PC-Task & WinUAE using Sound Blaster and or Adlib emulation in MSDOS

[Calabazam]

PCTask is supposed to be able to use the GG2+ board to access some cards including ADlib (no SoundBlaster) but it is not documented in the manual and i never could have a GG2+ board anyway.

I have tried to use PCTask 4.4 with SoftMPU to try to play music through my Amiga serial to MIDI adapter and my usual MIDI stack but it didn't work. If someone really could do it, i would like to see.

[stx2199]

Originally Posted by Calabazam

PCTask is supposed to be able to use the GG2+ board to access some cards including ADlib (no SoundBlaster) but it is not documented in the manual and i never could have a GG2+ board anyway.

I have tried to use PCTask 4.4 with SoftMPU to try to play music through my Amiga serial to MIDI adapter and my usual MIDI stack but it didn't work. If someone really could do it, i would like to see.

surely didn't work because u don't have a MT32 connected to the midi
it seems in order to work you must only type in dos:
SOFTMPU.EXE /MPU:330 /OUTPUT:COM1

softmpu could be the solution to play mt32 games on Pctask on the Amiga and winuae
I'm still in the process to install emm386 or qemm which is required by softmpu

to use the ADlib feature in winuae Toni must implement it, but there is no technical details about how to do it

[Calabazam]

Yes i have the MT32 and several other midi synth connected to the Amiga serial port but it didn't work. I will give it again another try to refresh memory.

By the way, the parallel sound cards like the Covox adapter don't work at all with the parallel amiga port with PCTask.

[ShK]

Here's yet another video about of ISA audio-card, which is connected via GG2 Bus+ bridge-card and used by PC-Task 80486 PC emulator software (Windows 95).

[ Show youtube player ]

[amigoun]

Sadly emm386 or qemm slows down PCTask heavily, only option is to use modified sound system drivers for particular games, where no speed penalty occurs.

[Aardvark]

Managed to get PC-Task MT32 working on A1200. FTDI serial driver had to be set to 38400 bauds, not 31250. Weird because Amiga Sierra games only works with 31250 baud.
Too bad that SoftMPU requires EMM, it really takes lot of performance away. TF1260 struggles with most VGA games but Circuit's Edge plays ok.
[ Show youtube player ]

In WinUAE just setting MIDI Out to Munt doesn't work for some reason, instead it needs to go through virtual serial ports, and then another software like Hairless MIDI has to link these ports with Munt.

[stx2199]

Originally Posted by amigoun

Sadly emm386 or qemm slows down PCTask heavily, only option is to use modified sound system drivers for particular games, where no speed penalty occurs.

yep it seems is complicated to make those work on pc task
here I still couldn't get them to work, qemm crash,emm386 don't install etc

maybe it is better to install freedos on pc task or so

[stx2199]

Originally Posted by Aardvark

Managed to get PC-Task MT32 working on A1200. FTDI serial driver had to be set to 38400 bauds, not 31250. Weird because Amiga Sierra games only works with 31250 baud.
Too bad that SoftMPU requires EMM, it really takes lot of performance away. TF1260 struggles with most VGA games but Circuit's Edge plays ok.
[ Show youtube player ]

In WinUAE just setting MIDI Out to Munt doesn't work for some reason, instead it needs to go through virtual serial ports, and then another software like Hairless MIDI has to link these ports with Munt.

that's too complicated,There has to be a simpler solution.

[Aardvark]

Originally Posted by stx2199

yep it seems is complicated to make those work on pc task
here I still couldn't get them to work, qemm crash,emm386 don't install etc

maybe it is better to install freedos on pc task or so

EMS will only work in dynamic mode. It should install without problems to fresh DOS 6.22, just run memmaker.

[Toni Wilen]

Originally Posted by Calabazam

PCTask is supposed to be able to use the GG2+ board to access some cards including ADlib (no SoundBlaster) but it is not documented in the manual and i never could have a GG2+ board anyway.

Only Commodore bridgeboards have technical documentation. All others are totally undocumented.

Probably almost impossible to reverse-engineer without lots and lots of time.. And I don't even have any bridgeboards.

Originally Posted by Aardvark

In WinUAE just setting MIDI Out to Munt doesn't work for some reason, instead it needs to go through virtual serial ports, and then another software like Hairless MIDI has to link these ports with Munt.

Munt I tested long time ago had built-in MIDI virtual port. And since 5.0 isn't needed anymore, Munt is built-in, only need MT-32 ROMs.

[stx2199]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

Only Commodore bridgeboards have technical documentation. All others are totally undocumented.

ah ok but does the commodore A2386sx support the use of isa slots for the emulation?

[Aardvark]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

Munt I tested long time ago had built-in MIDI virtual port. And since 5.0 isn't needed anymore, Munt is built-in, only need MT-32 ROMs.

I know WinUAE has Munt built-in, and it doesn't work with PC-Task, and has to be routed via this virtual serial device. I think the "Enable strict baudrate emulation" option it has is the key.

Edit: Nope. works also with this option disabled.

[Aardvark]

Just to illustrate further, hooking up two WinUAE instances with inter-process serial shows the midi activity in the slave instance, WinUAE is just not sending this to Midi Out.

[ Show youtube player ]


This is specific to SoftMPU in PC-Task, Midi Out works fine with any Amiga software that uses Midi.

Maybe an option could be added to WINUAE that forces any Amiga serial port traffic to Midi Out.

[pixie]

I see this interesting video about [ Show youtube player ] on a pico, don't know if it is of any help though

[SuperTek]

As far as MIDI/MPU-401 music playback is concerned, everything is solved.
Now how to do for sound effects emulating any SoundBlaster model?

[stx2199]

Originally Posted by Aardvark

EMS will only work in dynamic mode. It should install without problems to fresh DOS 6.22, just run memmaker.

ah ok thanks for the tip
I installed using memmaker and sofmpu is working now


so supposedly to make the link we would have to execute in pc-task

SOFTMPU.EXE /MPU:330 /OUTPUT:COM1

right?

[ShK]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

Probably almost impossible to reverse-engineer without lots and lots of time.. And I don't even have any bridgeboards.

A couple of years ago there was a remake attempt by a Swedish guy. I don't know the current status of the project.

[stx2199]

perhaps we can ask to Chris Hames for the source code of PC-task
then someone talented could add new features to this emulator that today have good potential to be used it in Winuae and real Amigas with the Pitstorm

otherwise we're looking to solve all these issues with rare hacks which I think they're not going anywhere because PC-task yet have lot of bugs

plz note that's just my opinion, the complete solution

[SuperTek]

in WinUAE GUI on Expansions -> x86 bridgeboard expansions we can find Sound Blaster ISA (Creative).
is there any way to use it under PC-Task?

[Calabazam]

Yes PCTask has bugs, but never ever crash the Amiga. I think it is a very clean OS friendly piece of programming.