VOGONS


First post, by Electronic Genets

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I need examples of synthesizer music for OPL3 to test my OPL3 emulation. I have wrritten also OPL3 emulator to fully support old formats of music.
I support DRO 2.0, DRO 0.1, DRO N.1 and RAW formats regarding 4-op OPL3 mode.

What games use the 4-op mode?

I tested: altair.dro, aquarius.dro, triumph.dro and it is played correctly but these files don't contain 4-op mode (register 104h is always equal 0).

Author of the DINO-2e OPL2-like emulator.
DINO-2e is not OPL2 emulator.

Reply 1 of 8, by Gmlb256

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Cybersphere, one of the few DOS games that uses the additional features of the OPL3 chip.

AdLib Tracker II and Reality AdLib Tracker v2.0a are worth checking too, both has full OPL3 support and comes with music taking advantage of it.

VIA C3 Nehemiah 1.2A @ 1.46 GHz | ASUS P2-99 | 256 MB PC133 SDRAM | GeForce2 GTS 32 MB | Voodoo2 12 MB | SBLive! | AWE64 | SBPro2 | GUS

Reply 2 of 8, by Electronic Genets

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Gmlb256, I created DRO file with DOSBOX 0-74.3. The file doesn't contain any write command 04 and the file sound different after playing it. DosBox probably still sucks. Previously dosbox didn't dump B6-B8 registers in BD mode. So many years have passed and the basic functions of DosBox only work worse.

What sound file for Adlib Tracker 2 contains 4-op music?

Author of the DINO-2e OPL2-like emulator.
DINO-2e is not OPL2 emulator.

Reply 3 of 8, by Gmlb256

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Those with the A2M and A2T extensions are capable of using OPL3's 4-op mode and several of them are found in the MODULES folder.

Note that I don't know which of those files exactly use it. 😒

VIA C3 Nehemiah 1.2A @ 1.46 GHz | ASUS P2-99 | 256 MB PC133 SDRAM | GeForce2 GTS 32 MB | Voodoo2 12 MB | SBLive! | AWE64 | SBPro2 | GUS

Reply 4 of 8, by Electronic Genets

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Gmlb256 wrote on 2023-06-18, 13:43:

Those with the A2M and A2T extensions are capable of using OPL3's 4-op mode and several of them are found in the MODULES folder.

Note that I don't know which of those files exactly use it. 😒

Thanks for answer but... how to record OPL3 commands if Ctrl+Alt+F7 mode in last version of DOSBOX is corrupted?
For the moment:
1) I have A2M and A2T files (probably only part of them has 4-op mode, maybe none),
2) I can play these files in DOSBox and dump to WAV file,
3) I cannot save complete DOSBox commands (104h registers is not saved, other bugs present) to test my implementation,
4) I cannot convert A2T and A2M to DRO, RAW or VGM/VGZ format without corruption of data (I need lossless conversion).

Author of the DINO-2e OPL2-like emulator.
DINO-2e is not OPL2 emulator.

Reply 5 of 8, by Electronic Genets

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I found archive with music ripped from games which uses YMF262 (OPL3) chip.
I know how to decode this format (VGZ and VGM) and after decoding it to DRO 0.1 or RAW I can play it in DOSBox (with use of DROPlay, RDOSPlay etc.). I also handle this format in my player for linux and I can test my implementation of OPL3 emulation.
This method is free of data corruption.

I have many files. Most of them don't use 4-op mode.
Can you please determine which of the 36 games used 4-op mode? Most of these games are unknown to me (apart from DOOM, HEXEN, TETЯIS and Cybersfere).

Author of the DINO-2e OPL2-like emulator.
DINO-2e is not OPL2 emulator.

Reply 6 of 8, by Gmlb256

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Electronic Genets wrote on 2023-06-19, 06:40:

Can you please determine which of the 36 games used 4-op mode? Most of these games are unknown to me (apart from DOOM, HEXEN, TETЯIS and Cybersfere).

Those that are for "PC/AT" systems can be discarded, they hardly used the OPL3 features (except Cybersphere) and at best, it was only for stereo output. Windows 3.x isn't a game but MIDI drivers for the OPL3 are available, with the capability of using the 4-op mode.

The rest are unknown to me as well.

VIA C3 Nehemiah 1.2A @ 1.46 GHz | ASUS P2-99 | 256 MB PC133 SDRAM | GeForce2 GTS 32 MB | Voodoo2 12 MB | SBLive! | AWE64 | SBPro2 | GUS

Reply 7 of 8, by Electronic Genets

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Gmlb256 wrote on 2023-06-19, 13:51:

Windows 3.x isn't a game but MIDI drivers for the OPL3 are available, with the capability of using the 4-op mode.

Do you mean "extended" versions of these tracks? First 4 extended versions have 104h set to 0. Cybersphere "04 Level BGM 1.vgz" uses 4-op mode in first channel in high bank (104h = 0x08).

Author of the DINO-2e OPL2-like emulator.
DINO-2e is not OPL2 emulator.

Reply 8 of 8, by Falcosoft

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Electronic Genets wrote on 2023-06-20, 08:03:
Gmlb256 wrote on 2023-06-19, 13:51:

Windows 3.x isn't a game but MIDI drivers for the OPL3 are available, with the capability of using the 4-op mode.

Do you mean "extended" versions of these tracks?

No. In this context "Extended" means that these Midi files used Midi channels 1-10 during play back, while "Basic" means only Midi channels 13-16 were used.
More info about Microsoft's Extended/Basic Midi file specification:
ftp://wow1.tv/zoltrix/ZoltrixUS_Backup/Multim … und/MMQUEST.HTM

Midi files do not define what kind of OPL mode should be used to play back them. The default Win3.1/Win9x OPL driver uses the 2-op FatMan instrument set. But there are OPL3 drivers that use 4-op instruments. One of them is Voyetra's Super SAPI driver:
https://maloga.dotera.net/guides/pc98/sapi.html

@Edit: After installing a 4-op capable driver and instrument set any Midi files can be used where the Midi programs defined in the Midi file are mapped to 4-op instruments in the driver (e.g. the famous Passport.mid, Canyon.mid etc.)

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