Second game:

Frederik Pohl's Gateway

- Confirm there's no music without SoftMPU loaded: No MIDI output at all when SoftMPU is not running
- Is there music with SoftMPU loaded (SB on IRQ2/9 if available)?: Yes
- Is there music with SoftMPU loaded (SB on IRQ5 or 7)?: Yes
- Does the game allow a user-specified IRQ?: Yes: use the command line format gate.exe mt32 IRQ BASE; e.g. gate.exe mt32 7 330
- Does the game produce buffer overflows on a Rev.0 MT-32?: Untested - no visual output on my mt32pi install

There is a problem with Gateway, however, although the music plays, the game will constantly hard lock when the Legend Entertainment screen fades to the 'Gateway' main title screen. The above occurs with/without the 'legmpu.com' MIDI playback bugfix TSR loaded as available in these forums.

Third game:

Frederik Pohl's Gateway II: Homeworld

- Confirm there's no music without SoftMPU loaded: No MIDI output at all when SoftMPU is not running
- Is there music with SoftMPU loaded (SB on IRQ2/9 if available)?: Yes
- Is there music with SoftMPU loaded (SB on IRQ5 or 7)?: Yes
- Does the game allow a user-specified IRQ?: Yes: use the command line format gate.exe mt32 IRQ BASE; e.g. gate.exe mt32 7 330
- Does the game produce buffer overflows on a Rev.0 MT-32?: Untested - no visual output on my mt32pi install

There is a problem with Gateway II, however, although the music plays, the game will constantly hard lock when the Legend Entertainment screen fades to the 'Homeworld' main title screen. The above occurs with/without the 'legmpu.com' MIDI playback bugfix TSR loaded as available in these forums.

Exact same symptoms as with the original Gateway.

Also just checked another Legend Entertainment game; Superhero League of Hoboken... exactly the same symptoms; the game has no MIDI without SoftMPU, with it loaded the music plays throughout the introduction, but the introductory animation locks up part way through... much later than Gateway or Homeworld (which are usually just after the main title screen is shown).

Just as with the other Legend games, if you use Adlib music the game runs perfectly and doesn't lock up.

It is only when SoftMPU is used that the Legend games hang.

I see all three titles mentioned here are supposed to be working... could it possibly be something specific to SoftMPU on the ess1868f card with these games?

Has anyone had similar lockup problems with the Legend Entertainment titles when used with SoftMPU?

megatron-uk wrote on 2024-04-10, 14:40:

Also just checked another Legend Entertainment game; Superhero League of Hoboken... exactly the same symptoms; the game has no M […]
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Also just checked another Legend Entertainment game; Superhero League of Hoboken... exactly the same symptoms; the game has no MIDI without SoftMPU, with it loaded the music plays throughout the introduction, but the introductory animation locks up part way through... much later than Gateway or Homeworld (which are usually just after the main title screen is shown).

Just as with the other Legend games, if you use Adlib music the game runs perfectly and doesn't lock up.

It is only when SoftMPU is used that the Legend games hang.

I see all three titles mentioned here are supposed to be working... could it possibly be something specific to SoftMPU on the ess1868f card with these games?

You're doing the Lord's work here, going through and testing the stuff on the compatibility list! 😁 And glad to see other people interested in Superhero League of Hoboken, in my opinion it has never gotten the love it deserves.

I've had some trouble with Superhero League of Hoboken too, but interestingly we have DIFFERENT problems! I didn't have an issue with lockups on Superhero League of Hoboken, I just straight-up get no MIDI at all when using SoftMPU and an MT32-Pi with my MAD 16 Pro sound card. When I was trying to get this working a few months back, kahuna was testing Hoboken with me and they were able to get MIDI but the audio would hang when the voiceover started in the intro (i.e. when digitized sound started), so I assume it's a problem caused by shared IRQ. They ended up just getting a PC-MIDI card, that's my long-term goal once they're back in stock and I have the money to spare on about $130 of retro sound equipment.

What's in your LEGEND.INI config file for Superhero League of Hoboken?

realnc suggested earlier in the thread trying to configure the Soundblaster for IRQ 2/9, there are some games that need that, that'd be worth a shot.

You could also try finding and running LEGMPU.COM, a TSR that (as I understand it) corrects a timing quirk with Legend Entertainment games' implementation of MIDI. It doesn't sound like that's actually your problem, but it can't hurt to try it out. Link to the thread with a download for it here: Gateway 2 (and others) MT-32 MIDI tempo off?

I've recently swapped the ES1868F with a Yamaha YMF719 as the host for the WP32 McCake and these Legend Entertainment titles are still giving me grief.

Everything else I've tested both cards with, along with SoftMPU has worked. The games which don't work regardless of SoftMPU loaded or not are:

Gateway^
Gateway II^
Superhero League of Hoboken^
Gabriel Knight*
Police Quest 4*
Quest for Glory 4*
Leisure Suit Larry 6*
Ringworld Revenge of the Patriarch

^ The game locks up at some point in the intro when started with SoftMPU
* I believe these should all work without SoftMPU, but although I get no errors about initialising MIDI, I get no music either. Sound effects are fine.

I have two slight differences in behaviour with the ESS1868F vs the YMF719 cards with the Legend titles;

- With the ESS card I can set unisound to use IRQ2 (or 9), and SoftMPU will happily detect the MPU interface (I use it at 5 or 7 most of the time).
- With the Yamaha card although Unisound will initialise the card at IRQ2 (or 9), SoftMPU will not detect it when set to that number. It's happy at normal IRQ values such as 5 and 7 though.

Neither card set to any combination of IRQ stops the Legend games from locking up. The games work fine in Adlib mode, and the same copy of those games works fine on a 286 with a real Roland MPU401 card.
I have tried with and without the LEGMPU.COM tsr, as well as the alternative GATEFIX.EXE loader. Neither of those make any difference to the lockups.

I have 43 other titles that work great with SoftMPU loaded. There are a couple in here which I don't believe are intelligent-mode examples (Bloodnet?), but without SoftMPU loaded I got no MIDI output at all, or error messages:

Another World
Cool Croc Twins
Flash Back
Gods
Magic Pockets
BloodNet
Codename: Iceman
Conquest of Camelot
Conquest of the Longbow
Elvira
Elvira 2 The Jaws of Cerberus
Future Wars
Kings Quest 1
Kings Quest 4
Laura Bow
Laura Bow 2
Leisure Suit Larry (VGA)
Leisure Suit Larry 2
Leisure Suit Larry 3
Leisure Suit Larry 5
Monkey Island 2 LeChucks Revenge
Police Quest 1
Police Quest 2
Police Quest 3
Quest for Glory 1
Quest for Glory 2
Quest for Glory 3
Space Quest 1
Space Quest 3
Space Quest 4
Star Trek Judgement Rites
The Secret of Monkey Island
Mega Traveller 2
Ultima VI
Ultima Worlds of Adventure Martian Dreams
Ultima Worlds of Adventure The Savage Empire
A-Train
Populous
Wing Commander
Wing Commander 2