CD-Audio stopping after a first song or just a bit later or looping the same song \ VOGONS

CD-Audio stopping after a first song or just a bit later or looping the same song

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First post, by mombarak

Posted on 2024-09-11, 10:24

mombarak Offline

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Hi everyone,

I have some games, mostly Warcraft 2 and the expansion, which I am trying to use with CD-Audio. I believe it is redband audio or mixed mode. The CDs are the original CDs. When I use Midi, it loops the Midi track. I think that is expected. But CD-Audio always stops at some point and you only hear the sound effects of a game. When using a DOS cd player, I have access to all songs.

I read in some threads and in other forums that this could be a driver problem of CD-ROMs and wanted to check if you have seen similar things? I am using the Teak CD DOS driver because it is the only one I know that can spin down the CD ROM speed so the PC stays nice and quiet.

Do you have some recommendations what to test first? Are there parameters in config.sys or autoexec.bat which I could use or should I try a different driver instead? If so, do you have recommendations?

Thanks a ton in advance.

Reply 1 of 8, by jmarsh

Posted on 2024-09-11, 14:26

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Are these games running under windows?

Reply 2 of 8, by mombarak

Posted on 2024-09-11, 20:24

mombarak Offline

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Sorry I forgot to mention that this is about a MS DOS 6.22 system with a P90 and 16MB RAM.

Reply 3 of 8, by Horun

Posted on 2024-09-12, 03:09

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mombarak wrote on 2024-09-11, 10:24:

Do you have some recommendations what to test first?

Try a different CD driver and see if same thing happens.

Hate posting a reply and then have to edit it because it made no sense 😁 First computer was an IBM 3270 workstation with CGA monitor. Stuff: https://archive.org/details/@horun

Reply 4 of 8, by jmarsh

Posted on 2024-09-12, 03:14

jmarsh Offline

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Is it stopping at the end of tracks (failing to loop) or in the middle?
If it's stopping in the middle, the drive is probably faulty. It wouldn't be a driver problem because once the "play audio" command is sent to the drive, it just does its thing without any other interaction required.
If it's stopping at the end / failing to loop, that could be the driver failing to tell the game that playback has finished so it never sends a new play command (to make it loop).

Reply 5 of 8, by mombarak

Posted on 2024-09-13, 06:57

mombarak Offline

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Here is the odd thing: It plays 2 songs and then it stops with the Warcraft 2 Beyond the Dark Portal CD (original). In classic Warcraft 2 (original) I have seen it repeat the same track over and over and not moving to the next track. When I disable and re-enable the CD audio in the game, it starts with the first song/track but runs into the same behavior. It drives me mad 😀

The cd drive is a 52x Teac CD-ROM on IDE with a CD audio cable. I have tested the own teac driver for the specific model which has a nice slow down option. This does not improve the problem. Then I tried a Samsung driver which works fine on my 486 with a 4x CD Rom. It works for the Teac CD Rom but same effect. For some reason, I do not get VIDE from Acer to work.

I wonder if the newer drives might not work properly with Red Book CD audio?
When looking at the list of games with this audio format, it seems that most of the games were released when Windows 95 was already an option. But there are some with DOS only.
Source: https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/List_of_gam … d_Book_CD_audio

Reply 6 of 8, by jmarsh

Posted on 2024-09-13, 08:50

jmarsh Offline

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If they can play audio via the port on the back they should work. Newer drives removed that ability completely.

Reply 7 of 8, by mombarak

Posted on 2024-09-13, 12:42

mombarak Offline

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So I tested the CDs in my 486SX25 and it works fine. The audio CD plays for hours. So the CDs are working. The configuration in DOS is also not much different. I think the next step would be to check a different CD-ROM or IDE cable.

Reply 8 of 8, by mombarak

Posted on 2024-09-13, 16:45

mombarak Offline

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As it turns out my Teac CD-532E has a problem with Warcraft 2 CD audio. I switched the cable, no success. I switched the CD-ROM, it works. I am sad now. I will try to see if a firmware update fixes it.
https://www.firmwarehq.com/download.php?firmware_id=1104

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