No, disbaling it in LaunchPad should stop the sound.
Crackling is then due to DMA. Is the sound more or less rec ognizable under the crackling? Try putting the min/max DMA pair to 1 and 3 respectively (instead of 5 and 15 or whatever the default is).
Cheers.
V.

vladr wrote:

No, disbaling it in LaunchPad should stop the sound.

Well, it doesn't 😕

Anyone here that can confirm that the LaunchPad in 2.1.0 beta is able to disable the sound device?

vladr wrote:

Crackling is then due to DMA. Is the sound more or less rec ognizable under the crackling?

Yes, it is not a show-stopper in any way. I have a recording here:
http://www.jabba.dk/files/WC3_and_SB-16.wav.

It just bugs me, that SoundFX is able to reproduce the sound perfectly, and VDMSound is not 😲

vladr wrote:

Try putting the min/max DMA pair to 1 and 3 respectively (instead of 5 and 15 or whatever the default is).
Cheers.
V.

I modified the default VDMS.INI file to read:

1[DMA Transfer Manager.config]
2;minDMAPeriod = 5   ; these regulate the frequency of DMA ...
3;maxDMAPeriod = 15  ; ... activity (polling and updating)
4
5minDMAPeriod = 1
6maxDMAPeriod = 3

and used DOSDRV /I:MODIFIED.VDMS.INI to load the new 1/3 settings before starting the game. It made no difference at all 😢

Vladr, can I ask you to follow up on the crackling issue in the Wing Commander III thread, and keep this to the problem of disabling the actual sound?

Since I had started to modify the VDMS.INI file, I tried to figure out how to disable DSoundDevice and only direct the wave output to a file. But I just can not figure out how to do it. Here is what I think is the relevant part of VDMS.INI:

1;--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2; This module is used to play back the SB Wave data on a Windows DirectSound device
3;--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4
5[SB Wave Player]
6CLSID   = DSoundDevice.WaveOut  ; you can also use 'WaveDevice.WaveOut'
7Path    = DSoundDevice.dll      ; you can also use 'WaveDevice.dll'
8
9;; [SB Wave Player.depends]
10;; waveOut = Wave Writer
11
12[SB Wave Player.config]
13device  = -1    ; -1 = the Wave/DirectSound mapper, 0 = first device, 1 = second, etc.
14buffer  = 75    ; how many milliseconds of audio data to buffer
15
16;--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
17; This module is used to dump Wave data to a raw PCM file
18;--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
19
20;; [Wave Writer]
21;; CLSID   = DiskWriter.WaveOut
22;; Path    = DiskWriter.dll

Which combination of CLSID's do I have to comment in/out? How do I specify the path to the wave file?

I browsed the CVS trying to figure out if there was an undocumented waveOut.FilePath or something, but that just left me confused at a higher level....
--
MiniMax

MiniMax wrote:

vladr wrote:

No, disbaling it in LaunchPad should stop the sound.

Well, it doesn't 😕

Anyone here that can confirm that the LaunchPad in 2.1.0 beta is able to disable the sound device?

At the properties tab for MIDI, AdLib and Sound Blaster you have to option to choose the output method: a sound device and/or a file. You can disable the device and send output only to the file, if you want.

Regards,

Sorry, my post above. I messed up with Firefox, its revenge was swift and my cookies were gone.

Regards,

But did you try it? Did you try this configuration (see attached screen capture)? Did you hear any sound?

This is the INI-file that VLP generated for me:

1[*.debug]
2detail=0
3file=M:\EMS-test\Wing Commander III\VDMS.log
4
5[VDMServicesProvider]
6CLSID=VDDLoader.VDMServices
7
8[VDMServicesProvider.config]
9fixPOPF=0
10
11[DMATransferManager]
12CLSID=DMAController.TransferMgr
13
14[DMATransferManager.debug]
15detail=0
16
17[DMATransferManager.config]
18minDMAPeriod=5
19maxDMAPeriod=15
20
21[DMATransferManager.depends]
22VDMSrv=VDMServicesProvider
23
24[SBController]
25CLSID=EmuSBCompat.SBCompatCtl
26
27[SBController.debug]
28detail=0
29
30[SBController.config]
31version=4.05 (SoundBlaster 16)
32port=0x220
33IRQ=7
34DMA8=1
35DMA16=5
36
37[SBController.depends]
38VDMSrv=VDMServicesProvider
39DMACtl=DMATransferManager
40WaveOut=SBWavePlayer
41
42[SBWavePlayer]
43CLSID=DSoundDevice.WaveOut
44
45[SBWavePlayer.debug]
46detail=0
47
48[SBWavePlayer.config]
49device=-1
50buffer=75
51
52[SBWavePlayer.depends]
53WaveOut=SBWaveWriter
54
55[SBWaveWriter]
56CLSID=DiskWriter.WaveOut
57
58[SBWaveWriter.debug]
59detail=0
60

61[SBWaveWriter.config]
62path=M:\EMS-test\Wing Commander III

I don't know if I have understood the format of the INI-file correctly, but it seems like the SBWaveWriter is a dependent on the main SBController? So if output to a file is selected, then the sound device is automagically also active?

Have you tried to disable *BOTH* the device and the file? I have, and I got sound anyway!
--
MiniMax

I think I got a silent recording now. I had to hand-edit the INI file, so it read

1[SBController.depends]
2VDMSrv=VDMServicesProvider
3DMACtl=DMATransferManager
4;WaveOut=SBWavePlayer
5WaveOut=SBWaveWriter

I ran the game in total silence, and got a nice vdms0001.wav file at ~1 MB in size. And the crackling was still there. So I guess that rules out the actual audio hardware from the equation.
--
MiniMax

For LaunchPad: yeah, that was a silly copy/paste typo thing, SB and FM "device" output would always be enabled no matter what. It's fixed in CVS now, and will be picked up by the next build (whenever that will happen).

V.