VOGONS


First post, by bee

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Has anybody heard of the utility called Gosierra? It's downloadable from this site:

Gosierra download page

Supposedly it was written to patch Sierra Soundblaster drivers (audblast.drv) that do not work without disabling CPU cache. I tried patching my Conquests of the Longbow driver, which usually gives the "unable to find audio hardware" error. The utility says that the driver was patched successfully, but I still get the same error in the game when using it. Has anybody had any success with this utility?

Reply 3 of 11, by bee

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DosFreak wrote:

Could be wrong here but I thought the AUDBLAST.DRV that sierra released does the same thing?

The version that Sierra hosts on their site (dated 7-16-1993) works with some games for me (SQ5, Freddy Pharkas, QFG3), but causes digital sounds to be played infinitely on others (QFG1 VGA, PQ1 VGA, Castle of Dr. Brain, Conquests of the Longbow). I was hoping to be able to use the driver that was released with each game, minus the bug that causes sound to not initialize on machines that are too quick. I haven't had much luck in slowing down my 1.53 Ghz machine.

Reply 4 of 11, by Snover

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bee, that certainly seems feesible, if Vlad or Harekiet want to take to the files with a HEX editor, find the affected code, and write a quick program to locate and fix it. (That said, ANYONE with assembly/HEX editing/C++ knowledge could do it. They're just the most immediately available. 😀)

Yes, it’s my fault.

Reply 5 of 11, by Stiletto

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Snover wrote:

bee, that certainly seems feesible, if Vlad or Harekiet want to take to the files with a HEX editor, find the affected code, and write a quick program to locate and fix it.

I highly recommend Vlad looks at the patches available at the site DosFreak mentioned. Lots of good information there.

I rather liked the idea of the "Magical VM Patcher" for OS/2, which is part of the VCOMPAT patch:
"Magical VM Patcher, will fix the following problems on-the-fly on any application:
- Turbo Pascal CRT Unit run-time error 200 bug (Realmode and DPMI)
- M$ C Library "Division by Zero" bug
- Non-compliant DPMI code (aka infamous CLI bug)"

Perhaps there could be a version of this for Windows? As a component of VDMSound or a spin-off utility? 😀

That said, Ecomstation is pretty freaking cool. Next-generation OS/2. 😀
http://www.ecomstation.com

"I see a little silhouette-o of a man, Scaramouche, Scaramouche, will you
do the Fandango!" - Queen

Stiletto

Reply 6 of 11, by DosFreak

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Yeah, I was looking at the idpatcher (another magical program 🙄 ) it's just CLI2NOP except the executable names for DOOM/Heretic/Hexen/Strife are hardcoded in. I renamed Duke3d to doom.exe ran the IDpatcher and experienced the same results running CLI2NOP on the duke3d executable. heh. Dunno why he hardcoded the names in, probly to make it easier or something.

The VDMS .SYS patches do not work in XP unfortunately was hoping they would....mabye they don't because OS/2 support is gone in XP? Gonna try in 2K tonight.

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Reply 7 of 11, by Stiletto

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DosFreak wrote:

Yeah, I was looking at the idpatcher (another magical program 🙄 ) it's just CLI2NOP except the executable names for DOOM/Heretic/Hexen/Strife are hardcoded in. I renamed Duke3d to doom.exe ran the IDpatcher and experienced the same results running CLI2NOP on the duke3d executable. heh. Dunno why he hardcoded the names in, probly to make it easier or something.

Yeah, he no longer supplied id-patcher on his site anymore now that VCOMPAT has been released.
http://216.239.51.100/search?q=cache:lWxDS_y- … &hl=en&ie=UTF-8

Nor his Comanche 3 patch... Nor his Raptor v1.1 patch... Nor his Sam'n'Max fix... Nor his Syndicate Wars fix... but you might be able to find them elsewhere. But I assume it's all part of VCOMPAT now. *shrug*

The VDMS .SYS patches do not work in XP unfortunately was hoping they would....mabye they don't because OS/2 support is gone in XP? Gonna try in 2K tonight.



Yeah, the OS/2 subsystem was removed in Windows XP, as well as the POSIX subsystem, NEC PC98 support and SGI 320 and SGI 540 support - and there doesn't seem to be any way to add them again, short of downgrading to Windows 2000. 🙁
See here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp … ments5_1dpg.asp

I don't know why a OS/2 .SYS file to amend the OS/2 Virtual DOS Machine would work in Windows 2000 either - but sure, give it a shot.

Vlad, this "Martin Kiewitz" guy is a fantastic ASM programmer, apparently, with a heavy interest in hacking DOS games to run in other operating systems (OS/2 Warp and eComStation). He however seems violently and virulently anti-Microsoft, so I'm not sure how cooperative he would be, but you may want to talk with the guy. Indeed, I highly recommend it. You should find it useful, I would imagine. (Note: IANA0E - I Am Not An OS/2 Expert.)

"I see a little silhouette-o of a man, Scaramouche, Scaramouche, will you
do the Fandango!" - Queen

Stiletto

Reply 8 of 11, by Snover

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I wouldn't say that going to Windows 2000 from XP would be a "downgrade"... especially if said program fixes any CLI crashing problems. *shrug* Just my $0.02.

Yes, it’s my fault.

Reply 9 of 11, by vladr

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I took a quick look inside vcompat.sys and it appears that OS/2's MVDM offers quite a bit more flexibility (and "hookability") than NTVDM does. So, from that point of view, it's very unlikely that a vcompat Winblows port is feasible. If someone has OS/2 and can zip up and send me MVDM.* then maybe I can take a deeper look just to make sure, but it looks pretty hopeless.

V.

Reply 10 of 11, by Snover

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How about an MVDM for Windows? 😉

Yes, it’s my fault.

Reply 11 of 11, by vladr

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Snover wrote:

How about an MVDM for Windows? 😉

Keep dreaming, keep dreaming... 😜

V.