Not to sidetrack this thread any further, but just wanted to give an epilogue on my issue getting Stargunner to run on my DOS PC. I've confirmed that it's my Voodoo3 2000 PCI that does not play nice with Stargunner (confirmed in multiple systems). And Univbe 6.7 does not support Voodoo3 so there you go. Runs like a champ when I use the onboard Cirrus Logic. 😉

Gemini000 wrote:

Heh, nice job with that. It serves as a good comparison for sure! :D […]
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JayCeeBee64 wrote:

Alright Kris, here you go - audio recordings of Stargunner from 3 different sound cards

Heh, nice job with that. It serves as a good comparison for sure! 😁

However, I still have to disagree with you and say the SB16 sounds better than the GUS, but only as a matter of personal preference. :B

I should point out quickly that the GUS recording you took actually sounds much better than DOSBox's internal GUS support, whereas the SB16 recording sounds nearly (not exactly but really closely) identical to how it sounds in DOSBox.

The reason I like the SB16 recording better though is because, just like in DOSBox, the GUS doesn't pan to the full stereo range of the left and right speakers and internally interpolates the waveforms during mixing, which a lot of people prefer the sound of, however, I'm not one of those people and I prefer the sound of non-interpolated mixing. To me, mixing interpolation makes sound feel... well... "muffled", as if I were listening to it through a wall. Quite frankly, the GUS recording sounds more "flat" to me than the SB16 recording, especially noticeable right when the title screen opens and you hear that laser-like sound which feels like it's surrounding you on the SB16 recording, but feels more like it's in front of you in the GUS recording.

I think a part of the reason why I have this preference is because I don't hear mid-range frequencies as well as most people. I will admit too, the bass in the GUS recording is stronger and preferable to the bass in the SB16 recording, but it's not enough to get me to prefer it over the SB16 recording overall. That said, I am going to add a note on my webpage for the episode that real GUS hardware produces much cleaner audio with this game than DOSBox and that it becomes a matter of preference which is better by that point. 😀

Also, for anyone else listening to all three, the SBPro2 recording is correct as Creative Labs goofed and reversed the stereo on that card internally. Whoops. ;D

No problem Kris. And I do agree with you, with real hardware it all comes down to what you like 😀

My preference to the GUS is easy to explain - I'm very biased towards it. I've owned this little red card since new (just about 20 years) and have grown to appreciate its strengths and accept its weaknesses; the interpolated sound it produces is warm and fuzzy, that appeals to me quite a bit 😄. And while the SB16 is no slouch and can hold its own, it feels rather harsh by comparison - it's like having a "wall of sound" in front that just pushes me away.

Your observation on the SB Pro 2 is dead on - and it's not just the digital audio. FM and CD audio are also reversed (I have tested them myself).

JayCeeBee64 wrote:

Your observation on the SB Pro 2 is dead on - and it's not just the digital audio. FM and CD audio are also reversed (I have tested them myself).

My P120 has that exact same sound card and back when it was still my mother's system, my "solution" to fixing this problem was to just put the right speaker on the left and the left speaker on the right! ;D

That was a long while back though. I stopped using speakers on my computers and started using headphones exclusively around 2007ish. The benefit there is if the stereo's reversed you just flip your headphones around! ;)

Ancient DOS Games Episode 177 - Velcro Mind is online!

This episode is more in tune with the length and game simplicity I had planned for this month and next, although really, my game choices are more about how much footage I need to capture as opposed to how complex the game is, since that's the aspect of making these videos which sucks up the most of my time and is also the most difficult aspect since you have to sometimes go back and do things over and over again to record specific scenarios you want to talk about.

With a game as simple as Velcro Mind though, I literally only captured half an hour of gameplay! ;D

That said, my sleep's been REALLY screwy this week so I didn't get nearly as much code done as I would've liked... did get design work done though so at least that's something. :B

Gemini000 wrote:

JayCeeBee64 wrote:

Your observation on the SB Pro 2 is dead on - and it's not just the digital audio. FM and CD audio are also reversed (I have tested them myself).

My P120 has that exact same sound card and back when it was still my mother's system, my "solution" to fixing this problem was to just put the right speaker on the left and the left speaker on the right! ;D

That was a long while back though. I stopped using speakers on my computers and started using headphones exclusively around 2007ish. The benefit there is if the stereo's reversed you just flip your headphones around! 😉

Switching speakers and flipping headphones, how sneaky of you! But hey it works, so why not 😁

Velcro Mind is a quirky little time waster; I used to play games like this in the late 90s every now and then, in both DOS and Windows. The "floaty" mouse control takes some getting used to, but it's still a bit of fun. I'll try it in my Socket 7 PC and see if it behaves the same ^^.

EDIT: It does behave pretty much the same with real PC hardware. At times it seemed the mouse control was a tad better, but probably was just my imagination 😊

JayCeeBee64 wrote:

EDIT: It does behave pretty much the same with real PC hardware. At times it seemed the mouse control was a tad better, but probably was just my imagination :blush:

Actually, it probably was. The explanation is tricky though... Basically, modern mouse drivers do a lot of stuff to the cursor position to make the movement of the cursor seem more natural. Works great any time you're controlling a cursor or something which has a cursor-like feel, but tends not to work so well for acceleration-based movement, which virtually nothing uses the mouse for so oh well. :P

I think SOME mouse drivers on DOS are capable of similar things, but for the most part, the most advanced I've seen DOS drivers get was to do basic cursor acceleration, where the faster you move the mouse in one moment the more of a multiplier is applied to the actual cursor distance moved.

Ancient DOS Games Episode 178 - Paganitzu is online!

...and because my sleep's been super-strange (more-so than usual) and I'm only half-awake right now I'm just gonna leave it at that. Have fun watching this latest episode, everyone! ^_^

It's not an new Ancient DOS Games video, nor is it a video I made myself, but for those of you who want to see more content with myself in it, I recently helped voice a GC9x gameplay video of the original Grand Theft Auto, alongside KaL and Bobinator: https://t.co/4rZHOSsxhL

GC9x is basically an offshoot of Hardcore Gaming 101, their goal being simply to produce lots of content which would normally fall outside of the realm of the HG101 stuff, including random gameplay videos, which is what this one is, so if you haven't seen the original GTA in awhile... or ever... and have an hour and a half to kill, well, here you go! ;D

Just a fair warning to everyone: I just noticed that a large number of the 60 FPS videos I've uploaded to my YouTube channel are now only playing back at 30 FPS.

I have no idea what's going on. 60 FPS is still working across YouTube on other channels and some of my 60 FPS videos are still playing back at 60 FPS, just not a lot of them.

I've read about a supposed fix for this which does not require reuploading and am testing this fix now. In the interim, I would ask that if anyone watches a video on my channel from ADG Episode 161 onwards and 720p is NOT showing up as 720p60, please let me know, either by eMail or here on the forum. (If you post it as a video comment just a fair warning that I'll remove said comment once 60 FPS is working again on the video.)

No 60f "GC9x - KaL Plays - Grand Theft Auto" here, latest Chrome :·//

lightmaster wrote:

No 60f "GC9x - KaL Plays - Grand Theft Auto" here, latest Chrome :·//

That one's not on my channel so I have no control over that one, nor do I even know if it was 30 FPS or 60 FPS. :B

...amazingly, the "fix" I attempted is still processing... it's been almost an hour. *shrugs*

Google is amazing!!... :vv

lightmaster wrote:

Google is amazing!!... :vv

...when it works. ;D

Just an update, 60 FPS STILL isn't working, even after trying the supposed trick to get YouTube to reprocess a video, so I'm going to have to look deeper into this. Worst case scenario: 60 FPS remains broken on various videos of mine forever. :(

Gemini000 wrote:

Just an update, 60 FPS STILL isn't working, even after trying the supposed trick to get YouTube to reprocess a video, so I'm going to have to look deeper into this. Worst case scenario: 60 FPS remains broken on various videos of mine forever. 🙁

that 'pseudo 60fps' are really annoying, some games like on NES relies on that to make a see-thru effect, on youtube they will look like totaly opaque or completely vanished. 😵

Gemini000 wrote:

lightmaster wrote:

Google is amazing!!... :vv

...when it works. ;D

True, true.

There's no info 'bout the 60f issue in their forums?

lightmaster wrote:

There's no info 'bout the 60f issue in their forums?

Forget their forums, try the ENTIRE INTERNET. >_>;

...I'll keep searching...

Interesting... I've identified the exact point where my videos have started reverting to 30 FPS and it's immediately following the only 1080p60 video on my account, which was my video blog regarding modded Minecraft and FTB. I wonder if that has anything to do with it...

I've sent a feedback report to YouTube so if I'm REALLY lucky this problem will fix itself, plus I asked the person who posted the "fix" which didn't work for me what I might be doing wrong or if he's got any clue why his fix didn't work, considering lots of comments below showed that it did work for those people. There's every possibility the problem will be solvable once I get my next ADG episode uploaded late tonight if it manages to show up as 720p60 properly, as it's been a couple weeks since the last upload, so... *shrugs*

We'll see how things turn out. I unfortunately need to be about 50% more popular to be allowed to eMail YouTube's tech support directly. :/

I'm curious. Was your Paganitzu review done at 60 FPS? Because that option isn't showing up when selecting HD quality on that video. Some of your videos have that option while others don't. Did you record the game play footage with the intent to run at 60 FPS?

switchblade wrote:

I'm curious. Was your Paganitzu review done at 60 FPS? Because that option isn't showing up when selecting HD quality on that video. Some of your videos have that option while others don't. Did you record the game play footage with the intent to run at 60 FPS?

All of my videos since May last year were recorded, edited, and uploaded at 60 FPS, and were functioning at 60 FPS on YouTube without issue until now. :/