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VDMSound 2.1.0 PUBLIC BETA

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Reply 140 of 165, by Guest

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DosFreak wrote:
Anonymous wrote:

I don't know if this is possible, could the VESA support be completed?
This would providing support for a goup of old games that require the VESA (because people don't have those old video cards).
-- MindBender --

Well, problem with VESA isn't something that can be done through VDMSound. The utility that fixes 2K/XP's problem with VESA access to video cards can be fixed with another utility: http://www.nomissoft.com/newsflash.html

This could probably be included with VDMSound.

What utility? I am having trouble finding the utility that you speak of. What is its name and do you have a direct link?

Any help would be appreciated, thanks.

Reply 145 of 165, by Guest

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Anonymous wrote:
I have a problem with the joystick emulation of this program. […]
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I have a problem with the joystick emulation of this program.

I have a 10 buttons Microsoft SideWinder digital gamepad, plugged on the joystick port of my PC (my pad is not USB).

...

Then I looked in the joystick options of VDMSound and I chose joy1.map instead of the default joy2.map (joy3.map produces an error for me). This time, the game detects 2 more buttons (C and X), so 4 total, but still not the 10 buttons.

Is there a way to get all 10 buttons to work ? Why do I get an error when I try joy3.map ?

Thanks for your help !

Limitations of hardware. Joysticks ACTUALLY can only have TWO buttons in DOS games. However, a computer could have two joysticks (each with two buttons) so later on joystick makers made their joysticks to actually use the parts for both of those two joysticks in the one, making it possible to have two more buttons (for a grand total of four) and another two axi (so throttle and such become possible.) Later joysticks like the CH Flightstick Pro do NOT actually have more buttons as far as the game is concerned. Instead, they send combinations, such as button 1+button 2. Choosing CH Flightstick Pro will often let you get more out of your joystick by using combinations (you'll have to find them the hard way I guess, I dont' remember what they are.)

The ONLY way you can use any buttons past button 4 is to use a joystick to keyboard mapping program such as Joy2Key (my personal favorite.) DOS games never added support for the more advanced hardware that could have more than that number of buttons. (Mind you, you'll find that a few things like SNES emulators do have DOS support for some things like the Sidewinder, however, this is because they manually programmed in explicite support for that one particular gamepad, so the trick only works if they carefully program each and every one, which is why they didn't bother to add support for much else at all beyond that.)

Anyway, it's nice to know that VDMSound isn't dead yet, but, it's kind of dissapointing to note that the beta was first posted back in 2003 and it's now 2005 with no new official versions, the main site vdmsound.sf.net/ntvdm.cjb.net is dead and there are still occasional bugs to be squashed. Don't get me wrong, I don't blame you. DOSBox is REALLY coming along and it is now possible for even me with my overclocked barton (roughly 3200+ barton level) to play some pretty high end dos games with almost perfect emulation. It won't be long yet before we no longer need to try to patch up the crappy NT emulation to try to make MS's software emulate better and can get along perfectly well by emulating an actual PC using free software. Seems like VDMSound still has a place right now though as it's definitely the best thing for many, such as the most processor heavy games like Tomb Raider, so it'd be nice to see it make a bit more progress...

Reply 146 of 165, by DosFreak

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Need to contact Vlad and see what he's up to. Wether he knows about the VDMSound site being down and wether he has any VDMSound code sitting around on his HD that's not on the sourceforge site.

Generally the consensus has been that DosBox is the successor to VDMSound but yeah there are still alot of situations where DOS games run better/faster under NTVDM that under DosBox. If the DosBox team does decide to implement Qemu into DosBox then there will really be no point at all in using VDMSound. (To which I say thank god, having to put up with NTVDM is just crazy and it's great that Vlad put up with it for so long).

How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
Make your games work offline

Reply 147 of 165, by Reckless

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Vlad set out to provide a sound emulation layer for DOS games under WinNT (later Win2K/XP). You cannot say that this goal wasn't met or even that it didn't exceed the original expectation! It's true that many games run only when using VDMSound as part of the total solution. Mouse, video, CPU speed and other hardware also have their own idiosyncrasies and issues. Post development of 2.0.4 several tools appeared in support of these other issues and these were later packaged as part of the 2.1 beta.

I agree that it would be good to revamp the project with fixes/improvements but as far as the original author is concerned his work was done and he has now moved on. VDMSound's remaining lifetime is also 'limited' as Microsoft have removed 16 bit support from the 64bit version of WinXP.

DOSBox is hugely focused and has built up a large following - probably down to the fact it runs games on platforms other than Windows. Unlike DOSBox however, the VDMSound solution no longer has anyone in control of its development. Also progress is only required in the peripheral areas as I outlined (everything else bar sound!) and this is not likely to happen when a project has no team! Feel free to highlight specific areas that need improvement - perhaps a reader may be able to help?!

Reply 148 of 165, by DosFreak

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I'll probably go through this thread and create a new one, "VDMSound Final Package Project" thread. Would be nice to stick dgvoodoo/solvbe, and whatever bits and pieces that are needed.

Probably the biggest benefit to creating a new package would be to get rid of the "Beta" tag. That scares people off and I've gotten way too many questions about that.

How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
Make your games work offline

Reply 149 of 165, by HunterZ

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Agreed that making a bundle to point people to is a good idea. However, I share the view that VDMSound development should be abandoned, and efforts should be put instead into improving projects like DOSBox which will probably work on the latest hardware and OSes for quite some time.

Reply 150 of 165, by Snover

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Vlad is aware of the non-existance of the site, and does not particularly care. He is very happy in France. He gets to speak in French to lots of French people, walk through French doors and eat French toast. He can go out with a lady and listen to the French horn; if he's lucky, he gets to French kiss, and if he's really lucky, he even gets to open a French letter. Yes, everything is good, in the land of Vlad. 😀

Yes, it’s my fault.

Reply 152 of 165, by Guest

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Well, I defintely agree that DOSBox will definitely be the "successor" and the NTVDM project should end soon, but, I would really like to see it continue just a bit longer until the average user finally has a CPU powerful enough to emulate those more complex games in DOSBox as well as all the more annoying bugs get worked out of DOSBox.

Still, in the end, just to officially decide once and for all to scrap or keep the project a bit longer would be nice. I'd LOVE to see a new official version of VDMSound first.

Reply 153 of 165, by dvwjr

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Reckless wrote:

Vlad set out to provide a sound emulation layer for DOS games under WinNT (later Win2K/XP). You cannot say that this goal wasn't met or even that it didn't exceed the original expectation! It's true that many games run only when using VDMSound as part of the total solution. Mouse, video, CPU speed and other hardware also have their own idiosyncrasies and issues. Post development of 2.0.4 several tools appeared in support of these other issues and these were later packaged as part of the 2.1 beta.

I agree that it would be good to revamp the project with fixes/improvements but as far as the original author is concerned his work was done and he has now moved on. VDMSound's remaining lifetime is also 'limited' as Microsoft have removed 16 bit support from the 64bit version of WinXP.

DOSBox is hugely focused and has built up a large following - probably down to the fact it runs games on platforms other than Windows. Unlike DOSBox however, the VDMSound solution no longer has anyone in control of its development. Also progress is only required in the peripheral areas as I outlined (everything else bar sound!) and this is not likely to happen when a project has no team! Feel free to highlight specific areas that need improvement - perhaps a reader may be able to help?!

From another message I posted:

What a coincidence...I have already been putting together a series of fixes to address many of those "peripheral areas" issues. From a marketing perspective I was looking at a "new" product launch to bridge the gap between the performance of the current DOSBOX (v0.63+) emulation on Win32 PCs as compared to the higher speed native emulation of the Win32-NTVDM for the ever popular late-era DOS protected mode games on lesser hardware.

I was going to approach the VOGONs crew about this matter in another month or so, but since the subject has been broached - send me an email (in my profile) and we can discuss off-line. I think that the two products, 'DOSBOX' and the 'fixed NTVDM emulator' environment could complement each other over the next few years. The DOSBOX product is the future for much faster 64-bit based PC workstations, but the 32-bit Win32 base will be where most of the market will remain until the future standard is a (for lack of a better benchmark) roughly a 64-bit 11 GHz processor 😀

My curiosity has been raised as I have scanned the various websites pertaining to the gyrations necessary for the successful execution of older DOS applications and games on the WinNT/2K/XP NTVDM platform. Looking at the Microsoft code it became apparent that most of the technical problems enountered were created by marketing decisions made to encourge the migration to the Win32 and now the Win64 platform. The greatest technical accomplishments necessary for the NTVDM product have already been made in the guise of VDMSound and the DOS/32A DPMI extender. Outside of VCPI based (or proprietary memory-mangement) games, or very badly coded DOS apps/games which break outside of x86 real mode there is no technical reason that say 97% of all DOS games cannot be used with the Win32-NT based operating systems with a combination of DoxBox and the re-launched NTVDM based product.

The remaining Win32-NT problems appear to be VESA video access, mouse problems, DPMI host problems, NTVDM errors, EMS page-frame problems, selective register corruption, multi-processor problems - all the little details that Microsoft 'forgot' to finish over the years. Most of those have been addressed in the fruitful but haphazard use of Tsr/Isr code which correct part of the Microsoft created problems with the NTVDM environment. These technical issues are a hinderence to the average VDMSound user since many go throught the learning process of batch files, 8.3 naming conventions, which TSRs for Video, Mouse and Vesa to use, etc.

I can fix those problems.

The other major problem with the current VDMSound/LaunchPad is that too many variables are left in the hands of DOS novices. The object of the system is to let today's DOS-ignorant individuals play the old DOS GAMES, not become semi-literate in the arcane DOS knowledge necessary to execute them. There are too many batch files, TSRs, load order, nested loaders and switch configuration for the average user. This must stop if the final fixed NTVDM product is to be successful.

When it comes to enhancing/fixing the 'native' NTVDM emulation that Microsoft should have shipped with WinNT4, I think we can do even better and create a superior transparent native WinNT/2K/XP DOS emulation transistion product to complement DOSBOX as the Win32 based operating systems ride off into the sunset. This ride will take some time and will give the newly re-launched product a time to flourish before the inevitable reality of legacy status overwhelms its useful lifespan.

I would be willing to take on the Project Manager position (and do the x86 ASM coding necessary) to create this final "fixed" native Win32 NTVDM environment. The draw would be that legacy DOS Games (and applications) based on varying requirements of EMS, DPMI, Mouse, VESA video such as System Shock, Syndicate Wars would again be easily viable using the x86 V86 mode supported with the native NTVDM environment on the many older, slower x86 PC workstations which will never make the transition to XP-64 or Windows 'Vista'.

This effort would provide a smooth transition to the future as represented by DOSBOX which will required much faster processors to emulate the later DOS DPMI based games with their greater performance requirements. This would represent the 'last hurrah' for the V86 mode NTVDM product before DOSBOX inherits the mantle...

Since future software products require product codenames that "the industry" uses as shorthand for the effort, I propose the codname:

. "Penultimate"

Let me know,

dvwjr

Reply 155 of 165, by Katz

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check this out.. during the install, "Error opening file for writing: "\\iospecial.ini"

I tried the installer on a different PC, worked great.

laptop
I am running WIndowsXP
Athlon64 2600+
1024mb ram
Radeon9700 128 mobility

i have rights.. im the admin on my laptop

what would cause this?
-Katz

Reply 157 of 165, by killersquirrelz

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Hi.

Did you guys ever figure out what causes the Win2k problem where Win2k reboots at the login screen? I've got this problem right now and would like to avoid doing a system repair. I can get into my machine via an old Win98 install (thank god) and would like to manually uninstall VDMSound. Any help would be appreciated.

Reply 159 of 165, by Guest

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Uh, wait... do I see this right? The "right click- Run With VDMS" context menu option is GONE in this version?!? The only normal and quick way of using the program is REMOVED by this update?

Yeah, that's a... "useful" upgrade all right... Good thing I read this before trying to install this beta.