sorry again, so preorder not yet available for this?

Nope, not yet

Will it just initialize on boot or it requires a TSR? How much basic memory does it consume?

If the gameport is set to the PCMIDI expansion card, does it mean it can only be used for MIDI or it can still be used with joysticks under MS-DOS on the standard address?

It just needs an init driver, no memory consumption at all
There is jumper to select if gameport midi is controlled by pcmidi or cmi8330

keropi wrote on 2022-04-24, 12:11:

There is jumper to select if gameport midi is controlled by pcmidi or cmi8330

So, if the gameport is set to the PCMIDI expansion card, does it mean it can only be used for MIDI or it can still be used with joysticks under MS-DOS on the standard address?

Schyz wrote on 2022-04-25, 16:26:

So, if the gameport is set to the PCMIDI expansion card, does it mean it can only be used for MIDI or it can still be used with joysticks under MS-DOS on the standard address?

gameport can still be used for joystick at the same time with a midi device, the jumper just selects what midi signal is used: CMI8330 or PCMIDI

I thought that all of the CMI chips were horrible for DOS games. Or is just all of the PCI ones? This is a very interesting project. Can you explain more about it's origin and your choice of sound chip?

Kahenraz wrote on 2022-04-25, 17:50:

I thought that all of the CMI chips were horrible for DOS games. Or is just all of the PCI ones? This is a very interesting project. Can you explain more about it's origin and your choice of sound chip?

I have heard relatively good things about the DOS compatibility of HW revs of the 8738 that have that functionality integrated. Apparently, the newer HW revs do away with it. I do have an older one in my parts stash, but I have never tested its DOS abilities, AFAICR .

Kahenraz wrote on 2022-04-25, 17:50:

I thought that all of the CMI chips were horrible for DOS games. Or is just all of the PCI ones? This is a very interesting project. Can you explain more about it's origin and your choice of sound chip?

i have CMI Card and it sounds very good at LineOut.
One of the most underrated chips for ISA Sound Cards.
Well, of course is mostly on Cheap Mainboards (PC-Chips) or very Cheap Soundcards.
And often they lack a good analog Circuit.
But many Cards have Jumpers to bypass the Amplifier Circuit.

darry wrote on 2022-04-25, 18:55:

Kahenraz wrote on 2022-04-25, 17:50:

I thought that all of the CMI chips were horrible for DOS games. Or is just all of the PCI ones? This is a very interesting project. Can you explain more about it's origin and your choice of sound chip?

I have heard relatively good things about the DOS compatibility of HW revs of the 8738 that have that functionality integrated. Apparently, the newer HW revs do away with it. I do have an older one in my parts stash, but I have never tested its DOS abilities, AFAICR .

Can you elaborate on these revisions? I have one PCI CMI card in my stash and I always regarded it as useless junk.

Maybe it's the PCI cards that are junk. I didn't even know these came on ISA cards.

Kahenraz wrote on 2022-04-25, 17:50:

I thought that all of the CMI chips were horrible for DOS games. Or is just all of the PCI ones? This is a very interesting project. Can you explain more about it's origin and your choice of sound chip?

I've heard mostly good things about them, also the PCI ones, it's just that they often get used on extremely cheap cards with bad PCB designs.

Kahenraz wrote on 2022-04-26, 12:40:

Maybe it's the PCI cards that are junk. I didn't even know these came on ISA cards.

The CMI8330 is a really nice chip for DOS gaming.

Here's my review of a CMI8330 integrated on a PC Chips M571 motherboard. And here's Gerwin's review of a standalone card based on it.

appiah4 wrote on 2022-04-26, 06:39:

darry wrote on 2022-04-25, 18:55:

Kahenraz wrote on 2022-04-25, 17:50:

I thought that all of the CMI chips were horrible for DOS games. Or is just all of the PCI ones? This is a very interesting project. Can you explain more about it's origin and your choice of sound chip?

I have heard relatively good things about the DOS compatibility of HW revs of the 8738 that have that functionality integrated. Apparently, the newer HW revs do away with it. I do have an older one in my parts stash, but I have never tested its DOS abilities, AFAICR .

Can you elaborate on these revisions? I have one PCI CMI card in my stash and I always regarded it as useless junk.

I don't know much about them first hand, but threads such as this one Cmedia CMI8738 - maybe its Biggest Secret have mentioned the revisions .

I want an MK8330 and am looking forward to finally testing out a proper CMI8330 implementation. The potential for S/PDIF output is of particular interest to me.

My homebrew S/PDIF project has been dormant for a while, but I have slowly been collecting extra hardware. I now have enough hardware for 6 S/PDIF inputs and also have one of these https://www.presonus.com/products/firestudio-project for analogue input purposes (I should no longer need an external standalone mixer). The dedicated host meant to run this is now based on an I5 11400 CPU, so I should have CPU cycles to burn.

Anyway, it is going to be fun "measurebating" the CMI8330's performance over S/PDIF . All joking aside, CMEDIA's chips from that era are probably underrated due poor/cheap/compromised implementation and the MK8330 will likely give us a taste of what could have been had somebody actually put in some effort at a proper design at the time .

Thanks and congratulations for all the hard work!

darry wrote on 2022-04-29, 06:44:

I want an MK8330 and am looking forward to finally testing out a proper CMI8330 implementation. The potential for S/PDIF output is of particular interest to me.

As the MK8330 doesn't route wavetable audio through S/PDIF would that be an issue to you? Would you somehow mix wavetable/midi audio to your digital input when using MK8330?

janih wrote on 2022-04-29, 06:52:

darry wrote on 2022-04-29, 06:44:

I want an MK8330 and am looking forward to finally testing out a proper CMI8330 implementation. The potential for S/PDIF output is of particular interest to me.

As the MK8330 doesn't route wavetable audio through S/PDIF would that be an issue to you? Would you somehow mix wavetable/midi audio to your digital input when using MK8330?

I use an earlier variant of this https://www.serdashop.com/CHiLL3 for my wavetable daughterboard needs (currently an X2, with an X2GS on the way). IMHO, there is no better way to get clean, noise-free sound from a waveblaster daughterboard . TBH, I am admittedly a bit of an extremist on these matters, but again IMHO, the less one needs to use the analogue inputs on any vintage sound chip's integrated mixer, the better will one's experience be .

I use an external console mixer with multiple soundcards and external synth modules and I only unmute what I need at any given moment .

Feel free to think that I am a bit crazy .😉

darry wrote on 2022-04-29, 07:11:

[...]
I use an external console mixer with multiple soundcards and external synth modules and I only unmute what I need at any given moment .
[...]

This is the ultimate way , I use external mixers too ... it is the nature of DOS games to mess with volumes and sometimes even apply crazy values to the max.
So having the ability to fine-tune and mute on demand is priceless 😀

keropi wrote on 2022-04-29, 07:47:

darry wrote on 2022-04-29, 07:11:

[...]
I use an external console mixer with multiple soundcards and external synth modules and I only unmute what I need at any given moment .
[...]

This is the ultimate way , I use external mixers too ... it is the nature of DOS games to mess with volumes and sometimes even apply crazy values to the max.
So having the ability to fine-tune and mute on demand is priceless 😀

Indeed, and on that note, this utility is probably worth mentioning as well MIDIto r12 (Midi and FM redirection, Mixer locking, Sound Blaster fixes) . I presume that it will work with CMI 8330 based cards as well . Have you tried it ?

I have a problem where most mixers don't differentiate FM synthesis well in the mixer, or it's shared with some other slider like digital sound. What often happens is the digital sound drowns out the FM, the FM is too quiet, even at max volume, etc.

What I ended up doing was pair a Sound Blaster for Yamaha OPL3 FM and Adlib compatibility with some other card for digital sound. It's a lot of extra work but it guarantees that I have full control over the music volume, and also avoids any bugs that are present in a lot of Sound Blasters with digital audio.