Hi folks,

Looking to try out GUS on Albion emulated via DOSBox, as we never had the right hardware back in the day and I've heard it's the preferred audio given Albion doesn't actually support MT-32. I've played the game through many times using SB, but with GUS am running into some peculiar issues that I'd appreciate any help with.

I'm trying with DOSBox ECE (r4481) and DOSBox Staging (0.80.1), using the GUS driver prepack folder suggested here and, to test, another source I found on a random blog. Albion game files tested include both my venerable copied-from-CD set and, in case of bitrot or something, the files from a newly-purchased copy of Albion from GOG.

To the best of my knowledge, GUS is enabled in dosbox.conf / dosbox-staging.conf:

1gus        = true
2gusbase    = 240
3gusirq     = 5
4gusdma     = 3
5ultradir   = C:\ULTRASND
6gus_filter = off

The ULTRASND directory is in the Albion game dir, which is mounted as C:, and when run through DOSBox the Albion 'setup' utility recognises and is happy to set Gravis Ultrasound for sound and MIDI (no options for config are presented, just an automatically-found happy blue box).

When I start the game, intro plays sound fine, and when I load a game I get both sound and MIDI can play, but this is where the issues start.

First (and most important) issue - in both Staging and ECE, Albion immediately hangs on area transition with GUS. No issues with area transitions on any other sound device, and it's not an issue with loading any one area in particular - everything I've tested seems to be fine providing it's the first area loaded into from main menu on game start. It's only when transitioning between areas/maps once in-game that the hang occurs, resulting in this weird snow effect (screenshot taken as about to transition to the battle map):

DOSBox console does not print any error log when this hang occurs.

Second issue - DOSBox Staging has weird reverb and echoes with GUS midi, some sounds play at double speed, and I get a continued held echoey tone at main menu like endless reverb. DOSBox ECE does not do this, using the same ULTRASND directory. I've always used ECE, but I'd prefer to switch Staging for better mouse and pixel-perfect scaling if possible, however weird audio is definitely a blocker.

Does anyone have any ideas? Happy to post up any other configs or etc that might help - new to getting GUS working so entirely possible I've done something dumb 😀