General Midi - I am TOTALLY lost... and extremely frustrated.

[Todd82TA]

Ok, so... to make things short, I'm in my 30s now, grew up during "the era." I've been taking apart computers for quite some time, so have a pretty good knowledge of computers from this time frame. I understand setting IRQs, DMAs, and making sure the addresses are set properly.

So I've wanted to get back into playing some of these older games, and I've run into some snags. Everything works awesome, EXCEPT when it comes to General Midi.

I've got two computers, one is a Dell 325P which is essentially a 386 DX-25. I installed the Cyrix DLC-40 486 processor in place of it, it works great, the computer has 8 megs of ram, and I'm running DOS 6.22 with all the SETVER stuff set. I'm using a Sound Blaster 16 ASP w/ the address and IRQ settings set right.

However, I'm trying to be able to play my old games with General Midi, and it doesn't work. I've got a bunch of general midi cards, including a Roland SCC-1. I also have two General Midi daughter boards, a Yamaha XG something or other, and a Roland SCD-55 Daughterboard (wave blaster). I've got another machine, which is a Pentium II that also has some ISA slots in it. I've tested both cards and I know they work. For example, the SB16 works great doing it's normal Sound Blaster stuff. But when I install the Roland SCC-1 (independent card), the output isn't getting picked up by the Sound Blaster's input (using a male to male headphone jack). When playing Ultima 6, I can take the output from the Sound Blaster, and then stick it directly into the Roland, and I hear the General Midi music just fine. I've got THREE Sound Blaster 16s, and none of them have the line-in input that seems to work. I've installed original drivers, including MIXERSET.EXE which sets the line levels.

I know the daughter boards work too, as I can play DOOM, and the general midi works fine.

So ALMOST ALL of my games that use General Midi are crashing. I've tried installing Ultima Underworld 1 and 2, as well as Wing Commander 1 and 2... they all crash. When I try to run them using General Midi, they freeze up.

I know I have way more important things to spend my time working about, hahah... but I've spent like multiple days, and probably a weeks worth of hours trying to trouble-shoot this. I've swaped the sound cards, you name it.

I refuse to use Good Old Games to play these games since I've got the hardware. I'm confused... really confused! I know about 4-5 years ago, I had all of this working in the P2. I could play all the games, with the Roland Sound Canvas, and the inputs worked too...

Any advice from some of you guys that have maybe had to deal with this... I would really appreciate!


Thanks!!

Oh yeah, I'm new, didn't know this forum existed... but hope to spend a lot of time here.

 

[DonutKing]

Welcome to the forum!

The reason those games you mentioned (Ultima Underworld, Wing Commander) are crashing is because technically they didn't support General MIDI, they supported the older Roland MT32 standard.
A funny thing about the MT32's is that they were presumed to be running with an 'intelligent mode' MPU-401 interface. The MIDI interface on the Sound Blasters is a UART mode interface.


Without going into technical detail, trying to play a game that expects intelligent mode MIDI with a UART interface will cause it to hang. The later general MIDI standard only requires a UART mode interface, so games that support GM don't have this problem.
Some games have patches available to fix this, notably many Sierra games. I'm not aware of any for the Origin games. If a game has 'general MIDI' in the setup then its using proper GM, but if it has 'Roland' or 'MT32' then its using the older standard. There are some exceptions though! I think Incredible Machine was one game that had 'MT32' in the setup but actually played General MIDI data that resulted in horrible output. Conversely, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis had a GM option but played MT32 data I believe.

So what interfaces are 'intelligent?' No sound blasters ever had this. Some Ensoniq cards had intelligent mode MIDI, most Roland cards do too (some later GM ones like the RAP10 don't). The Roland LAPC-I and MPU401 cards did, obviously There are also some Music Quest cards around that are intelligent.

However I thought the SCC-1 would have an intelligent mode interface so I'm surprised if it crashes with that - totally understandable that it crashes with the sound blaster and a daughterboard though.

Most GM devices have an MT32 compatibility mode - this doesn't grant intelligent mode capability, it just rearranges the instrument mapping into one similar to that of the MT32 - the music may sound a bit weird if you feed MT32 data to a GM device otherwise.

However for games that were written for MT32, I strongly reccomend actually getting one (or compatible, like an LAPC-I, CM32 etc) as that's what it will sound best on.


As for your sound blaster input problem... I'm not sure, I just run mixerset, enable the line in and turn up its volume and it works... I don't bother with sound blaster 16's or later any more though, as they have a nasty 'hanging note' bug with general MIDI daughterboards, and they usually have pretty noisy output. In my 386 I have a Sound Blaster Pro and a LAPC-I, from which I feed both outputs into an external mixer. In my 486 I have a Yamaha YMF719 with a DB50XG clone daughterboard.

Hope this was of some assistance

 

[Todd82TA]

Yes!!!

Yes!!!

Hope this was of some assistance

This was EXTREMELY helpful!!!

I want to go through this a few lines at a time so I'll better understand, and if there are any other posts past this one.

Welcome to the forum!

The reason those games you mentioned (Ultima Underworld, Wing Commander) are crashing is because technically they didn't support General MIDI, they supported the older Roland MT32 standard.
A funny thing about the MT32's is that they were presumed to be running with an 'intelligent mode' MPU-401 interface. The MIDI interface on the Sound Blasters is a UART mode interface.

This makes SO MUCH sense to me now, it really does. "back in the day" when my primary computer was a Pentium 3, I ran Windows 98 SE. All the games I played on that were more modern games which, while they did use General Midi, ran under Windows 9X. So this would make sense... since all of those games simply used the General Midi on the card that was basically assigned to it from Windows... none of them expected MT-32.

However I thought the SCC-1 would have an intelligent mode interface so I'm surprised if it crashes with that - totally understandable that it crashes with the sound blaster and a daughterboard though.

Most GM devices have an MT32 compatibility mode - this doesn't grant intelligent mode capability, it just rearranges the instrument mapping into one similar to that of the MT32 - the music may sound a bit weird if you feed MT32 data to a GM device otherwise.

Yes, exactly! They are, and for those games that expect MT-32 (or specify Roland SCC-1), the Roland SCC-1 does in fact work. It is it's own card (not a daughter card as you well know). The only problem I was having with this, is that the line-in inputs seem to not work AT ALL on the Sound Blaster that I've been using. Can't understand it. I have practically debuged in hex (not really) the MIXERSET.EXE program... I know it inside and out now. I'm wondering if perhaps it's a hardware problem? The Roland SCC-1 works perfectly when it's plugged in itself, but the Sound Blaster can't properly retrieve it through the line-in.

However for games that were written for MT32, I strongly reccomend actually getting one (or compatible, like an LAPC-I, CM32 etc) as that's what it will sound best on.

I would love to! I've been looking for an MT-32 for ages, all I can find is some kind of external module for people who write music. Was there never an MT-32 card? I've seen the LAPC in images only... can't believe it's a full-length card though!!! I do have an SCC-1, so it appears that's the newer / better version of the LAPC?

As for your sound blaster input problem... I'm not sure, I just run mixerset, enable the line in and turn up its volume and it works... I don't bother with sound blaster 16's or later any more though, as they have a nasty 'hanging note' bug with general MIDI daughterboards, and they usually have pretty noisy output. In my 386 I have a Sound Blaster Pro and a LAPC-I, from which I feed both outputs into an external mixer. In my 486 I have a Yamaha YMF719 with a DB50XG clone daughterboard.

Hope this was of some assistance

Yeah, again... no idea... I set Mixerset, and still no matter what I do, it doesn't work. I'm VERY intrieged though about your "external mixer." Can you give me a little bit of information on that? I had thought maybe to use a Y-adaptor that would basically take output from the SCC-1 and the Sound Blaster to overcome this issue, but I was worried that maybe something might damage either card. Is it some kind of little external device or something?

Seriously, you've REALLY, REALLY helped me out here... it makes perfect sense. Like I started saying... maybe 10 years ago, I had a P3 which I played all my games on... I ran an SB-16 with the daughter board (SCD-55). Everything worked fine (although, I totally remember now about that hanging note you mention... used to get that every now and then). In my other computer, which was like a 486 DX2-66 or something... I had my Roland SCC-1 and some other sound card in there... never ran into any issues with it. At least, I believe that's what my setup was. Anyway, what you said makes COMPLETE sense... and it totally correllates with the testing that I've been doing over the past few days.

I think with this understanding now of the formats, I'm going to have to re-evaluate exactly what I plan to have as a set-up. My Pentium II doesn't make a lot of sense, it's not fast enough to really play the games well that were made for the P3 days (that still used GM), and the 386 is just too damned slow (even with the Cyrix chip) to play the games like Ultima Underworld II that were really meant for 486s.

Anyway... damn, thanks... I was going INSANE... this really makes a lot of sense now.

 

[Trixter]

Welcome to the forums. I've had many such setups as what you're attempting; my favorite was a GM wavetable card on a Sound Blaster 16 that output to the line-in of a GUS, and the line-out of the GUS went to my speakers. Two cards and I could play pretty much any 1990+ game with full quality audio.

Based on what you wrote, it seems as if you're having one of two problems:

GM card can't be heard through the sound blaster line input: Verify the SB line-in works first. Remove all sound cards except the SB and connect an MP3 player or other line out source to the SB line input and run MIXERSET (or whatever the command-line equivalent is for your card) to enable line-in until you can hear it through the SB output. (You don't need to be recording for this to work; messing with the mixer should be enough.) Note what you did and put it into your AUTOEXEC.BAT. If no amount of playing with the mixer gets the audio going through the card, then you might have a broken line-in port, but this is unlikely. A partial solution in that case is to just have two audio outputs coming from your computer and mix them with a mixer or a cheap y-cable from monoprice.com.

Games that use General MIDI are crashing: Both a Sound Blaster and a GM card have a MIDI port, typically 330h. Ports in a PC are not pass-through. You can't have the SB16 and the GM's base port set to the same port. GM programs expect 330h, so change the SB16's MIDI port to something else like 300h (some SCSI cards use 300h so maybe something other than that). On my Sound Blaster 16 ASP, there is an MSEL jumper that switches between 330h (closed) and 300h (open).

A good test setup for all this is Doom. Doom definitely supports General MIDI, works on your machine, and also supports SB16 for digitized sound output. If you can get DOOM working with two different base ports and a line-out-from-GM-to-line-in-SB16-to-line-out-speakers, everything else should work perfectly.

HTH.

 

[Trixter]

I would love to! I've been looking for an MT-32 for ages, all I can find is some kind of external module for people who write music. Was there never an MT-32 card? I've seen the LAPC in images only... can't believe it's a full-length card though!!! I do have an SCC-1, so it appears that's the newer / better version of the LAPC?

The LAPC-1 was essentially an MT-32-on-a-card. The SCC-1 was essentially a Roland SC-55-on-a-card. The SCC-1 (and SC-55) were notable in that they were the first official General MIDI devices (and to this day they still sound fantastic, in fact only the original Turtle Beach Multisound and the Yamaha XG series are comparable).

Yeah, again... no idea... I set Mixerset, and still no matter what I do, it doesn't work.

Even when a steady output is pumping into it, like that of a portable MP3 player?

I'm VERY intrieged though about your "external mixer." Can you give me a little bit of information on that? I had thought maybe to use a Y-adaptor that would basically take output from the SCC-1 and the Sound Blaster to overcome this issue, but I was worried that maybe something might damage either card.

It won't damage either card, but you don't have individual control of either output, so one could be louder than the other. Personal mixers are around $100 from places like B&H or Sweetwater.

I think with this understanding now of the formats, I'm going to have to re-evaluate exactly what I plan to have as a set-up. My Pentium II doesn't make a lot of sense, it's not fast enough to really play the games well that were made for the P3 days (that still used GM), and the 386 is just too damned slow (even with the Cyrix chip) to play the games like Ultima Underworld II that were really meant for 486s.

There weren't any DOS games made for anything faster than a PII, so if it's a DOS game that isn't speed-sensitive, it should play fine on your PII. You are correct, Ultima Underworld was really meant for 486s.

 

[DonutKing]

I would love to! I've been looking for an MT-32 for ages, all I can find is some kind of external module for people who write music. Was there never an MT-32 card? I've seen the LAPC in images only... can't believe it's a full-length card though!!! I do have an SCC-1, so it appears that's the newer / better version of the LAPC?

The MT32 was an external module, the card/internal version was the LAPC-I. (yes it is a full length card, I had to rearrange my computer a bit to fit it in..... )There was also a few different external variants like the MT100 which had a disk drive so you could play/save music to/from a disk, and the Roland CM series (CM32, CM500 etc) which were like the MT32 but were more geared towards games. They didn't have the digital display and actually had a few additional sound effects over the MT32.

To use an external module you can hook it up to a Sound Blaster 16's joystick port using a DB15->5 pin DIN cable. However I'd recommend getting an MPU401AT or similar card since the SB16 isn't intelligent mode compatible, plus you'll get the hanging notes. You should be able to run it off your SCC-1 but you'll need a cable with the mini connectors for the card into the large 5 pin DIN connectors on the external unit.
You might want to try the SCC-1's MT32 patch set first though as you might be happy with the results rather than spending more money on an increasingly rare and expensive MT32.
You can switch to this mode by way of a special MIDI file which I don't have but shouldn't be too hard to find. Here's a good guide: http://www.hot.ee/soundcard/teh/SCC1-FAQ.txt

The external mixer I'm using is just a cheap and nasty box with 4 inputs, one output and a volume control for each input. It's an ART Splitmix 4. basically I can connect up to 4 sound devices to one set of speakers, without fiddling around with the sound card's input. It's a passive unit (doesn't require power, and doesn't amplify the signal) and drops the volume each time a device is plugged in. An active, powered unit will give much better sound quality withouth dropping volume, but its not a big problem for me since I'm running it with amplified speakers.

I'm a bit puzzled by your sound blaster problem. Can you take a photo of your mixerset screen? As far as I know, if the line-in isn't muted in mixerset and the volume is turned up, it should jsut work. Does the microphone jack work instead? (I believe this will only give you mono sound input and will drop one of the channels but its worth testing).

 

[Todd82TA]

Guys, I can't tell you enough how helpful all of this has been. I plan to respond when I get home, but just wanted to say thanks for all the info, ALL of it was really useful. I know what I plan to do now..


Thanks!!!

 

[Chuck(G)]

I remember that when the PC first came out, there were no MIDI cards. One popular mod was to take an IBM Async Adapter, set it to current-loop mode and change out the crystal and ISTR, tweak the 20 ma current loop drivers down to 5 ma or so.

Does anyone still have one of these modded cards?

 

[Todd82TA]

Have a bit more time now, and just wanted to say thanks again for all this information. I've figured out what I'm going to do.

For the 386, I don't think I'm going to put any General Midi on it. I don't have enough cards to go around. I figure what I'll do is just stick a Sound Blaster Pro in there, and leave it as it is. I guess I'll use that computer for anything that I might have otherwise played on an XT through a low-end 386. I'll keep DOS 6.22 on there.

I will then use my Pentium II with a Sound Blaster 16 (no daughter card) and my Roland SCC-1. I'll use that computer for essentially all of the DOS games that I would have otherwise played... like everything from Wing Commander I all the way to Ultima 8. I'll keep Windows 98 SE on here.

Then I'm going to buy a reconditioned IBM P4 desktop (small little guy) and install my Diamond Monster Sound 3D PCI card in it, along with the Roland SCD-55 add-on card, and put Windows 98 SE on it. I can use this computer to play ANYTHING that I want General Midi on, but that was also designed for Windows 98 SE.

This should work well. Seems like a lot of crap to have at my desk, but whatever I suppose...


Thanks guys... really appreciate the advice. I'm also going to get that personal Mixer from Sweetwater: http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/SplitMix4/

Oh, and as far as the GUS goes... I don't know if I mentioned it, but at one time, I had a similar setup. I had my Sound Blaster 16 ASP with the Roland SCC-1, and also my Gravis Ultrasound ACE in there. The ACE was awesome because it didn't conflict AT ALL with the Sound Blaster 16. The ACE didn't have ANY Sound Blaster emulation stuff on it... all it did was Gravis Ultrasound stuff. I sold that card for like $100 bucks way back in the day... kind of wish I had kept it. I'd LOVE to have a GUS daughterboard for the SB-16 if they ever made anything like that, but sounds like it would be somewhat impossible...

Thanks again guys...

EDIT: OH! One last thing. Anyone here have an SCC-1 and happen to have a copy of the CHKSCC.EXE program that comes with the GS and MT-32 midi patch set files or whatever they're called? I have no idea where those disks went, but I used to have that program. I lost it somehow over the years. I've downloaded a bunch of MT-32 emu .MID files, and none of them are the correct ones.


Thanks!!!

 

[Todd82TA]

...

...

Just wanted to give a quick update to anyone who cares.

So I cleaned up my P2 more or less, opened it up, installed my original SB-16 (from back in the day) that I still had, installed the Roland SCC-1, zip-tied all the power wires and everything really neat, and made sure everything was working. It's a mid-tower Acer Altos 3000 Server something or other... so it's a bit ridiculous. It had an RDM module, two on-board SCSI controllers, and God knows what else. I disabled all the stuff I wouldn't be using, and removed all the items and cables to the stuff I wasn't going to use (tucked it away in an empty spot in the case so I wouldn't lose it).

It has like 200 gigs of total space, way more than I'll ever need. It's got Windows 98 SE installed that boots to DOS automatically.

I installed a few games, and EVERYTHING WORKED perfectly. The SCC-1 really does a great job. The only thing I need is the PROPER MIDI file that allows the SCC-1 to emulate the MT-32. I've got a couple of GS to MT32 midi files, but the best one I could find was the one from the RAP-10 and it's just not exactly right (but really close).

Anyway, if anyone knows where the CHKSCC program is that came with the Roland SCC-1... I'd love to get a copy!!!

So it turns out that the two other Sound Blasters I have are messed up. One of them, I know the left channel doesn't work, and the other works great, EXCEPT the line in is totally dead. I now have the Roland SCC-1 piped into my LINE-IN on the /other/ sound blaster 16 (the original one I bought back in the 90s), and it works perfectly... no issues. So it's obvious to me that the person selling all of those SB16s on eBay probably got them because they were returns or something. Anyway, the SB16 that has the Line-In issue STILL works fine with a wave-blaster in it... for whatever reason?


In the P4 that I plan to get, I'm going to put my extra Roland Sound Canvas SCD-55 daughter card on a Monster Sound 3D PCI sound card I have (since everything will be Windows based on that machine). But I STILL have a spare Wave Blaster daughter card... a Yamaha DX60 something or other. I would LOVE to install this into my Dell 990 Core i7 3.4... but I don't have a card to put it on. I've got a pretty nice sound card in there already, a 7.1 channel sound. Are there any PCI cards I can install in my machine that will allow me to use the General Midi daughter card on, but not conflict or anything?


Thanks guys!

 

[Mau1wurf1977]

The Roland SCC-1 IS a MPU401 intelligent mode interface + Sound Canvas. That's why games such as Wing Commander will load, although the instruments will sounds totally off.

But it's a great card to drive a MT-32 if you ever source one. Forget about emulating the MT-32 though. Doesn't work apart for games that don't use custom sounds, and those sound quite boring.

When you have the SCC-1 and a SB16 in the same machine, make sure you set the MIDI port of the SB16 to 300 or disable it (can be done on an AWE64 GOLD, so assume some SB16 cards have a similar setting).

Having said that you are better off with an external mixer. Much better quality compared to the mixer in the SB16.

 

[Todd82TA]

For anyone who cares, I have located the original utility files for the Roland SCC-1 Sound card. I don't know why, but this was IMPOSSIBLE for me to find anywhere on the internet. I was building out an IBM ThinkCentre P4 last night that I want to use for the late 90s / early 2000s type games that ran under Windows 98 SE, and one of the hard drives I put in there (to blow out) had all the old software that I was looking for. The entire Roland folder was on there, along with the CHKSCC.EXE program that allows me to put the SCC-1 into MT-32 mode (an emu file that was created by Roland, much better than most of the others that I found online). It also had some other utilities like StupenDOS, etc...

Anyway, I put it up on a new section on my site. There is really nothing of any computer related value on my site, but I figured I'd just host the files there and with the descriptions I picked, they'll probably get picked up by search engines for people who are also looking for it (or this thread will).


http://www.pontiacperformance.net/other/Files.html

http://www.pontiacperformance.net/other/Files/RolSCC-1.ZIP

 

[Maverick1978]

fwiw, I have a boxed/complete SCC-1b (which has, IIRC, 26 extra sounds over the SCC-1). The diskettes are the same... I don't have it linked from the site yet, but I will have it under the downloads section at classiccomputers.info... in case anyone wants to deal with a disk image rather than individual files.

Also, my $0.02... Roland MT-32 gen 1 units can still be had for ~$50 if you're willing to look. Gen 2 units will cost quite a bit more in most cases. I have some notes which I believe are Robin Whittle's mod from his now-defunct Real World Interfaces company. These include alternate firmware correcting the known bugs in the gen1 mt-32 units while also adding battery backup. It's a modification not for the weak-of-heart or shaking-of-hand Check downloads on my site - these are up, but are unconfirmed by me. I have read reports on some Yahoo groups from a few years ago that these are correct modifications for Robin's work. These files came from oldcrows.net.

As mentioned, LAPC-I ISA cards are just an internal MT-32 without the output screen (so you won't get the cool Sysex messages when playing Space Quest, etc). The LAPC-I will require the extremely rare breakout box (MCB-1, IIRC) to connect an external midi unit or pass-through to it. (IIRC) the SCD-70 daughtercard is essentially the same as the SC-55 external unit. The SCC-1 is an internal version of the SC-55, while the SCC-1b is an internal version of the SC-55mkII. The CM-500 is probably the most sought-after and desirable of the externals, as it combines both the original MT-32 sounds and the SC-55 sounds into one unit. It's price is prohibitive, and honestly, there's no use investing that much when you can just hook up the MT-32 and SC-55 up at the same time anyways.

The Roland RAP-10 does NOT support Intelligent Mode on its midi connector. IMO, you're better off for gaming to stick with a Sound Blaster variant, as you'll gain wider compatibility and the Roland really doesn't have any type of advantage in the arena as it's lacking Intelligent Mode compatibility.

Also, there are various versions of the MPU-401/AT card. Some have the daughtercard header, some do not. Sadly, mine does not. I would absolutely LOVE to obtain one with the daughterboard header, if some kind soul reading this should happen to run across one and feel sorry for me

There are some MidiMan cards that are fully Roland Intelligent-mode compatible as well. These include the MM-401 ISA card, as well as a few other models. These can still be had relatively cheaply - I've purchased two of them. One was card-only, and cost US $19 shipped from the UK. The other was complete-in-box, and cost $35 shipped. Note that these will need a dongle, essentially a 9-pin D-SUB connector that outputs to the midi inputs. They're easily enough built, and pinouts are in the manual (and around on the web.. I have notes somewhere). Without this connector, you'll be unable to connect your midi hardware to the card. Still, a small price to pay considering what most Roland ISA cards pull these days (I don't even want to think about the money I've spent in the last 2 years collecting these cards)

That said, unless you're crazy like me, you really only need 3 things to cover all your midi gaming needs: an intelligent-mode controller (I'd go for the Midiman MM-401), an MT-32, and an SC-55. Get that connected up, and you're going to be good to go. Don't want to invest the $150 or so in those pieces? Get your Sound Blaster Wave that has the add-on memory slots (these can be had for like $20 on ebay all day long). Then load your MT-32 patch set to the card, and you've essentially got an internal MT-32 (at least I've read of others doing this - I've never had need to do it, so have never tried it)

 

[Todd82TA]

fwiw, I have a boxed/complete SCC-1b (which has, IIRC, 26 extra sounds over the SCC-1). The diskettes are the same... I don't have it linked from the site yet, but I will have it under the downloads section at classiccomputers.info... in case anyone wants to deal with a disk image rather than individual files.

Also, my $0.02... Roland MT-32 gen 1 units can still be had for ~$50 if you're willing to look. Gen 2 units will cost quite a bit more in most cases. I have some notes which I believe are Robin Whittle's mod from his now-defunct Real World Interfaces company. These include alternate firmware correcting the known bugs in the gen1 mt-32 units while also adding battery backup. It's a modification not for the weak-of-heart or shaking-of-hand Check downloads on my site - these are up, but are unconfirmed by me. I have read reports on some Yahoo groups from a few years ago that these are correct modifications for Robin's work. These files came from oldcrows.net.

As mentioned, LAPC-I ISA cards are just an internal MT-32 without the output screen (so you won't get the cool Sysex messages when playing Space Quest, etc). The LAPC-I will require the extremely rare breakout box (MCB-1, IIRC) to connect an external midi unit or pass-through to it. (IIRC) the SCD-70 daughtercard is essentially the same as the SC-55 external unit. The SCC-1 is an internal version of the SC-55, while the SCC-1b is an internal version of the SC-55mkII. The CM-500 is probably the most sought-after and desirable of the externals, as it combines both the original MT-32 sounds and the SC-55 sounds into one unit. It's price is prohibitive, and honestly, there's no use investing that much when you can just hook up the MT-32 and SC-55 up at the same time anyways.

The Roland RAP-10 does NOT support Intelligent Mode on its midi connector. IMO, you're better off for gaming to stick with a Sound Blaster variant, as you'll gain wider compatibility and the Roland really doesn't have any type of advantage in the arena as it's lacking Intelligent Mode compatibility.

Also, there are various versions of the MPU-401/AT card. Some have the daughtercard header, some do not. Sadly, mine does not. I would absolutely LOVE to obtain one with the daughterboard header, if some kind soul reading this should happen to run across one and feel sorry for me

There are some MidiMan cards that are fully Roland Intelligent-mode compatible as well. These include the MM-401 ISA card, as well as a few other models. These can still be had relatively cheaply - I've purchased two of them. One was card-only, and cost US $19 shipped from the UK. The other was complete-in-box, and cost $35 shipped. Note that these will need a dongle, essentially a 9-pin D-SUB connector that outputs to the midi inputs. They're easily enough built, and pinouts are in the manual (and around on the web.. I have notes somewhere). Without this connector, you'll be unable to connect your midi hardware to the card. Still, a small price to pay considering what most Roland ISA cards pull these days (I don't even want to think about the money I've spent in the last 2 years collecting these cards)

That said, unless you're crazy like me, you really only need 3 things to cover all your midi gaming needs: an intelligent-mode controller (I'd go for the Midiman MM-401), an MT-32, and an SC-55. Get that connected up, and you're going to be good to go. Don't want to invest the $150 or so in those pieces? Get your Sound Blaster Wave that has the add-on memory slots (these can be had for like $20 on ebay all day long). Then load your MT-32 patch set to the card, and you've essentially got an internal MT-32 (at least I've read of others doing this - I've never had need to do it, so have never tried it)

Thanks Maverick, I really appreciate all this information. I got all my problems sorted out earlier on in this thread, but I still enjoyed reading your response, and picked up a little more that I didn't learn earlier from the responses. I don't know how everyone knows that the SCC-1 is intelligent, and that the SB16 w/ Daughtercard is not, and I'm the only one that didn't know this!!! hahah... I've had my SCC-1 for literally, 16 years now. I bought it for $35 bucks.

I THINK I remember reading about the SCC-1b (or the revision), and I believe that's actually the one that I have too... how would I check either way?


What I ended up doing is not putting anything in my low-end 486 (386 DX w/ 486 DLC chip). It's only got an SB-16 in it, and even then, I'm going to swap it out for an SBPro since I don't need all that extra stuff, just want stereo, and the Panassonic controller.

For my Pentium 2, I've got an SB-16 ASP, and then my Roland SCC-1. I've got DOS7 / 98 SE and that's my primary gaming machine for all the DOS games. I've got SloMo on there to slow the games down that are going too fast. I can basically play EVERYTHING on that system that I need to.

I still have a PCI Monster-II Diamond MultiMedia w/ 3D Surround Sound that I put my Roland SCD-15 on (the daughter-card you speak of), so I put that in an IBM 3ghz Pentium 4 that I'll use for all my Windows 98 SE only games that use General Midi, but at the same time totally refuse to play on a newer OS, like Pools of Radiance (the newer SVGA one), etc.

I also have a Yamaha XO something or other daughter card that's just sitting around. I wish I could find some sort of PCI adaptor card that I could put in my Dell 990 Core i7 3.4. I know that nothing uses MIDI anymore, but I've got it, and plenty of free slots. I'd love to have General Midi in my nice machine.

 

[Maverick1978]

There are plenty of PCI cards with Waveboard hearders. For the most part, you can just plug and chug - get one on fleabay (I paid $2.99 for my Turtle Beach Santa Cruz PCI), toss on your daughter card, and have at it

Nice price on the SCC-1, btw... I paid a LITTLE more for mine. Enough so that I'm ashamed to admit laugh - though at least I can say that it sold for much less than the last 4-5 that I've seen, two of which were card-only.

Also, I wouldn't worry about Intelligent Mode so much. Unless you're into some of the really early midi-compatible games, you're not going to notice it. And honestly, even for those, there are often software patches that have been created to allow them to work on UART-only midi systems (which is honestly the majority of them).

So far as where the information is gleaned from, Quest Studios has a great Forums area with alot of knowledgeable people (some of which frequent this forum as well). Also The Sierra Help Pages has many of the software patches to help out with MIDI compatibility.

 

[Todd82TA]

There are plenty of PCI cards with Waveboard hearders. For the most part, you can just plug and chug - get one on fleabay (I paid $2.99 for my Turtle Beach Santa Cruz PCI), toss on your daughter card, and have at it

Nice price on the SCC-1, btw... I paid a LITTLE more for mine. Enough so that I'm ashamed to admit laugh - though at least I can say that it sold for much less than the last 4-5 that I've seen, two of which were card-only.

Also, I wouldn't worry about Intelligent Mode so much. Unless you're into some of the really early midi-compatible games, you're not going to notice it. And honestly, even for those, there are often software patches that have been created to allow them to work on UART-only midi systems (which is honestly the majority of them).

So far as where the information is gleaned from, Quest Studios has a great Forums area with alot of knowledgeable people (some of which frequent this forum as well). Also The Sierra Help Pages has many of the software patches to help out with MIDI compatibility.

Well, that's the thing... I believe you and I are the same age. With that said, the games I grew up playing were all in the mid 80s through the mid 90s. When I graduated high school and moved out on my own, I continued to play some games throuh the early 2000s. With the exception of a handful of games, like System Shock 2, BioShock, and Medal of Honor, I don't really play any new games.

I also worked at CompUSA when I was a sophmore and junior in high school, so I bought every single game I could get my hands on that was either in clearance, or the "anniversary" release. For example, I have StarFlight 2 on an original CD... hahah...

In any case, all those games that I play are usually the ones you speak of. Aside from the Sierra games, and the Origin games, there are many others that I can't get any support for, that's why (as you say) I'm so happy I have that SCC-1.


As for the newer machine, my only hesitation with just sticking some random PCI sound card in there is that I already have an upgraded Sound Blaster with Toshiba-link digital output (5.1). Since the computer already has it's own built-in one, and because the graphics card has an HDMI port, it too has it's own "sound card" I just really hate the idea of installing (essentially) a 4th sound card. Are there any normal PCI cards that would let me mount the MIDI card but not have all the other stuff in it?


Thanks!!!

 

[Maverick1978]

As for the newer machine, my only hesitation with just sticking some random PCI sound card in there is that I already have an upgraded Sound Blaster with Toshiba-link digital output (5.1). Since the computer already has it's own built-in one, and because the graphics card has an HDMI port, it too has it's own "sound card" I just really hate the idea of installing (essentially) a 4th sound card. Are there any normal PCI cards that would let me mount the MIDI card but not have all the other stuff in it?

That, I'm not so sure about, as I've honestly never looked into it. I don't play newer games either, so my most recently "gaming" PC is a 3.0ghz P4 class machine that has my original Sound Blaster Live! Gold card installed. I have the Turtle Beach PCI card and also a Crystal Audio PCI card that have wave-board headers, but I don't think there's a way to make them act as "just" a midi card. That might be a good thing to search over at Quest Studios forums - I've found that using Google's site searching tool works pretty well for that: on the Google search bar, type in "site:queststudios.com <search terms>" and see what you can find out.