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Ultima V MIDI Sound in DOSBox

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First post, by storrs19

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I have Ultima V and can play it through Windoze fine (except that it runs too fast) with the midi sound patch that allows music. When I run it through DOSBox I only get the PC sounds through my sound card and speakers. Is there some way to get the midi sound in DOSBox so I can play the game with the midi patch and at the correct speed?

Running:
Windoze XP on a P4-3ghz with 2GB RAM
128MB ATI Radeon Video Card
Soundblaster Live! 24bit

(I don't need anything newer as all the games I enjoy are old as dirt, 🤣)

Thanks,
Chad

Reply 1 of 4, by Great Hierophant

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That patch, along with the patches for U3 and U4 were not designed for the speed of machines which the games were designed to be run on. U3 was designed for a 4.77MHz 8088, U4 and U5 for no better than a 8MHz 80286. The patches use the Miles sound drivers and DPMI extenders like DOS4GW or CWSDPMI, which were way more advanced and require a different level of computational power to run. No doubt you can't get the right speed in DOSBox.

http://nerdlypleasures.blogspot.com/ - Nerdly Pleasures - My Retro Gaming, Computing & Tech Blog

Reply 2 of 4, by bloodbat

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It is working with MIDI music for me after patching...
Did you follow the instructions to the letter?

4 - Installation Instructions:

	1. Unpack the U5 Upgrade zip file into your Ultima 5 directory
	   on your hard drive.  This will not affect your current
	   saved games.
	2. Run "setm.exe" from the Ultima 5 directory to configure
	   your sound card, if you will be playing music.
	3. Run "u5cfg.exe" to configure the game options.
	4. Run "u5data.exe" to patch DATA.OVL.
	5. Run "ultima5.com" from the Ultima 5 directory to start the
	   game.

Also, which MIDI device did you choose? Do you have a DPMI provider within the game's folder? (like CWSDPMI).

Reply 3 of 4, by Great Hierophant

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More importantly, which option in the sound setup menu did you chose? Try the Adlib/Sound Blaster option, that should make music.

bloodbat wrote:
It is working with MIDI music for me after patching... Did you follow the instructions to the letter? […]
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It is working with MIDI music for me after patching...
Did you follow the instructions to the letter?

4 - Installation Instructions:

	1. Unpack the U5 Upgrade zip file into your Ultima 5 directory
	   on your hard drive.  This will not affect your current
	   saved games.
	2. Run "setm.exe" from the Ultima 5 directory to configure
	   your sound card, if you will be playing music.
	3. Run "u5cfg.exe" to configure the game options.
	4. Run "u5data.exe" to patch DATA.OVL.
	5. Run "ultima5.com" from the Ultima 5 directory to start the
	   game.

Also, which MIDI device did you choose? Do you have a DPMI provider within the game's folder? (like CWSDPMI).

http://nerdlypleasures.blogspot.com/ - Nerdly Pleasures - My Retro Gaming, Computing & Tech Blog

Reply 4 of 4, by ufoufo512

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I have succesfully used the DOSBox with Ultima V with midi music patch, both on Windows and Mac versions of DOSbox. I don't remember that anything special that was needed, except:
1) Follow the patch instructions to the letter as already suggested.
2) I recall that I had to separately download a DOS extender to the patch / the setup to work. However this shouldn't affect the music.
3) Please check that your MIDI configuration in DOSBox is working.

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