A quick tip to those who didn't figure it yet: Dragonsphere can be configured to use General MIDI for music output, instead of Soundblaster which is the default in GOG installation package. This somewhat improves music quality in game :)

To set this up, you need to launch the install.exe program. Since with the current GOG setup exiting the game ends up in DOS prompt, it can be launched just typing "install" after you exit the game.

In the install program, select "reconfigure hardware options", and then:
1. cd drive letter = D
2. Music & sounds effect device = General MIDI, Music card address=330, IRQ = 7
3. Digitized speech = soundblaster 16 or Pro
4. Digitized speech configuration = Address = 220, IRQ = 7, DRQ = 1
5. Gameplay options = whichever you prefer (they can be later changed in game too)

(at least the above settings worked for me; they might be different if dosbox configuration file was edited)

Then exit the installer and "dragon" to launch the game again.

As much as I love a game with General MIDI + Shan's soundfont, I just love the sound of Adlib.

Thanks for this post! I followed your instructions and now the music sounds much better :)

Doesn't work for me on Linux with Timidity++ daemon. I can play a .mid file by issuing:

$ pmidi -p 128:0 whatever.mid

But doesn't work in-game. In my dosbox.conf I have:

mpu401=intelligent
device=default
midiconfig=128:0

This also might be useful:

$ pmidi -l
Port Client name Port name
14:0 Midi Through Midi Through Port-0
128:0 TiMidity TiMidity port 0
128:1 TiMidity TiMidity port 1
128:2 TiMidity TiMidity port 2
128:3 TiMidity TiMidity port 3


I'll keep trying for the next few days and will come back with new reports. I'll also try to install the Roland MT-32 emulator and see what I can do.

I ended up using MUNT. It provides both MT-32 and GM output, so now it's working fine. There's probably something wrong with my Timidity++ installation.

I've got a bit of a problem: I can't get Dragonsphere to use GM for music (I'm using Roland CM-300).

I've set up the game's config as is described above (these are the default settings of DosBox), but the game just keeps using the Sound Blaster for music.

I'm using a USB MIDI cable as a MIDI interface, and it is seen in Windows as a MIDI device no. 1.

I've also edited the dosboxDragonsphere.conf file (located in the installation folder at: C:\GOG Games\Dragonsphere) so that it uses a MIDI device no. 1:
[midi]
config=1

but the game still keeps using SB for music. Has anyone had a similar problem?

(I'm using this same setup for numerous other games where the GM music works normally...)

After a while I have a chance to clarify some things:

First of all, I couldn't get the General MIDI music to work with the GOG release (it just plays the SB16 music). As I'm using a hardware General MIDI sound source (a Roland CM-300 module) and Dragonsphere was designed with playing music on a GM device in mind, this is quite a problem.

As this game has been free for a while I downloaded the floppy version from Abandonia and a speech pack that is also available there (together they make a complete, full CD version).

I've run it in DOSbox 0.74 with absolutely no problem, the speech is working and the music is playing through the CM-300. Also, for some reason, as the game graphics is now running in a 4:3 format and my monitor (as most of them used nowadays) is 16:9 so the graphics is now finally not blurry anymore (as it was in GOG version, which even made it hard to read text!). Learn from it GOG team...

Here's the DOSbox settings that I edited by running:
C:\Program Files\DOSBox-0.74\DOSBox 0.74 Options.bat

They then looked like this:
[midi]
mpu401=uart
mididevice=default
midiconfig=1

and the sound options set for the game by the install.exe command that worked for me were:
-music and sound fx:
GM, address: 330, IRQ: 2

-digitised speech:
SB16, address: 220, IRQ: 7, Dynamic IRQ: 1.

Hope it helps someone someday.

Had issues with the General MIDI of the GoG version as well.. I could not even set it to use Munt MT-32 emulation.
I use BassMIDI with some 2GB General MIDI soundfont (Evanessence) which makes everything else short of the few specifically MT-32 designed games sound bland in comparison. The Adlib music that no matter what always started with the GoG version sounds like an ear-rape in comparison with a proper GM soundfont or the Munt MT-32 emulation. After all the point that most of us old-timers are replaying this is to relive the nostalgia powered with modern tech. ;)

So i dusted my old floppy version (its backup to be more precise, I no longer have a floppy drive even if the disks are ok), downloaded the speech pack, made custom dosbox config for the Dosbox 0.74 which I have installed and voila, General MIDI sounds like heaven.

Also by default GoG version has problems with aspect=true, it always shows wide screen, which as kosec mentioned above makes everything awfully blurry. Stretching full-screen a 640x480 game on a wide-screen monitor adds to the additional hit on image quality.

Don't know if things have changed or what, but using the version I downloaded just now, I had no problems setting it up to use GM. Or for that matter MT32 (Munt) albeit with the Daum DOSbox.

As the OP said, you do need to run the install.exe.

The current version (setup_dragonsphere_2.1.0.15.exe) is designed to quit DosBOX once you exit the game. There are various ways you can stop this. But probably the simplest thing on Windows for those without much general computing knowledge is the following.

Edit the "dosboxDragonsphere_single.conf" file in a text editor, e.g. Notepad *1. The conf (config) file will be in the directory you installed the game e.g. "C:\GOG Games\Dragonsphere". Between the lines "cd DRAGON" and "CALL DRAGON.BAT", add a new line with "install.exe" (without the quotation marks!). You could also comment out the "CALL DRAGON.BAT" which will stop the game from starting by adding # to the beginning of that line. (Note commenting out the exit won't do much as the shortcut also causes DOSbox to exit when it's done.)

Now the in game setup should run whenever you start the game using the shortcut.*2

You should be able to just choose "General MIDI" and shouldn't need to change the address or IRQ unless perhaps you changed something in your DOSbox or have other special config issues. (The IRQ will be "2", this seems to work fine for me and I think is the default for GM on Dosbox although often it doesn't matter.) Note that you need to finish running the config portion. If you cancel whether accidently or intentionally it won't work. You should reach the screen where you configure game options (like room fade, text boxes i.e. subtitles) then click ok then you will get a "Configuration File Written" prompt and you will be on the main screen again but over the "Display README.TXT File" option. If you end up back over the "Reconfigure Hardware Options" option in the main menu and don't see the configuration file written prompt, you must have cancelled or something else went wrong.

Once you've done, I suggest you quit out of the install ("Exit to DOS"). If the game starts now, probably the midi will be fine. But to help make sure everyone went fine, I recommend you quit the game if necessary and run the shortcut again so you get the in game config again. Go to the MIDI config and make sure it's set up to use "General MIDI". If it's still set up to use Soundblaster, something has gone wrong and the config isn't saving for some reason. Perhaps the game config file is protected or read only. (Note that for many GOG games, you should use the default install location or at least don't install them in Program Files on Vista or anything newer since these games store files in the program directory.) If it is set up to use General MIDI either quit the config or finish it again without changing anything.

If you're satisfied everything is working, you can edit the conf file to stop install.exe running and renable the game (CALL DRAGON.BAT) if you commented it out.


Note that on a default Windows install, just doing this will probably mean the game uses the Windows GM synth. This IMO sounds a lot better than FM on most GM games but you may want to use something other than the Windows GM synth for even better sound. Personally I'm currently using CoolSoft VirtualMIDISynth along with the Musyng Kite.sf2 soundfont. Some people may prefer a Soundfont optimised to be more like the Soundcanvas although I've never found a good free soundfont like that. And of course there are those with real SoundCanvas devices. On the other hand if you're using a custom DOSbox, it's possible it's set up not provide GM at all.

I'm sure there are guides all over the place on how to set up DOSBox to use whatever GM synth you want, so I don't see much point discussing that part here, just the game specific parts.

Personally I use the Daum SVN build of DOSbox since it has built in Munt (for games where MT32 is better) and I like the XBRz scaler. But how to set that up isn't something I can be bothered describing. However I did test this with the DOSbox distributed by GOG and it works fine.

*1 The conf file seems to use Windows line notations so should be fine to edit in Notepad)
*2 For some reason which I couldn't be bothered working out, sometimes when I started the DOSbox that came with the GOG version after modifying the files, I get random crashes. I just start again and it's fine.