Kynrek wrote on 2020-07-05, 22:06:

I have a Roland MT-32 that works flawlessly and sounds great using softMPU. When I use the MPU IPC controller card I noticed that the music sounds terrible and it seems like instruments 1 and 2 are never used. I tried changing the cables and removing my ESS audio drive card to see if it was a conflict issue but I am still Having the same issue. IRQ is set to 2 and address is set to 330 via the jumpers. Any ideas?

When you say it works with Softmpu, I assume you mean when plugged into your ESS card .

Assuming you motherboard has a Plug and Play BIOS, did you reserve IRQ9 (cascaded with IRQ2) to prevent a Plug and Play device from using it ?

Also, please provide some more system specs and the games you have tried, so we don't need to assume as much .

darry wrote on 2020-07-05, 23:07:

When you say it works with Softmpu, I assume you mean when plugged into your ESS card . […]
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Kynrek wrote on 2020-07-05, 22:06:

I have a Roland MT-32 that works flawlessly and sounds great using softMPU. When I use the MPU IPC controller card I noticed that the music sounds terrible and it seems like instruments 1 and 2 are never used. I tried changing the cables and removing my ESS audio drive card to see if it was a conflict issue but I am still Having the same issue. IRQ is set to 2 and address is set to 330 via the jumpers. Any ideas?

When you say it works with Softmpu, I assume you mean when plugged into your ESS card .

Assuming you motherboard has a Plug and Play BIOS, did you reserve IRQ9 (cascaded with IRQ2) to prevent a Plug and Play device from using it ?

Also, please provide some more system specs and the games you have tried, so we don't need to assume as much .

Thanks for responding! No I don't think I reserved IRQ 9 as well I'll give that a try, I think it may actually be used by the USB 2.0 PCI Card.

I have an AMD K6-III processor and the motherboard has an ALI Chipset. Yes with SoftMPU it works with the ESS es1868(ISA) card. Video card is a Voodoo 3 3500? AGP

I tried Monkey Island EGA (patched for roland support) and Day of the tentacle both sounded great with SoftMPU and I am pretty sure I saw the lucasarts/lucasfilm name pop up on the display for as second when using softMPU but not when using the real roland MPU-401 card.

I'll try reserving IRQ9 as well and report back.

Ok, so I reserved IRQ9 and saw that it assigned the USB PCI card to other interrupts 10/11 I think. But I still had the same problem. I removed the USB PCI Card and it instantly fixed the problem with the MPU-401 😀 not sure why removing the card fixed the problem though. Thanks for your help I wouldn't have tried this without your advice.

Kynrek wrote on 2020-07-06, 01:17:

Ok, so I reserved IRQ9 and saw that it assigned the USB PCI card to other interrupts 10/11 I think. But I still had the same problem. I removed the USB PCI Card and it instantly fixed the problem with the MPU-401 😀 not sure why removing the card fixed the problem though. Thanks for your help I wouldn't have tried this without your advice.

Happy you got it working .
It's not the first time I hear of strange issues in older systems when a PCI USB (or USB 2) card is installed . What chipset does the it have (likely one of VIA, NEC or ALI) ?

It has an ALI chipset. The usb card does work in windows 98 Which is handy for transferring files.

Glad to have it working, I just restored my MT-32 with 23 brand new nichicon capacitors ! (Pic below)

https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/nrprdrpt.c … 82DD82C5D6.jpeg

Kynrek wrote on 2020-07-06, 04:18:

It has an ALI chipset. The usb card does work in windows 98 Which is handy for transferring files.

Glad to have it working, I just restored my MT-32 with 23 brand new nichicon capacitors ! (Pic below)

https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/nrprdrpt.c … 82DD82C5D6.jpeg

Always nice to see an MT-32 get some love .

As an alternative to USB, may I suggest a network card ? PCI 100Mbps ones with Windows 9x drivers (and even DOS support via a packet driver interface) are cheap and plentiful.

EDIT: Were you able to test the old capacitors from the MT-32 ? If so, were they still in spec ?

darry wrote on 2020-07-06, 04:24:

Always nice to see an MT-32 get some love . […]
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Kynrek wrote on 2020-07-06, 04:18:

It has an ALI chipset. The usb card does work in windows 98 Which is handy for transferring files.

Glad to have it working, I just restored my MT-32 with 23 brand new nichicon capacitors ! (Pic below)

https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/nrprdrpt.c … 82DD82C5D6.jpeg

Always nice to see an MT-32 get some love .

As an alternative to USB, may I suggest a network card ? PCI 100Mbps ones with Windows 9x drivers (and even DOS support via a packet driver interface) are cheap and plentiful.

EDIT: Were you able to test the old capacitors from the MT-32 ? If so, were they still in spec ?

I have a Compact flash to IDE adapter I am using for pure dos but it is mounted in the back of the case. I picked up an SD to IDE adapter that can be front mounted so I may just not use the USB2 card anymore.

I still have all of the Capacitors that I took out but I haven't tested them, I may do that tomorrow if I have time. I am considering doing a ROM upgrade but I think I'll start a separate thread for that.