I found out the cause of my problem, I was missing P330 in the BLASTER variable, sorry for the false alarm.
Thanks again for the update.

Nemo1985 wrote on 2025-02-01, 16:04:

Confirmed, I reduced the clock from 3.06 to 2.30 (fsb from 133 to 100) and it works. What doesn't work it the converted sf2 to s […]
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Cacodemon345 wrote on 2025-02-01, 15:54:

Nemo1985 wrote on 2025-02-01, 15:26:

Disable the soundfont did the trick. For further testing I don't know how to disable the mpu-401 emulation, do I need to use a specific switch?

You need not test any further. This looks like a speed issue.

Confirmed, I reduced the clock from 3.06 to 2.30 (fsb from 133 to 100) and it works. What doesn't work it the converted sf2 to sf3. If I load the sf2 everything works fine, if I load the sf3 there are audio issue (I'm going to load a video).
SF2: https://youtu.be/eXm2CMTZuGw
SF3: https://youtu.be/LofcIMGDLDw
I used sf2convert-1.2.2-win so I don't know if it's a program issue or the sf3 implementation. I also tried another sf3 converted file but the result is the same the only output is a swish noise.
Edit: I used Polyphone 2.5.1 to convert the sf2 file to sf3, the sound is still broken but the pattern is different, like less broken the music is distorted but more familiar.

Pretty sad to see this finding out why support for SF3 (OGG Vorbis variant) had been taken off. I've been curious how much would one single SF2 of gigs of wavetable get reduced once converted into SF3. It's for simply one reason that I came to see the requirement of 128MB XMS memory, which I'm not sure if it is enough for such an enormous SF2.

Limitations on the SF3 format still exist, though, like there's no way to just replace OGG compressed samples into any SF3 and save it as another SF3 (in Polyphone at least). And I'm not sure whether the CPU is yet capable enough to process so many OGG samples at a time. I simply just isn't sure, however, if my Core 2 Duo laptop with 4GB RAM and ALC262 is capable of processing such enormous SF2, which I'll be trying sometime.

p.s. SF3 banks from sf2convert 1.2.2 cannot even get opened within Polyphone, unlike the SF3s from Polyphone itself, which I was confused as I just tried last night. Also, these SF3s, both from sf2convert and Polyphone, seem to have the resulted-in OGG samples so much larger than those from some cmd OGG encoder I've been using, under the same quality preset.

Upstream VSBHDA with v1.7 has backported the soundfont support from VSBHDASF. As such, I think VSBHDASF has mostly served its purpose.

Maybe VSBHDASF will see a 2.0 release if I'm able to add support for more open-source software synths beyond TinySoundFont, but I don't think there will be any further releases.

Cacodemon345 wrote on 2025-08-11, 09:11:

Upstream VSBHDA with v1.7 has backported the soundfont support from VSBHDASF. As such, I think VSBHDASF has mostly served its purpose.

Maybe VSBHDASF will see a 2.0 release if I'm able to add support for more open-source software synths beyond TinySoundFont, but I don't think there will be any further releases.

Thanks for your contribution, Cacodemon345! It's a shame you couldn't get Munt to work for MT-32 compatibility. But as you explained, bridging VSBHDA's C code with Munt's C++ code proved problematic.

What I think would also be a really cool feature is if SoftMPU's functionality could be integrated into VSBHDA or VSBHDASF, allowing people to hook up a MIDI device to a serial port, using something like Dreamblaster's MPU-232 adapter, and having support for MPU-401 compatible MIDI devices in both real mode and protected mode DOS games, even on newer PCs. This way, it would allow actual MT-32 modules or something like an MT32-Pi to work in such as setup as well as whatever physical MIDI devices people would like to play with.

Yes, I know, that would better be discussed in a dedicated thread. 🙂

digger wrote on 2025-08-12, 17:20:

Thanks for your contribution, Cacodemon345! It's a shame you couldn't get Munt to work for MT-32 compatibility. But as you expla […]
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Cacodemon345 wrote on 2025-08-11, 09:11:

Upstream VSBHDA with v1.7 has backported the soundfont support from VSBHDASF. As such, I think VSBHDASF has mostly served its purpose.

Maybe VSBHDASF will see a 2.0 release if I'm able to add support for more open-source software synths beyond TinySoundFont, but I don't think there will be any further releases.

Thanks for your contribution, Cacodemon345! It's a shame you couldn't get Munt to work for MT-32 compatibility. But as you explained, bridging VSBHDA's C code with Munt's C++ code proved problematic.

What I think would also be a really cool feature is if SoftMPU's functionality could be integrated into VSBHDA or VSBHDASF, allowing people to hook up a MIDI device to a serial port, using something like Dreamblaster's MPU-232 adapter, and having support for MPU-401 compatible MIDI devices in both real mode and protected mode DOS games, even on newer PCs. This way, it would allow actual MT-32 modules or something like an MT32-Pi to work in such as setup as well as whatever physical MIDI devices people would like to play with.

Yes, I know, that would better be discussed in a dedicated thread. 🙂

I tried it on 5 different machines. SBEmu/VSBHDASF is the best as it is, they work perfectly.

This works great for me with my MSI KM2M: https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/msi-km2m-combo-l
With SBEMU the sound card wasn't detected in Second Reality but with VSBHDASF it is. Sound quality in SR is bad though.

General MIDI sounds good but what would really be great is MT32 emulation as that's more supported in DOS.

BTW original VSBHDA now supports soundfont too by /SF:pathtofile.sf2 (since version 1.7) + there are some more improvements in current ver. 1.8.

Hi! I have a problem when I set General Midi in Elvira 1 Mistress of the dark. The game is running like stuttering. If I set Soundblaster Option, the game works correctly. I've tried reducting cpu speed o disabling cache, but then it is worse. Maybe is a problem of the VSBHDASF??? Thanks!!

Cyrix/IDT CPUs will be slow for TinySoundFont's floating point usage if you're using those.

Apart from that, I can only suggest that your CPU is too slow for it.

The CPU is a P4 Presshot with an asus motherboard with chipset via. Could it be related?

I have been finding out a little and it seems a known problem in this game, but I haven't found any solution.

Only for info.

With Day of The Tentacle if I set soundblaster for voice and digital sounds, it hangs at the beginning. Only works without digital sound.

With Sam & Max it doesn't work. It hangs at the beginning after protection screen. It doesn't matter how you set the sound configuration.

With VSBHDA happens the same.

I'm trying both VSBHDASF 1.6 and VSBHDA18 on my HP Compaq t5720 Thin Client. It has a SiS7012. VSBHDA18 doesn't seem to work at all with any games (the original SBEMU worked fine on most games on this computer).

VSBHDASF seems to work fine with most games, like Doom and Duke Nukem 3D, but the sound I get is super low... Is this "normal"? Is there a way to make the sound louder? At first I thought there was no sound at all, until i turned my speakers to the maximum... Maybe I'm doing something wrong? Thanks for any help on this!!!

DoutorHouse wrote on 2026-01-31, 20:09:

I'm trying both VSBHDASF 1.6 and VSBHDA18 on my HP Compaq t5720 Thin Client. It has a SiS7012. VSBHDA18 doesn't seem to work at all with any games (the original SBEMU worked fine on most games on this computer).

VSBHDASF seems to work fine with most games, like Doom and Duke Nukem 3D, but the sound I get is super low... Is this "normal"? Is there a way to make the sound louder? At first I thought there was no sound at all, until i turned my speakers to the maximum... Maybe I'm doing something wrong? Thanks for any help on this!!!

The default value in volume parameter is very low. When you run VSBHDA or VSBHDASF, do it with the parameter VOL and a high value. For example: vsbhda /VOL9

]--Freeman--[ wrote on 2026-01-31, 20:15:

DoutorHouse wrote on 2026-01-31, 20:09:

I'm trying both VSBHDASF 1.6 and VSBHDA18 on my HP Compaq t5720 Thin Client. It has a SiS7012. VSBHDA18 doesn't seem to work at all with any games (the original SBEMU worked fine on most games on this computer).

VSBHDASF seems to work fine with most games, like Doom and Duke Nukem 3D, but the sound I get is super low... Is this "normal"? Is there a way to make the sound louder? At first I thought there was no sound at all, until i turned my speakers to the maximum... Maybe I'm doing something wrong? Thanks for any help on this!!!

The default value in volume parameter is very low. When you run VSBHDA or VSBHDASF, do it with the parameter VOL and a high value. For example: vsbhda /VOL9

Thanks! Gonna try that with VSBHDASF. VSBHDA18 doesn't give out any sound...

DoutorHouse wrote on 2026-01-31, 20:18:

]--Freeman--[ wrote on 2026-01-31, 20:15:

DoutorHouse wrote on 2026-01-31, 20:09:

I'm trying both VSBHDASF 1.6 and VSBHDA18 on my HP Compaq t5720 Thin Client. It has a SiS7012. VSBHDA18 doesn't seem to work at all with any games (the original SBEMU worked fine on most games on this computer).

VSBHDASF seems to work fine with most games, like Doom and Duke Nukem 3D, but the sound I get is super low... Is this "normal"? Is there a way to make the sound louder? At first I thought there was no sound at all, until i turned my speakers to the maximum... Maybe I'm doing something wrong? Thanks for any help on this!!!

The default value in volume parameter is very low. When you run VSBHDA or VSBHDASF, do it with the parameter VOL and a high value. For example: vsbhda /VOL9

Thanks! Gonna try that! with VSBHDASF. VSBHDA18 doesn't give out any sound...

Try both. In VSBHDA the volume is very low by default. 😀

]--Freeman--[ wrote on 2026-01-31, 20:20:

DoutorHouse wrote on 2026-01-31, 20:18:

]--Freeman--[ wrote on 2026-01-31, 20:15:

The default value in volume parameter is very low. When you run VSBHDA or VSBHDASF, do it with the parameter VOL and a high value. For example: vsbhda /VOL9

Thanks! Gonna try that! with VSBHDASF. VSBHDA18 doesn't give out any sound...

Try both. In VSBHDA the volume is very low by default. 😀

Just tried your suggestion with VSBHDASF and it worked great!!! Sound is great. I can't, for the life of me, get VSBHDA18 to work with any games. It tells me it's installed, but there's no sound at all...

DoutorHouse wrote on 2026-01-31, 20:26:

]--Freeman--[ wrote on 2026-01-31, 20:20:

DoutorHouse wrote on 2026-01-31, 20:18:

Thanks! Gonna try that! with VSBHDASF. VSBHDA18 doesn't give out any sound...

Try both. In VSBHDA the volume is very low by default. 😀

Just tried your suggestion with VSBHDASF and it worked great!!! Sound is great. I can't, for the life of me, get VSBHDA18 to work with any games. It tells me it's installed, but there's no sound at all...

Is the output pin being chosen correctly? Some HDA devices output by default on only the headphone jack, and need to have the output pin defined on the command line. Mine is affected. This is done with the /O flag. IIRC, /O1 tells it to use the speaker pin.

wierd_w wrote on 2026-02-01, 07:17:

DoutorHouse wrote on 2026-01-31, 20:26:

]--Freeman--[ wrote on 2026-01-31, 20:20:

Try both. In VSBHDA the volume is very low by default. 😀

Just tried your suggestion with VSBHDASF and it worked great!!! Sound is great. I can't, for the life of me, get VSBHDA18 to work with any games. It tells me it's installed, but there's no sound at all...

Is the output pin being chosen correctly? Some HDA devices output by default on only the headphone jack, and need to have the output pin defined on the command line. Mine is affected. This is done with the /O flag. IIRC, /O1 tells it to use the speaker pin.

Thanks for the suggestion! Gonna try that with VSBHDA... Using VSBHDASF with /VOL9 worked fine but, for some reason, VSBHDA isn't working. Sometimes it works with START16L.BAT but it's like if it loses its settings when trying any different game. I'm guessing SIS7012 is still kinda difficult... Anybody has SIS7012 and cares to share the working settings for AUTOEXEC.BAT?

Is hdpmi32i being given the -r (resident) argument?

If it's not, then it will close when the next dpmi client exits, taking vsbhda with it.

wierd_w wrote on 2026-02-01, 16:34:

Is hdpmi32i being given the -r (resident) argument?

If it's not, then it will close when the next dpmi client exits, taking vsbhda with it.

Oh you are right, of course! I forgot to add the -r argument to make it resident. Thanks for the help!

I also tried the /O1 option but didn't work... Vanilla Doom gives out some quick error about the sfx when using VSBHDA18 and there's no music or sfx with any setting... VSBHDASF works perfectly with most games I tried so far... For Prince of Persia, I had to start the game with PRINCE ADLIB. PRINCE SBLAST just gives out speaker sounds.

Maybe it has to do with the HDPMI32i.EXE settings i'm using? I tried -x or -x2 and also just -a -b ... , used the STARTL.BAT and START16L.BAT to never load the JHDPMI.DLL, as it seemed to crash Doom on this machine.

I went back to VSBHDA17 and it works with Vanilla Doom, while VSBHDA18 doesn't... Games like Dune2 won't play music or sfx with neither, but work fine with VSBHDASF.

Maybe it has something to do with the AUDIO IRQ in BIOS but i tried using the same settings I did for SBEMU (IRQ 5 or 7 set to reserved, disabling network and usb ports, etc) and nothing helped...

I guess that, for the time being, VSBHDASF is still the one that works best with this SIS7012 board (SBEMU worked too but the sound was a bit "off" on some games).

If someone has some other ideas or if I'm doing something wrong, please let me know! Thanks!