That's odd..

What sort of system are you playing this on?
And what resources have you allocated to the card and its MPU401? - this almost sounds like some kind of conflict.
Finally, Aztech card naming can be ambiguous at best. "Nova 16" sounds like the MMSN811 with AZT1605 2nd gen controller chip. Is that correct?

dionb wrote on 2026-02-10, 08:11:

That's odd..
What sort of system are you playing this on?

It's on a Celeron 533mhz, 384mb RAM, 32mb GeForce 2MX (AGP), Sound Galaxy Nova 16 E (ISA). It's running Windows 98 SE.

dionb wrote on 2026-02-10, 08:11:

And what resources have you allocated to the card and its MPU401? - this almost sounds like some kind of conflict.

What exactly do you mean by resources? Do you mean the DMA, IRQ, Port etc?
Soundblaster works as port 220, DMA 1, IRQ 5 (I think, might need to double check).
General Midi set as port 330. I think the IRQ is set to 2 but the games don't actually ask me to provide it.

dionb wrote on 2026-02-10, 08:11:

Finally, Aztech card naming can be ambiguous at best. "Nova 16" sounds like the MMSN811 with AZT1605 2nd gen controller chip. Is that correct?

You're spot on - it's the MMSN811 (Nova 16 Extra)

For further clarification, here's the card I'm using. It's the 'Extra' variant which apparently isn't any different to the normal one.

Iirc, doesn't Duke3D have this issue if the sound effects sample rate is set too high? The original build engine just can't handle it, lowering the sample rate usually fixes poor performance.

SuperDeadite wrote on 2026-02-10, 10:11:

Iirc, doesn't Duke3D have this issue if the sound effects sample rate is set too high? The original build engine just can't handle it, lowering the sample rate usually fixes poor performance.

Using 8 or 16 doesn't make a difference unfortunately. And it's the same for Rise of the Triad, which isn't a Build engine game.

I've just tried using the XDuke sourceport/binary and this fixes it. So I suppose it must be some kind of software problem, right? I wonder how it can be fixed for ROTT though, it would be nice to get that one working.

OK, I can get Rise of the Triad to work using the WINROTT sourceport/binary which is nice. But it still makes me wonder what is causing this issue with the original releases.

Could it be a conflict somewhere? Or could it just be that my card simply isn't compatible with those versions, and that compatibility is fixed in the source ports? I'd love to hear from anyone that might be able to shed some kind of information.

The difference would be that the original versions of the games are using the native MPU-401 interface on address 330, whereas the ported games are using the windows MIDI mapper. So this points to a limitation with the card unfortunately as it can phsycially do FX and MIDI, but it seems not FX and MPU-401. It seems that this was the first version of the Nova that had MPU-401 capability, so it's entirely possible it's a buggy implementation.

If the card is using WDM drivers, it may fare better if VXD drivers are available.

NeoG_ wrote on Yesterday, 04:31:

The difference would be that the original versions of the games are using the native MPU-401 interface on address 330, whereas the ported games are using the windows MIDI mapper. So this points to a limitation with the card unfortunately as it can phsycially do FX and MIDI, but it seems not FX and MPU-401. It seems that this was the first version of the Nova that had MPU-401 capability, so it's entirely possible it's a buggy implementation.

If the card is using WDM drivers, it may fare better if VXD drivers are available.

Thanks for this. I suspect you're probably right, and that's a real shame.
At least I can utilise the MPU-401 with source ports, so that's something at the very least.

Interestingly, the ROTT sound setup has game music playing in the background. If I do things in a certain order, I can actually get both the Midi music and the sound effects working together properly - but when exiting and starting the game (or going to sound setup again) everything has slowed down massively. It's like there's some kind of magic combination order of doing things, and games just don't do things that way.

Hopefully I'll be able to find another MPU-401 card that'll work properly in future but here in Australia I feel like they're getting harder and harder to locate.

If you have a spare ISA slot and just want to add MPU-401, the PicoGUS 2.0 is a good solution and is readily available. That's what I do to work around the buggy MPU401 on the sound blaster 16 when using FX simultaneously.