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DOS32AWE - RAM wavetable MIDI possible for PM games under DOS (Announce)

posted by RayeR Homepage, CZ, 15.01.2026, 08:17
(edited by RayeR on 16.01.2026, 03:35)

I did some experiments. 1st to say that dos32awe doesn't work for me - it hangs exactly the same way as if I start the game without it. I tried Doom1, 2 and Blood. All hangs at sound init stage - Doom hangs at "calling DMX_Init".

When I started aweutil and hdpmi32i -r it hanged one step sooner at "I_StartupTimer()".

When I started aweutil and load jemm386 it crashed at "calling DMX_Init" http://rayer.g6.cz/1tmp/awejemm.jpg
Jemm can be also loaded before aweutil in autoexec, it doesn't interfere before, just crash when some pmode game using general midi is started.

When I started aweutil and load jemm386 and hdpmi32i -r it hanged one step sooner at "I_StartupTimer()".

I checked with cpustat util ran before and after aweutil loaded but nothing changed:

MSW: 10 (PG=0 AM=0 WP=0 NE=0 TS=0 EM=0 MP=0 PE=0); Real-mode
CR0: 10
GDTR: 8f866,ffff, IDTR: 0,3ff
LDTR: 0, TR: 28
CR2: 0  CR3: 39000
CR4: 0 (VME=0, PVI=0, DE=0, PSE=0, PAE=0, MCE=0, PGE=0, OSFXSR=0, OSXMMEX=0)
FCW: 37f  FSW: 0
DR0-DR3: 0 0 0 0
DR6: ffff0ff0  DR7: 400
EFL: 7206, ESP: 95a
SS-DS-ES-FS-GS limits: ffff-ffff-ffff-ffff-ffff


Update: here is short expl. Of what dos32awe does. At least for some people on vogons it worked but not clear what version of dos32awe with what version of aweutil.

the NMI forwarding logic is part of the DOS32A-integrated DPMI server, so it won't be enabled if an external DPMI server is used.

The AWE32 does "hardware-assisted port redirection" by triggering an NMI when a MIDI port is written. That's why AWEUTIL doesn't need EMM386. It seems typical DOS extenders don't reflect the NMI to real mode, as they reflect standard IRQs to real mode. All you have to do to get AWEUTIL work with protected mode software is reflecting NMIs (at least those caused by the AWE32 card) to real mode.

UPDATE2:
I found Vogons thread about dos32awe https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=83065&hilit=dos32awe
and there's also explanation about the source, one user made changes to dos32a but didn't publish sources while other user then DASM (IDA) it and upload to github. There's another github project https://github.com/karcherm/dos32awe/tree/master that looks more sourcey but still DASM. Also it was noted that the limitation to run strictly under realmode was added to dos32awe later, some older versions didn't enforce it but because users had some issues with V86 it was blocked later. I will try some older and newer aweutil versions if it would work...

---
DOS gives me freedom to unlimited HW access.

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