Greetings!
This doesn't have to do with emulation, but with an issue with a real MT-32. Whenever I try to run either Savage Empire or Martian Dreams, they hang. They will run if set up to use a Sound Blaster. Does anyone have any clue as to why this is happening? Thanks!
Scythifuge
is this with Dosbox? If yes, try to set mpu401= under the [midi] section to none, uart or intelligent and also try the different cores.
Its with MS-DOS on a 486. Once I get past the hurdles with the MT-32 on my classic gaming machines, I'll hook the MT-32 up to my main PC to start Dosbox experimentation.
The other way around would probably be easier...
Actually I am having the exact same problem as the OP above. Martian Dreams, Wing Commander 1 (and Secret Missions) and Wing Commander 2 (and Special Ops) all lock up my 486 PC when using my real MT-32. It is only these 3 Origin games that do it and only when trying to use the MT-32 (SoundBlaster support works fine). Other Wing Commander games (Academy, Privateer, Armada, etc.) are fine, Ultima's 6 & 7 work great, all Sierra games work great (TIM, KQ4 and up, SQ1, 3 & up, LSL1, 3 & up, Willie Beamish, etc.). I even tried Buck Rogers 2 - Matrix Cubed and it worked fine as well. I tried these games because they are the oldest ones supporting the MT-32 I have (I initially thought it could be the problem games were using Intelligent Mode on the MPU-401 causing the lockup, but if KQ4 and Matrix Cubed, both designed to run on an 8088, work OK that is unlikely) Again, it is only these 3 Origin games that cause the lockup - All the other MT-32 games, and Windows all work fine. None of my newer MIDI games that use the SoundCanvas have any of these issues either.
Lock up details:
Game loads Origin Sound System! and the OriginFX intro starts. Shortly into the fireworks display at the end of the OriginFX intro, the PC hard locks and the MT-32 starts looping the last sound it was playing. This requires turning the MT-32 and PC off entirely and turning them back on to fix. This same problem happened initially with Wing Commander Academy as well, but that game uses the Miles AIL 2 libraries, so I copied the MT32MPU.ADV file from a working game and that resolved it.
I can get the MT-32 to work in all games except Ultima 7 if I replace the PC MIDI Card with a Gravis Ultrasound running MegaEm 3 to emulate an MPU-401 and output all MIDI through the GUS MIDI port instead. I really should be able to just use the MIDI card and run everything though.
PC I am working with:
IBM PS ValuePoint 6381-F50 - 486SX-25 CPU, 16M RAM, integrated CL-5628 video w/1M RAM. IRQ 9 is enabled by jumper (disables video IRQ - have tried with this both on and off, makes no difference), LPT and COM ports are all disabled in the BIOS as they are unused - PC has 3 ISA slots for expansion containing:
(Slot 1) - MusicQuest PC MIDI Card 8-Bit ISA (100% MPU-401 compatible, when you read MPU-401 in my notes THIS is the card I mean) - set at Port 330, IRQ 2/9
(Slot 2) - 3Com EtherLink III 16-Bit ISA set at Address 3A0
(Slot 3) - Creative SoundBlaster AWE64 Gold 16-Bit ISA set at A220 I7 D1 H5 P300 E620
Roland MT-32 (connected to PC via MIDI IN and MIDI OUT)
Roland SoundCanvas SC-55mkII (connected to MT-32 via MIDI THRU)
15G IDE HDD (Master)
52x IDE CDROM (Slave)
3.5" Floppy Drive
PS/2 Mouse and KB
PC-DOS 2000
Windows 3.11 for Workgroups (all DOS games run in pure DOS)
QEMM '97 (tried under both QEMM and regular DOS HIMEM.SYS and EMM386.EXE)
Troubleshooting tried:
Removing all ISA cards other than the MPU-401
Memtest x86 (24 hrs stable)
Trying different port on MPU-401
Trying different IRQ on the MPU-401
Clean booting into DOS (No Drivers at all)
Connected MIDI IN & OUT to the SoundCanvas, leaving MT-32 disconnected.
If anyone has any other suggestions, please let me know. Someone somewhere has to have run into and resolved this before. . .
Thanks,
Michael Miller
* edit * corrected PC Model # and clarified test game choices - BTW, if anyone still has the update patches for QEMM '97, I'd REALLY like to get up with you as they're about impossible to find on the 'net. . . 😀
QEMM 97 + manual : http://www.chsoft.com/dv.html
I downloaded Savage Empire from Abandonia. It did not have any documentation with it. It seems to run fine in Dosbox, but I cannot get past the copy protection question.
Does anyone know where I can download the manual (I have found maps) or at least get the copy protection questions and answers. Thanks
Dominus, any chance of integrating support for the other games and this into Exukt?
@dh4rm4:
No chance to integrate this into Exult. Exult is only aimed at the Ultima 7 engine. But for the other Ultima games you have the following projects:
Nuvie http://nuvie.sf.net aimed at the Ultima 6 engine which does include Martian Dreams and Savage Empire (but spport for these two is not yet as good as for U6)
Pentagram http://pentagram.sf.net aimed at the Ultima 8 engine, which includes Crusader: No Remorse/Regret (same as with Nuvie, support for the Crusader games is no as advanced)
Xu4 http://xu4.sf.net aimed at Ultima 4
