Sounds like a software problem (GUS midi patches missing). From a hardware point of view there is no difference between playing sound effects or music.

Jazz Jackrabbit and Pinball Fantasies don't use the GUS MIDI patches so that is not the problem... Both have been tested a lot so should work, but it's possible that a regression in the latest 0.6.1 firmware broke them. Give 0.6.0 or 0.5.1 a try.

> * AdLib (OPL2) emulation: playback accuracy is quite good but could be better, limited by the emu8950 library used for OPL2 emulation

No SBOS? For me, the point of GUS emulation is to have GUS emulation, can get OPL emulation elsewhere all day long. That being said, having a combo card is fine, still would want SBOS but + OPL is okay.

Sorry, no SBOS. The current PicoGUS design does not connect the IOCHCHK pin so it can't generate NMIs, which SBOS and MegaEM need. Unfortunately you will not be able to hear the dulcet tones of "SBOS Installed!" in emulation on a PicoGUS.

I left the pin out because GPIOs on the Pico were at a premium, and SBOS sounds awful and I had no interest in reliving it. I guess it is so bad it is a curiosity in itself...

MegaEM should work, it uses 386 port trapping (works under DOSBox).
There are very few games in the overlapping region of protected mode + no native GUS support, so SBOS is pretty irrelevant.

SBOS has its moments, why I side with not stopping short on full GUS emulation.

And in today's Titles-You'll-Never-See category!............. "Top 10 SBOS Moments". 🤣

@pc-sound-legacy, I dare you! 😀

Ultrabots.

From my testing on a gateway 2000 486 DX2 66:

Doom and quake work fine. I have music and sound effects
Jazz Jackrabbit and wing commander 3 - sound effects, no music
DOPE demo - no music
gravis midi player - loads but does not play
command and conquer - sound and music
Star Wars Dark Forces - sound and music works
Full Throttle - Sound and music works
Simon The Sorcerer 2 - Music works, digial audio gets cut off - Needed ultrmid loaded to work

I reloaded the gus 4.11 install, with no change
I also tried firmware 0.5.1, 0.6.0 and 0.6.1 with no change

polpo wrote on 2023-04-20, 17:51:

ULTRADIR should be set to the location of where the GUS software installation is, typically C:\ULTRASND. Without this software installed there will be no MIDI patches.

I've updated the install instructions in the Wiki to walk through installing the GUS software and MIDI patches, and to set the ULTRADIR environment variable: https://github.com/polpo/picogus/wiki/Configu … nd-midi-patches

Thanks Polpo!

Now the PicoGUS sounds like angels!

I tested a custom or form factor redesigned PicoGUS
in an Intel 440 LX and Intel 440BX, both Pentium II motherboards.

Works perfectly,

As well, a very rare, or unique PC-104 based PC;
with an ACC Maple chipset (its a 486 DX-4 embedded
in the same package as the chipset, that also contains the
DMA and IRQ controller...). The sound card works perfectly
in this ultra small embedded PC,

Another set of chipsets to be included as compatible systems,

Here a video with on live recorded audio in the PC-104 based computer:

https://youtu.be/VqEt7l8WC0k

And here, the same PicoGUS pocket version in a Pentium II computer:

https://youtu.be/Kr-CWUyaokQ

I got a picogus today and installed it with my ct1600. My SB is set to 220-1-5 and the gus 240-3-3. But i only got SFX no music. Tested with doom1, 2, duke3d. Any idea why i dont have music? FW is 0.6.1 .

Jackhead wrote on 2023-04-24, 23:26:

I got a picogus today and installed it with my ct1600. My SB is set to 220-1-5 and the gus 240-3-3. But i only got SFX no music. Tested with doom1, 2, duke3d. Any idea why i dont have music? FW is 0.6.1 .

If you have not yet installed the Gravis software, then have a look at this page : Github - Configuring and using your PicoGUS.

Follow the instructions under the headings : "Install the GUS software and MIDI patches", and "Set the ULTRASND and ULTRADIR environment variable".

Many games require this for music.

polpo wrote on 2023-04-21, 05:31:

Polpo, you have an email,

I can´t send message here yet,

Best,

@polpo

I saw your post on Mastodon:

I’ve started dipping my toes back into working on #PicoGUS. There are always bugs to fix on the GUS side, and there are some annoying issues with CMS and Tandy that I’d like to squash. I’m kind of thinking of streaming on Twitch while working on it… would that be something any of you would be interested in? No guarantees of entertaining content but I’ll probably take @h0ffman’s example from his coding streams and start and end with playing some demos on the PicoGUS just to keep things fun.

That sounds freaking faaaascinating. 100% I would be watching.

I'd also watch on Twitch.

I wasn't able to make it Live unfortunately, timings didn't work out this time. Look forward to watching the session when I have a suitably-spare hour.

Noticed that the project got front page HN'ed, noice. Brings a few more eyeballs and brains into the mix. (obligatory zombie-voice: !!BRAAAiiiinnsss!!)

Hopefully I'll get to stream again soon, perhaps this weekend. It was pretty fun! I'm trying to do it on the weekend during the day US time so people in Europe can also watch live. If you follow ianpolpo on Twitch you'll be able to get notified when I go live. I've been simultaneously streaming on YouTube so if you're subscribed there you can get notified as well.

In the stream I attempted getting the square wave code Aaron Giles very generously contributed working for CMS, but didn't get there. With some pointers from him it's now working great!

At the end of the stream I mentioned playing with overclocking the Pico more than usual. I'm currently experimenting with 360MHz (up from the 280MHz I've been running it at until now) and the results are pretty promising. With the increased clock speed I can get away with checking for IRQ status after every generated sample. Here's what I've seen so far on some programs that have been problematic up until now:

- Warcraft II: no more stuttering/crackling in sound effects
- Gravis playmidi.exe: works much better now. It still halts on some songs, but samples are actually clear without corruption
- Hocus Pocus: able to play longer (20 minutes or so), but it still freezes eventually
- Tyrian 2000: works perfectly well

There's still some things to tweak and play around with so perhaps that can be the topic of the next stream! I've found a couple regressions with this new approach already...

It was a great surprise to make it to the front page of HN and I was happy to see people like it!

I can confirm the streaming was fun and entertaining, while also really interesting for developers. It's always great to program while streaming, because people in the chat could help in realtime.

I am planning to build one when time permits 😀 Is there any OPL3 emulator project we can integrate with this ? 😀

edit:ordered 5 PCBs in white colour for a change 😉

Isn't Nuked-OPL3 open source and pretty much perfect?