MIDI problems on Win98

Bry89

With the Windows 98 SE virtual machine I have (on Microsoft Virtual PC 2007), I am having an issue with MIDI playback on it. On its default device (Creative Music Synth (220)), it sounds really garbled and obnoxiously loud at times (and sounds like really bad MegaDrive music) and I had tried to rectify it myself by installing a new sound device, which is Sound Blaster AWE64 from the library here which seems to be an update to the one it had before (which was AWE32). Upon installing it and testing out a MIDI for any changes, there is now no sound from it whatsoever and that is for both the inputs it had installed (SoundFont MIDI Router and WaveSynth/WG MIDI) though installation for the former threw an unexpected program error during it so that could be the cause... I don't know.

If anybody can resolve me with this issue, that would be grateful. It's bizarre how MIDI playback is just fine on other VMs I use and even the host OS but not this one :?

Fifo

Nothing you can do about that. Virtual PC’s MIDI sucks.

-someone delete this post, didn’t mean to bump this topic!-

Bry89

I don't think that's the case... because I had previously stated that MIDI output for other OSes under VirtualPC was alright. And to be honest, I didn't think there would be a real solution for this when this hadn't been posted for months. Maybe there is a solution by like installing another device on that VM or something, I don't really know. It's not a real big issue though, but I would like it rectified anyhow.

Fifo

Well, it’s fine in newer OSes like Windows XP and ME because they have their own built-in MIDI synth.
Windows 98 and older use VPC’s emulated SB16 for MIDI. That’s why MIDI sounds so horrible in Windows 98 and older.

wpblogheader

Virtual PC isn't very good for 9x systems. I'd recommend using PCem or something similar.

PCem emulates SB16 wonderfully. That should solve your problem.

Bry89

I see... just thought it could be fixed in Virtual PC with another sound driver on it but I guess not. On an unrelated note, I have to admit that SB16 is actually worse under WinME as the sound quality of that gets choppy sometimes.

As for PCem, I'll check that out. Never heard of it before. Thanks for telling me it.

wpblogheader

Bry89 wrote:

I see... just thought it could be fixed in Virtual PC with another sound driver on it but I guess not. On an unrelated note, I have to admit that SB16 is actually worse under WinME as the sound quality of that gets choppy sometimes.

As for PCem, I'll check that out. Never heard of it before. Thanks for telling me it.

Sure. PCem can also emulate many more graphic and sound cards from the 80s-90s. There are two versions of PCem:
http://pcem-emulator.co.uk/ (The standard PCem)
https://github.com/OBattler/PCem-X (PCem-X. An enhanced version with more features, but, in my experience, it has been slightly unstable.)

Also, you'll need some BIOS ROMs to use PCem. Vetusware has a good collection of them:
http://vetusware.com/download/PCem%20BI ... /?id=11004

KCompRoom2000

wpblogheader wrote:

Sure. PCem can also emulate many more graphic and sound cards from the 80s-90s. There are two versions of PCem:
http://pcem-emulator.co.uk/ (The standard PCem)
https://github.com/OBattler/PCem-X (PCem-X. An enhanced version with more features, but, in my experience, it has been slightly unstable.)

Also, you'll need some BIOS ROMs to use PCem. Vetusware has a good collection of them:
http://vetusware.com/download/PCem%20BI ... /?id=11004

There's also 10.1 Experimental if you want ISO Mounting, But beware that some features aren't really that stable.
http://citadel.ringoflightning.net/pcem101_experimental.7z
Both PCem 10.1 Experimental and PCem-X come with ROMs, So you only need that ROM pack on the original version.

wpblogheader

KCompRoom2000 wrote:

Both PCem 10.1 Experimental and PCem-X come with ROMs, So you only need that ROM pack on the original version.

I never knew that experimental came with ROMs. Thanks for telling us.