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Re: SBVGM (DOS) VGM Player

Posted on 2023-08-15, 08:45

OPL2 and OPL3 VGM captures are quite annoying. Some contain a full blob of register settings at the start, so the chip is properly reconfigured before the song plays. With others, this is missing, so they assume the OPL chip to already be in the correct configuration at the start. My player tries to …

Re: Rendering 16-bit color in 32-bit color

Posted on 2023-08-09, 08:25

in Windows
Many wrapper, viz DDrawCompat and dgVoodoo2 apparently force 32-bit rendering on applications. That's what is causing the doubt, how that got implemented? I think it's a simple translation layer: the application requests 16-bit buffers, but the translation layer converts that to 32-bit before …

Re: Rendering 16-bit color in 32-bit color

Posted on 2023-08-08, 17:39

in Windows
I'm not entirely sure what you're asking. But I can tell you this: it's not the driver that asks the application, it's the other way around. The application can enumerate all video modes and formats that are supported by the driver, and then pick the best one. Many games could run in either 16-bit …

Re: "PC-Speaker" driver for MS Windows, but for AdLib

Posted on 2023-08-08, 11:08

6bit logarithmic per operator, but you won't be using several channels or ops to get more since the access is far too slow to make it work well enough to increase resolution. That 6bit log volume control is comparable to something between 4...5 bits linear DAC Yes, I vaguely recall that I once …

Re: VGA games with only 16 colors

Posted on 2023-08-07, 10:15

in DOS
Plus I read that there was a lot of colour variation between individual machines on the original breadbin version. Plus there are two revisions of the palette if I remember correctly, and the colours have different luma values between them, so they blend differently. Things got much more …

Re: VGA games with only 16 colors

Posted on 2023-08-06, 08:56

in DOS
I read somewhere that the VIC-II was originally designed in a way that all 16 colours could be chosen individually by implementing the correct resistor and capacitor values in the circuit. So each colour had its own set of components. But to cut costs, they reduced the number of components in the …

Re: The 24-bit (or RGB888) color format

Posted on 2023-08-03, 05:55

in Milliways
I'd say it is XRGB for the framebuffer, and ARGB for textures, as the alpha channel has little use on the screen. Yes, but in the days when 24-bit and 32-bit first arrived, we didn't have 3D acceleration or textures yet. You could perform blits with alphachannel on select hardware though. But I …

Re: The 24-bit (or RGB888) color format

Posted on 2023-08-02, 18:14

in Milliways
the way I recall it, 24 bit was available several years earlier. main reason for it was 16M colors. better photos on your computer. 24b coz 3x 8 = 24 reason for going to 32 bit memory became cheaper, and transfer speed of 32 bit vs 24 bit was higher due to alignment, as in PCs are either 8, 16, 32, …

Re: Remastering games, is it really worth it?

Posted on 2023-07-27, 06:59

in Milliways
In my experience, remastered games are mainly interesting for very old games, that don't work properly on a modern system. Like games that don't support 16:9 resolutions, or are limited to relatively low resolutions, so you can't play them natively in 4k res and such. I recently completed the …

Re: Why no Dual-OPL3 soundcards?

Posted on 2023-07-17, 14:43

Creative called it the Killer Kard, and that was exactly what it was: AdLib + digitized sound + gameport was exactly the combination gamers wanted. I also believe it was the first card that supported digital playback via DMA.

Re: Why no Dual-OPL3 soundcards?

Posted on 2023-07-17, 13:11

If I take Need For Speed from 1994 as an example: the entire sound track was stored as digital audio on the CD. It supported Sound Blaster, but didn't use FM. If I were to look hard, there's probably earlier games that only used digital audio. I know various ports of Amiga games, such as Pinball …

Re: Why no Dual-OPL3 soundcards?

Posted on 2023-07-17, 12:36

Remember the ISA SID and SAAYM cards? They are available but what is their purpose? The SID card can run a few games and the SAAYM one to my knowledge is only used with VGM player to listen to md/sms sountracks. Nothing interesting came out of them and in the same way nothing interesting will come …

Re: Why no Dual-OPL3 soundcards?

Posted on 2023-07-16, 22:07

As you say, OPL3 is effectively dual OPL2, which means a single OPL3 chip already gives you stereo and 20 channels. I suppose dual OPL3 was considered overkill, especially since hardly any software ever went beyond a single OPL2 at all. Dual OPL2 or pure OPL3 support is very rare. By the way, a …

Re: First MIDI compatible sound card?

Posted on 2023-07-15, 14:32

2- Is there a difference? I open a midi file in WMP 5, WMP 7, Winamp, or Anvil Studio (an editor), ensure the correct output device is selected, and click play - isn't the output from the programs to the sound driver comparable? Under Windows, yes. Windows offers a multimedia API which accepts MIDI …

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