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No sound for Wing Commander 2

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First post, by vectad

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I am having a problem getting sound while playing Wing Commander 2. I'm using dosbox ver .63 with VDMS sound enabled. I have an HP Pavilion a730, 3.2 P4, 512MB RAM, legacy sound drivers with windows XP. I have tried changing the soundblaster settings in the config file. I have tried reducing the hardware acceleration in DXDIAG. I can play the game minus sound right from dosbox, but I get an error message when I try to install the game to my hard drive. Stating it cannot copy wc2.cfg. Then suggests I copy install.exe, install.dat, wc2.cfg and wc2.exe to my gamedat file on C: drive. I did that with no result.

Anybody have any suggestions?

VectaD

Reply 1 of 20, by avatar_58

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I can attempt to help...as I own the original cd but if I remember correctly I could never get the damned thing installed.....the setup was buggy. I might try it again to help you out though. Quick tip though - you either use vdm sound or dosbox...they are seperate solutions, not things that work together.

Reply 2 of 20, by vectad

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Regarding dosbox and vdm sound being seperate solutions. The only way I can get vdm to run is through dosbox. As I understand it, it's a sound emulator. So If I right click on dosbox.exe, there's an option to run with vdm sound. Either way, I still don't have sound.

Reply 3 of 20, by HunterZ

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VDMSound, among other things, is a sound emulator, but only for running games in a DOS window in Windows. It won't do anything in DOSBox, as DOSBox is a Windows program.

Reply 4 of 20, by vectad

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Ok, I understand. Then is there another trick I can try to get sound? Wing Commander 2 runs fine without installing, I just have no sound. All my attempts to change the config don't have an effect. The only other thing I tried that I didn't mention before, was I installed D-fend 2.0.62.42.

Reply 5 of 20, by HunterZ

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Is there an install/setup/config program for the game to set sound options? You'll need to configure the game to use the hardware settings that DOSBox emulates.

Reply 6 of 20, by avatar_58

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Which is default to Sound Blaster - IRQ=7, DMA=1, PORT=220

Reply 7 of 20, by eL_PuSHeR

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That's the default for SoundBlaster prior to SB Pro 2.0 which was the first one using A220 I5 D1 for defaults, I think.

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Reply 8 of 20, by HunterZ

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The important thing is the default settings that DOSBox emulates, and I don't remember which it is (probably what avatar said).

Reply 9 of 20, by eL_PuSHeR

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You are both right. DOSBox uses Port=220 IRQ=7 DMA=1 by default for SoundBlaster.

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Reply 10 of 20, by vectad

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I tried to configure the game to use the hardware settings that DOSBox emulates. Under winstall it set at a default for IRQ: 7 and it gives me an option to set the DMA to 1, but there's no setting for PORT: 220. After confirming the settings it goes to a DOS screen and says installation complete, but the next line says error: Unable to copy files to GAMEDAT. It tells me to manually copy 4 files to the GAMEDAT directory, but each attempt fails to find the file off the CD, yet the files are there. If I try to install the game using the regular install.exe, it goes through all the setup steps then at the end it says installation incomplete: cannot find people.v02. Should I just give up on having sound?

VectaD

Reply 11 of 20, by HunterZ

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Sounds like there's something weird with either your CD or the way it's mounted in DOSBox. Can you use Windows to copy the 4 files from the CD to game game directory?

Also, are you sure you have the CD mounted correctly and that you're trying to copy the files from the correct directory on the CD?

Reply 12 of 20, by vectad

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My cd drive is F: so in the dosbox config I have mounted it as:
mount F F:\ -t cdrom
mount C C:\
C:

The game runs fine without installing it from the cd, if that makes a difference. I can copy the 4 files from the cd to the directory using windows explorer, but that did nothing. I even tried copying the one file that the installation couldn't find (people.v02) when trying to install from install.exe (not winstall), but the file was already there. What about changing the dosbox config? Here's what it looks like now:

[sdl]
# fullscreen -- Start dosbox directly in fullscreen.
# fulldouble -- Use double buffering in fullscreen.
# fullfixed -- Don't resize the screen when in fullscreen.
# fullresolution -- What resolution to use for fullscreen, use together with fullfixed.
# output -- What to use for output: surface,overlay,opengl,openglnb,ddraw.
# hwscale -- Extra scaling of window if the output device supports hardware scaling.
# autolock -- Mouse will automatically lock, if you click on the screen.
# sensitiviy -- Mouse sensitivity.
# waitonerror -- Wait before closing the console if dosbox has an error.
# priority -- Priority levels for dosbox: lower,normal,higher,highest.
# Second entry behind the comma is for when dosbox is not focused/minimized.
# mapperfile -- File used to load/save the key/event mappings from.

fullscreen=true
fulldouble=false
fullfixed=false
fullresolution=1024x768
output=surface
hwscale=1.00
autolock=true
sensitivity=100
waitonerror=true
priority=higher,normal
mapperfile=mapper.txt

[dosbox]
# language -- Select another language file.
# memsize -- Amount of memory dosbox has in megabytes.
# machine -- The type of machine tries to emulate:hercules,cga,tandy,vga.
# captures -- Directory where things like wave,midi,screenshot get captured.

language=
machine=vga
captures=capture
memsize=16

[render]
# frameskip -- How many frames dosbox skips before drawing one.
# aspect -- Do aspect correction.
# scaler -- Scaler used to enlarge/enhance low resolution modes.
# Supported are none,normal2x,advmame2x,advmame3x,advinterp2x,interp2x,tv2x.

frameskip=0
aspect=false
scaler=normal2x

[cpu]
# core -- CPU Core used in emulation: simple,normal,full,dynamic.
# cycles -- Amount of instructions dosbox tries to emulate each millisecond.
# Setting this higher than your machine can handle is bad!
# cycleup -- Amount of cycles to increase/decrease with keycombo.
# cycledown Setting it lower than 100 will be a percentage.

core=normal
cycles=6000
cycleup=500
cycledown=20

[mixer]
# nosound -- Enable silent mode, sound is still emulated though.
# rate -- Mixer sample rate, setting any devices higher than this will
# probably lower their sound quality.
# blocksize -- Mixer block size, larger blocks might help sound stuttering
# but sound will also be more lagged.
# prebuffer -- How many milliseconds of data to keep on top of the blocksize.

nosound=false
rate=22050
blocksize=2048
prebuffer=10

[midi]
# mpu401 -- Enable MPU-401 Emulation.
# intelligent -- Operate in Intelligent mode.
# device -- Device that will receive the MIDI data from MPU-401.
# This can be default,alsa,oss,win32,coreaudio,none.
# config -- Special configuration options for the device.

mpu401=true
intelligent=true
device=default
config=

[sblaster]
# type -- Type of sblaster to emulate:none,sb1,sb2,sbpro1,sbpro2,sb16.
# base,irq,dma,hdma -- The IO/IRQ/DMA/High DMA address of the soundblaster.
# mixer -- Allow the soundblaster mixer to modify the dosbox mixer.
# oplmode -- Type of OPL emulation: auto,cms,opl2,dualopl2,opl3.
# On auto the mode is determined by sblaster type.
# oplrate -- Sample rate of OPL music emulation.

type=sb16
base=220
irq=7
dma=1
hdma=5
mixer=true
oplmode=auto
oplrate=22050

[gus]
# gus -- Enable the Gravis Ultrasound emulation.
# base,irq1,irq2,dma1,dma2 -- The IO/IRQ/DMA addresses of the
# Gravis Ultrasound. (Same IRQ's and DMA's are OK.)
# rate -- Sample rate of Ultrasound emulation.
# ultradir -- Path to Ultrasound directory. In this directory
# there should be a MIDI directory that contains
# the patch files for GUS playback. Patch sets used
# with Timidity should work fine.

gus=true
rate=22050
base=240
irq1=5
irq2=5
dma1=3
dma2=3
ultradir=C:\ULTRASND

[speaker]
# pcspeaker -- Enable PC-Speaker emulation.
# pcrate -- Sample rate of the PC-Speaker sound generation.
# tandyrate -- Sample rate of the Tandy 3-Voice generation.
# Tandysound emulation is present if machine is set to tandy.
# disney -- Enable Disney Sound Source emulation.

pcspeaker=true
pcrate=22050
tandyrate=22050
disney=true
[bios]
# Nothing to setup yet!

[dos]
# xms -- Enable XMS support.
# ems -- Enable EMS support.

xms=true
ems=true

[modem]
# modem -- Enable virtual modem emulation.
# comport -- COM Port modem is connected to.
# listenport -- TCP Port the modem listens on for incoming connections.

modem=false
comport=2
listenport=23

[directserial]
# directserial -- Enable serial passthrough support.
# comport -- COM Port inside DOSBox.
# realport -- COM Port on the Host.
# defaultbps -- Default BPS.
# parity -- Parity of the packets. This can be N, E or O.
# bytesize -- Size of each packet. This can be 5 or 8.
# stopbit -- The number of stopbits. This can be 1 or 2.

directserial=false
comport=1
realport=COM1
defaultbps=1200
parity=N
bytesize=8
stopbit=1

[ipx]
# ipx -- Enable ipx over UDP/IP emulation.

ipx=false

[autoexec]
# Lines in this section will be run at startup.

mount F F:\ -t cdrom
mount C C:\
C:

VectaD

Reply 13 of 20, by Dominus

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ok here go my tips, I just started WC2 from the EA Classics CD-Rom and had music and speech in Dosbox.
Don't mount c:\ but make a new dir in c:\ called dosbox and mount that, also mount the CD-Rom as d:\ drive. The commands are:

mount c c:\dosbox
mount d f:\ -t cdrom

Now I don't know if you have the same stuff on your cdrom, but I did this after starting dosbox with these mounts:
d:\
winstall.bat (which starts the installer and lets you choose the drive where the savegames go - chose c: )
then after the installer finishes (you can choose the music and sound card from that)
start wing commander by typing
wc2.bat

That's all I did.

If for some reason you don't have winstall.bat on your cd, then do the following:
in the dosbox directory I told you to make and mount, make a new directory called Origin2 and in that a subdirectory called Gamedat.
Into the Origin2 directory, copy the files from your cd called Communic.yu2 and Communic.yu3 (found in the gamedat dir on the CD-Rom). Make sure they are not write protected after the copy.
Now with this done, you can start the winstall.exe and choose music and speech card and the settings will save this time)

Reply 15 of 20, by Dominus

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because the whole mounting is just too confusing for them. The same reason everyone seems to like to mount c c:\ and then have to cd to their actual game directory...

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Reply 16 of 20, by vectad

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COOL MAN!! It works!! Just as I remember it sounding too. Now my next problem is it crashes at the end of the 2nd mission. I tried EMS=false in the dosbox conf, but that gave me less sound effects. I tried typing "loadfix" at the dosbox prompt, but that uses too much memory to run the game. I turned down my cycles from 6000 to 4000 and cycledown from 20 to 500 but I have the same problem.

VectaD

Reply 17 of 20, by Dominus

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hmm, if you can provide a savegame, and tell me what I actually have to do to proceed, I can test it on my end. Also perhaps you could try with current cvs snapshots.

I never played WC2, just bought the game two days before you reported this bug (together with WC3+4 and EA Classic version of Privateer (all four of them for the high sum of three Euros)).

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Reply 18 of 20, by vectad

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Ok, I figured it out. I typed in "loadfix -32" and it works great!!!! I previously typed just "loadfix" I'm on the 7th mission now, and all is well.

THANK YOU!!!

VectaD