Sounds like electrical "thinking noise" interference. Onboard audio, right?

Yes, that's a neat way to call it, and yes I'm using onboard audio.
Is there anything I could fix software-wise?

marooned_on_mars wrote:

Yes, that's a neat way to call it, and yes I'm using onboard audio.
Is there anything I could fix software-wise?

By default, DOSBox simulates a SB-Pro/SB-16 just fine, provided you've set the IRQ and DMA correctly.

Try BASSMIDI.drv. I can use it to simulate a Roland GS synth, and SB-16. No screeches.

MUNT, if you want to use to simulate an MT-32/CM-32L for synth music.

*EDIT*

BTW, I love your avatar of Mitzy giving Shin the business! Shame Funimation lost the rights, after the Japanese rights holders FLIPPED, when they realized they were re-versioning it as rated R. I've got every episode saved on my media drive . 😜

Thanks for the answer, but I think you misunderstood the question/problem 😀
I compiled both MUNT and MUNT-less versions of DosBox by the way.

marooned_on_mars wrote:

Thanks for the answer, but I think you misunderstood the question/problem 😀
I compiled both MUNT and MUNT-less versions of DosBox by the way.

Ah, ok. I;m using the Dosbox 074, and the standalone munt driver. Still, no screeching here. There's gotta be a misconfiguration in the sound somewhere.

Does it do it in every game? Have you tried selecting other sounds cards, besides SB-16? Could the game you're playing have corrupted sound files, or need patches like certain titles do with ScummVM?

There's gotta be some commonality we can narrow this down to.

It happens when I'm not in any game as well (just in the command prompt), also:

marooned_on_mars wrote:

• Disabled all sound sources

😀

marooned_on_mars wrote:

It happens when I'm not in any game as well (just in the command prompt), also:

marooned_on_mars wrote:

• Disabled all sound sources

😀

Gotta admit, I'm stumped on this one. The noise doesn't happen any other time, does it? Like a CMD prompt, VTY terminal, anything?

*EDIT*

And you uninstalled Dosbox, wiped out all the folders/reg keys, re-installed it, and it still screeches at the bare prompt? What's your Dosbox.conf look like?

*EDIT 2*

I should've been a Scooby Doo character. I love a good mystery.

ElectricMonk wrote:

Gotta admit, I'm stumped on this one. The noise doesn't happen any other time, does it? Like a CMD prompt, VTY terminal, anything?

Not sure what a VTY terminal is, but no, this screeching occurs only while DosBox is running, doesn't matter which version either.
I suspect this screeching might come from either the CPU or integrated GPU.

ElectricMonk wrote:

And you uninstalled Dosbox, wiped out all the folders/reg keys, re-installed it, and it still screeches at the bare prompt? What's your Dosbox.conf look like?

I was using a "portable" version of DosBox on Windows. I doubt this would fix anything though 😀

ElectricMonk wrote:

I should've been a Scooby Doo character. I love a good mystery.

Wouldn't object to that 😜

marooned_on_mars wrote:

Not sure what a VTY terminal is, but no, this screeching occurs only while DosBox is running, doesn't matter which version either.
I suspect this screeching might come from either the CPU or integrated GPU.

A VTY is a virtual terminal, like Putty or SecureCRT. It's used to "remote in" to devices and get a CLI, to access a device (server, router, switch, vpn gateway, etc...). I don't see why the CPU or iGPU would cause the screeching. It would do it ALL the time, if that were the case, I'd imagine.

marooned_on_mars wrote:

I was using a "portable" version of DosBox on Windows. I doubt this would fix anything though 😀

I've never tried the "portable version" (no need to, even on my craptop), but trying the regular stable release is worth a shot. And please post the dosbox.conf file. Maybe there's a clue in there.

Have you tried a very old version of DOSBox, like 0.60 or something? Perhaps if the sound is missing from the oldest version of DOSBox you can find, you can slowly work your way up to the current version and see if it might be associated with the introduction of a particular feature.

The "talking parrot" fix springs to mind, but that's probably not quite related.

Also, I don't suppose you notice the sound whenever you just display a large black window on your monitor, do you?

Here you go:
This is basically the "standard" config file for me: http://pastebin.com/JUzLUhT3

ElectricMonk wrote:

A VTY is a virtual terminal, like Putty or SecureCRT. It's used to "remote in" to devices and get a CLI, to access a device (server, router, switch, vpn gateway, etc...).

I would advice you to switch to SSH, much more secure 😜

ElectricMonk wrote:

I don't see why the CPU or iGPU would cause the screeching. It would do it ALL the time, if that were the case, I'd imagine.

Not really, it probably depends on how the compiled program is executed by the *PU.

ElectricMonk wrote:

I've never tried the "portable version" (no need to, even on my craptop), but trying the regular stable release is worth a shot. And please post the dosbox.conf file. Maybe there's a clue in there.

It *is* the regular stable version, just that instead of using an installer, I just extracted it's contents out 😜
Still wouldn't make a difference as it didn't change anything when I used the official Debian build of DosBox.

Jorpho wrote:

Have you tried a very old version of DOSBox, like 0.60 or something? Perhaps if the sound is missing from the oldest version of DOSBox you can find, you can slowly work your way up to the current version and see if it might be associated with the introduction of a particular feature.

Will try that on Windows, I doubt I'll be able to find deb packages of that version, or be able to compile the source code (considering how much gcc has changed since then).

Jorpho wrote:

The "talking parrot" fix springs to mind, but that's probably not quite related.

I don't know how that is related indeed, all I remember of it was a creepy demo with an EGA-drawn parrot that keeps talking 🤣

Jorpho wrote:

Also, I don't suppose you notice the sound whenever you just display a large black window on your monitor, do you?

Er, no?

marooned_on_mars wrote:

Here you go: This is basically the "standard" config file for me: http://pastebin.com/JUzLUhT3 […]
Show full quote

Here you go:
This is basically the "standard" config file for me: http://pastebin.com/JUzLUhT3

ElectricMonk wrote:

A VTY is a virtual terminal, like Putty or SecureCRT. It's used to "remote in" to devices and get a CLI, to access a device (server, router, switch, vpn gateway, etc...).

I would advice you to switch to SSH, much more secure 😜

Um, Putty IS an SSH client, as is SecureCRT, but they still access VTY lines, and are called Terminal Emulators. SCRT is like the leather LaZboy of terminal emulators. It's paid software, but it's worth every cent. Once you use it, you'll never want to go back.

marooned_on_mars wrote:

Here you go:
This is basically the "standard" config file for me: http://pastebin.com/JUzLUhT3

The only difference in my conf from yours is:

mapperfile=mapper-0.74.map

cycles=auto
cycleup=10
cycledown=20

blocksize=1024

mpu401=intelligent
mididevice=default
midiconfig=0

(there are NO MT-32 entries in my conf. Probably since I'm using the standalone Munt driver

oplemu=old (for SB emu)

gusrate=44100

Otherwise, everything else in your conf looks like mine.

ElectricMonk wrote:

And you uninstalled Dosbox, wiped out all the folders/reg keys, re-installed it, and it still screeches at the bare prompt? What's your Dosbox.conf look like?

marooned_on_mars wrote:

I was using a "portable" version of DosBox on Windows.

Unlike some of the frontends like D-Fend Reloaded, DOSBox does not use Registry entries. Even the DOSBox installer does not. The only trace of DOSBox that you will find in the Registry will be from Windows itself, like in the MRU cache. Outside of the Start Menu DOSBox folder from the installer and the DOSBox folder itself, the only thing that it will write files to is in the user's DOSBox %LocalAppData% folder and the user's VirtualStore if DOSBox is installed in the %ProgramFiles% directory.

Given this, the PortableApp build of DOSBox has a little advantage and is even a bit silly.

marooned_on_mars wrote:

Jorpho wrote:

The "talking parrot" fix springs to mind, but that's probably not quite related.

I don't know how that is related indeed, all I remember of it was a creepy demo with an EGA-drawn parrot that keeps talking 🤣

I mean, at the time I think there might have been a change committed to the DOSBox source that might conceivably have resulted in DOSBox producing a constant hissing noise. But I'm not sure the change mentioned in that thread was ever actually committed, or even if it would have resulted in any change in the DOSBox audio output.

collector wrote:

Unlike some of the frontends like D-Fend Reloaded, DOSBox does not use Registry entries. Even the DOSBox installer does not. The […]
Show full quote

ElectricMonk wrote:

And you uninstalled Dosbox, wiped out all the folders/reg keys, re-installed it, and it still screeches at the bare prompt? What's your Dosbox.conf look like?

marooned_on_mars wrote:

I was using a "portable" version of DosBox on Windows.

Unlike some of the frontends like D-Fend Reloaded, DOSBox does not use Registry entries. Even the DOSBox installer does not. The only trace of DOSBox that you will find in the Registry will be from Windows itself, like in the MRU cache. Outside of the Start Menu DOSBox folder from the installer and the DOSBox folder itself, the only thing that it will write files to is in the user's DOSBox %LocalAppData% folder and the user's VirtualStore if DOSBox is installed in the %ProgramFiles% directory.

Given this, the PortableApp build of DOSBox has a little advantage and is even a bit silly.

Oh, ok! Good to know! I'm still relatively new to DosBox, so I was unaware. Thanks for the heads up! 😁

how about nosound=true ?

and possibly other SDL applications like scummvm

That was mentioned already.

marooned_on_mars wrote:

At first I thought it might be an issue with SDL and my rig, but that's not the case, as I've tried other SDL apps (like ScummVM) and this doesn't happen.

Regardless whether fullscreen or windowed mode? My old flat screen is making high pitched noises through its speakers when the screen is really bright. But not nearly as loud as you make it sound. Turning down brightness helped in these cases.