How to enable Roland MT32 in DOSBox-X ?

Andearoid

Roland MT32 was a MIDI synthesizer module providing an incredible audio quality for PC’s music. Its MIDI synthesizer provide a really better acoustic than the famous Yamaha OPL3 chipset available on first Sound Blaster 16 audio cards. Some old MS-DOS games support the Roland MT32 module, but it’s not available as default in Batocera.

Here is what you have to do for emulating a Roland MT32 in DOSBox-X :

Get the MT32 or CM32L roms files and put them in your Bios folder.
Files name must be : MT32_CONTROL.ROM + MT32_PCM.ROM or CM32L_CONTROL.ROM + CM32L_PCM.ROM.

Edit your dosboxx.conf file and add/update this lines

[midi]
mididevice = mt32
mt32.romdir = /userdata/bios

The CM32L (1989) is the successor of the MT32 module (1987). CM32L module provide a better audio quality and 33 additional samples in its wave bank.

Andearoid

So here is my personal settings for the Roland CM32L module in my dosboxx.conf :

[midi]
mpu401 = intelligent
mpubase = 330
mididevice = mt32
midiconfig = 2 delaysysex
samplerate = 44100
mpuirq = 9
mt32.romdir = /userdata/bios/dosbox/CM32L_1989
mt32.reverse.stereo = off
mt32.verbose = off
mt32.thread = off
mt32.dac = 3
mt32.reverb.mode = auto
mt32.reverb.time = 5
mt32.reverb.level = 3
mt32.partials = 32

You can find what’s each parameter means here :
https://github.com/joncampbell123/dosbox-x/blob/master/dosbox-x.reference.conf

Then you can get Roland’s roms for MT32 and CM32L modules from my drive : https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1q1DPuM0S4gP3Y31nT_oZx3JpYU7WiIuv?usp=sharing

Additionals notes :

. in games settings your can define an SB16 card as sounds effects card (IRQ: 5 or 7) and the MT32/CM32L module as Midi card for digitals musics (IRQ: 9).

. if you can’t find Roland MT32 in your favourite game sound setting, you can probably set the Midi card option to General Midi / MPU-401 instead.

. to test your Roland module is properly set, try Lotus game in your DOSBox-X and check it really sounds like that :

voljega

Nice ! I will add that to the wiki for the dosbox page when I finally include it