cyberluke wrote on 2022-11-12, 18:39:

what about Sound Blaster + Adlib OPL3?

Same situation as Midi. Midi is the easiest one actually.

So I am revisiting some old shelved projects. See if Claude AI assistance can make a difference in finishing some of them properly. Usually the result is quite clean, controlled and practical.
So I uploaded an MS-DOS OpenDune port to my website again, but this time with properly working Sound Blaster 2.0 and MPU-401 Midi music support. You can get the source code and executable here:
https://www.gb-homepage.nl/
It was tested to work in DOSBox and also on a real 486 in pure MS-DOS 7.
The port does not have the annoying memory requirements (and resulting sound/music limitations) of the original Dune 2 release. It does have the original Dune 2 / OpenDune controls + interface and its limitations. It has the mentat copy protection questions like OpenDune. Except from adding DOS sound drivers (and their timer) the OpenDune code was not touched..

Side note 1: The originally intended interrupt handler sound and music method failed to work. Plan B was a polling method, and that worked fine.

Side note 2: The OpenDune source was not DOS 8.3 file-naming friendly. It was decided to re-arrange and rename files to make a DOS / OpenWatcom2 compatible source tree.

Isn’t using AIL2 for the sound engine an option? Replace all the sound and music calls with AIL2 ones but you’ll need to use original VOC / XMI / ADL files probably. For a DOS port would be the best option IMO.

carlostex wrote on Yesterday, 23:57:

Isn’t using AIL2 for the sound engine an option? Replace all the sound and music calls with AIL2 ones but you’ll need to use original VOC / XMI / ADL files probably. For a DOS port would be the best option IMO.

The game uses only 8-bit mono voc files and does no panning. So SB 2.0 standard covers that in quality just fine, and has the widest compatibility. The currently missing FM is a small downside.
Either way, I have a lot on my plate, and it is actually a miracle I decided to attend to this. Before I put more effort in I would need feedback about people actually wanting to play this thing, with its stone age controls and all.