Try 0x300, 0x310, 0x320...etc all the way up to 0x370

Most games that supports MIDI (whether MT-32 or General MIDI), only works with the original Roland MPU-401 standard. Some older games expects a real mode MPU-401 MIDI interface, wheras all General MIDI compatible games will work with a UART mode MPU-401 MIDI interface.

In the early days of sound cards, they only had a standard MIDI/game port, but it wasn't MPU-401 (UART mode) compatible. Your sound card has the same MIDI/game port that was found on the Sound Blaster 1, 2 & Pro range of sound cards and is therefore not MPU-401 compatible.

As I recall, only from the 2nd generation of sound cards did Aztech Labs include an MPU-401 (UART mode) MIDI port (as did most other sound card manufacturers from around 1992 onwards).

There were 3rd parties that wrote patches for some games that allowed it to use the standard Sound Blaster MIDI port (like for some Sierra games).

However, SoftMPU also supports output via the Sound Blaster game port. You could try that perhaps as it might help with some games.

jesolo wrote:

Most games that supports MIDI (whether MT-32 or General MIDI), only works with the original Roland MPU-401 standard. Some older […]
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Most games that supports MIDI (whether MT-32 or General MIDI), only works with the original Roland MPU-401 standard. Some older games expects a real mode MPU-401 MIDI interface, wheras all General MIDI compatible games will work with a UART mode MPU-401 MIDI interface.

In the early days of sound cards, they only had a standard MIDI/game port, but it wasn't MPU-401 (UART mode) compatible. Your sound card has the same MIDI/game port that was found on the Sound Blaster 1, 2 & Pro range of sound cards and is therefore not MPU-401 compatible.

As I recall, only from the 2nd generation of sound cards did Aztech Labs include an MPU-401 (UART mode) MIDI port (as did most other sound card manufacturers from around 1992 onwards).

There were 3rd parties that wrote patches for some games that allowed it to use the standard Sound Blaster MIDI port (like for some Sierra games).

However, SoftMPU also supports output via the Sound Blaster game port. You could try that perhaps as it might help with some games.

I see. I looked for this information but couldn't find it anywhere. In this situation does the midi port still have a normal io address like a real MPU401 compatible would?

I'm assuming the tester program for this card must be hard coded to work with their midi implementation because like I said, it did output GM to my SC7 without any drivers or TSRs loaded.

The main problem I would run into with SoftMPU is that it requires a 386, and any system that I would actually NEED an 8bit sound card for would be a 286 or older. When I get a chance I'll test the suggestion above to try several different io addresses, but if that doesn't work I'll probably just have to admit that it isn't a super secret awesome card for 8bit only systems. 😀

To be honest, I'm not 100% sure, but I would assume it must be routing the MIDI data via some non standard port/address.

The original Sound Blaster MIDI port specifications should be available (since this card most likely will follow that specification). However, since it's MIDI port is not MPU-401 compatible, it won't work with any game that is "looking" for that interface.

I have the Sound Galaxy Basic 16 sound card (which also doesn't have an MPU-401 MIDI interface) and I know that with that card you cannot specify an I/O address.

Here is my SET GALAXY line if it helps at all:
SET GALAXY=A220 I5 D1 K10 P530 T6

Different card, but who knows, worth a shot.

To my knowledge, no software reads the SET GALAXY statement (except perhaps for some proprietary Aztech software).
The first 3 parameters will be the same as your SET BLASTER statement.
K10 is your Windows Sound System (WSS) IRQ and P530 is your WSS base port.
All 16-bit Sound Galaxy sound cards uses T6, but under DOS this is not supported (the best you'll get is Sound Blaster Pro II, which uses T4 in the SET BLASTER statement).

Some older games do read the SET BLASTER statement.
So, be sure to add that in your Autoexec.bat file and make sure that your parameters matches the jumper settings (if applicable) or software configuration (which on most Aztech models were stored in an onboard EEPROM) on your sound card.

However, this will not solve your MPU-401 UART problem. This is hardware based, not software based.

Yes, I am aware of and have a SET BLASTER as well (SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 T4). The OP said

None of the usual IO addresses work. I've tried 300, 330, 388, 530, 220... nothing works when I select it as a GM device in Nascar Racing or Descent sound setup.

I noticed my SET GALAXY line sets what I thought was the MIDI port to 560, so I thought he might want to try that. After your post, I now see P560 refers to the WSS port.

Bah! I'm going loony. Disregard, I thought the 530 said 560, which led me to believe it was a MIDI port he hadn't tried. Now I see it's not even a MIDI port and it said 530 all along.