Terrapin wrote on 2017-06-12, 22:42:Hey Vogonites, […]
Show full quote
Hey Vogonites,
For a while now, I've been trying to set up an automated, no-cd DOSbox installation of Realms of the Haunting with custom .bat and .conf files for easy access and proper emulation.
I've accomplished all I've set out to do as far as that goes and Sound Blaster 16 works fine, but it just doesn't sound quite right. Or at least not how I remember it.
I've recently found out about Gravis Ulrasound emulation through DOSbox and have gotten it working in several other games. As for Realms though, I have been able to enable GUS via the included setup program, but upon opening the game (set to VESA 640x480), there is no MIDI music and sound is clicky, poppy, staggered, laggy, etc.
When playing the test music/sound in the setup program, the sounds play, but it's cut off a bit when it plays. I believe my conf file is properly configured for GUS emulation.
Is this normal with GUS and a game that relies heavily on graphics? Should I be using an SVN for driver compatibility maybe?
It's an old post but *bump*
I've been trying to do the same, and I've made some discoveries if not some actual progress.
In using the Gravis Ultrasound setup tutorial + an older version of "ULTRINIT.EXE" + DOSBox-X + my configuration file (which I'll attach below), I was able to set up DOSBox-X to have dual soundcards, the Sound Blaster 16 and Gravis Ultrasound. I verified that they both work relatively well. When it comes to setting up ROTH, I use the SB16 as the sound effects card. which seems to eliminate the "clicky, poppy" sound effects. Unfortunately, MIDI was initially MIA, but I noticed a few things that might help a more experienced Gravis user figure the problem out.
After configuring for both cards (and in the testing setup, both have crystal clear sound), a prompt very briefly flashes at the beginning of the game that reads:
"Dos4GW Version
Installing Sound drivers --- Bad command or filename - "LOADPATS"
Starting MIDI-Track.
Initializing DAT file.
Detecting vesa modes."
It's that "Installing Sound drivers --- Bad command or filename - "LOADPATS" " that is partially derailing the Gravis from playing the MIDI. LOADPATS.EXE is supposed to initialize some kind of sound patches for Gravis to understand and play the ROTH MIDI files, and it is not doing so.
Upon further investigation, "LOADPATS.EXE" is located in the the /INTRPLAY/ROTH/ directory and running it alone says that "Patches.ini" was not found. There is no file anywhere, at least not in any of my installed folders or game discs that is "Patches.ini".
HOWEVER...
There is a folder named "MIDI" that has some files that look like they could be utilized by the Gravis utilities in some way: DRUM.BNK, GRAVIS.INI, HMIMDRV.386, MELODIC.BNK, and MT32MAP.MTX. The GRAVIS.INI piqued my interest as it appears to look like an initializer for patches, so I re-named "GRAVIS.INI" from the MIDI folder to "PATCHES.INI", ran LOADPATS, and it loaded 12 sound patches to the emulated Gravis. From there I ran the game, and 'lo and behold, I get MIDI music! The music feels a bit more...sparse than using the Sound Blaster 16 as the card for music, so I'm not fully convinced I've completely solved it, but the music is definitely a lot creepier and more realistic-sounding than the ultra-synthy SB16's rendition.
Because of the sparse-ness of the sound, I believe there's still something more I need to do that I'm not doing, and perhaps it has something to do with the other files in the MIDI folder needing to be patched/recognized by Gravis. If anyone has any ideas, please let us know!
**RECAP**
Copy "LOADPATS.EXE" from /INTRPLAY/ROTH/INSTALL to /INTRPLAY/ROTH/MIDI
Re-name "GRAVIS.INI" to "PATCHES.INI"
Run "C:\INTRPLAY\ROTH\MIDI\LOADPATS" and/or add this line to the [autoexec] of the dosbox config file before running the game.
And huzzah! Gravis Ultrasound Midi (mostly) for Realms of the Haunting!
