Hello!
I tested the demo you showed, and it behaves exactly as you told. It's a CMI thing. Some coders, do strange code. Sometimes they give values that some hardware ignores and other just do something weird. This can be one of these cases.
This happened before with other cards in other software/games/demos. Example: Yamaha YMF71x cards ignore when ADPCM is played in 3bit, Crystal struggles, CMI doesn't even know what it is.
As told before, there are no perfect cards. All sound blaster have flaws, at least after Sound Blaster Pro 2 release. Gravis is only compatible with itself no clone or compatible chips where made.

Marmes wrote on 2023-01-05, 19:34:

Hello! I tested the demo you showed, and it behaves exactly as you told. It's a CMI thing. Some coders, do strange code. Sometim […]
Show full quote

Hello!
I tested the demo you showed, and it behaves exactly as you told. It's a CMI thing. Some coders, do strange code. Sometimes they give values that some hardware ignores and other just do something weird. This can be one of these cases.
This happened before with other cards in other software/games/demos. Example: Yamaha YMF71x cards ignore when ADPCM is played in 3bit, Crystal struggles, CMI doesn't even know what it is.
As told before, there are no perfect cards. All sound blaster have flaws, at least after Sound Blaster Pro 2 release. Gravis is only compatible with itself no clone or compatible chips where made.

But the nice thing is, the hivemind on Vogons documents these quirks and features. One thing that I've learned after building PCs with old sound cards is that you should take things like "Sound Blaster compatible" with a grain of salt. People try to do builds, that on paper are compatible with everything, and are disappointed it doesn't work that way. A more realistic approach would be to do builds for the games you want to play or the software you want to use. And for those people, such in depth reports (like a specific demo working in an unexpected way) have a lot of value.

GL1zdA wrote on 2023-01-07, 20:38:

[...]

But the nice thing is, the hivemind on Vogons documents these quirks and features. One thing that I've learned after building PCs with old sound cards is that you should take things like "Sound Blaster compatible" with a grain of salt. People try to do builds, that on paper are compatible with everything, and are disappointed it doesn't work that way. A more realistic approach would be to do builds for the games you want to play or the software you want to use. And for those people, such in depth reports (like a specific demo working in an unexpected way) have a lot of value.

A lot of value - and sometimes lead to fixes too.

I really liked seeing how people earlier in this thread reported disappointing sound quality which was linked to Unisound initializing the 8330 with (awful) 3D audio enabled. Since that report, Unisound has been updated to by default initialize 8330 with 3D audio off, and a set of controls to enable it if you want to hear what you are missing.

That was really community in action 😀

Nothing is ever perfect.
Perfection is boring anyway.
Let us embrace the journey and cherish the knowledge acquired along the path for it is the essence of the experience, much more so than any destination might ever hope to be .
There are always solutions and alternative paths that may yet hold more riches and wonder than those that one had hoped to thread.

TLDR : I love this hobby first and foremost for its quirks and challenges.

EDIT: To quote JFK "We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard..."

Hello there.
Since my previous post in this thread, my board has been fixed by the awesome Keropi by replacing the chip.
Now, i require some help to understand how i can use all the midi options of the board. I have the PCMIDI add-on and i am using only DOS, no Windows.
The MT32 is connected to the jack to midi external output. I have a board on the Waveblaster port. The card is jumpered to have gameport and midi jack controled by the PC-MIDI and the waveblaster by the CMI chip. I am trying to get Doom music though the Waveblaster and not the MT32 but whatever i choose (port 300 / port 330 / GM / SoundCanvas / Waveblaster) music come from the MT32 (and is of course weird). PC-MIDI board is still jumpered on default setting.
Would that also be possible to have MT32 on the MIDI jack and SC55 on the gameport and use any of them according to what a game needs?
Thanks for your help.

I have made some progress reading the awesome guide here Guide for Orpheus ISA Card with optional PCMIDI, X2GS and MT32-Pi simultaneously on DOS and WIN98SE.

However, unless i have not understood something, i still have no sound with the waveblaster board.
PC-MIDI MPU is still by default at IRQ2 and port 330.
MK8330 itself is at IRG5 DMA1 port 220
MPU of the MK8330 in CMINIT is at IRQ9 port 300 (also tried IRQ7).

Roland MT32 is working fine from the midi out of the board and is taken care of by PCMIDI as i believe with my jumper settings.

I am testing with either Doom or Al Qadim Genie's curse.
With Doom, either GM, SoundCanvas or Waveblaster gives no music at 300 but i have the sound effects with SoundBlaster.
With Genie's Curse either no music or game locked at the DOS4W launch.

I have no prior experience with daughterboards so i don't know what i should do. I believe music should be played from the line out of the soundcard with this setup.

@Xanxi

you have the jumpers like this right?

what you have in terms of resources is correct - assuming the CMI driver initializes MPU@300 you should hear the wavetable board, there is nothing special in getting this working
but what you describe sounds like a potential resource conflict, maybe port300 for some reason is not free in your setup? scsi/xt-ide cards use this port
you can try and remove pcmidi addon and assign port330 to CMI chip, do you get sound from wt board then?

Yes, jumpers are like this. Ok i'm going to try this later and also try other ports than 300 and 330.

Besides, could i use both jack midi and gameport midi at the same time, for example to have MT32 on one and SC55 on the other, and have only one ON at a time according to game?

Xanxi wrote on 2023-01-13, 08:18:

[...]
Besides, could i use both jack midi and gameport midi at the same time, for example to have MT32 on one and SC55 on the other, and have only one ON at a time according to game?

sorry I missed that
you can use ports together without issues - all are isolated and protected
so you can have all 3 assigned to a MPU device and drive 3 things safely and without issues (example assign all to PCMIDI and have gameport+jack+wavetable all working at the same time without issues)

Ok, case solved for my problem. I was just a dumb ass who had connected the daughterboard on the waveblaster header two pins on the left. Fortunately nothing was damaged and sound is working nice now with IRQ 7 and port 300 with MK8330 MPU. Sorry to have wasted brain time of people reading all this.

great, glad you solved the issue Xanxi! enjoy!!! 😀

Hi there.

Anyone here using a joystick or joypad on the gameport of the MK8330?

I have tried a Gravis GamePad Pro and a Joy Leader 3 joystick from Guillemot and they prevent Al Quadim Genie's Curse from launching or seem to cause the music in Wolfenstein 3D to slow down a lot in the menu.
With the gameport free, no problem at all.

I don't use the game port for MIDI, only the jack out.

I got my Orpheus II! It arrived packaged perfectly in an anti-static bag with thick foam and a sturdy box. There were also some surprise stickers!

Kahenraz wrote on 2023-04-04, 00:58:

I got my Orpheus II! It arrived packaged perfectly in an anti-static bag with thick foam and a sturdy box. There were also some surprise stickers!

I’m happy for you BUT..this is the discussion about MK8330..you have make a mistake 😂😂😂

If do you want make a new and friendly mistake, NOW send me this magnific Orpheus II sound card 🤣🤣🤣
It’s a joke 😉

Have you a nice day 🤗

Whoops! Wrong thread! Sorry.

Xanxi wrote on 2023-04-03, 22:35:

Hi there. […]
Show full quote

Hi there.

Anyone here using a joystick or joypad on the gameport of the MK8330?

I have tried a Gravis GamePad Pro and a Joy Leader 3 joystick from Guillemot and they prevent Al Quadim Genie's Curse from launching or seem to cause the music in Wolfenstein 3D to slow down a lot in the menu.
With the gameport free, no problem at all.

I don't use the game port for MIDI, only the jack out.

Any idea about this?
Unfortunately, Al Qadim is a game i would really like to play with a gamepad instead of keyboard, even if that is less true hardcore msdos gaming.

sorry no idea really... anyone else noticed anything similar?

Kahenraz wrote on 2023-04-04, 00:58:

I got my Orpheus II! It arrived packaged perfectly in an anti-static bag with thick foam and a sturdy box. There were also some […]
Show full quote

I got my Orpheus II! It arrived packaged perfectly in an anti-static bag with thick foam and a sturdy box. There were also some surprise stickers!

20230403_205004_resize_55.jpg

20230403_205126_resize_72.jpg

20230403_205331_resize_88.jpg

20230403_205143_resize_14.jpg

20230403_205343_resize_9.jpg

Sounds like a bragging post to mo 🤣

keropi wrote on 2023-04-09, 21:03:

sorry no idea really... anyone else noticed anything similar?

I don't currently have any gameport joysticks at hand to test but within a month I can test this.

keropi wrote on 2023-04-09, 21:03:

sorry no idea really... anyone else noticed anything similar?

Yes. I noticed considerable slowdown with Wolfenstein 3D and other games with the MK8330. I gave up before thorough testing, however, so I'm not ready to blame the card completely, yet.

And easy way to confirm this is to compare it against some other CMI8330.

I agree that this sounds very odd. I wonder if there is something stealing CPU cycles somehow.