tomexplodes wrote on 2020-11-02, 04:33:

Config and Install.bat both do basically nothing.

You should probably post the contents of those. Don't you think they would be likely to have clues about how to get sound working?

I've already made this long enough. Hopefully SOMEONE knows SOMETHING about this game and can tell me how to make the stupid sound work.

If this was a remotely well-known game, it would not be so hard to find. We shall have to puzzle it out from what is available.

ETA:

When I copy it over to my DOS machine and run it, there is no sound. It runs otherwise, but neither my PC speaker nor my desktop speakers make any noise at all.

To be clear: when you run the game in DOSBox, are you getting PC speaker sound or digitized sound? (It can be kind of hard to tell which is which in some cases.)

And what sort of sound card do you have in your DOS machine?

config.bat
Echo off
Echo - - - -
if .%1==. goto NOARG
IF %1==Y goto in1
IF %1==y goto in1
if exist JOYSTICK rename JOYSTICK NOJOYSTICK
goto in2
:in1
if exist NOJOYSTICK rename NOJOYSTICK JOYSTICK
:in2
goto abort
:noarg
Echo Type CONFIG Y if you have a joystick,
Echo CONFIG N if you are not using one.
:abort

install.bat
Echo Off
Echo Install must be ran from a source disk.
pause

Jorpho wrote on 2020-11-02, 04:41:

If this was a remotely well-known game, it would not be so hard to find. We shall have to puzzle it out from what is available.

Boy, you ain't kidding.

EDIT: I have a Vibra 16 which is a SB16 compatible card.
Also, I honestly can't tell on DOSBox if it's PC speaker or digitized, but I'd GUESS PC Speaker

A Google search for STANDDAC.DRV turns up http://www.retroarchive.org/cdrom/nightowl-00 … LOG2/index.html , which suggests that it uses the same sound engine as MONOLOG1.ZIP and MONOLOG2.ZIP from http://www.retroarchive.org/cdrom/nightowl-00 … 051A/index.html . If we can find out how that program is supposed to be configured, perhaps this game can be made to function as well. (Notably, it also uses an "EX.BAT".)

For starters: are you able to get sound in other games on your DOS PC?

Jorpho wrote on 2020-11-02, 04:50:

A Google search for STANDDAC.DRV turns up http://www.retroarchive.org/cdrom/nightowl-00 … LOG2/index.html , which suggests that it uses the same sound engine as MONOLOG1.ZIP and MONOLOG2.ZIP from http://www.retroarchive.org/cdrom/nightowl-00 … 051A/index.html . If we can find out how that program is supposed to be configured, perhaps this game can be made to function as well. (Notably, it also uses an "EX.BAT".)

For starters: are you able to get sound in other games on your DOS PC?

Yup! No problems otherwise.

All right, let's try two easy tests for starters:

Open your dosbox.conf and change the line "disney=true" to "disney=false". Do you still get sound in that case? (Change it back afterwards either way.)

Copy BLASTER.DRV from the aforementioned MONOLOG2.ZIP to the game's directory and then try running "Ex /dBLASTER * EGA *" without the quotes. Do you still get sound in that case?

There is no sound once I shut off the Disney. And I just tried using that blaster.drv in actual DOS. What happens is it STARTS to talk (Generally the game starts by saying "Zug the Megasaurus presents") but only gets as far as "ZUH" and then locks up. I can still CTRL+ALT+DEL though.

EDIT: Also locks up that way in DOSBox.

EDIT AGAIN: Not sure if it was truly designed to work with the SB card. If that can't be made to work, obviously I don't have the necessary hardware in my machine to get the voice working. If that's why it doesn't work, hey, I can live with that. So long as it's not just set up stupid I can feel like we tried here.

tomexplodes wrote on 2020-11-02, 05:14:

There is no sound once I shut off the Disney.

Okay, so: you're getting sound in DOSBox because DOSBox emulates a Disney Sound Source/Covox Speech Thing, and your DOS computer does not have one of those. Simple.

If you want to get this to work on your DOS computer, you're going to have to figure out how to persuade this game to use the Sound Blaster instead.

I mashed away at MONOLOG just now. Try using this in DOSBox:
Ex /dBLASTER /p220h EGA /i7

If that works, then in order to use this on your DOS machine, you will have to replace "7" with whatever IRQ is used by your Vibra16. You can find that out by typing SET and looking at the BLASTER environment variable.

You're a goddamn wizard. That did it, after changing 7 to 5 in DOS. I love you and will bear your children, though I am not in fact capable of doing so. I'm not sure I can fully express how happy you just made me. This game is so stupid and who cares, except I've been trying to have it for seriously, 20 years. Thank you so much. You're the absolute best human being on the face of the entire planet.

Aw, shucks, I do get things right occasionally. You're welcome.

By the way, this isn't the same as Zug's Dinosaur World, is it? That seems to be rather more widely-known.

Jorpho wrote on 2020-11-02, 06:41:

Aw, shucks, I do get things right occasionally. You're welcome.

By the way, this isn't the same as Zug's Dinosaur World, is it? That seems to be rather more widely-known.

Nope, that one is a "sequel" of sorts. It runs just fine without tweaking anyhow.