Port conflict with main sound card?
IRQ 2 not free?
I have seen in the past resource conflicts causing such issues
Also welcome back Amigaz!

keropi wrote on 2025-08-01, 21:00:

Port conflict with main sound card? IRQ 2 not free? I have seen in the past resource conflicts causing such issues Also welcome […]
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Port conflict with main sound card?
IRQ 2 not free?
I have seen in the past resource conflicts causing such issues
Also welcome back Amigaz!

Hi Amigo and thanks for welcoming me back to the herd 😁

Well, I have double checked all the IRQ's used and there is no conflict from the COM1 port, SB Pro CT1330A, VGA card, SCSI card or GUS Classic so I am scratching my head right now.
The Diamond Speedstar 24 VGa hard had a jumper for setting IRQ to 2 but it wasn't closed so ....
What I have changed with this preciousss is that upgraded the dog slow 486DX 33Mhz to a 486DX4 100Mhz Overdrive CPU but IMHO that should cause any issues what I am aware of ...hmmm

Not related to your issue but I would open up your MT32 and CM32L and see if the voltage regulator is still outputting 5v. One of my other MT32’s was outputting 4.2v and another was 5.4v. The poor things are 36+ years old so I replaced the regulator on every device. No soldering required. See Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?

zuldan wrote on 2025-08-01, 21:36:

Not related to your issue but I would open up your MT32 and CM32L and see if the voltage regulator is still outputting 5v. One of my other MT32’s was outputting 4.2v and another was 5.4v. The poor things are 36+ years old so I replaced the regulator on every device. No soldering required. See Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?

Thanks for the heads up on that potential issue

Yes, I will give them some TLC when everything is up and running OK along with my other gear I am reviving

Amigaz wrote on 2025-08-01, 17:15:

Adventures of WIlly Beamish and Police Quest 3 & 4 have so far sounded wrong, some of the instruments are not the correct ones and I believe some sounds are too low. The drum parts sound correct.

Are you perhaps playing these with the CM-32?

eddman wrote on 2025-08-03, 11:42:

Amigaz wrote on 2025-08-01, 17:15:

Adventures of WIlly Beamish and Police Quest 3 & 4 have so far sounded wrong, some of the instruments are not the correct ones and I believe some sounds are too low. The drum parts sound correct.

Are you perhaps playing these with the CM-32?

Yes and with my MT32

PQ4 is not a MT-32 game, so that is not advised, but Willy and PQ3 should be correct. I don't quite understand why some games would be correct and others not, although the ones you listed correct are all SCI0 (older) games. Try another VGA game and see if it sounds correct (QFG1VGA is a good choice since it has the same music as Hero's Quest), otherwise it may be a port conflict or other issue as advised earlier, or you may need the GoSIERRA patch installed.

Problem solved after trying every version, variant of the games not sounding right.
I switched out the Intel Overdrive 486DX4 100Mhz CPU for a plain Intel 486DX2 and voila! Now the mising instruments are there and all the other instruments sound correct in Police Quest 3 and Williy Beamish

Weird issue, the P23T CPU's should be compatible with the Abit AT4 motherboard but I guess it is only CPU's with 2X built in multiplier

Amigaz wrote on 2025-08-01, 21:30:

What I have changed with this preciousss is that upgraded the dog slow 486DX 33Mhz to a 486DX4 100Mhz Overdrive CPU but IMHO that should cause any issues what I am aware of ...hmmm

Wish I'd seen this thread sooner. This is exactly the issue. Some MT-32 games are speed sensitive including Adventures of Willy Beamish.

I had the exact same problem with my 486 DX2-66 system. I would have to slow down the system via the turbo button for the music to play back with the correct instruments. Rise of the Dragon had the same issue.

I ended up downgrading to a DX-33 and these issues went away.

Shponglefan wrote on 2025-09-12, 13:15:

Wish I'd seen this thread sooner. This is exactly the issue. Some MT-32 games are speed sensitive including Adventures of Willy […]
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Amigaz wrote on 2025-08-01, 21:30:

What I have changed with this preciousss is that upgraded the dog slow 486DX 33Mhz to a 486DX4 100Mhz Overdrive CPU but IMHO that should cause any issues what I am aware of ...hmmm

Wish I'd seen this thread sooner. This is exactly the issue. Some MT-32 games are speed sensitive including Adventures of Willy Beamish.

I had the exact same problem with my 486 DX2-66 system. I would have to slow down the system via the turbo button for the music to play back with the correct instruments. Rise of the Dragon had the same issue.

I ended up downgrading to a DX-33 and these issues went away.

I don't think it comes to to speed sensitivity. In my case it more of a timing issue.
I have ran these games on my faster machines like a am5x86 133Mhz equipped build using Roland LA music without any problems.

My 486 motherboard is from circa 1991/1992 and the Intel Overdive chips with 3X multiplier arrived a year or two later so these had never been tested with my particujlar motherboard is my best guess.
It's like all of those "Windows Vista Ready" PC's that dropped on the market before the release of Windows Vista 😀

Amigaz wrote on 2025-09-12, 14:20:

I don't think it comes to to speed sensitivity. In my case it more of a timing issue.
I have ran these games on my faster machines like a am5x86 133Mhz equipped build using Roland LA music without any problems.

Interesting. I always assumed it was a speed sensitivity issue, since throttling the 486 DX/2-66 fixed the issue (along with straight downgrading the processor).

This made me curious to test this out on my Pentium 4 system. It turns out even running at the full 3.4 GHz, Adventures of Willy Beamish played back fine with MT-32 music. This is using the Orpheus II sound card.

So you’re right, it doesn’t appear to be a pure speed sensitivity issue, but something else that is clearly going on.

Out of curiosity are you using the same MIDI interface hardware in these different systems? I’m now wondering if that might have something to do with it. In my DX/2-66 I was using a Roland MPU-401AT versus the Orpheus II in my P4.

Shponglefan wrote on 2025-09-16, 00:38:

Interesting. I always assumed it was a speed sensitivity issue, since throttling the 486 DX/2-66 fixed the issue (along with str […]
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Amigaz wrote on 2025-09-12, 14:20:

I don't think it comes to to speed sensitivity. In my case it more of a timing issue.
I have ran these games on my faster machines like a am5x86 133Mhz equipped build using Roland LA music without any problems.

Interesting. I always assumed it was a speed sensitivity issue, since throttling the 486 DX/2-66 fixed the issue (along with straight downgrading the processor).

This made me curious to test this out on my Pentium 4 system. It turns out even running at the full 3.4 GHz, Adventures of Willy Beamish played back fine with MT-32 music. This is using the Orpheus II sound card.

So you’re right, it doesn’t appear to be a pure speed sensitivity issue, but something else that is clearly going on.

Out of curiosity are you using the same MIDI interface hardware in these different systems? I’m now wondering if that might have something to do with it. In my DX/2-66 I was using a Roland MPU-401AT versus the Orpheus II in my P4.

I tried different MPU-401 interfaces which did not make any difference.
The Intel Overdrive 486DX4 100Mhz has 16KB internal cache and I have read somewhere that it can cause trouble if the BIOS does not support it.

You are right that that faster machines can cause speed sensitive issues with MIDI music but that should not be an issue with pre pentium systems.

I had a Pentium 1 growing up with an AWE32 card, I think some games had to be patched for speed, but everything worked correctly in the end.