I will post any updates here! - There are now patches for games such as Doom, that add native support with this device. So with this, Doom now works. Other games are also supported, look here: github.com/pdewacht/adlipt/tree/master/adpatch - Serdaco tells me that the final kit, the one you would receive, has matching photos with the parts. My kit had one or two capacitors in a different colour, but this should be fixed for your kit. - There is a new 0.4 version of the driver github.com/pdewacht/adlipt/releases/latest
You are on a roll, Phil! This isn't really my thing, but I have a great deal of admiration and respect for people who do these kinds of projects. Very cool!
There is a printer port header on any newer under 150$ motherboard and in case of asus every motherboard witch has letter C on the end it means it supports legacy device for peinter port and comunication port (For examle H110M-C is used with i3 6100 in my office because i need a printer port and seral one) also you can add a LPT via pci or pcie 1x card for example JAVTEC makes some good ones
Wow. At the current age of fully functional software emulation and virtual machines this is such a niche product with a very narrow and limited appeal. Naturally I ordered one immediately! ❤
I couldn't fast forward to the "how did you do this!?!?" Section fast enough. Thanks, Phil! (I went back and watched the beginning, was only motivated by excitement)
This could be amazing for those Pentium III/IV machines with no ISA slots. The biggest issue with PCI sound cards has always been poor Adlib emulation, PCM sound was more or less ok.
ISA was phased out during the PIII era, the last boards with a proper native ISA would be using the Intel 440BX and VA Apollo Pro chipsets. even the Intel 815 is missing it in most cases. Not sure if there is any reason to do ISA reliant stuff on such a fast machine anyway.
It actually makes a lot of sense. PIII and PIV machines are extremely cheap and easy to get, while 486 and early Pentiums are getting more expensive each passing day. In fact, I had a PIII laying around and used it for a while as a DOS machine. It worked great, but my PCI SBLive sound card had many DOS compatibility issues and extremely bad FM music. This OPL2LPT device would have been great.
Some of the very last ISA boards were on both Socket 370 (MSI MS-6323 had one) and early Socket A (ECS K7E-A and Epox KTA3); not to mention shared ISA/AGP slots that lasted for a little while longer. They were pretty much all gone by 2001 though.
I got my OPL2LPT some time ago. And i tested it with all kind of FM Tracker Software on my old Highscreen LeBook Notebook from 1995. It works really great and it sounds like a OPL2 should sound. A MUST BUY for every FM Sound/ Dos Tracker geek.
Keep up the excellent videos, Phil! Now if only they will release a USB version of one of these, but with OPL3 and Adlib Gold Surround Module support, and can integrate with DosBox, it will be even better.
I ordered one immediately. I've been looking for something like this since I have 5 or 6 OPL2 chips salvaged from old arcade boards and wanted some way to get them working again. I would have bought a PCB-only option if it had been available but I don't mind getting the components as well - saves me from ordering them separately. Originally I was looking for an ISA PCB version but an LPT version is almost just as good - although I'd imagine an ISA board version would be more compatible. I've looked for micro-usb sockets for through-hole boards myself and it seems they are hard to find. The micro-usb sockets I could find are surface mount only.
This is fantastic, it's really nice that someone bother to redesign an actual opl hardware , rather than having to relay on used sound cards. But it would be nice to have an option to have that opl on a dummy card so you could fit it inside the case, and connected an printer cable from printer port to the back of the card like you would do on a joystick port. rather than have the actual hardware sticking out. Also an external box would be also really nice.
Got one myself. Still struggling to compile the OPL2TEST program with DJGPP - the prebuilt program works like a charm. Hope to add native support for my games soon.
OM Freakib G! An actual use for the LPT? I haven't had one since my dot matrix printer ribbon wore out and stripped the internal gears and shorted the electronics. Way to go Phil! I may have to try one of these,
It's probably easier to get a new motherboard with PCI slots and install some old PCI sound card with DOS compatibility. Although SB support wasn't reliable, games that used DMA mode of SB had problems, but Adlib support was working without issues. Also it's easier to get motherboard with PCI than parallel port on back. There's also a problem with newer graphics cards. Nvidia GPUs from at least Geforce 5xx have issues with VGA compatibility. Same with intel GPUs. This parallel Adlib is good for older laptops, but you would want to get a device with hardware SB support anyway for DOS. It's great that these hardware projects are being made, but I would really like to get some Adlib/SB emulation for AC97 od HD Audio. Many later DOS games used a sound driver approach, there might be a possibility to give them native support for newer audio chipsets. Also, it's a bit of irony, that sound support is the only thing missing from full backward compatibility with DOS era, and in the same time for years now PCs got standardized HD Audio. I wonder if IBM could define a standard in the late 80s that defines multichannel PCM audio, with future proof API. LIke 8-bit 22 kHz for DOS era, and 24-bit 96 kHz or higher virtual support for extending standard in the future. But they were never that clever.
BTW - for the person who wants Tandy 3-voice, have you tried using the TEMU emulator software and a regular LPT DAC device? I managed to get Tandy sound working on a few games (including The Secret Of Monkey Island) by using TEMU and an LPT DAC card I made myself. I would also love a board like this that does 3-voice though - I also have a few SN76489 chips ready for if that ever happens.
I noticed that lo tech used to do a board which did this, but he hasn't had stock in quite some time. www.lo-tech.co.uk/product/tandy-sound-sn76489-adapter-pcb/
35 EUR landed in Aus is about $55 dollary doos... Definitely not possible to find all the parts for a retro DOS era machine (or even a whole one) off eBay these days, so this would be a great option for those who don't want to spend heaps on old hardware, but shudder at the thought of running DOSBox. I've bought many times more than that in DOS era hardware off eBay in the last few weeks (and still have a lot on my watch list!), but I guess I've just got the retro bug!
Sounds like it requires Emm386? I wonder if it works like the sb live! The combo of the Live! and Ultima 7 lead to my first instance of not being able to run an old game even in 9x DOS mode. Ultima 7 needed emm386 NOT loaded. The live! DOS drivers needed emm386. Trying to fix this with fan patches and replacement interpreters taught me a lot. Lead to me building a dedicated old games pc until it died.
I'm not quite sure over which bus an onboard parallel port is connected to the CPU/chipset but my question would be if this device and it's drivers work on PCI- or PCIe-parallelport-controller-cards.
onboard parallel ports on modern computers use the LPC bus which is basically ISA over less pins, LPC stands for low pin count bus parallel ports on pci/pcie bus will need additional drivers to function
Only took 2 days to come through and not difficult to build and it works great on an old P233 Thinkpad I have (although it has its own sound card already). I can't get it working on an IBM PS/2 386 though and I don't have anything else 3/486/Pentium.
No idea, someone else on their forums are reporting the same on their PS/2 too though. Wonder if it's something to do with the capabilities of the parallel port (ECP vs EPP etc.) but I can't change those types of settings even with the reference diskette. Anyone got a 486 PC I can have for cheap :)
Just had another thought on were it might be usefull. These AWE64 cards, do not have any OPL chip. So.... Uhmmm.... Gearing up with this setup: AWE64-Gold + OPL2LPT + MT32 + SC55. Take all outputs, and run them through an external mixer!
There is an old Pinball game called Pinball Fantasies by Digital Illusions (DICE) that has amazing music and sound. I loved it back in the day but is doesn't run that great in DosBox. Have you considered adding it to your list of test games? Would be nice to see it run natively in Dos.
Pinball Fanasies uses modules (tracker music). This involves samples rather than FM synth. IMO those modules sound pretty similar when played on Amiga and PC.
@James Maple Not really... the FM sound emulation always glitches randomly (pitch and timing issues) with in Doom in dosbox and I would always use wavetable sound when emulating those games, but I now own a real DOS system with a Sound Blaster Pro 2.0... and not only that there are no glitches but the gameplay feels smoother on a real system. This device in the video does seem cool and would be a great way for authentic adlib sound using Adlib Tracker II on a modern PC (as long as it has a parallel port).
This must be what The 8-Bit Guy was showing off on LGR's recent video survey of fellow RUclipsrs' retro game setups? Would definitely be interested to know if the compatibility is better on era-appropriate machines, as well as whether it causes any performance loss. I'm assuming the driver pretty much just routes 0x220/0x388 port ranges to/from the LPT port, so that you basically get an Adlib OPL2 sound card hooked up via LPT instead of ISA. Seems like someone could do an MPU-401 compatible LPT-MIDI interface via the same method.
There are now two ways of using it. With the driver, but there is performance loss, and some games won't work like Doom. The other option is patching the game for native support. Then Doom for example will work, no performance loss, but every game has to be patched manually.
idlove to see a future video showing it off on slow mashines , maybe one that dont have any ISA slots , like an small formfactor board or some OEM board
The webpage suggests a 386, seemingly mostly for RAM concerns. For XT you'd probably want some kind of ISA OPL board. I believe Sergey makes a PCB/has the designs for that. www.malinov.com/Home/sergeys-projects/isa-opl2-card
To use the TSR, you need a 386 due to requiring the V8086 mode of the processor. For a 286 and lower, you'll need either an ISA card, or learn how to patch the games you want to run to use the LPT port instead of 388h.
Neat little device. I can clearly see were this can be usefull. My next thoughts about this little device, is were it might find true useage when it is not gaming. There are musicians, that are using OPL chips with a special program, called Adlib Tracker. That program is a Dos program. Yet why not strech it beyond Dos. I mean... How about Windows? Could this potentially find some use in creating music, using native OPL, under one version of Windows or another? Can it be used on something like an old Amiga? Atari? PowerMac that still has serial ports. Just a little thought that I have.
Adlib Tracker 2 was ported to Win32 and Linux, also there is a port for Dosbox that can utilise real opl3 chip ;) With Yamaha YMF7xx under Linux, you can expose opl3 chip as a midi device (dunno about windows, but i guess it can do the same)
Hey, great video. Just a quick question. Is there a way to hook this up with a parallel to USB converter ? Would it work on a modern computer ? Thanks.
Say Phil, would you be willing too try Hyper-V and have four console's running MSDos all at once. multiple monitor support with a matrox graphics card... I'd really appreciate if that's a possibility.
And a great lan base set up for Dos would be available this would be absolutely outstanding. Oh speculation on virtual console if you could run a lan ipx or serial port. Dosbox could also be used if necessary.
PhilsComputerLab thank you very much. It maybe too much to ask but could you test if it works with adlibtracker? it's kind of a huge deal for all adlib musicians. you can get it here. . www.adlibtracker.net/downloads.php
Yeah, DOS doesn't know USB, so you either need a board that enables legacy support for USB devices or use 3rd party drivers. And we all know to keep DOS as light as possible to have enough memory.
so if you had a hypervisor or linux KVM you could setup a VM with DOS and pass-through the parallel port and in theory have your cake and eat it to without having to reboot in to dos.
Does the i7 series 2 support vt-x and vt-d? ...I use a series 3 i7 to run virtual machines complete with GPU pass-through (unfortunately, GPU pass-through requires UEFI compatible hardware).
Just thought it would be good to show off that other people in another forum have been working on this very board and have more information about how you can make more out of the board. vogons org viewtopic php?f=62&t=55105&hilit=LPT2OPL
It's not on the back plate, but a lot of motherboards still have headers for parallel and serial ports. The I/O chips used on motherboards (that also include ps/2 ports, fans, temperature sensors etc) still incorporate the functionality and these chips are so common and cheap, no manufacturer bothers to make new versions of those chips without these features because it wouldn't be profitable. Anyway, so yeah ... if you have the header, you can hit eBay or other sites and buy a bracket which has the printer connector on it. They're very cheap and easy to find.
dos games work fine with new amd cpu's as well. and modern graphics cards generally run most old games fine as well. Its not really intels doing. most pc hardware is simply backwards(and forwards sometimes) compatible.
technically you are right , but not quite , it would be backwards compatibility if X86 was unused and obsolete , wich it is not (latter is up for debate)
That is software locked. You can "crack" that lock if you insist, but if you are running Windows anyway just use 10 and run XPAntispy afterwards as it runs on and can detect 10 and act accordingly.
Phil, you previously made a video showing that the Aureal Vortex PCI sound card works perfectly in DOS. That means that you should be able to build a new computer, with proper DOS sound support and real OPL2, as long as it has PCI, LPT and PS/2-ports, which many new boards still have (although it will soon be a thing of the past). That would certainly be a slap in the head to LGR, who recently made a shamelessly bad video explaining how a new machine is completely unusable for retro-gaming, which I disagree with. (Not that I would ever choose that over real retro-hardware, but it's fun to demonstrate)
PCI sound cards stop working after a certain point / chipset generation. On a machine like the one shown in the video, there was no solution until now. So this is a real game changer. Well the PC speaker worked great. I really liked the LGR video. I also don't recommend using an i7 for DOS, it's really a showcase of what is possible and to make a fun video. Retro laptops owners will really dig this device I think, apart from Covox or Disney Sound Source, they had few options.
I guess a good build would be something of the pentium 4 or Core 2 era. There is still native support for paralel, PCI and PS/2 and they are fast enough for more modern systems. Imagine a multiboot system with DOS, XP & 7, whould be quite nice for a broad range of games.
Henrik Wils I think you should calm down about LGR. Maybe you need a "slap in the head" for shamelessly getting angry over nothing. He made a video showcasing why modern hardware is not ideal at all for native DOS gaming, and he was right.
This one does, and it also has PCI: www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-Z87P-D3-rev-1x Note that the rev 2.0 board is of a lower quality. Edit: BTW, you can easily get PICe parallel or serial port cards.
Actually a lot. But most of them only with an internal pin-header. If i look on geizhals (a german price comparision) there are listed over 139 for socket 1151 and 19 for AM4.
I will post any updates here!
- There are now patches for games such as Doom, that add native support with this device. So with this, Doom now works. Other games are also supported, look here: github.com/pdewacht/adlipt/tree/master/adpatch
- Serdaco tells me that the final kit, the one you would receive, has matching photos with the parts. My kit had one or two capacitors in a different colour, but this should be fixed for your kit.
- There is a new 0.4 version of the driver github.com/pdewacht/adlipt/releases/latest
You are on a roll, Phil! This isn't really my thing, but I have a great deal of admiration and respect for people who do these kinds of projects. Very cool!
TheCaptain Same and that's the main reason I help spread the word.
Is there some reverb added from the speakers/room?
There is a printer port header on any newer under 150$ motherboard and in case of asus every motherboard witch has letter C on the end it means it supports legacy device for peinter port and comunication port (For examle H110M-C is used with i3 6100 in my office because i need a printer port and seral one) also you can add a LPT via pci or pcie 1x card for example JAVTEC makes some good ones
Waiting on mine to show up, been looking forward to getting my hands on one :)
show it to the 8 bit guy please, he could use it on some old laptops for dos gaming.
LGR I LOVE YOUR CHANNEL!
Wow. At the current age of fully functional software emulation and virtual machines this is such a niche product with a very narrow and limited appeal.
Naturally I ordered one immediately! ❤
I couldn't fast forward to the "how did you do this!?!?" Section fast enough. Thanks, Phil! (I went back and watched the beginning, was only motivated by excitement)
This could be amazing for those Pentium III/IV machines with no ISA slots. The biggest issue with PCI sound cards has always been poor Adlib emulation, PCM sound was more or less ok.
ISA was phased out during the PIII era, the last boards with a proper native ISA would be using the Intel 440BX and VA Apollo Pro chipsets. even the Intel 815 is missing it in most cases.
Not sure if there is any reason to do ISA reliant stuff on such a fast machine anyway.
It actually makes a lot of sense. PIII and PIV machines are extremely cheap and easy to get, while 486 and early Pentiums are getting more expensive each passing day. In fact, I had a PIII laying around and used it for a while as a DOS machine. It worked great, but my PCI SBLive sound card had many DOS compatibility issues and extremely bad FM music. This OPL2LPT device would have been great.
Nothing an YMF-724 can't fix for you....
Thanks for the tip!
Some of the very last ISA boards were on both Socket 370 (MSI MS-6323 had one) and early Socket A (ECS K7E-A and Epox KTA3); not to mention shared ISA/AGP slots that lasted for a little while longer.
They were pretty much all gone by 2001 though.
Thanks Phil, for this great video, so happy to show it to the world !
The look of the speakers remind me of day of the tentacle
I got my OPL2LPT some time ago. And i tested it with all kind of FM Tracker Software on my old Highscreen LeBook Notebook from 1995. It works really great and it sounds like a OPL2 should sound. A MUST BUY for every FM Sound/ Dos Tracker geek.
Nice, also cool that you're using a HighScreen notebook :)
the absolute madman, a corei7 for dos gaming, but it is a good demo of the device. great video.
Oh wow this is absolutely amazing!
Very smart to create this.
Great video as usual Phil! Thank you so much for shedding light on such a cool product. I'm planning on using it an older laptop that I own.
Needs a shell, and a means for retention to the parallel port, but other than that this is nifty as heck!
Keep up the excellent videos, Phil! Now if only they will release a USB version of one of these, but with OPL3 and Adlib Gold Surround Module support, and can integrate with DosBox, it will be even better.
I saw the title, I clicked, I thought what is this wizardry!
I ordered one immediately. I've been looking for something like this since I have 5 or 6 OPL2 chips salvaged from old arcade boards and wanted some way to get them working again. I would have bought a PCB-only option if it had been available but I don't mind getting the components as well - saves me from ordering them separately. Originally I was looking for an ISA PCB version but an LPT version is almost just as good - although I'd imagine an ISA board version would be more compatible. I've looked for micro-usb sockets for through-hole boards myself and it seems they are hard to find. The micro-usb sockets I could find are surface mount only.
Anacreon ZA Nice.
Great! Now you can play dos game at 1000000 fps!
I was thinking the same thing haha.
Nope :( it might even run worse in some games
I'm obviously joking...
Awesome little device. I wonder if they could do a Tandy 3-voice device.
Awesome video phil...x86 is one hell of an architecture.
This is fantastic, it's really nice that someone bother to redesign an actual opl hardware , rather than having to relay on used sound cards. But it would be nice to have an option to have that opl on a dummy card so you could fit it inside the case, and connected an printer cable from printer port to the back of the card like you would do on a joystick port. rather than have the actual hardware sticking out. Also an external box would be also really nice.
Got one myself. Still struggling to compile the OPL2TEST program with DJGPP - the prebuilt program works like a charm.
Hope to add native support for my games soon.
Now that's interesting, really cool that you can do this :)
Nice small piece of hardware
That room is the most echoey room I've ever heard!
OM Freakib G! An actual use for the LPT? I haven't had one since my dot matrix printer ribbon wore out and stripped the internal gears and shorted the electronics. Way to go Phil! I may have to try one of these,
Not sure why, but I've ordered a kit! :)
It's probably easier to get a new motherboard with PCI slots and install some old PCI sound card with DOS compatibility. Although SB support wasn't reliable, games that used DMA mode of SB had problems, but Adlib support was working without issues. Also it's easier to get motherboard with PCI than parallel port on back.
There's also a problem with newer graphics cards. Nvidia GPUs from at least Geforce 5xx have issues with VGA compatibility. Same with intel GPUs.
This parallel Adlib is good for older laptops, but you would want to get a device with hardware SB support anyway for DOS.
It's great that these hardware projects are being made, but I would really like to get some Adlib/SB emulation for AC97 od HD Audio. Many later DOS games used a sound driver approach, there might be a possibility to give them native support for newer audio chipsets.
Also, it's a bit of irony, that sound support is the only thing missing from full backward compatibility with DOS era, and in the same time for years now PCs got standardized HD Audio.
I wonder if IBM could define a standard in the late 80s that defines multichannel PCM audio, with future proof API. LIke 8-bit 22 kHz for DOS era, and 24-bit 96 kHz or higher virtual support for extending standard in the future. But they were never that clever.
Especially since modern boards don't run PCI natively.
Honestly, it's not a good idea to use a PCI sound card for DOS anyways.
Great video!
Thank god for BIOS still being around, managing everything. Sadly not PCI..
BTW - for the person who wants Tandy 3-voice, have you tried using the TEMU emulator software and a regular LPT DAC device? I managed to get Tandy sound working on a few games (including The Secret Of Monkey Island) by using TEMU and an LPT DAC card I made myself. I would also love a board like this that does 3-voice though - I also have a few SN76489 chips ready for if that ever happens.
I noticed that lo tech used to do a board which did this, but he hasn't had stock in quite some time.
www.lo-tech.co.uk/product/tandy-sound-sn76489-adapter-pcb/
Yes - I've bought from that site before, but sadly it's been mostly abandoned for over a year now.
Sounds good
I have an i7 computer with standerd pci slots on it and I have a pci sound blaster awe 64 gold could i use this for dos gaming ?
These existed long time now.. iv had a few wen i was young :-) but no need for usb power on old pcs
Yea they cost a lot of money now...
35 EUR landed in Aus is about $55 dollary doos... Definitely not possible to find all the parts for a retro DOS era machine (or even a whole one) off eBay these days, so this would be a great option for those who don't want to spend heaps on old hardware, but shudder at the thought of running DOSBox. I've bought many times more than that in DOS era hardware off eBay in the last few weeks (and still have a lot on my watch list!), but I guess I've just got the retro bug!
The Up Late Geek The way I justify it, the prices will only go up. I remember having similar conversations 5 years ago :D
Sounds like it requires Emm386? I wonder if it works like the sb live!
The combo of the Live! and Ultima 7 lead to my first instance of not being able to run an old game even in 9x DOS mode. Ultima 7 needed emm386 NOT loaded. The live! DOS drivers needed emm386. Trying to fix this with fan patches and replacement interpreters taught me a lot. Lead to me building a dedicated old games pc until it died.
This is great, but I feel it needs a version 2.0. Why adlib and not Sound blaster compatibility?
I hope he release a soundblaster version
That's my exact case. I put a core i7 with 24 gigs of ram and a gtx780 in it.
Wow. I wonder if, using a parallel port to USB adapter, you can use this with DOSBox or within a virtualization app like Parallels or VMWare?
wondering the same here mmm
probably not, those types of parallel ports require non standard drivers
I'm not quite sure over which bus an onboard parallel port is connected to the CPU/chipset but my question would be if this device and it's drivers work on PCI- or PCIe-parallelport-controller-cards.
I guess the parallel sits on a PCIe lane, same with the PCI ports, network, sound, etc.
onboard parallel ports on modern computers use the LPC bus which is basically ISA over less pins, LPC stands for low pin count bus
parallel ports on pci/pcie bus will need additional drivers to function
Only took 2 days to come through and not difficult to build and it works great on an old P233 Thinkpad I have (although it has its own sound card already). I can't get it working on an IBM PS/2 386 though and I don't have anything else 3/486/Pentium.
Odd, I wonder what's different with the PS/2?
No idea, someone else on their forums are reporting the same on their PS/2 too though. Wonder if it's something to do with the capabilities of the parallel port (ECP vs EPP etc.) but I can't change those types of settings even with the reference diskette. Anyone got a 486 PC I can have for cheap :)
Just had another thought on were it might be usefull. These AWE64 cards, do not have any OPL chip. So.... Uhmmm.... Gearing up with this setup: AWE64-Gold + OPL2LPT + MT32 + SC55. Take all outputs, and run them through an external mixer!
There is an old Pinball game called Pinball Fantasies by Digital Illusions (DICE) that has amazing music and sound. I loved it back in the day but is doesn't run that great in DosBox. Have you considered adding it to your list of test games? Would be nice to see it run natively in Dos.
Isn't it better on the Amiga ? I played it a lot on an Amiga 600 back in the early 1990s
Pinball Fanasies uses modules (tracker music). This involves samples rather than FM synth.
IMO those modules sound pretty similar when played on Amiga and PC.
Do you have to use software to slow CPU down? I would have thought that games would run too fast on the I7 out of the box.
Older games do indeed have terrible issues, but VGA games in general just use the vsync to keep the timing correctly.
Having to run games in DOS Box or K6-2 underclocked to 200MHz due to a compiler bug in some games is fun.
Borland Turbo Pascal runtime error 200?
patches exist for the borland 200MHz initialization bug
What a cool card! Does it work with dos box? If you add 25pin Parallel LPT Card PCI Expansion Card Adapter would it work on a modern computer?
Will it work with DosBox?
That's the question ! That would be great :) !
It can work with inpout32 in theory.
If serdaco make windows drivers for this, then it's possible.
There already is a windows OPL3 midi driver made by MaliceX.
As long as the port is available for writing it should work!
@James Maple Not really... the FM sound emulation always glitches randomly (pitch and timing issues) with in Doom in dosbox and I would always use wavetable sound when emulating those games, but I now own a real DOS system with a Sound Blaster Pro 2.0... and not only that there are no glitches but the gameplay feels smoother on a real system. This device in the video does seem cool and would be a great way for authentic adlib sound using Adlib Tracker II on a modern PC (as long as it has a parallel port).
This must be what The 8-Bit Guy was showing off on LGR's recent video survey of fellow RUclipsrs' retro game setups?
Would definitely be interested to know if the compatibility is better on era-appropriate machines, as well as whether it causes any performance loss.
I'm assuming the driver pretty much just routes 0x220/0x388 port ranges to/from the LPT port, so that you basically get an Adlib OPL2 sound card hooked up via LPT instead of ISA. Seems like someone could do an MPU-401 compatible LPT-MIDI interface via the same method.
There are now two ways of using it. With the driver, but there is performance loss, and some games won't work like Doom. The other option is patching the game for native support. Then Doom for example will work, no performance loss, but every game has to be patched manually.
What's the song at the end of your videos?
Oh my god, this is amazing! I need one of these in my life right now. How is timing with caches disabled?
does this work on old mashines too? down to stuff like a 5150
It does require more CPU power than a machine with an ISA card, so keep that in mind.
idlove to see a future video showing it off on slow mashines , maybe one that dont have any ISA slots , like an small formfactor board or some OEM board
The webpage suggests a 386, seemingly mostly for RAM concerns. For XT you'd probably want some kind of ISA OPL board. I believe Sergey makes a PCB/has the designs for that.
www.malinov.com/Home/sergeys-projects/isa-opl2-card
To use the TSR, you need a 386 due to requiring the V8086 mode of the processor. For a 286 and lower, you'll need either an ISA card, or learn how to patch the games you want to run to use the LPT port instead of 388h.
Hi, phil your instal ms dos parallel to Windows or your install only dos? What is the besteht way? Regards
Neat little device. I can clearly see were this can be usefull. My next thoughts about this little device, is were it might find true useage when it is not gaming.
There are musicians, that are using OPL chips with a special program, called Adlib Tracker. That program is a Dos program. Yet why not strech it beyond Dos. I mean... How about Windows? Could this potentially find some use in creating music, using native OPL, under one version of Windows or another? Can it be used on something like an old Amiga? Atari? PowerMac that still has serial ports. Just a little thought that I have.
Adlib Tracker 2 was ported to Win32 and Linux, also there is a port for Dosbox that can utilise real opl3 chip ;)
With Yamaha YMF7xx under Linux, you can expose opl3 chip as a midi device (dunno about windows, but i guess it can do the same)
What about a PCI-E to PCI adapter and a YMF724?
can it play samples too? like the sound effects in wolf3d?
I've got adlib working on core-i5. I know it is not very cool, than core-i7 xD. I have used PCI yahaha ymf-724 based sound card
What about the software side, how does it work, is there any cpu overhead? Could be really interesting for PS/2 machines.
Pff I did it ages ago with CMI8738 over a PCI to PCIe bridge
Hey, great video. Just a quick question. Is there a way to hook this up with a parallel to USB converter ? Would it work on a modern computer ? Thanks.
I don't think that will work, DOS doesn't "see" USB devices.
Really cool :) !!!
Is an i3 first gen is powerful enough ? I have this old machine an I think to convert it into a retro gaming computer.
There's this thread on Vogons that got a 1st gen i7 working on DOS, among many other things:
www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=56460
Thx ! Games seems to work better with DosBox however. The retrogaming road isn't easy to pass haha :p.
Say Phil, would you be willing too try Hyper-V and have four console's running MSDos all at once. multiple monitor support with a matrox graphics card... I'd really appreciate if that's a possibility.
And a great lan base set up for Dos would be available this would be absolutely outstanding. Oh speculation on virtual console if you could run a lan ipx or serial port. Dosbox could also be used if necessary.
How are the noise levels? is it really quiet at full volume when nothing is playing?
Cool device! thanx for this video . Greets.
I cranked up the speakers to 3/4 and couldn't hear any noise when not playing.
PhilsComputerLab thank you very much. It maybe too much to ask but could you test if it works with adlibtracker? it's kind of a huge deal for all adlib musicians. you can get it here. . www.adlibtracker.net/downloads.php
what kind of motherboard im just wondering that i7 board have an old port?
Phil, I'm curious, what's the issue with USB keyboard/mouse in some games? I haven't tried that yet.
In DOS the PS/2 mouse just works.
Yeah, DOS doesn't know USB, so you either need a board that enables legacy support for USB devices or use 3rd party drivers. And we all know to keep DOS as light as possible to have enough memory.
so if you had a hypervisor or linux KVM you could setup a VM with DOS and pass-through the parallel port and in theory have your cake and eat it to without having to reboot in to dos.
That's a pretty good idea.
oh ijust realized i had the same mobo as him
Hey, i just got an opl2lpt and its going to be soldered friday, looking forward to test it
What is that game you play last in the video ?
Does the i7 series 2 support vt-x and vt-d? ...I use a series 3 i7 to run virtual machines complete with GPU pass-through (unfortunately, GPU pass-through requires UEFI compatible hardware).
Intel introduced VT-d support for K SKUs with Haswell Refresh (4x90K).
On mod player how to work , im very interesting on this possibility
More lemmings please.
Just thought it would be good to show off that other people in another forum have been working on this very board and have more information about how you can make more out of the board.
vogons org viewtopic php?f=62&t=55105&hilit=LPT2OPL
Do MoBos still come with Printer port???
My PC is from 2010 and don't have it...
Not really, though some OEM mobos may have still have it.
It's not on the back plate, but a lot of motherboards still have headers for parallel and serial ports. The I/O chips used on motherboards (that also include ps/2 ports, fans, temperature sensors etc) still incorporate the functionality and these chips are so common and cheap, no manufacturer bothers to make new versions of those chips without these features because it wouldn't be profitable.
Anyway, so yeah ... if you have the header, you can hit eBay or other sites and buy a bracket which has the printer connector on it. They're very cheap and easy to find.
Omg what's the name of the first game!?
I remember playing it as a kid
Heart of China by Dynamix, I think. It's on GOG.
Tarekjp thanks! It was lemmings
Lemmings is a fantastic game!
So is Heart of China.
I'm just amazed that there was anyone who didn't know the name of Lemmings. That was pretty much the game I got an Amiga for.
TheTurnipKing I played it when i was like 8-10 as a flash game on websites. So I wouldn't look at the titles xD
I just realized something, a modern motherboard has only ONE PS/2 port, that's not enough if you want to play on a "real" DOS system.
Alexandre Bouvier One port is all you need.
Ok, yeah you are right ! THX :) !
*The backwards compatibility of Intel is just unbeatable*
👌
dos games work fine with new amd cpu's as well. and modern graphics cards generally run most old games fine as well.
Its not really intels doing. most pc hardware is simply backwards(and forwards sometimes) compatible.
its not backwards compatibility , its still X86 , same instructions as a 80286 even on the most modern and buff intel or amd chip
+Justagermannerd *―_―*
technically you are right , but not quite , it would be backwards compatibility if X86 was unused and obsolete , wich it is not (latter is up for debate)
That is software locked. You can "crack" that lock if you insist, but if you are running Windows anyway just use 10 and run XPAntispy afterwards as it runs on and can detect 10 and act accordingly.
Phil, you previously made a video showing that the Aureal Vortex PCI sound card works perfectly in DOS. That means that you should be able to build a new computer, with proper DOS sound support and real OPL2, as long as it has PCI, LPT and PS/2-ports, which many new boards still have (although it will soon be a thing of the past).
That would certainly be a slap in the head to LGR, who recently made a shamelessly bad video explaining how a new machine is completely unusable for retro-gaming, which I disagree with. (Not that I would ever choose that over real retro-hardware, but it's fun to demonstrate)
PCI sound cards stop working after a certain point / chipset generation. On a machine like the one shown in the video, there was no solution until now. So this is a real game changer. Well the PC speaker worked great.
I really liked the LGR video. I also don't recommend using an i7 for DOS, it's really a showcase of what is possible and to make a fun video. Retro laptops owners will really dig this device I think, apart from Covox or Disney Sound Source, they had few options.
I guess a good build would be something of the pentium 4 or Core 2 era. There is still native support for paralel, PCI and PS/2 and they are fast enough for more modern systems.
Imagine a multiboot system with DOS, XP & 7, whould be quite nice for a broad range of games.
+HappyBeezerStudios
I actually ran my PC with that EXACT boot configuration. It worked great! Was a pain in the ass to setup though.
Henrik Wils I think you should calm down about LGR. Maybe you need a "slap in the head" for shamelessly getting angry over nothing. He made a video showcasing why modern hardware is not ideal at all for native DOS gaming, and he was right.
Phil, do yow think that this usb to isa card would make a AWE 64 to work on a win 10? arstech.com/install/ecom-prodshow/usb2isar.html
I highly doubt it.
Are there anybody can test it out ? I am also really curious about test result :)
lol.. This is so dumb.. in the best way possible and i love it!
5:05 choice between talking to the guy or the hot chick. He chooses the guy lol.
ig33ku He did a drink for bravery.
LOL really? :P
Why so hard way?? There is d-fend and gog.com for retro gaming :-p
some men like real boobies not silicone bags
What kinda i7 mobo has a Parallel port?
This one does, and it also has PCI: www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-Z87P-D3-rev-1x
Note that the rev 2.0 board is of a lower quality.
Edit: BTW, you can easily get PICe parallel or serial port cards.
Actually a lot. But most of them only with an internal pin-header. If i look on geizhals (a german price comparision) there are listed over 139 for socket 1151 and 19 for AM4.
Doesn't work with doom? -pass
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