Have a look at HMISET.CFG. Its a text file. Perhaps the settings are getting messed up. When you run Glidos, can you see VDMSound start? Could you have TR installed in two different places?

Compatibility modes are for Windows games only, not DOS games. I don't know why this would fix the problem, but try using SAPUCDEX instead of MSCDEXNT.

Well.....

Q1..

1) No, there are not two versions of TR1 installed.

2) HMISET.CFG looks fine bu there is no MIDI device defined in it,

3) I know VDM starts via Task Manager but when it fails with GlIDOS it eats CPU.

4) Tried DEBUG mode with VDMSound, it doesn't always produce a LOG file!!!! (0 setting). The one it produced showed a VDM shutdown.

Q2...

Where is SAPUCDEX and what is it? Not fond of of "non-authenticated" drivers)?.

Next puzzle piece?

I like it with GLIDOS and garbled sounds by masking out start of DOSDRV on GLIDOS launcher startup of TR1, but would like the whole banana.

So little time, so many monsters....

If you have the background sounds, forget SAPUCDEX.

When you start TR under Glidos, for a few seconds you get a DOS box appear; does that show VDMSound starting?

If you start a DOS box yourself and type DOSDRV, does VDMSound start?

Originally posted by James Nix 1) A clean install of TR1 works in WIN 95 compartibility mode. It's not pretty and it's hard to understand (even the wolves sound sick when they attack) but it does not crash/hang, FMV works and ther are ambient sounds/music and game action sounds (gunfire, footsteps, Lara grunting...). The sound card was set to SB/220/1/5.

That's audio from XP's "native" SoundBlaster-emulation, it's rather poor in performance and it's unreliable.

2) Installed VDMSound v 2.0.4 with the SB card selected and used the 220/1/7. Nice!!! improvement in all sound, FMV, ambient music and the wolves sound mean as Lara whips out her pistols and shoots them (bang, bang!)

If you select "SoundBlaster 16", you'll get 16-bit stereo audio (a big step up in quality).

The only gotcha for me is ... I lost the game action sounds (gunfire, wolves, footsteps, grunts) and the FMVs quit working ( I ESCape past them). The ambient sound/cd music is fine but no bang-bang!

Go to the directory where you installed VDMSound and open up the file VDMS.INI using Notepad or a similar text-editor.

Near the middle of the file should be an entry for [SB Controller.config] with the following data underneath:

version = 4.15 ; 1.05 for SB1.x, 2.01 for SB2, 3.02 for SBPro, 4.05 for SB16 port = 0x220 ; usually 0x220 (can also […]
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version = 4.15 ; 1.05 for SB1.x, 2.01 for SB2, 3.02 for SBPro, 4.05 for SB16
port = 0x220 ; usually 0x220 (can also be 210, 230, 240, 250, 260 or 280)
IRQ = 7 ; usually 5 or 7
DMA8 = 1 ; usually 1
DMA16 = 5 ; usually 5

Do those settings match your TombRaider audio configuration?

Originally posted by James Nix 2) HMISET.CFG looks fine bu there is no MIDI device defined in it,

The game doesn't use MIDI so that's fine.

3) I know VDM starts via Task Manager but when it fails with GlIDOS it eats CPU.

A known problem. While troubleshooting, go ahead and have Task Manager window up and running so if the NTVDM goes wild with the CPU, it's much easier to shut down.

Where is SAPUCDEX and what is it? Not fond of of "non-authenticated" drivers)?.

Here
A replacement for NTVDM's MSCDEX, which imitates DOS's CD-ROM tool. Some titles simply won't work (or work properly) with NT's MSCDEX, so having SAPUCDEX is a nice thing.

I worked through the suggestions and tried various settings. The bottom line is that the GLIDOS interface START button does not start VDMSound's DOSDRV when selected. Why I do not know. As I described VDMSound + Tomb1 works fine. So does a start of GLIDOS's Glide Server then a manual start of VDMSound and Tomb1 using the GLIDOS.BAT file installed with GLIDOS.

I tried editing the GLIDOS.INI executable entry but it will not start the GLIDOS.BAT file (no surprise there).

The Glide Server START button does start the DOS4GW in protected mode and the VESA support but no VDMSound. It doesn't seem to see the GLIDOS.BAT file. I tried the DOS4GW with the GLIDOS.BAT file but it requires an EXE.

The workaround is simple. From the desktop I start the GLIDOS interface which starts the Glide Server process and then execute the GLIDOS.BAT file via a desktop shortcut. It is the installation file:

DOSDRV
GLDVESA C:\TOMBRAID\TOMB.EXE

Is there something else I missed? It seems the Server START button ignores the batch file altogether.

If not, no problem because I'm as pleased as a tickfree hound on a hot day! I did set the sound card to SoundBlaster 16 and the resolution is at 1280x1024 with excellent results. There is a little latency in the sound and I tried adjusting the DMA and buffer settings in VDMS.INI but the resulting effects were not significant. I'll try some other variations and test the results later.

Like I said Glidos and VDMSound really dress up TOMB1. Both software components are class acts. I thought I would never get to enjoy TOMB1 with th caliber of presentation the two combined produce.

Thanks all,

"I must hurry, for there goes my group.... and I am their leader."

I'm very confused. Glidos is supposed to generate the Glidos.bat file and then run it. The first line of that file should be DOSDRV.

We are talking Windows XP here, yes?

I'm confused too because everything looks fine.

Yes it is Windows XP SP1. I installed and uninstalled several times, TOMB1, VDMSound and GLIDOS. Yes GLIDOS does generate the GLIDOS.BAT file:

DOSDRV
gldvesa.exe Tomb.exe

and the GLIDOS.INI entry:

Selected: Tomb Raider

Name: Tomb Raider
Executable: C:\Tombraid\Tomb.exe
ExeSizes: 873739
CDCheckFile: data\Level10c.phd
DosGraphics: Yes
VESASupport: Yes
ControlJudderFix: 1
Resolution: 1
FullScreen: Yes
ForcedTextureSmoothing: Yes

But I did just notice this in AUTOEXEC.NT used in the MSDOS windows. Check the SET BLASTER command. Should it be I7?

REM The following line enables Sound Blaster 2.0 support on NTVDM.
REM The command for setting the BLASTER environment is as follows:
REM SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 P330
REM where:
REM A specifies the sound blaster's base I/O port
REM I specifies the interrupt request line
REM D specifies the 8-bit DMA channel
REM P specifies the MPU-401 base I/O port
REM T specifies the type of sound blaster card
REM 1 - Sound Blaster 1.5
REM 2 - Sound Blaster Pro I
REM 3 - Sound Blaster 2.0
REM 4 - Sound Blaster Pro II
REM 6 - SOund Blaster 16/AWE 32/32/64
REM
REM The default value is A220 I5 D1 T3 and P330. If any of the switches is
REM left unspecified, the default value will be used. (NOTE, since all the
REM ports are virtualized, the information provided here does not have to
REM match the real hardware setting.) NTVDM supports Sound Blaster 2.0 only.
REM The T switch must be set to 3, if specified.
SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 P330 T3

REM To disable the sound blaster 2.0 support on NTVDM, specify an invalid
REM SB base I/O port address. For example:
REM SET BLASTER=A0

Hmmmm......

Originally posted by James Nix I did set the sound card to SoundBlaster 16 and the resolution is at 1280x1024 with excellent results. There is a little latency in the sound and I tried adjusting the DMA and buffer settings in VDMS.INI but the resulting effects were not significant.

Your audio chipset may not be up to SB16 emulation. Try SoundBlaster Pro. You lose 16Bit audio, but you keep the stereo.

Originally posted by James Nix But I did just notice this in AUTOEXEC.NT used in the MSDOS windows. Check the SET BLASTER command. Should it be I7?

No, that's for XP's built-in emulation. VDMSound disregards that entry when it is run.

!!!! SUCCESS AT LAST !!!!

The catch was that I had recently UPGRADED from Windows ME to Windows XP HE. As a result, the upgrade process "helped" out by inserting this in the bottom of the AUTOEXEC.NT file which is executed by MSDOS programs via their PIF file to set up the program environment:

REM
REM *************************************************
REM ** Lines below this have been migrated from the
REM ** original Windows Millennium Edition settings.
REM *************************************************
REM

SET windir=C:\WINDOWS
SET winbootdir=C:\WINDOWS
SET COMSPEC=C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\COMMAND.COM

SET PROMPT=$p$g
SET TEMP=C:\WINDOWS\TEMP
SET TMP=C:\WINDOWS\TEMP

PATH=C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND;C:\WINDOWS;C:\WINDOWS\system32

Well... the PATH statement above superceded the XP environment PATH statement which included the path to the VDMSound directory and, of course, the DOSDRV.EXE VDM driver. All the legacy statements above are now REMarked out and GLIDOS/VDMSound/TOMB1 work as they should.

For future reference to debug MSDOS/XP environment variable conflicts:

1) Go to C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32.

2) Edit the CONFIG.NT file and unREMark the ECHOCONFIG statement.

3) Edit the AUTOEXEC.NT file:

a) Change the "@echo off" statement to "@echo on".
b) Add a "SET" and a "PAUSE" statement to the bottom
of the file.

4) Execute the MSDOS program. When the DOS window opens the CONFIG.NT and the AUTOEXEC.NT will execute and pause before starting the MSDOS program. You should now be able to scroll up through the output and check for errors/conflicts.

This is not only needed in OS upgrades as programs such as VDMSound also edit these files (AUTOEXEC.NT specifically) and one program may conflict with another.

(Don't forget to change the AUTOEXEC.NT and CONFIG.NT files back!)

I still have a little latency in game action sounds and am tweaking VDMS.INI but otherwise I think the two packages VDMSound and GLIDOS are EXCELLENT. They give a new life to some golden oldies the might have otherwise died. Who cares if EIDOS won't support TR1!

Now if I guess I'll have to come up with $10 to get rid of that annoying GLIDOS whirligig (Nice job on that too!!! The only additional thing you could have done to make it worse is add random voiceovers to it, like "PAY ME!", "SCROOGE HAD NOTHING ON YOU!", etc)

Thanks all for the help!
Good job!

James Nix wrote:

!!!! SUCCESS AT LAST !!!!

Brilliant! I'm sure others will run into this. Nice to know the cause

The only additional thing you could have done to make it worse is add random voiceovers to it, like "PAY ME!", "SCROOGE HAD NOTHING ON YOU!", etc)

Great Idea. I'll start working on it straight away. 😁

YES!! I had the exact same problems and editing the autoexec.nt file fixed it! James Nix is a Genius! Everything runs smoother now. You should add this into the installation instructions for people who upgrade from ME to XP. Hopefully this reply will bump this post up to the first page. now to just get rid of that pesky logo...

guest wrote:

now to just get rid of that pesky logo...

Registering helps a lot.