Help me use two roland cards at once(please)

[raif]

Hello everyone.

I purchased a roland lapc-1 card for playing my old sierra games.(surprise!)

However, I have read that the GS cards by Roland are better suited for the newer games that support General Midi.  Because of that, I want to buy an scc-1 or an sc-55.

My question to you guys is, which GM solution will work best in terms of compatibility with the lapc-1(i.e. not having to change the bios, cards, cables each time I play a different game) and how would I go about setting it up.

I currently have an lapc-1(with breakout box), an mpu-ipc-t(card, box and two midi cables), a studio mixer(beringer), and an sb16.

Thanks in advance for any help you guys can offer.

->justin

[QBiN]

My question to you guys is, which GM solution will work best in terms of compatibility with the lapc-1(i.e. not having to change the bios, cards, cables each time I play a different game) and how would I go about setting it up.

I currently have an lapc-1(with breakout box), an mpu-ipc-t(card, box and two midi cables), a studio mixer(beringer), and an sb16.

It's been my experience with gaming, that games from 1994 on typically started supporting General Midi as opposed to the MT-32 (and compatibles).

The good news is the majority of games that I have played that support General Midi also support telling the game which hex address the card resides. Contrast this to most earlier games where their MT-32 port was hard-coded to expect the synth at 0x330.

My recommendation is to leave the LAPC-1 at 0x330 for compatibility with older, hard-coded games; and set the MPU-IPC-T for another free hex address, hook up your Sound Canvas to the MPU-IPC (or substitute an SCC-1) and select that same port in the sound setup of these games.

But this isn't fool-proof. Unfortunately, the only way to *guarantee* compatibility is to use ONLY your MPU-IPC-T (at 0x330) and always use an external MT-32 or GM/GS module depending on what the game calls for.


Oh... and BTW... I'd gladly trade you my CM-32L for the LAPC-1... Purely, To help you out, of course.  :wink:

Anyway, hope that helps, and good luck.

[Zemus]

If you have the breakout box for the LAPC-I, you could use that as the MIDI interface and connect an SC-55 to it.

[raif]

QBiN-

Thanks for the help!  I may look into just picking up an scc-1 and hope that the soundcards don't step all over each other.(I am so used to windows, where something like this would never fly)


Zemus-
 I am curious with what you said(as it was my original plan)  With that setup, would it just mean that music would come through both sources(lapc and sc-55) and I would just have to use my mixer to define what gets outputed?

[Zemus]

I am curious with what you said(as it was my original plan) With that setup, would it just mean that music would come through both sources(lapc and sc-55) and I would just have to use my mixer to define what gets outputed?

Yes. The LAPC-I would play the MIDI as well as the SC-55. The advantage is, ofcourse, that you need only one internal synth which can be set to address 330 at all times, thus making it easier to get older games to work with it.

[raif]

Actually, that sounds perfect.  I will have to try and pick an sc-55 on ebay.  Thanks again guys, for all the help.

[Great Hierophant]

I will soon have a LAPC-I + MCB-1 and a MPU-401/AT + SCB-55.  If I wanted to use both in my system, here is what I would do.  First, I would select one, probably the LAPC-I because it is less flexible, as the primary midi interface.  I would set the MPU-401/AT to something other than the default I/O and IRQ settings so no program would attempt to use it unless I told it to in the install program.  Then, if I wanted to use the GM/GS capabilities of the SCB-55, I would connect the midi out of the MCB-1 to the midi in of the MPU-401/AT.  The midi should go directly to the daughterboard.

[Alistair]

Uh, this thread is a year old..

- Alistair

[Cloudschatze]

I would set the MPU-401/AT to something other than the default I/O and IRQ settings so no program would attempt to use it unless I told it to in the install program.  Then, if I wanted to use the GM/GS capabilities of the SCB-55, I would connect the midi out of the MCB-1 to the midi in of the MPU-401/AT.  The midi should go directly to the daughterboard.

I have a similar setup, only I've not found it necessary to route from the MCB back to the SCB, as most games can be configured to use a different MIDI port address. (Those that I've played, anyhow)

Here's a mess:

Roland LAPC-I - Address: 330h, IRQ: 2(9)
MV PAS16 w/SCB-55 - Addresses: 220h, 320h, 388h, IRQs: 5, 7, 2(9)
IMFC - Address: 2A20h, IRQ: 3
Creative GameBlaster - Address: 240h

Since the two Roland synths are not used simultaneously, I've not run into any issues with IRQ sharing.


Here's a question, for anyone that knows - Why is it that in a Sierra RESOURCE.CFG file, you can specify different ports for several of the drivers (CMS.DRV, SNDBLAST.DRV, etc.), but cannot do the same for the GENMIDI.DRV? The MIDI address-changer utility works fine, but still...

[Great Hierophant]

I would set the MPU-401/AT to something other than the default I/O and IRQ settings so no program would attempt to use it unless I told it to in the install program.  Then, if I wanted to use the GM/GS capabilities of the SCB-55, I would connect the midi out of the MCB-1 to the midi in of the MPU-401/AT.  The midi should go directly to the daughterboard.

I have a similar setup, only I've not found it necessary to route from the MCB back to the SCB, as most games can be configured to use a different MIDI port address. (Those that I've played, anyhow)

Here's a mess:

Roland LAPC-I - Address: 330h, IRQ: 2(9)
MV PAS16 w/SCB-55 - Addresses: 220h, 320h, 388h, IRQs: 5, 7, 2(9)
IMFC - Address: 2A20h, IRQ: 3
Creative GameBlaster - Address: 240h

Since the two Roland synths are not used simultaneously, I've not run into any issues with IRQ sharing.


Here's a question, for anyone that knows - Why is it that in a Sierra RESOURCE.CFG file, you can specify different ports for several of the drivers (CMS.DRV, SNDBLAST.DRV, etc.), but cannot do the same for the GENMIDI.DRV? The MIDI address-changer utility works fine, but still...

Can you use all those sound cards without conflicts?  How can you use IRQ2/9 on the PAS16 if the LAPC-I is also set to that IRQ?  Also, IRQ3 is generally used by COM1, so I assume that if you use a COM port you set it to IRQ4.

[Cloudschatze]

Can you use all those sound cards without conflicts?

Amazingly, yes.

How can you use IRQ2/9 on the PAS16 if the LAPC-I is also set to that IRQ?

It's the same principle as the common soundcard/printer sharing of IRQ7. So long as only one device is sending interrupts at a given time, you shouldn't have any conflict.

Also, IRQ3 is generally used by COM1, so how have you managed to avoid that conflict?

I've disabled COM1 in the BIOS.