clueless1 wrote:

Yes. Because many of the games that support MT-32 are also older games that don't have speed-limiters built in. For example, W […]
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Tempest wrote:

4. Will the fact that I'm using a Pentium 200Mhz machine cause issues? I think the speed problems were only with the first version of the MT-32 and I have the second version. Otherwise I do have a 486SX that I could use.

Yes. Because many of the games that support MT-32 are also older games that don't have speed-limiters built in. For example, Wing Commander 1 and 2, and Ultima 6 and 7 all run too fast at Pentium speeds. And most Sierra and LucasArts point-and-click adventures don't run too fast, but either crash or give garbled sounds with a Pentium. If you can slow your system down to 386 or 486 speeds, these issues go away. See here for more info:
http://www.vogonswiki.com/index.php/List_of_C … sensitive_games
The easiest option is Setmul by forum member gerwin, since it lets you do it entirely in software, so you don't have to change jumpers on your motherboard, go into the BIOS to disable caches, or use a real 386/486 to run them on. There is more info on this in the link in my signature.

Using Setmul, I can run my Pentium Overdrive 200MMX at Pentium 133, 486-25 and 386DX-25 speeds, all without having to even reboot.

Cheers!

I guess I can put the AWE32 in the 486, but is that too much/wrong sound card for the era?

collector wrote:

Why is this in emulation? Real hardware threads should be in Marvin.

I have no idea. I guess that's where I made the thread originally all those years ago (although that really doesn't make sense so I'm assuming it was an accident). I just bumped my old one rather than creating a new one, I didn't even look at what forum it was in.

I'm guessing the AWE32 will work fine in your 486. It was released in 1994, and there were still plenty of 486s in service in 1994. Heck, the 486DX4 was released around the same time in 1994.

clueless1 wrote:

I'm guessing the AWE32 will work fine in your 486. It was released in 1994, and there were still plenty of 486s in service in 1994. Heck, the 486DX4 was released around the same time in 1994.

Yeah actually looking around at the various games I wanted to play I realized that they were all 386/486 games. For some reason I was thinking games like Ultima VII and Wing Commander III and IV required Pentium systems.

My 486 is only an SX though (it's an IBM Valuepoint 433sx/s), I wonder if it's worth upgrading it to a DX or not? I think it has some sort of 'processor override' socket that I'd image an upgrade chip goes in. I'll make a different thread about that though

gdjacobs wrote:

BloodyCactus wrote:

The hanging note is also dependent on the which bus chip you have. if you have a CT-1747 chip with the yamaha core, you wont get hanging note bug.

Incorrect. The CT-1747 mitigates some of the hanging note problems, but the only ways to avoid them entirely are to use an unaffected DSP for your MIDI output or use twin SB16s, one for MIDI and one for digital audio.

well my info came from the nerdly pleasures blog that got posted below my original and above this.

if its wrong, you should let him know so he can correct his blog info.

Tempest wrote:

clueless1 wrote:

I'm guessing the AWE32 will work fine in your 486. It was released in 1994, and there were still plenty of 486s in service in 1994. Heck, the 486DX4 was released around the same time in 1994.

Yeah actually looking around at the various games I wanted to play I realized that they were all 386/486 games. For some reason I was thinking games like Ultima VII and Wing Commander III and IV required Pentium systems.

My 486 is only an SX though (it's an IBM Valuepoint 433sx/s), I wonder if it's worth upgrading it to a DX or not? I think it has some sort of 'processor override' socket that I'd image an upgrade chip goes in. I'll make a different thread about that though

My understanding is it would only make a difference in games that take advantage of a math co-processor. I think Falcon 3.0 did? Edit: and SimCity. And something like Quake (which is probably too slow to run on a 486 anyway), but beyond that I'm not sure. A 486 33 is supposed to be the perfect speed for Ultima VII. 😀 http://nerdlypleasures.blogspot.com/2013/06/u … l-hardware.html

Wing Commander III and IV pretty much do need a Pentium, FYI. Maybe you can play at the lowest res and details on a 486, but that's hardly worth it.

clueless1 wrote:

Wing Commander III and IV pretty much do need a Pentium, FYI. Maybe you can play at the lowest res and details on a 486, but that's hardly worth it.

Ah good to know, I guess I was looking at the minimum system requirements there. That's why I have both systems. 😀

Off topic but it's my thread anyway, how decent of a card is the Ensoniq Soundscape S-2000? This is the card I was going to put in my Pentium class machine to replace the AWE32 I'm putting in my 486.

CT-1747 can eliminate a large percentage of the issues, but the only complete strategies avoid simultaneous digital audio and MIDI being processed via an affected DSP. Some of The Great Hierophant's documentation as well as that from third parties goes into more detail.

http://nerdlypleasures.blogspot.ca/2014/04/sc … rds-gaming.html
http://nerdlypleasures.blogspot.ca/2010/06/is … d-blasters.html
http://www.vogonswiki.com/index.php/Hanging_note_bug

This bug will not be present in any card using the CT-1747 chip.

This line is present in two documents at Nerdly Pleasures linked below (the ones you referenced). I'm guessing this was old information which has since been superseded or perhaps a simple oversight.
http://nerdlypleasures.blogspot.ca/2012/07/so … 64-options.html
http://nerdlypleasures.blogspot.ca/2012/07/so … ibulations.html

If you like, you can jump down the deep, dark hole to view some of the examples of SB16 cards with the hanging notes problem.

Moved.

There are a few games with MT-32 that also support digital sound, these will potentially suffer from the hanging note bug.
As Phil says most of the cool MT-32 games don't have digital sound though.

I wouldn't shell out for a hardware intelligent MPU interface, I have one and have used it a handful of times.
Just stick with your SB16 and if you have problems get a cheap AWE64 or a Yamaha YMF card.

Another requirement of interfacing an MT-32 or a GM device is having a proper cable.
Trivial it may sound, but sound cards have varying tolerance towards "unbuffered", cheap cables.
Recently I had epic battles with SoftMPU and early SB16 cards until, as a last resort, I swapped that short, thin, cheap DB15 to MIDI DIN cable for a high quality 2 meter synthetiser cable... and all problems of music cut-out, hanging notes after 20 sec. suddenly disappeared.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPU-401
Good overview of hardware solutions and history.

gdjacobs wrote:

CT-1747 can eliminate a large percentage of the issues, but the only complete strategies avoid simultaneous digital audio and MI […]
Show full quote

CT-1747 can eliminate a large percentage of the issues, but the only complete strategies avoid simultaneous digital audio and MIDI being processed via an affected DSP. Some of The Great Hierophant's documentation as well as that from third parties goes into more detail.

http://nerdlypleasures.blogspot.ca/2014/04/sc … rds-gaming.html
http://nerdlypleasures.blogspot.ca/2010/06/is … d-blasters.html
http://www.vogonswiki.com/index.php/Hanging_note_bug

This bug will not be present in any card using the CT-1747 chip.

This line is present in two documents at Nerdly Pleasures linked below (the ones you referenced). I'm guessing this was old information which has since been superseded or perhaps a simple oversight.
http://nerdlypleasures.blogspot.ca/2012/07/so … 64-options.html
http://nerdlypleasures.blogspot.ca/2012/07/so … ibulations.html

If you like, you can jump down the deep, dark hole to view some of the examples of SB16 cards with the hanging notes problem.

I'm having trouble finding the answer to this, but are there any other games or applications known to have the hanging notes bug (or any other midi bugs) other than the ones in the list on the vogons wiki? I ask because I don't play any of those games and I'm not sure if I should just use my ct2940 (less common one with Yamaha opl3) for output to my mt32 and sc7 or if I should use my Midiman mm401 as well. I know that the Midiman offers intelligent mode where the soundblaster would need softmpu, but I'm not sure if there will be any audible or compatibility difference between them if I'm not playing the games on the list of games with the hanging noes bug.

I will most likely play some of the games that support intelligent mode, but it seems like softmpu is pretty compatible (I haven't tried it myself).

I just keep bouncing it back and forth in my head... I have so many sound card options and can't make my mind up about how to configure my "anything VGA or post 286" DOS\98se system.

I've also experienced hanging notes in X-Wing and Tie Fighter.

clueless1 wrote:

I've also experienced hanging notes in X-Wing and Tie Fighter.

It does the same with Dosbox and Virtualmidisynth. Could be a bug in the game?

PhilsComputerLab wrote:

clueless1 wrote:

I've also experienced hanging notes in X-Wing and Tie Fighter.

It does the same with Dosbox and Virtualmidisynth. Could be a bug in the game?

Great Hierophant says:

It is important to identify games which produce hanging notes as a result of incompatibility with the various DSP versions of the 16-bit Sound Blaster series. : DOOM, DOOM II, Heretic, Hexen, Raptor, Hocus Pocus, Duke Nukem 3D and Blood are all examples of games which suffer from this bug. There are other games which may occasionally produce hanging notes regardless of the midi interface being used. Any game using LucasArts iMuse system may be subject to it. This includes Star Wars - X-Wing and Tie Fighter (floppy versions) are good examples of such a game.

Seems to indicate it is not related to DSP, but I could have sworn that after I swapped the Soundblaster 16 for the Audician 32 Plus the hanging notes went away.

So... not to derail this thread, but in the past few days I've done just a little bit of research and found that there is no actual down-side to the SB16\Vibra\AWE lines lack of "Soundblaster Pro" compatibility, since no one can think of a single game that makes use of stereo sound that is not also SB16 compatible. And on top of that, I find that the oft-mentioned hanging note bug (the one that is actually hardware related... not the one in Tie Fighter) only occurs in *8* games.

Don't get me wrong, I always like to know about possible problems\quirks when I'm planning a build, but it seems a bit odd for so many people to recommend against any post-SBPro2 Soundblaster cards due to an incompatibility that doesn't effect a single game and a midi music bug that only effects 8 games, 6 of which are of the same genre and similar time period (meaning, if you aren't interested in one, you likely won't play any of them).

This has certainly been a week for learning new things about old games and sound cards. 😀

Since I will be playing some games that use intelligent mode, I decided that I might as well just use my MM401 to have a seamless midi experience no matter what game I play... but it is good to know that if I do build a 386 system at some point and move my MM401 to that, I won't really be losing much switching back to my CT2940's midi port on my Pentium system.

Yes, little issues get often made out to be much bigger than they are.

The "not SB Pro 2 compatible" argument will never die I think 😀

It's similar with graphics cards for DOS. 99% of all games run on every graphics card. But because it doesn't scroll smooth in Commander Keen (or other games) a Matrox card is often ruled out as being suitable for DOS gaming.

Ozzuneoj, I will just say, that I thought the hanging note bug was blown way out of proportion too when I was deciding which sound card to buy. I ended up buying a SB16 Vibra with the hanging note DSP. Then I bought a Dreamblaster S1 MIDI daughterboard. A few of my favorite games that I'd been playing were Doom, Doom2 and Duke Nukem 3D. You can see where this is heading. 😉 In the end, I could not stand the hanging notes. In fact, my wife could hear the high-pitched whine from the other room and came in to ask what that terrible sound was. It's not so much that it is loud, but it travels far even at low volumes, and drills into your brain. So I bought an Audician 32 Plus and wished I'd just bought it in the first place. It is quieter than the SB16 (much less hiss at higher volumes), sounds exactly as good otherwise, and has no hanging note bug. The reversed stereo is only in some games, and easily fixed in the game sound setup (they all have a stereo reverse toggle). For me there is absolutely no downside to the Audician 32 Plus. If you never have intentions of playing these 8 or so games with General MIDI, then it will never be an issue.

If I really want to play Doom again (and I might) I'll just use regular sound and avoid the general midi setting.

That's unfortunate. Doom's GM soundtrack is fantastic.