First post, by ultra_code
- Rank
- Oldbie
Hello VOGONS memebers!
I have an... interesting question.
I currently have installed on my P3 Slot 1 machine Doom and Doom 2 w/ expansions that I run under MS-DOS mode, and I began using with Doom 2 (because when I was playing Doom 2 I acquired one) a Roland SC-88 w/ SoftMPU for MIDI playback along with my AWE64 Value for sound effects. Now, I'm thinking that I might want to upgrade that system to a slightly newer platform - a socket 370 800-series chipset motherboard w/ Tualatin support and no ISA slots. Obviously, that would mean that I wouldn't be able to use the AWE64, and, if I did want to use MS-DOS mode, I would have to forgo whatever benefits the AWE64 had over comparable PCI sound cards, and then have to deal with all the DOS games that are looking for an ISA sound card. Now, one option (and probably the best for A+ compatibility) is to move my Doom installations to my P1 system, which has an AWE64 Gold and all. However, I only have room for two PCs in my retro setup (one of them being my late Win98/early XP P4 machine; not moving that), so if I would want to play any DOS games that fancy me on real hardware, I would have to spend a few minutes pulling the P1 system together and all. While not hard to do, it would be... dissuading, in terms of convenience.
The other options I have are emulation/source ports. The first, obvious solution would be DOSBox - it emulates straight DOS, and, if I remember correctly, supports external MIDI devices; more likely than not, if I hooked up my SC-88 to my modern PC running DOSBox using the official Roland USB-to-MIDI adapter and set everything up properly, it would all work just fine, and any sound effects differences between the emulated sound card in DOSBox and a real-life AWE card (to me any how) would be hard to differentiate.
The other, more potentially complicated solution are source ports - the main focus of this thread. AFAIK, some of these source ports use some of the original Doom game files, while rewriting the whole Doom engine - not much emulation beyond sound (if I am correct). Now, (finally) my question is this - does anyone know any source ports that support external MIDI devices? It seems that ZDoom might (if someone could verify, that would be nice), but do any of the alternatives do to?
Sorry for the long, drawn-out intro. Felt the context was necessary. Also, in advance, sorry if this topic doesn't fit perfectly into this branch of VOGONS, since this is focused on software that runs on Windows, not DOS - thought the "Windows" branch wouldn't be appropriate, since Doom and Doom 2 are DOS games, "Software" is focused on older hardware, not modern systems, "DOSBox General" is, well, DOSBox, and that isn't the main focus here really, and "PC Emulation" isn't focused on software (at least games anyhow). Felt like this is somewhat the best place to post this. *shrug* 😒
Anything would be appreciated. Thanks!