yogi
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Jelly Stone park, MD USA

I've been on a OPL3 quest for the last month. Been delving into Yamaha's LSI drivers and sound cards. So if you want'a get alittle FM on and you are using a newer PC there is the YMF 724-75X PCI chips (these chips also offer the XG extended midi format which is a whole nother story, Anyone remember the DB50XG plug in card?). The problem with using their OPL core in NT is the WDM drivers, it doesn't include support for the legacy SB16/OPL hardware block on the die of these PCI chips. Even in pure DOS there are problems using these PCI cards, IRQ and NMI missing from the PDI buss. There seems to be soft and/or hard work-arounds, but for DOS games it's still hit-and-miss. As far as I can see, they preform best with the VxD drivers for Win9x.
But all isn't lost. I found FrequencyMonster 801. Check It: http://fm801.kewl.org/app/about/
It's a Midi Synth front end for FM sound chips. Runs in Win95 through XP on hardware, EMU upto Win7. I think it gets around the Yamaha WDM issue with GiveIO.sys and direct control of the OPL registers (but don't quote me on this). You could instead use one of the "OPL wantabe" cards (they don't seem to suffer from the driver problem). I'll report back after I get some hands on.
It allows for real time midi control of the FM chip and adds some interesting Fx, think 'circuit bends'.
Yogi

EDIT
So here is the rundown on my install:
First off my system is a Dell 2400, [email protected] with ~760MB, WinXP Pro SP3. Installing a Labway A301-G50 YMF724 card
You'll need the get:
Yamaha' DSXGXP.exe  YMF724 XP driver v.5.12.021.5244
http://www.yamaha.co.jp/english/product/lsi/download/
PowerYMF, copy the registeration key down for when you install
http://web.archive.org/web/200903220330 … nload.html
FreqMonster801, http://fm801.kewl.org/app/about/
GiveIO.sys 
http://fm801.kewl.org/assets/files/download/giveio.zip

1. After plugging the card in, Windows installed it's generic drivers. Device Manger showed:
DS1 Native
DS1 Legacy
These installed a FM midi synth, which could be nice for VGM midis
2. I then installed the Yamaha Driver package 5.1201.5244 WDM found at the Yamaha LSI site. It removed the generic Windows drivers and installed
Yamaha DS-XG PCI WDM
This is the Yamaha XG midi synth, very nice extensions to GM midi
3. After installing PowerYMF, I enabled legacy support with it. After the required reboot, Dev Man shows;
Yamaha DS-XG Legacy WDM has been added.
With PowerYMF you can also load different sound banks for the XG synth. So when you DL PowYMF grab the sound bank there also.
4. To install Giveio.sys, run the installer. It will open a console window and then popup a dialog box. You need to add 'Giveio.sys' to the address and then click the 'install' button. This only needs to be done once on your system. After it confirms success, hit the 'start' button. The Diag Box will confirm success, then you can close it. This driver will have to be started after every system reboot, before you start up FM801. Remember to add 'Giveio.sys' to the address line each time. There are instructions for running Giveio.sys automatically but you will have to seek them out yourself.
5. In FreqMonster801, you need to select SBPRO2 in the setup screen 

Thats the short story. At the FM801 site there is the detailed install instructions that I followed; as well as further enhancements for using SB Live! or Audigy cards and their DSP with the fantastic KX Project Drivers.
Hope you give it a try if you have the HW, or grab one of the Yammy cards on EBay, 10 bucks will get you some FM Bliss!

Last edited by yogi (Aug 16, 2013 7:29 pm)

sandneil
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well ive got one of these cards and you can use pretty much any dos adlib tracker. but you have to be running windows. install the drivers in windows and then reboot in dos mode and run the setup program (have to do it every time you boot into dos mode) & then you can use dos trackers like adlib tracker or reality adlib tracker

herr_prof
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sounds neat! Any screenshots?

yogi
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Jelly Stone park, MD USA
sandneil wrote:

well ive got one of these cards and you can use pretty much any dos adlib tracker. but you have to be running windows. install the drivers in windows and then reboot in dos mode and run the setup program (have to do it every time you boot into dos mode) & then you can use dos trackers like adlib tracker or reality adlib tracker

Cool. Which Ver of Windows? Sounds like the process with Win98, the VxD drvier, If you are using XP please advise me on the driver ver you'r using.
@ herr_prof, the web site has a whole page of shots. Never posted an image to this board, so I'm 'riding the short bus' ATM. It looks very nice, just about every pram of the OPL has a control, which are midi mappable.

OK, we got posting pixs figured out wink
Yogi

Last edited by yogi (Jan 6, 2014 6:40 pm)

herr_prof
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Whoa.. thanks! Look cool!

yogi
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Jelly Stone park, MD USA

Just a bit of an update.
After a little setup, FM801 is running fine on my Dell Dim 2400 under XP SP3. using a Labway A301 G50  YMF724 based card. I'll add my install notes later for anyone interested. On a side note, both the OPL core and the XG midi synth are playable in parallel, so let your imagination run wild sequencing the XG midi synth AND the FM801. ( I had never liked GM midi, only heard the pissy MS GM midi, but the Yamaha XG is a whole 'nother thing)
Unlike AT2, this is a hard synth meant to be used with an ext midi source, thinking Renoise here but could also be a keyboard and CS. ATM I have the soft keyboard as per the instructions @ the site.
Speaking of the site's instruction pages, beyond the FM801 setup, there is a section about looping into a SB Live!/Audigy and the kx Project driver. DSP=Very cool.
FM801 includes several nice options: LFO, 16 note Seq (AT2 macro-ish)  and 'circuit bend'(this applies changes to the midi stream (AND OR XOR to bits of the register data). 70+ controls are mappable to CC messages
The minor downside is the basic user guide at the home site, but don't let this put you off. For the little I have played with it, things are fairly easy to figure out.by trial and error (very fun).
Bottom line is: the better your understanding of OPL FM  is, the easier this package is to pick up. And if you are a FM noob (raises hand) it's a great learning tool. 
Yogi
PS now to investigate AT2 on XP in DOSBox with the OPL passthrough patch!

yogi
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Jelly Stone park, MD USA

Added install instruction to the first post. Enjoy:)

dj.tuBIG./MaliceX
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Hi, just registered to respond to this topic.

Yeah, FM801 is great.  I've got two YMF724F-V cards here, one on my desktop machine (dual boot 7 and XP, the latter to support the Yamaha SW1000XG card too).  It's nice that PowerYMF reenables the native mode support under XP since Yamaha's WDM drivers disables it for some reason considering the default Microsoft drivers while doesn't enable the inbuilt XG synth, it enables the FM driver for MIDI playback.

quick and dirty test: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/128 … 01test.mp3

For OPL passthrough, there are two known programs that also work, both requiring porttalk.sys (different to giveio.sys but essentially does the same thing):

1. DOSBOX SVN-DAUM (best SVN build of DOSBOX since official release. I'm aware of Megabuild but that's outdated).  Configure via dosbox.conf set oplmode to hardware.
http://ykhwong.x-y.net/

2. VGMPlay 0.40.3 (ini file must be configured to do so.  Will passthrough YM3526, YM3812, YMF262, YM2413 and Y8950 to hardware OPL3.  SN76489 vgm's can also be used via OPL3 card; periodic noise/bass is not correct however)
http://vgm.mdscene.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=112

You can get porttalk here (make sure you RTFM; install to %WINDIR%\system32\drivers and apply registry file.):
http://retired.beyondlogic.org/porttalk/porttalk.htm

HTH

PS: I've also tried this with the actual ForteMedia 801 card as well.  That thing is TERRIBLE.  Remind me to upload recorded examples.

Last edited by dj.tuBIG./MaliceX (Sep 5, 2013 7:12 am)

yogi
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Jelly Stone park, MD USA

Well, WELCOME! dj.tuBIG/MaliceX
Lucky YOU, with a SW1000XG! I was hunting for one but settled on a Labway WaveForce clone. So far I'm very happy with it, the XG midi really sounds GOOD. In combination with the OPL core it's like having two cards
Thanks for your links. Was not aware of the hardware OPL support in Taewoong's Daum build; but I see he has included Gulikoza code, seems tailored to running Win9x under DOSBox(?) 
I had found a thread:

VOGONS wrote:

http://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=3 … 24#p272233

"
I've been mailing a person who can use it on XP. He told me this:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

"https://rapidshare.com/files/830132505/Yamaha DS-XG WinXP Driver.zip

I installed this driver over the built-in XP driver. Rebooted. Installed PowerYMF and added legacy support. It asked to reboot again. Copied porttalk.sys to system32/drivers and added porttalk.reg to registry. Rebooted again. I set gulikoza's DOSBox CVS build to use "hardware" OPL mode. And that's it, I start DOSBox and the FM music is played through the card's real OPL3 chip.

I hope this was helpful."

So this looked very promising for Adlib Tracker ][ but yet to try it out.
On Taewoong's page there are links to other VOGONS threads, how-tos for installing Win9x. This got me thinking about a complicated work around: running DOSBox/Win98SE/AdlibTracker][@DOS Prompt. Probability a wacky idea tongue
Would like to hear ForteMedia examples, I had been considering buying one just to have it ( but grabbing a second Labway/Yammy card seems a better choice).
Yogi

dj.tuBIG./MaliceX
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On the discussion for OPL3 MIDI "front ends", this appeared on VOGONS last week:

http://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=36667

Someone's finally made an installable software-bound Windows driver to play back the old classic MSOPL/WinFM/whatever you call it, MIDI playback.

dj.tuBIG./MaliceX
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Just thought I'd announce I've just finished getting OPL passthrough working with my fork of alexey's opl3 synth driver thing.
The motivation comes as I believe MIDI is more accessible of a platform for many musicians, but I find most of the tools for OPL2/3 music-making are biased towards trackers, and existing MIDI tools for OPL2/3 music are limited if not closed-source.

Git repository here: https://bitbucket.org/djtubig-malicex/opl3-synth-driver
Win32 Binary: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/128 … driver.rar
WinRT Binary (software only, requires jailbreak): https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/128 … pl3emu.dll

Example (testing true 4-op mode bass patch among other things, Still a bit buggy): https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/128 … ptest2.ogg

I'm slowly working away with adding enhancements to the MIDI playback handling.

Changes from the standard MSOPL implementation:

  • Pitch bend range extension + tuning fixes (yes you can go beyond -/+24 semitones, screw General MIDI limitations)

  • Completed support for 2x2op and 4-op patches.  (still a few bugs for some)

  • Experimental support for CC72-74 controllers (GM-2 and XG-compliant Release, Attack, and "Brightness"--locked to op0 TL)

  • Expression support (CC11)

  • Sustain note long-release behavior fixed

  • Mono/legato and Poly mode switching (CC126/127)

  • XG-compliant Drum channel bank switch (except ch10 is hardcoded.  May change once SysEx handling is complete)

  • Choose between Software and Hardware (requires inpout32.dll, included) playback

  • Different banks available.  (hopefully i will complete a configuration utility to facilitate bank switching)

What's to come:

  • VGM Logging

  • More banks/patches

  • More MIDI control mappings

  • Configuration utility (less DLLs to manage)

  • ...bugfixes of course tongue

Special thanks to ValleyBell (current maintainer of the VGM format spec and related tools) for sharing source code to which I have borrowed and adapted. smile

Please, if anyone with a real OPL3-compatible card could try this out (atm the OPLHW builds are hardcoded to 0x388. Let me know if you require a different port) and let me know of any issues.   Likewise, feature requests and bug reports come at me.  Preferably post them here:
https://bitbucket.org/djtubig-malicex/o … ver/issues

NB: Use at your own risk. I'm not responsible for you installing this driver and your computer deciding to explode into a million pieces.  You have been warned.

PS: For anyone wondering why I didn't just use a kernel driver instead, it's because kernel drivers are more difficult to write and there's already a simple way to access the OPL write register by means of an open-source third-party interface (which in itself contains a kernel driver).  By the time I get the configuration utility happening, switching to hardware playback will be a matter of a configuration flag, and eventually you won't need all these DLLs with a hardcoded bank.

Last edited by dj.tuBIG./MaliceX (Jan 5, 2014 1:07 pm)

yogi
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Jelly Stone park, MD USA

WOW !!! That sounds GREAT! The sound file is midi playback? Was that HW or emu? This is too cool! I'll load this up in the next few days Thank you so much!
Yogi

dj.tuBIG./MaliceX
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Yes, that's MIDI.  the recording is software though but so far I've only got one 4op patch in my test bank (2x2optest, #33 finger bass).  That will be changing over time as I make bugfixes and stuff.

Here are some MIDI files.  They should work with hardware just as well (tested with YMF724F-V and CMI8738)
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/128 … ptests.zip

Last edited by dj.tuBIG./MaliceX (Jan 6, 2014 8:40 am)

yogi
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Jelly Stone park, MD USA
dj.tuBIG./MaliceX wrote:

Yes, that's MIDI.  the recording is software though but so far I've only got one 4op patch in my test bank (2x2optest, #33 finger bass).  That will be changing over time as I make bugfixes and stuff.

Here are some MIDI files.  They should work with hardware just as well (tested with YMF724F-V and CMI8738)
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/128 … ptests.zip

I know it's early on, but do you plan any instrument editing? Some what like Soundfonts?
Yogi

sandneil
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yogi wrote:
sandneil wrote:

well ive got one of these cards and you can use pretty much any dos adlib tracker. but you have to be running windows. install the drivers in windows and then reboot in dos mode and run the setup program (have to do it every time you boot into dos mode) & then you can use dos trackers like adlib tracker or reality adlib tracker

Cool. Which Ver of Windows? Sounds like the process with Win98, the VxD drvier, If you are using XP please advise me on the driver ver you'r using.
@ herr_prof, the web site has a whole page of shots. Never posted an image to this board, so I'm 'riding the short bus' ATM. It looks very nice, just about every pram of the OPL has a control, which are midi mappable.

OK, we got posting pixs figured out wink
Yogi

only win9x sorry

yogi
Offline
Jelly Stone park, MD USA
sandneil wrote:
yogi wrote:

Cool. Which Ver of Windows? Sounds like the process with Win98, the VxD drvier, If you are using XP please advise me on the driver ver you'r using.
@ herr_prof, the web site has a whole page of shots. Never posted an image to this board, so I'm 'riding the short bus' ATM. It looks very nice, just about every pram of the OPL has a control, which are midi mappable.

OK, we got posting pixs figured out wink
Yogi

only win9x sorry

Oh OK. XP is a pain with access to hardware. Porttalk or GiveIO helps but M$ didn't do any favors.