VOGONS


First post, by Kailieann

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie

So here's an odd problem.
I'm trying to get Dungeon Master II running -- I've tried both 0.65 and 0.70 -- and I've got the sound and music running in both the game's setup utility, but when I run the game, the sound doesn't work. But the music does.

I'm having the same problem with Quake, except that there's no setup utility for the sound to work in, and the music doesn't work in 0.65

Additionally, when I try to run Stonekeep, the game works perfectly until I go down the first set of stairs, at which point I get a slew of errors in the status window along the lines of:
Illegal read from 9bca1d8e, CS:IP 160: 429dbb
Illegal write to 9bca1d8e, CS:IP 160: 429dbb
And the game locks up.

I'm using the default DOSbox config with an unmodified config.
Any chance anyone can help with this?

Reply 1 of 11, by DosFreak

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++

I thought the only music that Quake had was CD audio? If so then you'll probably need to use imgmount to mount a CD image of your quake CD.

As for Dungeon Master 2 how did you setup the audio? General MIDI for Music and SB16 for SFX?

I do not have stonekeep but I do know that there were fixes for stonekeep put into DosBox 0.70. Are you sure that you are using that version? If so make sure that DosBox is set to dynamic core.

How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
Make your games work offline

Reply 2 of 11, by Kailieann

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie

Yes, Quake only uses CD music. And the CD music works in DOSbox 0.70, but not in 0.65 (which is too slow to run Quake anyways, I only used it to see if my problems were isolated). The issue with Quake is that, while the music works, the sound does not.

As for DMII, I've tried every digital sound setting in Setup. Sound Blaster, SBPro, and SB16 [port 220, DMA 1, IRQ 5] all work fine (in Setup); Gravis Ultrasound crashes Setup; Everything else gives me nothing.
And for MIDI, I have it set to SBPro, which works in both Setup and the game itself. But the sound effects don't work in the game.

I'm not ruling out the possibility that it might be an issue with my computer. I got a new motherboard since the last time I tried DOSbox. I'm not sure how that would cause any problems, but DMII's sound worked in 0.65 on the old motherboard, and doesn't work in 0.65 or 0.70 on the new one, so.. *shrug*

As for Stonekeep, I didn't know about the patches, or that I had to run it in dynamic mode. It seems to be working better now, though I still get the mouse problems I reported way back -- they seem to be caused by interaction with other programs or something, because it works fine when I minimize everything else.
Also, DOSbox crashes when I try to run Stonekeep fullscreen.

Thanks for the help. One problem down, two to go.
At least Warcraft 2 works perfectly.

Reply 3 of 11, by DosFreak

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++

Hmmm, for the sound issues try setting your cycles in dosbox.conf to 3000.

Then run the games and get to the point where you should hear sound and see if it works.

In previous versions of DosBox setting too high of a cycle value before starting a game would cause the sound not to work for some games. There have been some fixes for this in 0.70 but this issue will still occur. Since DosBox is set to cycles=auto instead of cycles=3000 like in previous DosBox releases we will probably get these problems alot.

The mouse issue is being worked on but according to Qbix it's difficult to debug.

As for crashing in fullscreen I don't know what to say there except to try different output= values in your dosbox.conf.

How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
Make your games work offline

Reply 4 of 11, by Kailieann

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie

cycles=3000 just makes them unplayably slow. No effect on sound whatsoever.

And I'd tried the other output settings previously. None of them worked any better than surface (in point of fact, most of them worked worse).

Alas, it seems there's not much more that can be done.

Reply 6 of 11, by DosFreak

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++

heh. Found the issue. Haven't tried DM2 yet but for Quake the issue is that DosBox is trying to use UltraSound instead of SB. (Previous DosBox releases it automatically chose SB, dunno why it matters now). Anyways set gus=true to gus=false in DosBox.conf and it will work.

How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
Make your games work offline

Reply 7 of 11, by Kailieann

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie

Quake works, DM2 doesn't.

Still, thanks for the help.

Reply 9 of 11, by Kailieann

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie

Hm. Well, it works.
I had to turn the game's sound volume to max and music volume to min and crank my speaker volume much higher than I'd like, but it works.

Much appreciated.

Reply 10 of 11, by ADDiCT

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie
Kailieann wrote:

As for DMII, I've tried every digital sound setting in Setup. Sound Blaster, SBPro, and SB16 [port 220, DMA 1, IRQ 5] all work fine (in Setup); Gravis Ultrasound crashes Setup; Everything else gives me nothing.

Just for completeness, Kailieann: are you aware that you were using the wrong IRQ (5 instead of 7)? "Working" and "Working" can be quite different in DOS 😎

Also, try the "mixer" command inside DOSBox to adjust the sound levels, maybe this helps with your low-volume sounds.

Reply 11 of 11, by Kailieann

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie

I'd tried combination of IRQ 5 and 7, in both the Setup program and the config file.

I guess I'll just have to screw around with the mixer settings, find something that works, and just throw it into the game's batch file.