Re: Fasttracker 2.12 for MS-DOS

Posted on 2023-01-09, 12:35

by

by 8bitbubsy

in Release Announcements

in Release Announcements

Thanks for the update. Do you happen to know what graphics mode FT2 exactly sets (dot clock etc)? I've noticed that display timing is being used by FT2 when using a GUS. Modern display options that force 60Hz are causing gaps in the patterns. First FT2 enters mode 13h (320x200 at 70Hz 256 colors - …

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Need help from someone with an ASUS VL/I-486SV2GX4

Posted on 2022-12-05, 17:59

by

by 8bitbubsy

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

One trace was burnt on my ASUS VL/I-486SV2GX4 motherboard, and I think I was able to find out what it was connected to, but I'm not 100% sure. If you click on the attachment, you can see a highlighted via (in red), and some highlighted CPU pins. Where does the red via go? In my case, it *seems* like …

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Re: Fasttracker 2.12 for MS-DOS

Posted on 2022-11-28, 15:27

by

by 8bitbubsy

in Release Announcements

in Release Announcements

Released v2.12 just now with a quick crash-fix (f.ex. "ambrozia.xm" when it's about to loop from song end to song start). Several changes were done to v2.11 after its first release date, so bumping up the version number will make more people realize it's time to update. https://16-bits.org/etc/FT212 …

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16-bit DMA channel issue on CT2800 (Vibra 16S) + 386

Posted on 2022-11-21, 17:18

by

by 8bitbubsy

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

I'm using a Sound Blaster CT2800 on a 386DX-25 system. However, if I use a 16-bit DMA channel for high DMA, I get random garbage output in 16-bit mode. If I set the high DMA to DMA channel 1 (8-bit), it works fine. This means that the DMA controller has to do two bytes per sample, which is slow, and …

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Re: Best DOS/Win9x software for stress testing a 486

Posted on 2022-09-12, 10:09

by

by 8bitbubsy

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Been running WinQuake (v1.09) for over half an hour at 640x480 fullscreen, without issues. Maybe the issues I've had are not related to unstable hardware. I did play Curse of Monkey Island yesterday (just as a test to see if it would run on a DX4-100), and it froze after like 15 minutes of playing, …

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Best DOS/Win9x software for stress testing a 486

Posted on 2022-09-11, 20:46

by

by 8bitbubsy

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I think my 486DX4-100 may be slightly unstable because of my BIOS tweaks, but the crash happens so rarely that I don't know for sure if it's the RAM/cache timings or a regular software crash. Are there any good tools out there that puts a big load on the CPU, caches and RAM at the same time, for …

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Re: PT4DOS - ProTracker for MS-DOS (very early alpha test)

Posted on 2022-08-31, 19:49

by

by 8bitbubsy

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Bump (again), new test version. * PT4DOS now runs at 320x240 60Hz (UI redesigned, looks more like original ProTracker) * Fixed weird behavior/crashes on some systems (was trashing some memory by accident) * Fixed potential lock-up on exit when using certain non-Creative Sound Blaster compatibles ( …

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Re: PT4DOS - ProTracker for MS-DOS (very early alpha test)

Posted on 2022-08-09, 18:05

by

by 8bitbubsy

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Bump. Binary + code updated (in first post). Small optimization for pattern drawing, and the replayer has been re-ported in i386 asm instead of C, for even less overhead. The speed difference is very small, but it's there. 😀

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Re: USB ISA cards?

Posted on 2022-07-30, 10:48

by

by 8bitbubsy

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

FreddyV wrote on 2022-07-17, 09:11: The ALI express board ROM Does not work, there A18 and A19 @ lines are not connected. This board is bugged... Wouldn't that still work, though limiting you to a 128kB ROM (or so)?

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Re: PT4DOS - ProTracker for MS-DOS (very early alpha test)

Posted on 2022-07-18, 20:56

by

by 8bitbubsy

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

That's a possibility, but I don't like the feeling of having to not touch too much code because I can't test the drivers. All in all, I think Sound Blaster (and compatibles) is the most important sound card to support for now.

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Re: PT4DOS - ProTracker for MS-DOS (very early alpha test)

Posted on 2022-07-18, 12:50

by

by 8bitbubsy

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Rawit wrote on 2022-07-18, 12:48: [...] Will there be support for other codecs like WSS, ESS or PAS16? I don't own any of these cards, so I can't write a driver for them as it needs extensive testing.

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Re: USB ISA cards?

Posted on 2022-07-15, 07:42

by

by 8bitbubsy

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Is it possible to hack the non-LoTech board to enable 16-bit I/O? Or would that require a 16-bit ISA connector?

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Re: USB ISA cards?

Posted on 2022-07-14, 18:57

by

by 8bitbubsy

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Jinxter wrote on 2022-07-14, 18:33: 8bitbubsy wrote on 2022-07-14, 11:26: So, does it make sense to use the new 286 driver on a 486DX4-100? Will it work and give faster speeds? YES ! EPIC ! Will give it a try one day.

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Re: USB ISA cards?

Posted on 2022-07-14, 11:26

by

by 8bitbubsy

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

So, does it make sense to use the new 286 driver on a 486DX4-100? Will it work and give faster speeds?

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Re: PT4DOS - ProTracker for MS-DOS (very early alpha test)

Posted on 2022-07-14, 08:35

by

by 8bitbubsy

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Sample swap works like this: When the current playing sample reaches its end (either loop-end or the end of the non-looping sample), it changes to the new sample. So the swap should be delayed to the end of the current sample cycle. In other words, this has to be done on a mixer level, and not in …

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Re: PT4DOS - ProTracker for MS-DOS (very early alpha test)

Posted on 2022-07-13, 20:26

by

by 8bitbubsy

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Hi, Interresting, i never heard about the live sample swap. Do you have files using it ? There are différent version of tracker on the amiga, with différence between them. Then I am not convinced there is only one way to play music. Sometimes, musician use tracker bugs to do a different effect. …

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Re: PT4DOS - ProTracker for MS-DOS (very early alpha test)

Posted on 2022-07-12, 21:00

by

by 8bitbubsy

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Sweet! Going to give this a spin soon. How "Amiga" like does it sound? I guess it's wrong of me to say that it sounds like Amiga. It does nearest-neighbor resampling with no interpolation, so there's a ton of aliasing in the sound. To many people, this is considered awful and lo-fi like, but at the …

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PT4DOS - ProTracker for MS-DOS (very early alpha test)

Posted on 2022-06-17, 21:31

by

by 8bitbubsy

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

I'm trying to port ProTracker to MS-DOS (386+, Sound Blaster 2.0/ Pro / 16). This is just a proof of concept for now, so the only thing that works is to load a module through Disk Op, then press Play or Stop (or change the BPM). It won't be "just another .MOD player" though, as the goal here is …

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Re: Mod Master XT 1.0 Released : Play .MOD, .XM and .VGM on a 8088 4MHz

Posted on 2022-06-17, 20:57

by

by 8bitbubsy

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

4 channel mixing @ 30kHz on an 8086 8MHz without stuttering is really amazing. I'm also a bit amazed at how fast the 150kB module loads to RAM after you select it in the file browser. Feel like sharing the source code?

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Re: 8-bit VRAM write on a 16-bit ISA graphics card, fast or slow?

Posted on 2022-03-14, 10:11

by

by 8bitbubsy

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Ok. Yes, I know it's half of the potential bandwidth, but sometimes I want to write a byte for alignment reasons (and when writing a font glyph to a bitplane, for example). EDIT: The reason I can't benchmark this is because I don't have a 16-bit ISA video card, I only have 32-bit VLB. Just in case …

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