You can try Creative ISA cards for testing. And maybe you are lucky and get no, or very few, hanging notes. Cards from other brands have far more reliable MPU-401 interfaces.

Edit: If you run a Creative ISA card solely as an MPU-401 interface (music only) the hanging note problem is effectively prevented.

Yes if you are keeping the AWE32, you can use that for digital sound, and use ANY sound blaster for the wavetable card, as the hanging note bug only manifests when the same card is being used for both MIDI and digital.

Both those cards you listed are generally considered not to have the bug although in my experience they are quite noisy. Really if all you're using it for is the daughterboard and keeping the AWE32 for FM and digital sound you can use any card with the wavetable DB connector.

Well, what I'd like to do is use the AWE32 for everything and the SB16 for MPU-401 only. Is there any way that all functions on the SB16 simply be disabled except for MPU-401? or would I have to do it by changing the IRQ/DMA/Addresses on the SB16 to something other than the AWE32 uses, and set each game that uses General Midi or Yamaha XG to access it at port 300h or something?

I think the CT1740 has more options as far as jumpers go. I looked at the CT2230, there doesn't appear to be any jumpers for switching the IRQ and DMA away from 5 and 1 respectively. I guess all I could do is try it.

I also have a couple other PnP cards I could try for host cards if they're better options, like a CT2940(No OPL3), CT2960, Yamaha YMF719, AcerMagic FX-16(ESS Audiodrive), and a Mediavision Jazz16 which may not be PnP, not sure. I was hoping to avoid any TSRs, but if any of these are a better option...

I'd use the CT1740 as it has jumpers and that will make it very easy 😀

What resources is your AWE32 currently set?

To make the AWE32 your main card and the CT1740 your MIDI card, set the MIDI port on the AWE32 to 300.

Then configure your SB16 with resources that are different compared to the AWE32. For example:

AWE32 A220 I7 D1 H5 P300
SB16 A240 I(2,5 or 10), D(0 or 3), H(6 or 7) P330

My current settings are:
SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 H5 P330 E620 T6

So with the CT1740 I should be able to set it to A240 I7 D3 P330 and set the AWE's MIDI to P300. Now, does this also mean that anything using OPL2/3 would be piped out from the SB16? Would that introduce noise from the CT1740 through the OPL functions? Just wondering if it would be a better option for sound quality to change the MPU-401 address on the SB16 as well and tell any game using MIDI to look for the GM device at 300h...

Yes that looks good.

330 is the default MIDI address. So whatever card your Yamaha is on should have the midi port at 330.

OPL sound will likely come out from both cards. This shouldn't cause any issues though.

maddmaxstar, I'm currently using a somewhat similar configuration but with the exact same purpose :

AWE32 non-PnP CT2760 @ A220 I7 D1 H5 P300 E620 T6.
(DSP 4.12)

This is the "main" card where I assign the sound effects, voices, etc. And also for AWE music selection.

SB16 non-PnP CT1740 @ A240 I2 D0 H6 P330 T6 + NEC XR385.

I'm using this card as a PURE MIDI option. I'm not woried about the hanging bug since I'm using the AWE32 for digital voices. (My card's DSP is 4.11.)

Another thing to note is that the CT1740 has an actual Yamaha OPL3 chip on-board.

If you want to use the YMF 262 OPL3 chip of the CT1740, just select the I/O address 240 in the game's setup. This will route the game's FM request to the CT1740.

If you want to use the AWE32's OPL music, set the I/O to 220 in the game.

If the game does not have an install or setup file, you can create a batch file to declare the SET BLASTER statement to direct towards the respective card prior to running the game executable.

Whether you have a PnP card or not, you can still run all games without any TSRs at all (if not using AWEUTIL's emulatiion modes).

I set the CT1740's IRQ to 2/9 and Port to 330 since that co-incides with the original MPU-401 configuration.

I've also set all the said resources to be free in BIOS by assigning them to "Legacy ISA" so that the system won't touch these.

Addendum :

The Speaker-Out from CT1740 goes to Line-IN of the AWE32. The Line-OUT from the AWE32 goes to my A/V receiver. This receiver filters all noise and hence, no distortions or noises like when using directly connected desktop speakers or headphones.

It works!

I configured the cards as follows:
AWE32 CT3910: A220 D1 I5 H5 P300 E620
SB16 CT1740: A240 D3 I7 P330

My AWE32 has the same CT1747 main IC with "OPL" written on it as my CT2230, and I haven't noticed any sound abnormalities, I'm assuming it has a real OPL3 integrated into the chip, so I'm not worried about cutting over FM functions to the SB16.

The gameport, IDE controller and audio preamp on the CT1740 have also been disabled. An audio cable (swiped temporarily from my Genesis/Sega CD) has been attached to SPK/Line Out on the CT1740 and connected to Line In on the AWE32. I then started it up, and set the line-in volume on the AWE to max using Mixerset.

I expected this to be a pain in the a** to get working, but much to my surprise, it worked right away. Everything I threw at it tested OK, Xwing, Tie Fighter, Duke 3D, Heretic, Doom I & II, Descent and even MIDI file playback under Win95 after setting it to MPU-401 Data port. No stuck notes so far. I tried Skyroads and a few other games with just OPL2/3 support, no issues with their sound either. The only drawback is that the music sounds somewhat quiet, so I may re-enable the SB16's pre-amp and use the volume dial for better control of the sound levels.

Thanks everyone for the help! And cool to know others are using similar setups. 😀 I really wish I had a full AWE32 with the SIMM slots like yours Malik, but that's another time.

Now, that said, I noticed when configuring a few games to use the MIDI board, I noticed that some have the option for General MIDI (most really), but some also have the option for the Waveblaster, which, correct me if I'm wrong, is the Creative answer to the DB50XG/DB60XG/XR385 boards, right? What would be the best sound option to use in this situation, General MIDI or Waveblaster? And are there games that specifically use the XG?

Glad it's working for you.

Thing is with DOS it's usually quite easy to pinpoint exactly what needs to be changed to fix something. Quite different to windows were you often end up reinstalling windows.

AFAIK there shouldn't be a difference. Some games also have Sound Canvas as an option. I think it was just meant to make it easier for people to select something they know they have.

If I'm not mistaken, choosing either Waveblaster or GM will be routed to the XR385. Since both options require the port setting (like in DOOM setup for e.g.,) and we have to enter the port 330 to make use of the CT1740's midi option.

If one has a Waveblaster, it can be attached to an AWE32's midi connector and choose Waveblaster+port 300 to access Waveblaster sounds, in this config.

As for games that have specific support for XG MIDI implementation, all I remember is Terra Nova : Strike Force Centauri by Looking Glass Studios. I also have a faint recollection of someone mentioning PC version of Final Fantasy VII.

If my memory serves, Extreme Assault also has a specific option for Yamaha (or NEC) DBs

Malik wrote:

I also have a faint recollection of someone mentioning PC version of Final Fantasy VII.

FF7 PC for definite. It lets you choose your MIDI device, and then whether it sends AWE, GM, or XG MIDI data.

The XG soundtrack on an XG device (or using the software XG synth which actually came bundled with the game) sounds very close to the PSX version.

In practice I haven't noticed any sound differences with Waveblaster and General MIDI on the XR385, so that sounds about right. FF7 for PC sounds cool, I bet that soundtrack is awesome, though I bet a copy of FF7 for PC is fairly rare nowadays.

The DB60XG/XR385 sounds awesome, I'm really happy with it. The only downside is due to the address switching, the MT32/GS/GM emulation on the AWE32 is broken. I'm thinking that, since most/all the games I have that make use of General MIDI allow me to set the port manually, I may switch the 330h back to the AWE32 and set the SB16 to 300h.

Sorry to join in here at the end with a dumb question, but I'm planning on using this setup myself (thanks to that dude in China who seems to have a limitless supply of those XR385's).

I understand how all this works except for this:

I configured the cards as follows:
AWE32 CT3910: A220 D1 I5 H5 P300 E620
SB16 CT1740: A240 D3 I7 P330

These are your SET BLASTER lines obviously, but how does DOS know which card is which? Do I need to do something with an IRQ jumper on one of the cards?

Thanks for any help.

badmofo wrote:

Sorry to join in here at the end with a dumb question, but I'm planning on using this setup myself (thanks to that dude in China […]
Show full quote

Sorry to join in here at the end with a dumb question, but I'm planning on using this setup myself (thanks to that dude in China who seems to have a limitless supply of those XR385's).

I understand how all this works except for this:

I configured the cards as follows:
AWE32 CT3910: A220 D1 I5 H5 P300 E620
SB16 CT1740: A240 D3 I7 P330

These are your SET BLASTER lines obviously, but how does DOS know which card is which? Do I need to do something with an IRQ jumper on one of the cards?

Thanks for any help.

Not a dumb question at all. Read carefully what maddmaxstar was trying to do: using his AWE32 as primary sound card, and a SB16 as secondary sound card just for MIDI output. His BLASTER environment variable before adding the secondary card was:

SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 H5 P330 E620 T6

And it still is, but now with two different sound cards. How? Note that he does not have two SET BLASTER lines, but one. The BLASTER settings do not necessarily imply that you have all those settings associated with the same sound card. It just maps the SB base address, IRQ line, DMA channels, MIDI port address and AWE port address to some specific values. They usually match the hardware settings of a single sound card, but could also match the mixed settings of several cards. That is, the following lines are not actual SET BLASTER lines. They are intended to identify the hardware resources that each card is using:

AWE32 CT3910: A220 D1 I5 H5 P300 E620
SB16 CT1740: A240 D3 I7 P330

Therefore, a "SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 H5 P330 E620 T6" line will map SB base address (A220), IRQ line (I5), DMA channels (D1, H5) and AWE port address (E620) to the first card (AWE32), while the MIDI port address (P330) is being mapped to the second card (SB16).

To avoid any hardware conflict, you just need to assign two completely different set of hardware resources to each card. Piece of cake with non-PnP cards such as CT3910 and CT1740.

Yes, batracio explained it well.

Just to add in, the creative utilities like DIAGNOSE.EXE, SB16SET.EXE and games rely on the SET BLASTER settings. So if you want to access the mixer settings of the SB16, just make sure the "latest" SET BLASTER= settings points to the resources of the SB16, and vice-versa for AWE32.

It's easier to create batch files like for e.g., SB16.BAT and AWE32.BAT, and put the respective SET BLASTER settings in them. When you want the games that do not have the resource setup files like install.exe or setsound.exe, and you want to access the SB16 to make use of that shiny Yamaha OPL3 original chip for FM music, you can then just type SB16 to invoke the SB16. Likewise for the AWE32.
If you want to access the AWE32's mixer settings, then just type AWE32.

If you are not familiar with Batch file writing, you can just type the full SET BLASTER settings for the card you want to use.

The SET BLASTER settings will remain in the memory environment until another SET BLASTER setting is called, which will replace the former setting.

Example of contents of the batch files :

For SB16.BAT :

SET BLASTER=A240 I5 D0 H6 P330 T6

For AWE32.BAT :

SET BLASTER=A220 I7 D1 H5 P300 E620 T6

My actual batch files contain the following (with some obvious bells and whistles 😁 :

SB16.BAT

@echo off
echo.
SET BLASTER=A240 I2 D0 H6 P330 T6
echo.
echo Sound Card settings now assigned to Sound Blaster 16 at A240 I2 D0 H6 P330 T6
echo.

AWE32.BAT

@echo off
echo.
SET BLASTER=A220 I7 D1 H5 P300 T6
echo.
echo Sound Card settings now assigned to Sound Blaster AWE32 at A220 I7 D1 H5 P300 T6
echo.

(Gives a nice (bragging?) output and reminds me that I'm actually running on the SB16 and AWE32 cards in the system! 😁)

Fantastic, thanks very much for your detailed replies guys, I'm looking forward to trying this out.

And Malik, the world needs more people who take pride in their bat files!

I also use this method extensivly.
I usually have a seperate batch file for initialisation of each card (already like a library) and for changing setting on demand.
This is in particular switching soundfonts, switching GM / MT-32 and so on.

Malik wrote:

(Gives a nice (bragging?) output and reminds me that I'm actually running on the SB16 and AWE32 cards in the system! 😁)

Malik you could use some serious ANSI logo/color upgrade. I also recommend loading a funky new font.

Yeah, when I use the AWE32 as my primary card, I put the SET BLASTER line in as the addresses for components I wish to use, in this case:
SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 H5 P330 E620 T6

Everything in the BLASTER line matches the AWE32 except the MIDI address (P330 on the SB16 rather than P300 of the AWE32), which redirects to the SB16's MIDI port, which has the XR385 on it.

The setup works flawlessly other than the AWE32's MT32/GM emulation is broken, presumably due to the way the MIDI port is set, but this is only an issue if you want the MT32 emulation for Lucasarts and perhaps Sierra games, and it doesn't work absolutely well anyway.

I'm thinking of swapping the P330 back to the AWE32 and setting each game using General MIDI to look at P300, in order to get my emulation back, but currently I have this setup torn apart as I'm playing with the XR385 on a Turtle Beach Montego A3DXtreme (Aureal Vortex 1) to see if it'll work in a newer PCI-only based system. The good news is that it does, but now I need some DOS drivers for the Turtle Beach.