It seems the soundfonts are loaded but the mapping is all wrong so the music sounds horrubly wrong. Does anyone have a listing of how all settings in the Autoexec.bat should be for the sound blaster card should be so I know for sure that is correct on my end?

Reply 209 of 286, by georgel

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I'd suggest you to use initially only the default sound fonts for troubleshooting. They should sound especially the GM one like the default AWE32 support in games and they load almost instantly. Then you can focus on the exact sound font that causes problem. Offtopic -- your machines are quite slow for the DOS4GW games especially those like DOOM but nonetheless the sound shouldn't be affected .

Reply 210 of 286, by Arvid

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I tried running Doom with the /EM:GM, /EM:GS and /EM:MT32 options now with standard SBK files and they all sounded like they should.
I then tried the Fantagm2.sbk which sounds like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFx-HBlkEwM&a … nel=ArvidStorli
Bad sound quality but you get the gist of what it sounds like.

Reply 211 of 286, by Gmlb256

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Arvid wrote on 2021-12-10, 08:33:

I tried running Doom with the /EM:GM, /EM:GS and /EM:MT32 options now with standard SBK files and they all sounded like they should.
I then tried the Fantagm2.sbk which sounds like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFx-HBlkEwM&a … nel=ArvidStorli
Bad sound quality but you get the gist of what it sounds like.

I get better sound quality with the same SoundFont. Have you checked if the RAM installed on the AWE card is working properly with DIAGNOSE utility?

VIA C3 Nehemiah 1.2A @ 1.46 GHz | ASUS P2-99 | 256 MB PC133 SDRAM | GeForce3 Ti 200 64 MB | Voodoo2 12 MB | SBLive! | AWE64 | SBPro2 | GUS

Reply 217 of 286, by georgel

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Arvid wrote on 2021-12-10, 15:09:

On the computer with V1.11 I overwrote it when I updated unfortunately. On the other computer there´s V1.33 which also does not work.

Edit: I would guess the V1.11 AWEUTIL comes from this driver package: http://vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?fileid=26&menustate=0

You could upload V1.33 too...

Reply 219 of 286, by Bondi

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Here are 1.01 and 1.11 versions

Filename
AWEUTIL111.RAR
File size
13.83 KiB
Downloads
63 downloads
File comment
1.11
File license
Fair use/fair dealing exception
Filename
AWEUTIL101.RAR
File size
7.18 KiB
Downloads
58 downloads
File comment
1.01
File license
Fair use/fair dealing exception

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