Sounds like a problem I had with Lord of the Rings. The guy at softsystem uk said it is a limitation of the NTVDM and the solution I found is to use DOSbox.

It's Windows' sucky timer emulation. SPEEDSET may have worked ecxept... it doesn't work in protected mode and Descent is IIRC a protected-mode game.

Somebody please make SPEEDSET p-mode friendly! 😀

V.

Actually, with the last 2 versions of VDMSound LotR MT-32 MIDI won't work at all. My educated guess is that VDMSound's attempts to implement intelligent MIDI has broken compatability with stupid MIDI in some cases. I think VDMSound ought to drop support for the intelligent interface altogether and leave those who need it to seek DOSbox.

Hmm, I dunno, intelligent MIDI and dumb UART MIDI are pretty separate, and the only thing that happened is where before you would have had error messages and no sound you now have fewer error messages. 😀 Maybe the explanation is different. When is the last time (version of VDMSound) MIDI worked?

The last version I got to work was the last version that did not come bundled with EMUPPDAC. Theoretically, I should need that dll to run the sound effects in the game. When I ran it without it, the game freezes when their should be a sound effect. Same thing happens in the native XP support and the Santa Cruz soundblaster emulator. I don't think I ever tried EMUPPDAC.dll until it was bundled with VDMSound.

Ever since EMUPPDAC has been bundled the audio does not work at all. That's an improvement over freezing up for the soundblaster support. I attributed it to more robust exception handling in VDMSoound's code. Perhaps I am too generous.

The Soundblaster audio works fine in SoundFX 2000. That and DOSbox are the only things that can support soundblaster audio on that game. DOSbox is the only thing that does the timing correct for the music.

However, using the adlib support the FM music plays back at the right pace on everything. I'm mildly surprised it doesn't use the same timing mechanixm as the MPU-401.

I'm all confused. Even in the latest VDMSound EMUPPDAC is optional and only loads if you tell it to. I sthis what you did, i.e. added the EMUPPDAC lines in the custom congfig section etc.? Beyond that, it's all timer fun. AdLib has internal counters that may be used to regulate AdLib music independently of how well or badly actual DOS timers are emulated, MT32 in non-intelligent mode does not and then timing is 100% reliant on emulated DOS timers. SoundFX suffers from the same emulated timing problems as VDMSound, courtesy of MS's NTVDM.EXE. DosBox is fine there. SPEEDSET tries to fix this for non p-mode games and works well in conjnction with EMUPPDAC because usually games taht use EMUPPDAC-kind functionality stress out the bult-in Windows timer emulation (e.g. "Another Word", "Ween the Prophecy" etc.)

OK, these having been said, could you reexplain the last post to me? 😀

V.

Oh, I didn't know EMUPPDAC only loads if you tell it to. I did notice it is only in the last 2 versions I downloaded that the dll is in the install package - whereas it used to be a separate download.

So, I really have no idea why VDMSound stopped working. But it did.

There are two different threads of thought here, the soundblaster support and the MT-32 support.

VDMsound (old version), winXP native emulator, and SoundFX 2k all do the MIDI half speed.
Only DOSbox does the MIDI the correct speed.
The Santa Cruz drivers don't even have a virtual MPU-401.

Everyone but DOSbox and SoundFX 2k (including the Santa Cruz legacy drivers) freeze up on the soundblaster support.

The newer versions of VDMSound (which I have distinguished by the fact they install EMUPPDAC.dll without a separate download) doesn't work on either the MT-32 or soundblaster emulation. But it least it doesn't freeze up on the soundblaster emulation like most others do.

I also noted that everyone manages to successfully emulate Adblib MIDI, and I wondered why it was easier to get the timing right.

I should add that I am talking about experiences on two different computers. For one thing, it's a lot easier to hook my cm-32l up to my win98 machine.