DOS Games Discussion

Ok. So I have an Win98SE comp with an intex sound card. whenever I set up dos games I can make it detect sound (default Sound Blaster) but I can't get the game to run midi. Any hints on what midi device I should select at setup and which port & so on? (whenever I hit 'test' i either get silence or an error message)

so far I tried running Daggerfall and a few other dos games, always get the same issue at setup

also note that I can run midi files in Windows 98 (with media player)

Windows has its own Midi driver/interpreters that Dos games can't access and don't know anything about. The default Windows Midi driver basically converts midi note commands to standard soundblaster waveform commands. And using the windows midi means talking to the windows midi interface, that's why Dos doesn't know about it.

For Dos, you have to have actual Midi hardware. Soundblasters internally can do the same thing the windows driver does, so there is often a 'sound blaster' midi choice, as I recall. I have no idea if an intex sound card is the same - if you are getting the error message, I'm guessing not. Unlike sound blasters, all midi hardware use two specific ports for in/out communication, so if none of the setups worked, probably your hardware isn't supported. The intended use of MIDI was to install a custom midi card (Roland mpu401, for example) and hook up an external midi synthesizer (Roland MT32, SoundCanvas 55, etc.)

Ah thanks. got it working.