VOGONS


First post, by zbiggy

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Hi!

VDMSound: 2.1.0 do not have smart<->UART midi mode switch in options. This causes games which need UART to run without music. The example of such is "Touche: Adventures of The Fifth Musketeer" http://www.the-underdogs.org/game.php?id=1175 If you run this game in DosBox 0.63 it wil also run without music. But after adding intelligent=false to dosbox.conf's [midi] section the music will be playing.

If someone could add smart->UART switch to VDMSound, games that need UART would not be silent in VDMSound. DosBox is good but it emulates too much. Touche e.g. works fine in windowsXP but VDMSound provides only SB emulation because UART midi music is not supported by VDMS.

greetings,
Zbigniew

Reply 2 of 21, by zbiggy

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The first message was written for users of VDMS. I could not believe that VDMS lacks of this very valuable switch. I thought that some of users will help me finding it. Now when read all the docs, forums, etc. I can say that this switch does not exist and should be added by developers. That is why a new _shorter_ version of message appeared on developers forum.

First I thought that there is no support for UART in VDMS. But now when browsing CVS sourcecode of MPU401CtlFSM.cpp file see that UART IS supported.

The problem is that the switch UART<->Smart midi mode is automatic. This is good if the game correctly initialize MPU-401. The touche game unfortunatly does not. That is why an option for users should be add, to manually select permanently: Smart or UART to fix midi music in games such as touche.

Reply 3 of 21, by DosFreak

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Email Vlad: ntvdm(AT)hotmail.com

He's said that he has discontinued development but who knows if you bug him a bit he might add it in.

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Reply 4 of 21, by zbiggy

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I sent him a mail in December. Nothing. What a pity this project is dead now. Most of my dos games works well with WindowsXP. The only thing is missing is music and sound. VDMSound works great for me, DosBox is sloooow however have more sound cards like GUS, MT-32. It would be great if I could run DosBox with sound card emulation only. DosBox could be modular as VDMSound is. The user could enable these emulations which needs, not everything.

Reply 5 of 21, by DosFreak

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Ummm, if you go through dosbox.conf you can enable/disable anything you want.

As for speed in DosBox have you tried changing cycles, switchting to dynamic core, etc.etc?

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Reply 6 of 21, by Kaminari

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DOSBox runs pretty much everything on a P3@667 with 4000 cycles (except the MT-32 softsynth) if you don't care for any extra graphic feature. I don't dare to imagine which CPU you're trying to run it on if you find it that slow...

Reply 7 of 21, by zbiggy

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In DosBox I can't disable CPU emulation, Graphics Card emulation - they are the most CPU resources eating modules. In DoSBox I can disable only sound cards, joystick and network/modem which uses very small CPU resources. I tweaked cycles but still have slowdowns on my AthlonXP 2500+.

Reply 9 of 21, by mirekluza

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zbiggy wrote:

I like good quality so enable every option in DosBox to achieve it. This probably hog CPU.

Especially scalers are *BAD* for speed (and there is one used in default configuration - I think normal2x).

Mirek

Reply 10 of 21, by DosFreak

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Well unfortunately as far as sound quality and emulation are concerned your SOL if you don't use DosBox, only other option is VDMSOUND as you stated above.....or run it in MS-DOS.

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Reply 11 of 21, by robertmo

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1. VDMSound doesn't emulate MPU-401 midi in smart "intelligent" mode
2. My version of Touche works with GM or LACP-I music with VDMSound
3. All UART games will always work on MPU-401 midi in smart "intelligent" (it doesn't in DOSBox cause i think the emulation somehow break uart games)
4. Other thing is that I cannot force this game to work with MIDI music with my real hardware (386 with LAPC, scc-1, SBAWE->mt32; Athlon 2400+ with LAPC, viaudio->mt32) 😜 Anyone knows why? 😉

Reply 12 of 21, by zbiggy

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I use Yamaha XG as a midi device. If I run touche in VDMS there will be no sound. If select other midi device like nforce kernel synth or software synth I will get music. To have music in touche with VDMS and Yamaha XG I have to also enable Adlib emulation in VDMS !!! This is very strange and unusual trick but it works. Do not know why.

Reply 13 of 21, by zbiggy

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1. VDMS have support for both intelligent (smart) and UART mode. It has autodetection so it sets itself on the fly when DOS game starts. I saw it when browsing VDMS sources. Clever thing.

2. Now I also have Touche working with VDMS

3. Yep. But do not know why disabling intelligent mode in DosBox helped me.

4. I had for a long time SB32PnP. With this card you have to use aweutil.com
First you have to wake up EMU8000 onboard processor typing in DOS:
aweutil /s
Next you can choose which emulation should be enabled:
aweutil /em:gm - general midi emulation or
aweutil /em:gs - Roland general standard emulation (needs min. 512kb RAM on SB32 card) or,
aweutil /em:mt32 - Roland MT-32 emulation (needs min. 512kb RAM on SB32 card, no samples uploading so no 100% MT-32 compatible)
If you choose any of these emulations (by /em: switch) aweutil will stay resident eating up 40kb of conventional RAM. So load it to upper memory by using e.g.:
LH aweutil /em:gm /s
Remember that many games detect awe32 by looking for aweutil text in autoexec.bat. So it is good placing this command in autoexec.bat

The rest of these cards probably also have some initialization tools which wake ups music hardware. Every midi hardware requires init tool which resets it before use. External modules have reset button, internal modules or midi cards have init tools.

You say you have LAPC. Do you have LAPC ROM memory in a file. I am looking for LAPC ROM file.

Reply 14 of 21, by robertmo

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Thanks for such a detailed answare. I actually know how to configure sbawe and other cards i have. I was rather asking if anyone is able to force this game to work with midi music without dosbox/vdmsound in any way (including old computers).

I just recalled another game that i wasn't able to run with music with real hardware: "Super Fighter". This game also needs intelligent=false in DOSBox to hear midi music. I wonder what's so special about these two games.

No, I don't have LAPC-I rom in a file 🙁 But there is still no emulator so there is no use of it 😉

Reply 15 of 21, by Qbix

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you tried the cvs of dosbox ? if it still doesn't work with intelligent=true then it might be a bug and you should contact srecko or me.

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Reply 16 of 21, by robertmo

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🤣 - even funnier - i have already "solved" this problem some time ago:
http://www.queststudios.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=344

both games work with mt-32/lapc-i if you run prehistorik1 before (but don't set prehistorik1 to use mt-32) ----- this helps with real hardware and also in dosbox when it is set to intelligent=true

the only question is WHY? 😉

Reply 17 of 21, by robertmo

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prehistorik does this when the game starts:
MISC:MPU-401:Reset FF
MISC:MPU-401:Set UART mode 3F
(and when you choose mt-32 in prehistorik it also does
MISC:MPU-401:Reset FF
when quiting)

Reply 18 of 21, by Kaminari

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zbiggy wrote:

VDMS have support for both intelligent (smart) and UART mode. It has autodetection so it sets itself on the fly when DOS game starts. I saw it when browsing VDMS sources. Clever thing.

Strange. No Legend game is able to produce music on my CM-500, and the games definitely require intelligent mode.

Reply 19 of 21, by Qbix

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uhm vdmsound it's intelligent mode isn't that complete 😀.

as legend game are kinda tricky when it comes to irqs.
you can only play them in dosbox I think.

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