Sound and MT 32

Sound & MT-32

DOS games expect specific sound hardware. EmuDOS exposes the common choices per game and adds a faithful Roland MT-32 with its iconic display.

Sound card & MIDI

Set these per game in Preferences → Game Options:

Setting	What it does
Sound card	The Sound Blaster model for digital sound effects (SB16, Sound Blaster Pro, etc.).
MIDI device	The music device: General MIDI (via a SoundFont), Roland MT-32, or none.

For many games the catalog already picks sensible defaults. A game still has to be told internally which device to use — run its own SETUP (via Open in DOS) and choose the matching sound/music hardware if it isn't already configured.

Roland MT-32

EmuDOS recreates the Boxer MT-32 experience: drop the ROMs in once and MT-32 games just work, with the unit's dot-matrix LCD shown on a photo of the hardware.

1. Supply the ROMs. The Roland MT-32 (or CM-32L) ROMs are Roland's copyrighted firmware and can't be distributed with EmuDOS. Drag the .rom files, or a folder containing them, onto the window. Preferences → Downloads shows a ✓ on the Roland MT-32 ROMs line when they're detected.
2. Set the game to MT-32. In Preferences → Game Options, set MIDI device to Roland MT-32 (many catalog games are already set up for it).
3. Make the game output MT-32 music. The game itself must be configured for Roland/MT-32. EmuDOS does this automatically for Sierra games (it points their sound config at the MT-32 driver); for others, run the game's SETUP and choose Roland MT-32.

When a game writes to the MT-32 display, the dotted amber text appears on the on-screen LCD. Scroll the wheel over the MT-32 window to resize it; drag it to reposition.

Under the hood

The MT-32 is synthesized by EmuDOS's own bundled emulator and mixed with the core's audio — the only thing you supply is the ROMs. There's nothing else to download for it.