VOGONS


Reply 20 of 41, by Lachlant1984

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If you like I can provide you the URL for my tech support ticket with GOG, I made notes on what each game did and sent them through to them, as I've said the delay affected some games worse than others, but I think they're all affected to some degree.

Reply 21 of 41, by Qbix

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With regards to gog, don't worry, I have some adresses where I can send fixes/improvements to, in case they are interested.
Thanks for willing to give it a try. I am curious what the problematic turns out to be.

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Reply 22 of 41, by Lachlant1984

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If you like I can send you the URL for the tech support ticket I opened with GOG, I tested a number of DOS games and I made notes on the delay issues, I didn't test all the DOS games in my library because I haven't installed them all onto my new laptop, but I do know that the delay varies from game to game, but I suspect it affects all my DOSBox games. I also see that the first test config file you sent to me is smaller than the others.

Reply 23 of 41, by Qbix

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yes, I added more changes back each time. (from the default settings of dosbox, which work fine on your system. If a setting is missing, then the default settings is used)

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Reply 24 of 41, by krcroft

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QBix, yes, I previously had a Windows 7 laptop (modern company-issued model, Intel GPU) on which dosbox suffered from a long screen delay change period exactly as described above.

Reply 25 of 41, by Qbix

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krcroft,

well, the screen delay itself isn't fixed (at least when switching between windows and fullscreen), however games switching themselves should be a lot better in the current svn if you set a full and window resolution to a value that is 4:3 and set aspect to true.

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Reply 26 of 41, by Lachlant1984

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I still don't see a way to respond to your personal messages qbix, what I'll do is I'll find my notes and copy and paste them into this message. I've not tested every single DOSBox game that's in my library, games such as Ultima and Wing Commander 1 and 2 and such haven't yet been tested on my computer, so I don't know how they perform just yet on my system. But I have tested many of the games in my library.

Here are my notes.
The sound latency in my DOS games is most noticeable in Blake Stone Aliens Of Gold, Rise Of The Triad, Shadow Warrior, The Catacomb Games, Tyrian, Wacky Wheels, Stargunner, SimCity 2000, (Windows version from GOG uses DOSBox version 0.73 as opposed to 0.74), Pinball Dreams Deluxe, Earthworm Jim and Earthworm Jim 2, Earthworm Jim 2 I think has slightly less lag and Earthworm Jim, Terminal Velocity, Descent lags a bit, but not as much as the games listed above. Descent 2 also lags a little bit, but no more or less than the original Descent. I can’t tell if there’s much noticeable lag in Dragonsphere or not, but it’s probably a bit less noticeable in point and click adventure games and probably of less importance too. Monster Bash and Realms Of Chaos both lag noticeably. Jazz Jackrabbit lags a little tiny bit, but it’s quite a lot less noticeable than many of the other games listed here. Epic Pinball has noticeable lag. I’ve not installed all the games I’ve bought from GOG, and I’ve not really done any testing of the SCUMMVM powered games to speak of on my laptop, I’ve installed some of the Leisure Suit Larry games I own, but I’ve nearly played them, so I don’t know if they’re plagued by the sound lag problems I’m having with the DOSBox powered games. I’m not quite sure what’s going on here, I hope something can be done about this issue. Are newer versions of DOSBox being worked on to ensure compatibility with Windows 10 as it continues to mature and receive updates?

Thanks.

Lachlan.

Reply 27 of 41, by Lachlant1984

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I'm testing the config files now. Here are the results:

Config file 1 seems to be OK, I don't notice any significant lag or latency issues.
Config file 2 has slight delay. Not sure if it's as bad as the default GOG files or not.
Config file 3 caused ROTT to display an error message saying the game couldn't initialise the music card, I was able to get the music to work by going into the sound setup utility. The file also appeared to have very slight delay.
Config file 4 seems to be OK, I don't notice any sound delays.

Reply 28 of 41, by Qbix

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Thanks,
One set of settings don't seem to influence things, which is good, So we've nailed it down to one block.

I'll make a few more configfiles In your case it seems likely that a group of settings interacts with gives the delay.
I will try to determine with the next set of configfiles, to see which one has the most influence.
(as the difference between v3 and v4 was the setting that I though would introduce the biggest delay, but you described it as very slight, so it is another setting that gives the biggest delay on your PCs ( or multiple small delays that add up to a big delay).

You describe between v2 and v3 as very slight vs slight and not sure if as bad as gog. (which handles a different setting than between v3 and v4), however I forgot to test one setting, as I currently think that maybe 3 different settings combined give the big delay.

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Reply 29 of 41, by Lachlant1984

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I've not tried to time the delay between an onscreen event and the associated sound when testing files that have a delay in them, to me the delay in your test files may have perhaps been slightly less than the GOG files, but I can't be certain, I'd need to do more testing I think, I'm not sure if there was any difference in delay between test files 2 and 3 which you sent me. I didn't do any really deep or extensive testing.

Reply 30 of 41, by Lachlant1984

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Qbix, have you been able to produce the audio latency issue on your end? If not, I wonder why it's not happening for you.

Reply 31 of 41, by Qbix

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I do have little bit of lag with the gog settings, but that is more in the order of the V3 configfile ( (very) slight it feels like 0.1 s ? ), nothing like quarter/half second delay you are talking about. Hence I want to figure out what is causing such a big delay. I am still thinking about the best set of configuration changes to try it.

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Reply 32 of 41, by Lachlant1984

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Hmm, OK, maybe I'm exaggerating the delay slightly, I don't know for sure, it just feels like almost half a second to me. But it looks like this issue can be addressed, which is good. Let's just hope that once GOG know what's going on, they can implement all the changes in their settings files or the fix become well known so that end users can apply it if needed.

Reply 33 of 41, by Lachlant1984

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GOG must write slightly different config files for the Mac versions of their DOSBox games, but having said that, most them use Boxer, are you familiar with Boxer? I say their files must be slightly different because I've not noticed any delay or lag in any of the Boxer powered games on my Mac.

Reply 34 of 41, by Lachlant1984

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I think if you have a game that you've imported into Boxer itself you can adjust at least some of the parameters in the game by pressing control I, or is it Command I? But I think GOG disable this command with their Boxer powered releases. Let me check. Yes. The keyboard command is indeed Command I, and GOG have disabled it in their games that use Boxer, at least they have in some of them. I don't know why though. I knew that Boxer used DOSBox code, it just has a graphical front end. I really like using Boxer on the Mac.

Reply 35 of 41, by olddos25

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Maybe the prebuffer setting is causing problems?

Just another user that likes old OSes and videogames, nothing interesting to see here...
Other places to find me:
DraStic: http://drastic-ds.com (as dsattorney)

Reply 36 of 41, by Lachlant1984

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I just tried out file 5 and I can't decide if it has as much delay as file 2 or file 3, file 3 has slightly less delay than file 2 and I'm corrently thinking maybe file 5 has as much delay as file 3, but I can't be certain.

Reply 37 of 41, by Qbix

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Alright,

based on your testing, there isn't one setting that is causing a huge lag. Which is a good thing, as that would indicate some sort of compatibility problem of your hardware with how DOSBox generates the sound. (which would be bad for DOSBox).
So it boils all down to the combination of settings and being able to notice the lag. (as I only saw it, when you pointed me at it). Once you see it, it becomes quite obvious.

As I have pointed out in PM to you. The combination of settings that GOG chose for this game, produce a delay that is 3-4 times larger than the delay with the default settings of DOSBox.
You seem to be able to start to notice it, when it is double the delay of the default settings of DOSBox 0.74/SVN (very slight delay you call it). (which is what the dosbox settings of 0.73 and 0.72 boil down to).

At this point, simply changing the settings is not a magic solution, in that it would work for everybody. I am thinking of the incompatibility between windows 7 and the max cycles algorithm of 0.74. It might be that changing the settings, would give bad sound on Windows 7, but that is something for GOG to decide/handle. I'll relay the information on how to calculate the audio delay to them and see if I can post it on the WIKI.

for your case, I'll modify a few more games that gave you a lot of delay and PM you the updated files.

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Reply 38 of 41, by Lachlant1984

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Thanks qbix, I appreciate that. I made some notes which I sent you a few days ago, they're in this thread. As I said, I experienced this audio delay on 3 other PCs and I think it was roughly the same. Having said that, the Lenovo ThinkPad I tested had some Dolby Access software installed on it, I don't think it was configured correctly because every time I tried to launch it I'd get an error message. The computer's built in stereo speakers produce a very thin and tinny sound, but when I listen to music on that computer I hear what sounds to me like some kind of virtual surround sound type system, but I can't be sure if any virtual surround sound is enabled or not and because that computer doesn't belong to me, and because I only have access to it at the library where I'm volunteering, I can't get long term access to the computer so I can't really deeply dig into the situation. I don't think the staff at the school will allow me to bring the computer home to work on it some more. I wonder if an update to DOSBox would address this problem. My HP laptop is running the latest BIOS, drivers, operating system and software as far as I know, I've checked both HP support and Windows Update and both programs tell me I'm up to date. The only games I've really tried playing on the laptop are DOSBox powered games. I did download Wolfenstein 3D PC from the Microsoft Store, I think it's using some kind of DOSBox derivitive, I hear no audio delay in that game or the other games included with it, but those game perform so badly on my computer in other ways, choppy graphics, choppy broken up sound, strange keyboard behaviour, that they're not worth playing. Maybe you'll have better luck with them on your PC, that's if you're running Windows 10, which I assume you are. Just go to the Microsoft Store and search for Wolfenstein 3D PC and maybe you'll see what I mean.

Reply 39 of 41, by Lachlant1984

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I'm wondering if an update to DOSBox itself would address this issue in some part, as well as changes to the configuration parameters.