Thank you for listing the edits and including the executable! First-class work. It runs on my system now.

I'll add a no-MMX command line parameter to the next release, as just disabling CPUid also comes with some other caveats. But it should hopefully just work then.

Any of you encountered some other things going on? Or some general feedback? I currently have a run for the next update, so anything I currently get I could probably look into...

It runs well on my systems with the patch above, and the only welcomed addition would be the -noMMX commandline parameter. I love that the game is hicolor vs every other Tetris implementation being only 256 colors for DOS.

A Columns variety and / or "eliminate as many single colored-balls as possible" ala SameGame would be welcomed, but then it wouldn't be "Tetris 2" any more! I don't think there's a good DOS clone of SameGame yet, that I've seen.

zyzzle wrote on 2023-02-26, 01:41:

It runs well on my systems with the patch above, and the only welcomed addition would be the -noMMX commandline parameter. I love that the game is hicolor vs every other Tetris implementation being only 256 colors for DOS.

A Columns variety and / or "eliminate as many single colored-balls as possible" ala SameGame would be welcomed, but then it wouldn't be "Tetris 2" any more! I don't think there's a good DOS clone of SameGame yet, that I've seen.

Thanks for the feedback! Next release will be like improving many details. Fun fact: There's columns code in there, but the columns game never got finished. Might change, but that depends on whether I find the time and leisure to do that...

So finally, version 0.98 is available! 2 very nasty bugs hindered the release for a long time...
https://crossfire-designs.de/index.php?lang=en&what=software

This is the quite elaborate changelist:

• Improved GFX rendering speed in many, many places (for example due to RLE compressed alpha sprites)
• Gamepad/Joystick support (beta-ish, set it up in the control settings first)
• More precise controls
• Several more songs (on lower-end machines, it's recommended to remove the XM songs or lower the sample rate)
• Diffuse effect for removed Tetris stones (on faster machines)
• Level background changes (might be slow on low end systems, colors not final)
• Drop tile highlighting
• Better stone randomizer (GM3-like)
• Better song randomizer
• Twice as fast PNG loader (improves game startup time)
• Windows Sound System support added
• Improved sound mixing speed (up to 25%)
• Stereo sample support
• Fixed crashes on MMX machines
• Several fixes

I'm interested in your feedback an will collect it. Can't tell if I can make immediate changes though.

What I'm also interested in: Next audio system to support? PAS 16 or AdLib Gold?

WSS support tested on these: Original Microsoft WSS, Mozart/Oak, Opti based cards; GUS Max and older Aztech should work, but haven't been tested yet. Basically all cards with older AD or Crystal chipsets should work, you might need to put them into WSS mode.

Thanks! I like that you implemented support for gamepad/joystick which I find convenient, even if it has some limitations when configuring it. 👍

As for the next audio system, I would say the PAS16 first because it is more common than the AdLib Gold.

Gmlb256 wrote on 2023-05-04, 01:37:

Thanks! I like that you implemented support for gamepad/joystick which I find convenient, even if it has some limitations when configuring it. 👍

As for the next audio system, I would say the PAS16 first because it is more common than the AdLib Gold.

Let me know what you'd like to be able to configure... it's still beta-ish, as written, maybe I'll come to some improvements at some point.

I'm parted with the audio support. PAS might be more common, but there are not that many AdLib Gold capable games available, so adding one would also be cool... and now it's also being reproduced by somebody here.

Just a quick note: I've released Tetris II version 0.98b, which mainly fixes that IPX network gaming crashed after entering the user name and waiting for other players.
Update is available, as always, here:
https://crossfire-designs.de/index.php?lang=e … t=software#tet2

Tried both Tetris 1 and Tetris II. Tetris 1 works perfectly. But Tetris II crashes with: Runtime error 201 at 000D:0334 immediately when reaching the main menu. This on a Pentium III 1Ghz running on DOS 7.1.

Hey, unfortunately I can't resolve that error, or better, Borland Pascal can't. It's a range check error, which is specifically strange as I turned off range checks. Are you sure you used the version I just made available?