First post, by DaCiRO
I have a NEC XR385 WaveTable Daughter Board (clone of DB60XG) attached to the Wavetable header of a Diamond Monster MX300 (Vortex 2) PCI sound card, and I got it running on Windows 98 on a Pentium 4 PC.
By default the NEC XR385 Daughter Board initializes on GM mode (TG300 I believe) but it is also XG capable same as its Yamaha twin sister card the Yamaha DG50XG, this one by default initializes in XG mode. I have read on several post that to initialize the NEC XR385 in XG mode it requires to be sent a specific SySex command (XG reset: F0 43 10 4C 00 00 7E 00 F7), however I do not seem to be able to get it in XG mode,...and 3 days into it I am not sure what am I doing wrong.
Both in the Windows Multimedia Midi menu and the Aureal Midi menu I have selected the MPU-401 midi option (not the WaveTable option)
I have been trying with two different programs; XGedit95 and Midi-OX. I do not use them at the same time, I try one at a time hoping one would work
- In XGedit, I select as the Midi Synth the DB50XG (as it has no option listed for the XR385, but they are the same card), I select the Midi out as 'MPU-401', I press the XG button at the top of the menu and close the application (this is supposed to reset to XG, right? )- start Doom and Descent - the music plays well but seem it is in GM mode.
- In Midi-OX, I select the Midi out as 'MPU-401' , then send the SySex command listed above, close the application - start Doom and Descent - the music plays well but seem it is in GM mode.
(The reason why I know that it plays plays in GM mode and not XG mode is because I have another PC with a Yamaha MU-100 and a Roland SC-55 and they sound quite different in this other machine)
I do not do any re-boot after sending the XG SySex codes... Is it required to get i working in XG mode? At least it dod nothing for me the few times I tried.
I noticed that after sending the XG reset commands if I do not close the programs (XGedit, Midi-OX) when I start the games I get an error message that says something like "Midi port is busy, please close any applications using MIDI...". So I got to close the applications for the games to run with General Midi sound.
What are the right process steps to get the card working in XG mode? .... How do you guys do it?