MT32 - Pi nightmare configuration for noob.

[ascopolis]

I have been experiencing problems with mi MT32 Pi hat, never make it work since I have it. I get my assembled MT32 pi from misterfpga.uk and my preconfigured MiSTer from Mister AddOns, so, I trust the quality of the gear.

Downloaded the mt32-pi 0.9.1 latest version from Github, follow all the instructions (the config file, mister: on, etc.), my USB cable is short. Finally, I made it to configure the Amiga and the AO486 Cores and plug the Pi Hat... no sound at all, I mean, just the default sound from the games... the bars aren´t moving and I really don´t know what to expect.

Any help must be appreciated. Been invest hours in this as a hobby and have no reward at all... AT LEAST WITH THE "·$"·$"·R"F COMPUTER CORES!! Thank you.

Please sent help.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uH7EP6G ... e=youtu.be]

[Mellified]

It's almost always the USB cable. Make sure you get one of the known good ones listed on the mt32pi wiki.

[bazza_12]

have you got the roms in the correct folder on the sdcard?

[LamerDeluxe]

Really dumb question, but is the MT32-pi enabled in the core menu?

[Blorb]

I just setup my MT32pi hat today that I also received from misterfpga.uk... and I had similar problems... for me at least the problem was that I had extracted the mt32-pi script to my sd card, which meant that i had a root folder "e:\mt32-0.9.1\"... when I moved all the content out from the mt32-0.9.1 folder, the issue was fixed... I felt very silly:)

[ascopolis]

“It's almost always the USB cable. Make sure you get one of the known good ones listed on the mt32pi wiki.”

Yes, I get the short USB from misterfpga.uk

“have you got the ROMs in the correct folder on the sd card?”


My ROMS are in “ROMs” folder, on the root of my Raspberry Pi 3 flashcard.

“Really dumb question, but is the MT32-pi enabled in the core menu?”

Yes, it is.


“I just set up my MT32pi hat today that I also received from misterfpga.uk... and I had similar problems... for me at least the problem was that I had extracted the mt32-pi script to my sd card, which meant that I had a root folder "e:\mt32-0.9.1\"... when I moved all the content out from the mt32-0.9.1 folder, the issue was fixed... I felt very silly:)”

I copy all the contents from the unzipped mt32-0.9.1 folder to the root of my SD Card, on my raspberry pi 3 with is linked to MT32


I’m booting the games from a VHD image which doesn’t allow me to select the MT-32 versión of the game from the initial game menu, could be that? in the menu, I just select the game and the game begins direct to the intro, could be that?

thanks again!

[flynnsbit]

I’m booting the games from a VHD image which doesn’t allow me to select the MT-32 versión of the game from the initial game menu, could be that? in the menu, I just select the game and the game begins direct to the intro, could be that?

thanks again!

Yup, if the game isn't configured for MT-32, you aren't using scripts to configure mt-32 configs automatically for the game, or didn't launch the game with mt-32 passed as an option you will not get MT-32.

Where did you get that image you are using?

[ascopolis]

Are you Flynnsbit from the YouTube tutorials?

I feel like I already know you cuz I spent a LOT of time watching your vids on YouTube to set up the AO486 Core, Unfortunately, I've failed. I get somewhere on the internet a VHD called "DOS8.0-nml32.vhd" on adding it to IDE O-O, that is the only way I could boot the core, I tried your method with the Total Dos Launcher but I have a problem: never used DOS before in my life and I don´t have a PC to convert the archives to VHD, I'm a Mac user, try to download your 129 GB or so VHD image from archive.org but that would take me days cuz here in Mexico City my broadband it´s lame.

I´ve already downloaded the "top 30 final" from torrents but by now I´m trying to learn how to use a tool to convert that into a VHD image (Python, I guess, another program that I´ve never heard of before). The other barrier is the language, I´m not a native English speaker so I have to watch your videos multiple times to understand some technical jargon to apply that knowledge.

By the way, great job! much appreciated!

[flynnsbit]

Are you Flynnsbit from the YouTube tutorials?

I feel like I already know you cuz I spent a LOT of time watching your vids on YouTube to set up the AO486 Core, Unfortunately, I've failed. I get somewhere on the internet a VHD called "DOS8.0-nml32.vhd" on adding it to IDE O-O, that is the only way I could boot the core, I tried your method with the Total Dos Launcher but I have a problem: never used DOS before in my life and I don´t have a PC to convert the archives to VHD, I'm a Mac user, try to download your 129 GB or so VHD image from archive.org but that would take me days cuz here in Mexico City my broadband it´s lame.

I´ve already downloaded the "top 30 final" from torrents but by now I´m trying to learn how to use a tool to convert that into a VHD image (Python, I guess, another program that I´ve never heard of before). The other barrier is the language, I´m not a native English speaker so I have to watch your videos multiple times to understand some technical jargon to apply that knowledge.

By the way, great job! much appreciated!

Yup, one in the same. The Top 300 final comes with 2 VHDs already It should be literally plug and play and has everything already setup for you to run the mt-32-pi as well. Search for "ao486" on Archive.org and make sure you are getting the Top 300 pack.

1. I would start with getting the full Top 300 pack working first, it will give you a good baseline to reference as you work to build your own.
For the Top 300, download the whole thing, it comes with two VHDs (Hard Drives), the bios files, cd folder for all games that require CDs, floppies (same). Put all of that into the /media/fat/games/ao486 folder on your mister. if you are using a usb drive you would put it on /media/usb0/games/ao486. You need to remove any other folder that has ao486 in it, out of the root path or anywhere else.

Top300 pack full directory.PNG (29.34 KiB) Viewed 6576 times

2. Make sure you are on the very latest version of Mister and ao486 through the update script

3. boot the ao486 core, at the core menu, select IDE 0-0 and mount the DOS 98 BOOT.vhd there. select IDE 0-1 and mount the IDE 0-1 Top 300 DOS Games.vhd.


4. Save your settings and reboot the core. it should boot all the way into the AO486 Top 300 games launcher.

5. After all of that works you can go grab the Mister Top 300 Update script from here to fix a bunch of stuff and add the automatic mt-32pi integration into the pack. You have to run the update or you wont get the right setup and changes. That is here: https://github.com/flynnsbit/Top300_updates Follow the readme

6. Pick any game with MT-32 or SoundCanvas sound options, when you select the game, you will get a choice screen for audio, select the one you want and it will set the game up for that sound setup and tell the mt-32-pi to switch to the sound mode you selected.

7. The game should play as intended with the correct sound.


Hopefully this translates correctly for you. I will keep the language barrier in mind for any of my future videos.

[ascopolis]

This step-by-step post was really helpful, thank you for taking your time to get things easier for me.
It seems that my main problem from the very beginning was the wrong decompression process with The Unarchiver for Mac, tried with another program (Keka) and finally get the proper files, by now I need to get a bigger capacity Micro SD to test the VHDs, the best selection could be this:
http://junkerhq.net/MDFourier/notes/MDF ... Card-3.pdf

I´m pretty sure that I will not have any more problems from here, your instructions are precise and clear. Thank you again and all the comunity.

[flynnsbit]

You can do everything above and throw /games/ao486/ folder on a usb stick or usb hard drive as well. In case you didn't know and you had some around that had more that 80GB capacity.