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From: swh@hpcupt1.cup.hp.com (Steve Harrold)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
Subject: Game support for MIDI MPU401?
Message-ID: <56470005@hpcupt1.cup.hp.com>
Date: 4 Jan 91 17:15:49 GMT
Organization: Hewlett Packard, Cupertino
Lines: 36

Game support for MIDI MPU 401?

How much support do recently issued games provide for the MIDI-equipped
computer?

Recently, I installed Sierra's Police Quest 2 on my PC which has the
Roland MPU 401 MIDI processor attached to it.  The PQ2 install asked for
my sound equipment configuration, and one of the choices was the MT32
card, to which I said OK (which was a lie).

Much to my surprise, when I played the game, sound came forth from the
synth I had had attached to the MPU401!!!

I was under the impression that the MT32 was a synthesizer (i.e. generates
sounds electronically all by itself).  On the other hand, the MPU401 
is NOT a synth, it processes MIDI data streams and passes them on (silently).

My question:  How is the MT32 card driven?  Does the game software send it
a proper MIDI byte stream, and then lets the MT32 convert that to sound?
Or are there some other data sent to the MT32 to achieve this?  Does the
MT32 accept whatever is sent to it, and then, in turn, output a proper
MIDI byte stream?

Regardless of how the MIDI stream is outputed by the MT32, can anyone 
supply the specifications of the on-board music voices (aka as patches in
the music synthesizer world).  Descriptions would suffice, e.g. patch 1 
is "piano", patch 2 is "violin", etc.  I'd like to setup my outboard 
synth so that its generated music matches what the MT32 programmer intended.

--
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Steve Harrold			swh@hpda.hp.com
				...hplabs!hpda!swh
				HPG200/11
				(408) 447-5580
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