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First post, by aleksej

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I have trouble in Duke Nukem 3D with ingame midi playback through any General Midi device. Midi playback is a little jerky.
I try with many cards, game versions and environments.
Sound Blaster 16
AWE-32 (many revisions)
AWE-64
Daughterboards and external modules: SCD15, DB50XG, Waveblaster I/II, MU-10, etc
Duke Nukem 3D 1.3D, 1.5(1.4), 1.7d.
Set Midi playback in setup through: Waveblaster, General Midi, Sound Canvas.
Plain MS-DOS
Windows 98 DOS box
Also try to load SBMPU401 util

Guys, who own any general midi device, test please this game with General Midi!

Reply 2 of 16, by 5u3

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Tested it on my 486 machine - everything sounds fine.

SoundBlaster 16 MCD model CT1750
Roland SCD-15

Duke3D version 1.3D
MS-DOS 7.10 (the one that comes with Win98)
No sound drivers whatsoever, only BLASTER variable set manually

You mention jerky MIDI playback - does this only occur in the game itself or in the sound setup program as well?

Reply 3 of 16, by aleksej

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No, only in the game.

I fogot to say. It is jerky playing both midi (through GM) and fx sound.
Especially in intro screen and in beginning of E1M01 and E2M01
With EMU8k or FM playback everything ok.

p.s. I found this bug. It is appears when FX set to big frequency. In Example:
8000khz - all ok
11250khz - all ok
16000khz - a little bit jerky
22050khz - a little too
44100khz - a most jerky.

When midi playback through EMU8K or FM both fx and midi sounds ok with any FX frequencies. I set FX to 16000khz now and bug disappear but i want to use 44100khz with my SCD15 ofcourse 😒

Reply 6 of 16, by Wintermute

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c.imp wrote:

My reason is not to run out of that problem but try to solve it 😉

So? Using a Build Port is a perfect solution! In fact, the new ports are running much better than the old game ever did.

Anyway that dn3d source port is win32 applications.

jfduke also runs under Windows 98, which you are using according to your first post.

Reply 8 of 16, by 5u3

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c.imp wrote:

No, only in the game.
When midi playback through EMU8K or FM both fx and midi sounds ok with any FX frequencies. I set FX to 16000khz now and bug disappear but i want to use 44100khz with my SCD15 ofcourse 😒

The sound FX sample rate is independent from the music quality. No matter what you set in the digital FX section, 11 or 44 kHz, 1 or 8 voices, the music will always sound the same, because there are no sound quality parameters for MIDI music.

The sound engine in Duke3D is quite advanced for a DOS game, it can mix up to 8 effects in 44 kHz and 16 Bit stereo, adding hall and echo in certain locations. Of course it takes a lot of CPU time to do this (especially on older 486 hardware), and setting such high values doesn't make much sense anyways, because the sound effect samples are 8 Bit, 11khz maximum.

I get the same problems you mentioned when I turn down the speed of my 486 to 50 MHz and use an ISA graphics card. This kind of system would be too slow to play Duke3D with maximum sound settings.

Reply 10 of 16, by 5u3

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Hmmm. Do you use the K6 machine you listed in the System Specs section of this forum? If yes, I'd try the following troubleshooting method:
- Remove all sound cards and MIDI modules except the SB16 with the SCD-15
- Check your BIOS for non-standard settings
- Boot into plain MS-DOS with clean config.sys and autoexec.bat files (only HIMEM, no soundcard drivers or other stuff).

If you are using your K6-III+, CPU overload is out of the question. It rather sounds like a busy ISA bus or a resource conflict.

Reply 11 of 16, by aleksej

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Yes i use that machine and of course i'm also playing with bios settigns and variable boot sequences.
I'm think, maybe build engine has FX caching feature like in Eradicator, but this feature just not described? Probably my awe-32 has 28mb onboard memory.
Anyway Blood game use same build engine but i not have these bugs with him even it can mixing up to 32 fx voices.

Reply 14 of 16, by Mike

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Hey, I have a wonderful solution!! Purchase a caiso electronic piano, and a midi cable, and hook the General Midi piano to your SB 16 joystick port, (music is heard from the piano's speakers!) choose General Midi, and you're ready to rock and roll!
There is no need to install really complicated modules, the electronic piano keyboard has VERY good quality music, and this will probably fix your problem, because you won't need to have additional cards, good luck! 😉

Reply 16 of 16, by Mike

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Oops, sorry, my mistake. My suggestion would probably be to ensure that you have the latest DOS version of the game, even get the LATEST atomic if not original if that is what it takes to play without problems...
Good luck, and let me know if you have any concerns! 😉