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VDMSound Win98SE...

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First post, by pharaohamps

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I just got a laptop for mobile gaming, and I'm running Win98SE. Problem is that the onboard sound hardware doesn't have MIDI or any real SB emulation / compatibility, only Windows support. No big deal - I run the Yamaha S-YXG50 software synthesizer for MIDI anyway, and I'm mostly playing console emus, so it works fine. I decided I wanted to play some old Sierra games (QFG1, QFG2, etc.) and I could get SB sound in DOS but no MIDI or AdLib. Pretty lame.

So then I started reading about VDMSound - I download the Win98 version + setup and install. Within 5 minutes I had General MIDI and SB support in QFG1 VGA and Adlib emulation on the older SCI games! Awesome.

The only problem I'm having is that the VDMSound drivers won't release the S-YXG50 MIDI port, even after I run VXDSBOOM. Does anybody know if there is a way to get those drivers to let go of the Windows MIDI driver? No big deal but I'm using ScummVM to play LucasArts games with General MIDI and I can't get it to run unless I reboot.

Also - Is there a way to set up a batch file (or something) to load and unload the VDMSound drivers so that I don't have to go command-line so much? Doesn't bother me, and I'm not asking for a GUI or anything, but it seems like I should be able to come up with a batch file or some other elegant solution.

Thanks,
Matt Farrow

Reply 1 of 6, by Snover

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The drivers load only for one specific instance of the command-line -- or at least, they're only supposed to.

Yes, it’s my fault.

Reply 2 of 6, by pharaohamps

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Update - I just installed the Win2000 (WDM) drivers for my laptop's sound card, and now everything seems to be working OK! ScummVM can talk to the MIDI port even after I run VDMSound / DOSDRV. I've also whipped up some batch files that seem to take care of everything - click on the batch file, DOSDRV runs, click "OK" when the "Tip Of The Day" msg pops up, then the game runs. When the game exits, it runs VXDSBOOM and everything is back to normal.

Now if only I could get rid of the "Tip Of The Day" message. 😀

Thanks,
Matt Farrow

Reply 3 of 6, by gidierre

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>if only I could get rid of the "Tip Of The Day" message

You can always write a reg file customized like this to tweak it :

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00, or iirc I should say Regedit 4 if it's for Win9x

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Freeware\VDMSound]
"NextTip"=dword:00000000
"TipsFile"="D:\\Programmi\\VDMSound\\\\VDMSound.tips"
"ShowTips"=dword:00000000

where of course the "D:\Programmi" part will become something like
C:\Program Files or whatever is fitting for you.

Reply 4 of 6, by vladr

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"Showtips=0" takes care of it, you can ignore the TipsFile and so on part.
VDMSound releases wave and midi drivers when it exits, I hope the mechanism works ok under WIn9x as well (I think it does - it's logged in the log if in debug mode).
V.

Reply 5 of 6, by pharaohamps

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Thanks for the replies. I think I've got a handle on the "Showtips=0" key, so my next question is: Does the Win9x ver of VDMSound support joystick emulation / pass-through the same way that the NT / 2k / XP ver does?

I'm trying to run Prince Of Persia 2 and it can't find my joystick (DirectInput / HID compatible joystick.) I'd like to know if there's anything I can do to get it functioning correctly.

Thanks,
Matt Farrow

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