Originally posted by none ...but I CANNOT get the General MIDI to work at all. It always hangs on testing or at the DOS extender.

Well, that makes no sense, do you have any other titles that do work with MIDI?

Adlib and OPL-4 works fine,...

When you say OPL4, you mean Dual-OPL2?

Sorry, I meant OPL-3.... and no, the only game that I've tried is TIE Fighter.

Originally posted by None Sorry, I meant OPL-3.... and no, the only game that I've tried is TIE Fighter.

Well, this is one of the titles I don't have, so it's harder to troubleshoot. Try to find a game with the MIDI option for music and try that with VDMSound.

The only reason I can think of where MIDI shouldn't work is if you manually disabled it or if MIDI was hosed somehow on your PC.

Well, I actually had to format my machine, so I reinstalled XP and used my Live! card this time. Same problem; hangs on testing of GM or Roland (MT32). Last thing I can think of is to reset my BIOS options, but it's unlikely that will do anything. I'll be trying some other games too. Thanks for the help... I'll show the results here later.

Originally posted by None Well, I actually had to format my machine,

Holy..!! If I'd known you were going to do something like that I would've recommended installing DOS or Win9x first. Then XP would've set up a dual-boot for you, giving you more options.

I'll be trying some other games too. Thanks for the help... I'll show the results here later.

Try a NT-friendly game (runs fine in silence) that has a MIDI option and make sure you're choosing MPU-401 MIDI at address 330.

Nicht Sehr Gut wrote:

Holy..!! If I'd known you were going to do something like that I would've recommended installing DOS or Win9x first. Then XP would've set up a dual-boot for you, giving you more options.
Try a NT-friendly game (runs fine in silence) that has a MIDI option and make sure you're choosing MPU-401 MIDI at address 330.

Hell, I know the GM stuff works in Windows, because I do a decent amount of sequencing in Cakewalk and such, but I'll see if I have some games for Windows that use MIDI.

Originally posted by None Hell, I know the GM stuff works in Windows, because I do a decent amount of sequencing in Cakewalk and such, but I'll see if I have some games for Windows that use MIDI.

I meant a DOS game that was "friendly" to NT. Your Windows games, no doubt, will access MIDI just fine as your applications do...

Can you tell us what your default MIDI device is?
(Right click on Speaker icon in bar --> Choose adjust audio properties --> Click on Audio tab --> ID whatever is under the "MIDI Music Playback" label)

Well, here's the deal now - When using Launchpad, the test no longer locks when using General MIDI. It plays, but at a little less than half speed. Same with the SFX, but sounds more like it's stuttering. The only problem after that is that launching the game through launchpad leaves it hanging at the DOS extender loading screen. Tried speedset, but it made no difference, other than locking up after certain values. Changing DSP versions makes no difference for SB emulation.

Originally posted by None Well, here's the deal now - When using Launchpad, the test no longer locks when using General MIDI. It plays, but at a little less than half speed. Same with the SFX, but sounds more like it's stuttering.

Apparently, this game has a number of issues, and results differ from person-to-person:
showthread.php?threadid=81&highlight=TIE+MIDI
showthread.php?threadid=1139&highlight=TIE+MIDI
showthread.php?threadid=1545&highlight=TIE+MIDI
showthread.php?threadid=1349&highlight=TIE+MIDI
showthread.php?threadid=1954&highlight=TIE+MIDI

If I ever find it cheap enough, I'll grab it and do some testing.

The only problem after that is that launching the game through launchpad leaves it hanging at the DOS extender loading screen.

Apparently, something to do with the way it opens the screen:
showthread.php?threadid=81&highlight=TIE+MIDI

Tried speedset, but it made no difference, other than locking up after certain values.

Speedset doesn't like protected-mode games. TIE Fighter is a protected-mode game.

Yeah, I've thoroughly read through all of those posts... thanks for the help though, I'll obviously post if I figure out the problem.

I've been having the same problems with TIE Fighter: I just can't get General MIDI to work. I almost crapped my pants a few minutes ago when I, out of the blue, decided to try it again. I went into imuse.exe and set it to General MIDI, AND THE TEST FRICKIN' WORKED!!! I couldn't believe it. Incredibly excited, I quit imuse.exe and tried to run tie.exe, but ran up against the classic lockup problem. So General MIDI works in the imuse.exe test, but not in the actual game... very frustrating.

I think the key to getting General MIDI to work in imuse.exe, at least, was to have a windows app do some MIDI first. In my case, the test in the nForce control panel does the job.