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First post, by carlostex

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So Ultima Underworld is one of the few games that supports dual OPL2 music on the Sound Blaster Pro 1. Only recently i found out that this games uses Audio Interface Library drivers. In fact the installations i have here also com with the Pro Audio Spectrum drivers included, pasfm.adv and pasdig.adv. SO i'm wondering if this game could be patched/hacked with the dual OPL2 Pro Audio Spectrum?

It would be very nice to have support for the PAS, and potentially for other audio devices supported by the AIL format.

Reply 1 of 13, by bristlehog

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The game uses obscure numbers in its configuration file (uw.cfg) for sound cards. It's thus impossible to feed the game whatever driver files you want directly. So, it's advisable to cheat the game by selecting SB Pro for sound and speech in setup, then replacing corresponding driver files with PAS counterparts. Just make sure correct port numbers, IRQ etc. are set up.

This should most probably work, as AIL drivers are totally independent of the game in most of the cases.

The other thing though is I'm not sure that SB Pro's stereo OPL music would work when sent to PAS. That is to be found.

Hardware comparisons and game system requirements: https://technical.city

Reply 2 of 13, by Dominus

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Let us know how it goes 😉

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Reply 3 of 13, by bristlehog

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I've looked into AIL source code, and seems that hardware layer is so well abstracted from actual game, that there should be no difference between PAS and SB Pro (although they are almost totally incompatible at hardware level, save the Adlib compatibility).

However, UU is not aware of OPL3 cards yet, so I suspect that any OPL3 card would probably sound indistinct from SB Pro or PAS, since OPL3 is backwards compatible with OPL2 banks, and AIL will do the job of maintaining stereo output no matter the hardware (provided that the hardware is capable of it). In other words, I believe that we'll get stereo OPL2 music not only on PAS and SB Pro, but also on PAS16, SB Pro 2 and whatever with OPL3 chip.

But it's all theory yet, and since I have no any hardware, it's up to carlostex to find out whether I'm right or mistaken.

Note that AIL's PAS drivers require MVSOUND.SYS loaded to operate.

Hardware comparisons and game system requirements: https://technical.city

Reply 4 of 13, by carlostex

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Heh, this is awesome. Turn out this works. By renaming the files, not only you get dual OPL2 stereo FM sound from the Pro Audio Spectrum but even the digital works. Instructions as follow:

1- Rename SBPFM.ADV and SBPDIG.ADV to something else;
2- Rename PASFM.ADV and PASDIG.ADV to SBPFM.ADV and SBPDIG.ADV respectivelly;
3- Run Uinstall.EXE. Select Sound Blaster Pro for both sound and speech;
4- Run UWsound.EXE;
5- Select Sound Blaster Pro for sound;
6- Select Sound Blaster Pro for speech, set the I/O address to 388 (this is the PAS port), select IRQ and DMA according to your PAS jumper settings; (ignore card not detected)
7- Run the game and it should work, make sure you have loaded MVSOUND.SYS on CONFIG.SYS

Reply 5 of 13, by Dominus

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Cool!

Windows 3.1x guide for DOSBox
60 seconds guide to DOSBox
DOSBox SVN snapshot for macOS (10.4-11.x ppc/intel 32/64bit) notarized for gatekeeper

Reply 6 of 13, by carlostex

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Ultima Underworld 2 seems to be another question though, using the same method i couldn't get the game to output any sound via the Pro Audio Spectrum.

The .ADV files come organized differently.

Reply 7 of 13, by bristlehog

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carlostex wrote:

Ultima Underworld 2 seems to be another question though, using the same method i couldn't get the game to output any sound via the Pro Audio Spectrum.

The .ADV files come organized differently.

What exactly didn't work? It seems you figured out which driver file is for which sound card, but then what?

carlostex wrote:

set the I/O address to 388 (this is the PAS port), select IRQ and DMA according to your PAS jumper settings; (ignore card not detected)

It seems that there might be no need to specify any port or whatever data, as AIL operates through MVSOUND.SYS anyway.

Hardware comparisons and game system requirements: https://technical.city

Reply 8 of 13, by carlostex

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Yeah i figured out which file was which, renamed the sound files so i could make the PAS act like an SB Pro, but unlike Ultima Underworld 1 there is no sound. No FM no digital.

Reply 9 of 13, by bristlehog

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carlostex wrote:

Yeah i figured out which file was which, renamed the sound files so i could make the PAS act like an SB Pro, but unlike Ultima Underworld 1 there is no sound. No FM no digital.

Did you try feeding PAS digital and MIDI drivers from UU2 to XPLAY or PX Player to check whether the drivers themselves are operational in your machine?

Though I believe even if you manage to run UU2 on your PAS, you will get no stereo MIDI music. I tried it with SB Pro 1, and there's only mono Adlib-compatible music.

Hardware comparisons and game system requirements: https://technical.city

Reply 10 of 13, by carlostex

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Well if there is no stereo music via SB Pro 1 there's no point in even trying this.

The whole goal was to get the SB Pro 1 FM stereo music working in Pro Audio Spectrum. It does in Ultima Underworld 1. So i guess Ultima Underworld 2 is a step back in FM music.

Reply 11 of 13, by bristlehog

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carlostex wrote:

Ultima Underworld 2 is a step back in FM music.

I don't think it's the case. What seems more plausible, is that they ditched dual OPL2 support as they had OPL3 already.

Hardware comparisons and game system requirements: https://technical.city

Reply 12 of 13, by NewRisingSun

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Ultima Underworld 2 supports dual OPL2 as well. It looks at the "T" setting in your BLASTER environment variable to determine the SBPro type. It makes no difference however because the .XMI files contain no panning controller events.

Reply 13 of 13, by carlostex

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NewRisingSun wrote:

Ultima Underworld 2 supports dual OPL2 as well. It looks at the "T" setting in your BLASTER environment variable to determine the SBPro type. It makes no difference however because the .XMI files contain no panning controller events.

Finally had a chance to try this.

By using the SET BLASTER parameter, and running install, sets uwsound to have the correct parameters as set by the install program. The INSTALL program, it seems, takes a look at the BLASTER parameter and puts that into uwsound. However, even after following the same procedure done with Ultima Underworld 1 (renaming PAS drivers to SB Pro drivers) game complains that sound hardware cannot be found. There's no FM music and no Speech.

Seems that this method works only on Ultima Underworld I. Don't know if Ultima Underworld 2 is better than the first so this might not be a big loss.