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Setting up Voyetra SuperSAPI OPL3 drivers on Windows 95/98 for PC-98
The SuperSAPI drivers are liked in the PC retro computing community for their lovely sounding FM patches,
especially compared to what Creative and NEC offered.
NEC's later PC-9821 models came bundled with OPL3 compatible sound solutions, although driver support was minimal,
and the FM patches included in the Win95/98 installation discs are by The Fat Man. Okay, but not great.
Fortunately, with a bit of tinkering, Voyetra's driver and patches can be installed on 9x for PC-98.
What you'll need:
- An OPL3 equipped sound card (ex. PC-9801-118, NEC G8XZU...)
- Windows 95/98
- The drivers:SAPI.ZIP
Installation procedure:
- Make sure you already have NEC's drivers installed
- Download and extract the drivers to your desired directory. Mine will be in B:\SAPI\WINDRV\
- Open up the "Add new Hardware" wizard and pick "No, my hardware is not on the list".
Choose not to let Windows automatically detect devices and then pick the Sound, Video and Game Controllers category.
- When presented with a list of drivers, choose "Have Disk" and point to your desired driver directory.
- On the screen that pops up choose "Voyetra / Sound Blaster SuperSAPI FM Driver".
- You will then see a configuration applet and an error message. Ignore it for now, close and restart your computer.
- After restarting, go to system.ini and find a line that says [sndblst.drv] or [sapi!opl.drv] or [sb16fm.drv].
Then, check the FM port in your current sound card driver and put it in the "port=" line (mine is port 1488), and then
add the line "drumchannel=10" to make percussion GM-compatible. Restart your computer.
- Now go to your Control Panel->Multimedia->Devices->MIDI devices->Voyetra Super Sapi FM Driver
then click Properties, and then Settings in the popup window.
- You should now see the SuperSAPI control applet.
Choose which patchset you want (OPL32OP.MID for 2-op, OPL34OP.MID for 4-op). Do NOT change the port settings.
- Finally, go to the MIDI mapper in the MIDI tab and choose the Voyetra Super Sapi FM Driver.
That's it, play some MIDI music and enjoy the melody.