Note that this is supposed to work. When you use the normal WDM driver, sbemul.sys is supposed to utilize whatever you select on the MIDI mapper. However, when I try on my T5710, selecting Yamaha's soft synth only results in silence (in DOSMID's MPU output). I suppose there is something broken with the Yamaha synth specifically.

I reproduced the same issue on a VM with the SoundBlaster WDM drivers (which also use sbemul.sys...) . All outputs in the MIDI mapper work correctly from DOS boxes (and the output is directed to the appropiate device), except for the Yamaha soft synth, which results in silence. So I'm quite convinced there is something wrong with the Yamaha synth.

I can confirm that, when using the WDM drivers, General MIDI is routed to the MIDI mapper and works as expected when the Microsoft GS synthesizer is selected, but not when the Yamaha software synthesizer is selected. However, I'm using the VXD drivers, which does not install the Microsoft GS synthesizer. I think that it is only available for WDM sound devices.

So for the VXD driver, I only have access to the Yamaha synthesizer, which doesn't work, and the VIA FM synthesizer (it maps to a MIDI device), which works for MIDI playback in Media Player, but is also silent in DOS games. I don't know if this is an issue with the FM synthesizer or whether there is no routing for it at all, since the Microsoft GS synthesizer is not available as a reference.

It's interesting that the Yamaha synthesizer doesn't work natively with the WDM driver. It works fine when routed via VDMSound, so it is possible.

I'm using the WDM driver specifically because it provides Adlib-compatible FM synthesis for DOS games from within Windows. It seems like I can only get Adlib or General MIDI, depending on the choice of WDM or VXD drivers, but not both at the same time.

Kahenraz wrote on 2022-04-25, 18:45:

I did try removing all of the modules from VDMSound other than the ones needed for MIDI, but this did not improve stability.

I remember doing this as well a long time ago.
The Vortex windows 9x driver already had a nice option to route its emulated DOS MPU to any available windows Midi Device***, but it dropped notes with TIE Fighter IIRC. So I tried VDM sound as well, and IIRC that worked.
Stripped it to this:

116-10-2000     605 VXDS1.EXE
216-10-2000     605 vdmsboom.exe
304-08-2001     131 identity.map
410-03-2001     605 VXDSINIT.EXE
504-08-2001   5.000 gm2mt.map
604-08-2001   5.004 mt2gm.map
710-03-2001   7.680 vxdsdll.dll
815-12-2002     549 uninstall.bat
916-12-2002     909 install.bat
1015-12-2002  49.152 MIDIDevice.dll
1115-12-2002  57.344 EmuMPU401.dll
1219-10-2002  61.440 VDDLoader.dll
1315-12-2002  73.728 MIDIToolkit.dll
1403-03-2003   3.584 vxdsload.exe
1511-03-2003  10.288 VXDSOUND.VXD
1601-05-2003  90.112 VDMConfig.dll
1715-01-2008     175 vdms.bat
1819-01-2008   7.220 VDMS.INI

***Edit: it may be that the Vortex control panel selection was limited to "Vortex AU8830 Wavetable" and "Vortex AU8830 MPU-401". That is what my old screenshot shows.

I can confirm, as per Microsoft, that the Microsoft GS synthesizer is only available for WDM sound devices.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/can … 33-1cefa017eed4

Note that the Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth device is available for use in Windows 98 only when Windows Driver Model (WDM) audio drivers are being used.

gerwin wrote on 2022-04-26, 02:21:

I remember doing this as well a long time ago.
The Vortex windows 9x driver already had a nice option to route its emulated DOS MPU to any available windows Midi Device, but it dropped notes with TIE Fighter IIRC. So I tried VDM sound as well, and IIRC that worked.

Unfortunately, the last available VDMSound alpha release is still unstable on 9x. Otherwise it does work exactly as it should. It seems as though unloading it causes Windows to become unstable.

Kahenraz wrote on 2022-04-26, 02:23:

Unfortunately, the last available VDMSound alpha release is still unstable on 9x. Otherwise it does work exactly as it should. It seems as though unloading it causes Windows to become unstable.

My notes say "This is vdm-sound 2.04 with windows 9X loaders. VDMConfig.dll is from version 2.10 which seems to remove the annoying tip-of-the-day system."