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Audiopack revival

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Reply 220 of 301, by Gambit37

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As a texture artist working on the high res stuff for Glidos, I'm not about to start using dgVooDoo 😉

I was looking forward to some point in the future being able to play the entiregame with hi-res graphics and all the music. many thanks for your efforts though -- an amazing piece of work to get this done and really good news that the trigger writers don't need to continue! 😀

Reply 221 of 301, by Glidos

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I'll get this sorted at some stage. Just not had a chance yet.

CD audio emulation in Glidos is extremely primitive. Its made all the more awkward by the int hook being in the client, and the audio playback being in the server. I remember looping is done in a very odd way.

Reply 223 of 301, by KMO

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Okay, I've got a work-around/fix.

It appears that something I've done has pushed Glidos' CD audio handling over the edge. The solution? Ditch it and use SAPUCDEX, as VDMSound does.

Following some instructions I found elsewhere from people who did this, here's the procedure.

Obtain SAPUCDEX, and copy SAPUCDEX.EXE and SAPUCDEX.DLL into the TOMBRAID directory. I got my files from my dgVoodoo/VDMSound installation created by Tomb Raider Chronicles' Advanced Installer.

Make a copy of Glidos.bat under a different name - the Glidos UI is liable to overwrite it otherwise. In your copy, add the line "SAPUCDEX" after the line "DOSDRV".

Turn off Redbook emulation in the Glidos UI. Leave Glidos running, but don't use its "Start game" button - instead run your new .bat file.

That then works for me as well as it does in dgVoodoo, including losing the two-second pre-track silence.

Also, you can add parameters after TOMB.EXE in the new bat file.

On a separate note, I did have an oddity earlier where the MP3 support still seemed to be active despite having turned it off. I renamed my Glidos\audio directory to make sure it was inactive.

Last edited by KMO on 2007-09-22, 17:29. Edited 2 times in total.

Reply 224 of 301, by KMO

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Ah, hi Paul. Wrote that response before I saw you'd replied. Is there any particular reason for wanting to do your own Redbook emulation rather than use SAPUCDEX? Clearly you may want to intercept CD INTs to provide MP3 support, but for real CD access, it seems to me that SAPUCDEX is stable, and would take a problem off your plate.

Reply 225 of 301, by Glidos

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There was a good reason at the time: SAPUCDEX didn't exist. 😁 Under XP, it was Glidos or no audio back then.

I could quite easily drop it now, but as you say, it would be good to pick up the commands to trigger the mp3s.

I may have some time to start looking at this today.

Reply 226 of 301, by KMO

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Cool. I'd be fascinated to know what I might have changed with the audio patch to stop Glidos' emulation doing the loop. I've wracked my brains, and I can't see it.

It would be easier for you to spot it than me, I suspect - you're working in a high-level language, and can probably add debugging to log my sequence of calls easily. I'm working nearly blind with a hex editor; never managed to insert any debugging to the image. 😒

If it turns out I'm doing something invalid, I can fix it.

Reply 227 of 301, by Gambit37

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KMO wrote:

Okay, I've got a work-around/fix.

Cool, this works for me now! Nice one!

Now that I've lost the 2 second gap, cut scenes are more closely in sync, but are still off. This appears to be due to long load times of textures: cutscene dialogue starts playing before the white screen disappears. A bit off topic, but is there any way of improving the texture loading performance, or delaying cutscene audio until the the user can see the cutscene actually start? This is the only thing that is now spoiling the ultimate TR1 experience.

Reply 228 of 301, by Glidos

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I am finding the odd moment to look at this now. Shouldn't be hard to get it triggering the mp3s.

One thing I've discovered is that my redbook emulation - piping commands to the server to be implemented under Windows - was a waste of time. All I needed to do was squash the error that comes back from SEEK and then ntvdms emulation works just fine. 😁

Reply 230 of 301, by Glidos

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Here's one with just a little change. If you select Redbook but no mp3 audio then hopefully this one will work correctly with the new Tomb.exe and enhanced CD.

Shouldn't take long to get it working with the mp3s.

Attachments

  • Filename
    Glidos_v1_38a.exe
    File size
    1.13 MiB
    Downloads
    446 downloads
    File comment
    Glidos with simplified Redbook support
    File license
    Fair use/fair dealing exception

Reply 231 of 301, by Zebius

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I've just tested this new version of Glidos a little. The audio patch from KMO (with replacement CD) works but:

- ambience doesn't loop
- about 2 sec delay in playing CD music/sounds
- Lara's mansion - Lara's voice is not played in training room and swimming pool (it just dissappears after exercise 2 or 3 and Lara is not heard anymore).

I'm looking forward to see it corrected. Thanks 😀

Reply 232 of 301, by Glidos

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Ok, thanks for testing it. I guess ntvdm's emulation has more problems than failing the SEEK.

I probably wont bother to fix this. I'll just get the mp3 version working, which will be better anyway in avoiding the need for a special CD. Should also avoid the starting delay.

Reply 233 of 301, by Gambit37

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Zebius wrote:
I've just tested this new version of Glidos a little. The audio patch from KMO (with replacement CD) works but: […]
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I've just tested this new version of Glidos a little. The audio patch from KMO (with replacement CD) works but:

- ambience doesn't loop
- about 2 sec delay in playing CD music/sounds
- Lara's mansion - Lara's voice is not played in training room and swimming pool (it just dissappears after exercise 2 or 3 and Lara is not heard anymore).

I'm looking forward to see it corrected. Thanks 😀

This is what I get with 1.38, I haven't tried 1.38a. I've always had the 2 second delay with Glidos. It's only removed if you use the SAPUCDEX solution posted earlier, but then as the hi-res texture loading takes too long, cutscenes are still out of sync.

Reply 234 of 301, by Glidos

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I can't get the repeats to work. I return 3 in byte 4 (starting from 0) of the request buffer while the track is playing, and then I return 1 when its complete, but TR doesn't seem to want to restart the track.

Reply 235 of 301, by KMO

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What are the calls you're seeing from TR?

Every 4 seconds or so (120 game frames) it should issue Ioctl Input 6 (Device Status). It checks bit 0 of byte 1 of the ioctl block to see if the door's open. Assuming it isn't, it issues Ioctl Input 12 (0Ch) (Audio Q-Channel Info). It looks at the resulting status, specifically bit 1 of byte 4 of the request block which indicates "busy" (not the ioctl block, which it ignores).

If it's clear, it knows it's time to loop (or resume ambience). Which means it should immediately issue a Seek command, and then 4 seconds later it should play.

What calls are you seeing after you clear bit 1 of byte 4? Does it just keep polling as if it was busy?

If it does, I guess that maybe the game's had a problem elsewhere - perhaps some sort of error response to a CD call has stopped it filling in a state variable.

What are you returning from the Device Status call? Are you reporting "busy" (0300h) while playing, or do you always report "done" (0100h)? I'd been working on the assumption that unlike the Q-channel call it should always report "done", even when playing audio. That's the way the code looked, but maybe it now requires that in a way it didn't.

Reply 236 of 301, by Glidos

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Its issuing Device Status and Q-channel, but seems to ignore the results. I was returning busy to both, but now I'm returning busy only from Q-channel, and that makes no difference. It just goes on polling.

I return 0300h until completion, and then 0100h. Very odd.

Reply 237 of 301, by KMO

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I think it must be elsewhere. What about the Play request for the music cue?

It appears you need to return "Busy". If it doesn't, it assumes you've failed to start playback. Are you returning "busy"?

Reply 238 of 301, by Glidos

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KMO wrote:

I think it must be elsewhere. What about the Play request for the music cue?

It appears you need to return "Busy". If it doesn't, it assumes you've failed to start playback. Are you returning "busy"?

Woo hoo!!! You are the man. 😁

Reply 239 of 301, by Glidos

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Well here it is, a new version of Glidos that uses KMO's patched TOMB.exe to trigger the MP3s from the Auido pack

1) Substitute KMO's TOMB.exe

2) Install the Audio pack

3) Alter Glidos's config, changing the Redbook setting from CD to MP3

and away you go.

There are some funnies. In Lara's house I keep getting a commentry from the end of one of the Egyption levels.

Attachments

  • Filename
    Glidos_v1_38b.exe
    File size
    1.15 MiB
    Downloads
    419 downloads
    File comment
    Version of Glidos for use with KMO's patched Tomb.exe. Keys into the MP3s from the Audio pack
    File license
    Fair use/fair dealing exception