Hey guys,

With sierra games you have the choice of playing the game with PC speaker or No sound ( No audio or voice card present is the exact words ).I do hear sound with PC speaker, but the games & music are still slow and unplayable.

I was informed by Nicht sehr Gut to run these games with PC speaker to try and eliminate my sound card from the equation.

Just to refresh, the problem I am experiencing is slow DOS games, and I mean that generally. All dos based games fall over, and now most recently Impulse Tracker 2.14. It plays fine for a few seconds then goes into this slowmo and reverb frenzy. Much like my dos games do, except the sound is worse.

This happened ever since I migrated from Win2k to WinXP and I believe it is an XP problem. I say this because I am experiencing this in XP as well without running VDMS.

For more information please read the posts in the beginning of this thread.

I really value all your guys support.
Later.

Back in the "old days", I remember things like this could be caused by your locality. IE:Early Mac's weren't keeping time properly because they were using the Hz rate of the electrical source. It was 60 Hz in the US, but Europe was running at 50. That meant that they weren constantly "losing time". Similar problem showed up with the Amiga as is was based around NTSC Video, whereas Europe was using PAL (although this was a software problem, rather than hardware).

As I understand it now, on the PC side of things this was a lot less of an issue because the PC wasn't "tied" to other standards (IE:You wanted a display for your PC, you had to use a PC monitor. Period.) That having been said, I would think that most inconsistencies between PC's internationally should've been ironed out by now.

So unless you can think of something that's different because you're running it in South Africa as opposed to the U.S. or Europe, I'm out of ideas. Like I have said before "Sometimes there just aren't any good answers" ("Unless you consider XP no like your PC" a good answer).

Yeah, you guys are probably right.

Its been on my mind since this thing cropped up. I must have reloaded XP about 3 times (without exaggerating) to try and puzzle out a possible fix.I guess my machine and XP weren't meant for eachother.

I will wait for XP Service Pack 1 to be officially released and if the problem persists I will move back to Win2k. In the meanwhile I will try an 3-day trial copy of XP Home and see what transpires.

I thank you for your kind help and support, I bet people who PAY for support don't get this kinda treatment..You guys are doing a great job here, but, I am still a member of VOGONS and I will not miss out on a chance to post my next thread, whatever that may be.

I sincerley trust that you dudes will post a fix, if ever you come across one.

I must have set some kind of record here. If I'm not mistaken I have the highest views (784) and replies (62) on this forum.Not bad for a rookie.

Thanks for the hospitality.
Clint.

Try this new NTVDM version and pray that Microsoft doesn't come after me with a hot spade for posting it. (Technically I'm not supposed to release it without their prior permission.) Just a note, if you couldn't tell, this is for XP *only*. I'll be uploading all three (NT, 2K, and XP) in Deep Thought in a bit.

Snover wrote:

Try this new NTVDM version and pray that Microsoft doesn't come after me with a hot spade for posting it. (Technically I'm not supposed to release it without their prior permission.) Just a note, if you couldn't tell, this is for XP *only*. I'll be uploading all three (NT, 2K, and XP) in Deep Thought in a bit.

Is this supposed to fix the 100% CPU usage or something? If so, did their timer emulation also get better by any chance?

V.

It was to fix timer wrapping on processors over 2GHz, so I imagine there are probably some additional improvements at LEAST in the timer emulation.

Hey thanks!

I will give it a try.

I actually tried something similar by copying Win2k NTVDM.exe & dll file into my Winxp\system32 directory after removing the old ones.

I did back them up, and just as well to...'cos after that nothing wanted to work. Hehehe, It was worth a try though.

Well lets hold thumbs, eh.

Later.
Clint.

Kripes!!!

The NTVDM that was posted yesterday did not work.

This is bullcrap!!..Why is my PC so full of Shyte??

Did I perhaps install it (NTVDM) incorrectly? Could you give me a short installation guide, Pleez..? I ran the update.exe in the update directory, is that correct? Is there anything else I need to do?

I dont mean to be a bother.

Tanks,
Clint.

Hey dudes,

I just spoke to a mate with almost the exact same config as mine except, he has an earlier release of AMD-761 mainboard.

I have the Gigabyte GA-7DXE, He has the GA-7DXR+, and
I see that they are almost identical on the Gigabyte web site, however...

HIS FREAKIN' GAMES WORK FINE!!! ( sorry )

Every other piece of hardware is the same,just the mainboard model is different to mine, although they both use the AMD-761 chipset.

Any ideas or advice?
Clint

You mentioned something about using the AMD drivers for some m/b components. Are you sure you need those for XP. XP may have had updated drivers for those components built in. Perhaps XP didn't remove those drivers during your update from W2000. That might be causing some of your problems. You might try uninstalling all AMD drivers before installing XP. Also, if you have a spare hard drive, try a fresh install of XP (I vaguely, but perhaps inaccurately, recall that you use an XP boot disk or the like to do a fresh install of XP on an unformatted or newly formatted drive). Then install some of your DOS games. If that arrangement still has problems, you may be banging your head against a brick wall. If it works, however, you at least have hope (and a reason for losing sleep wondering what the problem could be).

Clinton wrote:

I just spoke to a mate with almost the exact same config as mine except, he has an earlier release of AMD-761 mainboard.
HIS FREAKIN' GAMES WORK FINE!!! ( sorry )
Any ideas or advice?

Like I said "Sometimes there just aren't any good answers". Check with your "mate" about drivers and/or any other differences between your hardware and his.

Thanks guys for the feedback...

I have installed XP from scratch, numerous times. Each time doing a Boot off the CD and deleting all partitions, then creating a new part, and then proceed to the format.

Anyways, directly after install I try the games first before the drivers are updated and .....Booka! it still don't work right.

I update my video,sound drivers to the latest versions and try again, and guess what.......nothing,

Like I nicht sehr gut says, there are no good answers, and perhaps no good solution either...I guess its just an architectural incompatibilty/flaw of some sort....

I will investigate the mainboard issue further and if it turns out to be those Gigabyte mother ..........'s, I am gonna be really pissed off, pardon me french..

I will let you all know what I find out.
Clint.

P.S - "Mate" means the same as friend/buddy/pal in some languages, its not what you think..hehe.

Clinton wrote:

P.S - "Mate" means the same as friend/buddy/pal in some languages, its not what you think..hehe.

Yes, I know (I lived in England for 5 years). I was just using quotes as that was your term, not my own.

Dudes, its fixed...

All games are smooth and music sounds great.

I applied XP service Pack 1 and BAM!!, working DOS games.
( God damn Microsoft MotherF#@*er's !!!! )

I would like once again to extend my deepest thanks to all you guys who put in the effort to help me.

I really could not have asked for better service ( You guys should open your own Tech Support centre and Charge 500 bucks an Hour, It'll be worth every penny ).

If ever I pick up a problem again, you'll be the first to know.

Cheers,
Clint.

Clinton wrote:

I applied XP service Pack 1 and BAM!!, working DOS games.
(Microsoft MotherF#@*er's !!!! )

Well, they _did_ provide the service pack that fixed the problem. Heh.

Just remember, the great thing about the PC is that there are so many standards. The worst thing about the PC is that there are so many standards.

I had a video card and a modem that _refused_ to work with each other (lockups, crashes,etc...). Tried them together on another motherboard, they're just fine together. *shrug*

Yeah, I know.

Everyone hates their licensing methods, and stuff, but hey, not many can live without windows.

I think they've shot themselves in the foot with this new licensing method. Linux gonna get ahead because of it believe me.

I battled my ass off the first time I had to activate my XP.

Ah well, At least they still user friendly.

Later.
Clint

Clinton wrote:

I think they've shot themselves in the foot with this new licensing method. Linux gonna get ahead because of it believe me.

Yes, the presumption of guilt is very consumer-hostile.