VOGONS


Reply 100 of 372, by mr_bigmouth_502

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie
gerwin wrote:

That is an unwanted regression, thanks for reporting it.

Malik wrote:

I'm sorry I didn't go through all the posts here yet, but is jumping being implemented? I know it will break the gameplay since the original design was not designed with jumping in mind, but still i wonder...

AFAIK it is not.

Good. From my experience, jumping breaks a lot of early maps.

Reply 102 of 372, by Jolaes76

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

I understand that this release really shines on post Pentium II systems, yet it works very nicely on an AMD 5x86 + VLB Vga system. My benches show a mere 0.9 fps drop versus vanilla DOOM shareware 1.7. Plain VGA mode, of course. 😀
My only problem is with sound (as it is provided by Allegro).
1. SB16 CT1740 is detected in the setup as an SB16/AWE32 but produces only FM music in game, the digital part is mute. I tried changing resources manually. No dice.
2. Moreover, the daughterboard at 300h makes the game freeze at the loading screen when music data is accessed. (If I select the intelligent MPU-401 (MPU-IPC-T) at 330h, my sc8820 plays the music properly.)
Is there a proper allegro sound driver for early SB16 cards and their MPU-401 port?

EDIT:

Problem 1. is solved. For some reason, low DMA cannot be used for digi. High DMA works.
Problem 2 remains...

"Ita in vita ut in lusu alae pessima iactura arte corrigenda est."

Reply 103 of 372, by leileilol

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++

Would be nice to make the allegro setup program it ships with to read from a WAD for the background/samples as well for consistency with say......alternative iwads. it would make it more Free at the same time 😀

apsosig.png
long live PCem

Reply 104 of 372, by gerwin

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t
Jolaes76 wrote:

The daughterboard at 300h makes the game freeze at the loading screen when music data is accessed. (If I select the intelligent MPU-401 (MPU-IPC-T) at 330h, my sc8820 plays the music properly.) Is there a proper allegro sound driver for early SB16 cards and their MPU-401 port?

I just tested the game with a CS4232 based soundcard, with the daughterboard at 330h or 300h, and that seems to work well (setup+game). In UART mode that is. So is this early SB16 MPU-401 specific? Does the setup program run reliable, does it pass the sound tests?

leileilol wrote:

Would be nice to make the allegro setup program it ships with to read from a WAD for the background/samples as well for consistency with say......alternative iwads. it would make it more Free at the same time 😀

Yeah I considered that, I will think about it again. There are some difficulties with this.

I am now having troubles with my pentium III that I use for working on MBF. It locks up and doesn't want to boot unless one reinserts the RAM in the socket. Probably it needs to be recapped.

--> ISA Soundcard Overview // Doom MBF 2.04 // SetMul

Reply 105 of 372, by Jolaes76

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

First of all, none of GM devices are auto detected. Auto detect only picks up OPL3 synth. I can manually change the port, but selecting [MPU 401] at [-1] or [300] freezes both the SOUND SETUP TEST and the game loading as well.

CT1740 and CT1750 with DSP v4.05 both exhibit the MIDI freeze issue. I can set MIDI port to -1 or 300h, both freeze the start-up of shareware DOOM at " I_InitSound: "
When I select 330h where the intelligent MPU 401 interface is, the game loads and auto-demo plays with sound.

Maybe I could remove the IPC-T and give 330h to the SB16 to check if the issue is restricted to addresses OTHER than 330h. But I am not giving up my true MPU so this is purely academic 😀

"Ita in vita ut in lusu alae pessima iactura arte corrigenda est."

Reply 106 of 372, by gerwin

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

Thanks for the explanation,
In the source I notice that the allegro driver first checks port that has optionally been set manually.
If not it reads the P value from the SET BLASTER environment variable.
Otherwise it just tries 330h.

I will put in my oldest SB16 an try something, but I don't own a CT17xx model..

--> ISA Soundcard Overview // Doom MBF 2.04 // SetMul

Reply 107 of 372, by clueless1

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

Just wanted to give some feedback after trying mbf204 on my two DOS PCs.
PC#1-486DX2-66, Cirrus Logic 5428 VLB, SB16 CT2800
-slightly slower performance to stock Doom (21 FPS vs. 25 FPS)
-640x400 runs between 5-8 FPS, but surprisingly it feels mostly playable
-audio detection and playback is flawless

PC#2-POD200MMX, TNT2 M64, Audician 32 Plus with DreamBlaster S1 DB
-VGA performance is over 100 FPS, 640x400 is still very fast at 85 FPS
-audio detection/performance issues galore*

*auto detection detects WSS, which does not work. Manually setting SB Pro works great for digital effects. I had an issue with MIDI--auto-detection picked OPL3, which worked. I manually selected MPU401, which worked. Then I manually selected OPL again, and this time it did not work. I manually went back to MPU401 and it did not work. I could never get MIDI music to play again after that initial auto-detection.

edit: I just remembered, manually setting SB Pro on the 2nd system is not flawless. It only plays audio in the left channel. I tried setting to the other SB/Adlib options, but they all either don't work, or work only on the left channel. Probably a compatibility issue with the Audician?

The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don't know.
OPL3 FM vs. Roland MT-32 vs. General MIDI DOS Game Comparison
Let's benchmark our systems with cache disabled
DOS PCI Graphics Card Benchmarks

Reply 108 of 372, by gerwin

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t
clueless1 wrote:

PC#2-POD200MMX, TNT2 M64, Audician 32 Plus with DreamBlaster S1 DB
-audio detection/performance issues galore*

Darn, Shall I troubleshoot this already or wait until the summer here is over...
Need to support these YMF-71X cards, as they are a good thing.

--> ISA Soundcard Overview // Doom MBF 2.04 // SetMul

Reply 109 of 372, by kanecvr

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie
leileilol wrote:

No it wouldn't

Yes it would. As it stands there's not much to differentiate this port from the original - not enough to make me prefer playing it over the original at least - or over Zdoom. Right now I either play Zdoom on my athlon xp rig under win98, or the original version under DOS.

There's ports that do high-res, and 3d acceleration, but they're for windows.

What I'd like from a new Doom DOS port is:
- glide support
- mouselook

and I'm sure I'm not the only one who would find these features interesting.

Reply 110 of 372, by leileilol

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++

maintenance release. Glide support is easier said than done (translating Doom into 3d is not trivial), not worth the trouble for 1 person, and is out of the scope for a maintenance project.

apsosig.png
long live PCem

Reply 111 of 372, by kanecvr

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie
leileilol wrote:

maintenance release. Glide support is easier said than done (translating Doom into 3d is not trivial), not worth the trouble for 1 person, and is out of the scope for a maintenance project.

I only have a basic understanding of coding, so I have no idea if it could be done and how. It would have been cool to run doom under glide on a retro rig tough 😜

Reply 112 of 372, by ETTiNGRiNDER

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie

I'm having performance issues (slow, choppy framerate) with this version compared to some other DOS ports. The particular map that I'm having an issue with is MAP03 of THT: Threnody but I'd suspect there are probably others that would be an issue, I haven't extensively tested WADs with it.

In contrast, Boom 2.02 performs fine but lacks the MBF-specific features, and the last release of SMMU performs fine but makes some seemingly non-disable-able changes to standard Doom behavior that I do not like.

System spec:
AMD K6-2/333Mhz processor
Creative Labs CT2770 Sound Blaster SB16 Value ISA Sound Card
SiS 5597 / 5598 graphics (this is a built-in on the motherboard)
64MB RAM
Windows 98 booted in DOS mode

Also, how possible would it be to backport the -complevel 0 (Doom v1.2 emulation) option from PrBoom+? A few very old WADs (such as this one for example) rely on some v1.2 behaviors, but using the actual Doom v1.2 on my old machine isn't viable due to mouse bugs that were fixed in later versions.

Reply 113 of 372, by elianda

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

Could you compile a i386 target as well (386 / no FPU) ?

Retronn.de - Vintage Hardware Gallery, Drivers, Guides, Videos. Now with file search
Youtube Channel
FTP Server - Driver Archive and more
DVI2PCIe alignment and 2D image quality measurement tool

Reply 114 of 372, by gerwin

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

The TODO list AFAIK:
- YMF-71X soundcard troubleshooting (both WSS, SBPro and Midi).
- SB16 Midi port at 300h troubleshooting.
- Performance troubleshooting MAP03 of THT: Threnody.
- 386 / no FPU version. (framerate calculation uses floating point operation?)
- Demos recorded with v2.04 are somehow different compared to MBF 2.03 (MBF_Fixes).
Maybe:
- Raise limits to Support Community Chest 2 MAP32 and Community Chest 4
But first:
- Recap that Pentium II motherboard.

ETTiNGRiNDER wrote:

Also, how possible would it be to backport the -complevel 0 (Doom v1.2 emulation) option from PrBoom+? A few very old WADs (such as this one for example) rely on some v1.2 behaviors, but using the actual Doom v1.2 on my old machine isn't viable due to mouse bugs that were fixed in later versions.

Doom v1.2 demo compatibility was added already. But I suppose it needs the v1.2 iwad to trigger this mode.

--> ISA Soundcard Overview // Doom MBF 2.04 // SetMul

Reply 115 of 372, by mOBSCENE

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie

Hope you are still working on this great source port! 😀

I am having some issues with setting up my new MIDI device (MPU-401 connected MIDI module to FSMP on Windows).
Whenever I select my AWE64 for digital out (AWE32 option), and MPU-401 for MIDI OUT, the SETUP program just hangs my computer when entering "Test Settings". It does not seem to matter whether I select port "-1" (default) or "330" for MIDI OUT. When I select the AWE32 MIDI OUT device instead, the SETUP program mentions that it is not possible to use this soundcard's DSP and MIDI OUT at the same time.
The MIDI output does work properly, when I choose "No Sound" for the digital output.

What is this all about? Is this a limitation of MBF? Other games do not seem to have issues to utilize both at the same time.
Also: somehow (really don't know what I did exactly) I got MPU-401 MIDI OUT to work together with digital out, just once, and it sounded just fine! This is what kinda frustrates me: if it worked once, why will it not work anymore after a reboot? (and not having changed any settings in MBF)

EDIT: Using latest version of MBF 2.04: Update 14 - 2016-01-31, on MS-DOS 7.10.

Reply 116 of 372, by gerwin

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

This behaviour is indeed odd. I haven't touched the the SB16 and AWE drivers really (it is the Allegro 3.0 library that is used for sound). In the todo list is something with the SB16 already.
I will see if there is time to to check it, but haven't had much time for hobbies for months now 🙁 Just small amounts.

gerwin wrote:

Next; I don't like the fact that MBF does not give sound with the Vortex-2 PCI SB-Pro emulation driver.

Answer to self: The culprit is the DPMI extender. swap it with DOS32 or something and it will work.

--> ISA Soundcard Overview // Doom MBF 2.04 // SetMul

Reply 117 of 372, by mOBSCENE

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie

After some more extensive testing, it seems MBF is not to blame after all.

It happens with every game that utilizes both the MPU401 for music and Sound Blaster for sound effects. I have also found a (very dirty) solution: if I first launch the game ROTT (or it's sound setup program), it will successfully initialize the MPU401, after which all other games that I have set up to use the MPU401 with Sound Blaster work perfectly fine. Even if I run the DIAGNOSE program again (SB16 init) in between. So ROTT does something to "fix" the soundcard issue (until I reboot the system that is...).

This is what confused me into thinking the issue was only MBF related: during testing my new MIDI setup, ROTT must have been somewhere in the middle of my testing rounds - and I would be like "oh see, it works in ROTT, but not in MBF". Sorry about that!

Note: this issue is also not soundcard type related, as the exact same thing happens on my new SB16 (CT2290) and previous AWE64 Gold. Perhaps I can find a neater way to initialize the MPU401 properly...

Reply 118 of 372, by gerwin

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

Glad it is not MBF. Would be nice to know what exactly is poked by ROTT, to make things work for your system. (Maybe this helps: http://web.archive.org/web/20040823011136/htt … xg/waveptch.exe )

--> ISA Soundcard Overview // Doom MBF 2.04 // SetMul

Reply 119 of 372, by mOBSCENE

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie
gerwin wrote:

Glad it is not MBF. Would be nice to know what exactly is poked by ROTT, to make things work for your system. (Maybe this helps: http://web.archive.org/web/20040823011136/htt … xg/waveptch.exe )

Oh.. my.. god!! This little tool actually works like a charm!! 😲
Geez, I can't thank you enough... You've really made my day! THANK YOU!