When you use IMGMOUNT to mount a disc image, the DOSBox mixer can change its volume (e.g. "mixer cdaudio 50:50"). I don't know if games understand or can work with it directly, but it works fine from the command line. When you use MOUNT with a real CD or a virtual CD such as Daemon Tools, then you will have to use the Windows CD Audio volume.

I don't mount images. I use the real CD because I own my games. Still, the point stands that you should be able to adjust CD volume inside DOSBox like in real DOS. Whether that adjusts something in the main DOSBox mixer or actually adjusts the Windows CD volume is up to the devs.

Many people use disc images made from CDs they OWN for several reasons. Convenience, speed, safeguarding discs from damage, and better compatibility (in some cases) being at the top of my list.

Waste of HD space. I have backups of almost all of my games and I use those copies to play. Point still stands that the emulated MSCDEX driver or something else prevents volume changing.

Waste of HD space.

Portable solution.

Portable? You mean as in, external HDD or something?? Who cares though? The fact is that whether ripping ISOs does anything or not does not fix the real CDROM bug.

You mean as in, external HDD or something??

No as in "portable code".

ripsaw8080 wrote:

Many people use disc images made from CDs they OWN for several reasons. Convenience, speed, safeguarding discs from damage, and better compatibility (in some cases) being at the top of my list.

I second that... Seriously, you should consider using cd-images for those reasons, especially protecting your original discs from damage. Any serious collector nowadays will not, I believe, spin his original classic discs for hours on end, instead of ripping it once for 5 minutes and then keeping it safe in the box.

Additionally, you do get increased speed, and, as is the case of dosbox, better compatibility, including, as ripsaw pointed out, convenience. You need to reconsider using cd-images, they've been around for many years now, and they have not been invented for no reason. It will save you lots of problems and frustration in the long run.

That is not the point. It is a broken piece of functionality, and those of us who own our game legitimately do not use images. If I ripped every DOS game I own, I'd need probably four or five more hard-drives. Not worth it. Images were not created for backup in my experience, either. The earliest times I remember images showing up on bulletin boards and later the net were for warezing, which is illegal. Also, if you buy good hardware, you have nothing to worry about. I have yet to scratch or otherwise damage my CDs in any of my custom-built systems due to avoiding crappy hardware, even though it costs more.

I don't care to discuss images in this thread. This thread is about a bug with the real CDROM drives, not the image-drive. The image-drive works, the real one does not, that is the problem. This is not a bug or debate involving real versus ripped.

those of us who own our game legitimately do not use images.

And what qualifies you to speak for everyone? Using an image of a disc and not owning a license to use what's on the disc are separate issues; it's your personal hangup that equates them.

I don't think DOSBox is "broken", or has a "bug", regarding its inability to control the volume of CD audio in Windows. If anything, you're requesting a new feature; and, as wd has pointed out, there are cross-platform considerations with such a feature. I can understand that it would be nice to automate the volume settings in a batch file or the like (which you can already do using an image); but if you're going to go to the trouble of manually inserting a CD into a drive, is it really such a bother to manually adjust the volume as needed?

In my "dos days" I adjusted the volume with the provided volume slider right on the cd-rom drives that shipped in those ages.

Just use the OS's mixer to change the volume. CD volume control has always been a tough issue to tackle in all kinds of software that isn't specialized for CD access.

It is a broken piece of functionality

No it isn't. SDL does not provide the interface (yet?).

those of us who own our game legitimately do not use images

Sounds dangerously close to the MAFIAA stance to me. You don't work for them do you?

Back in the day I never made images of my disks but I did make copies onto other floppies for backups and I also copied the game files off of the floppies to my HD so I wouldn't have to put up with trying to dig through a box of 100+ floppies.

Nowadays ALL of my floppies and CD's are imaged so the only time I EVER deal with a physical game CD is when I buy a new game which is rarer and rarer.

In fact I'm debating on getting rid of my physical CD's since I'm restructuring my file system for the games to include game updates/MODS/NOCD patches which I cannot do with the physical discs and the discs are taking up too much space......and they are not getting any less scratched over the years.

Put the images on a burnable DVD thats what ive done with mine. Now I have 4 dvd's instead 10's of cd's to switch around

Burning images isn't the bug here. I am personally amazed that this thread has become so derailed and not been locked by wd or another admin. The reported problem/bug was with using a real CD, which many of us do due to installing many games as well as ripping our own CDs and such. Hell, I have a couple gigs of 192k OGGs from my music CDs. I don't want to waste my space with a bunch of images when I can easily plop the correct CD into the drive and simply play. I have a DVD-ROM drive for a reason, and that reason is not to collect dust.

Again, the problem is with not being able to adjust CD volume (not through the headphone jack on the front of the drive with the slider) from within DOSBox or within games. I was told this was an SDL error (seems every bug I find is blamed on SDL) but in reality I have tested multiple applications now that CAN adjust the CD volume using SDL, so I am now assuming that this is a DOSBox bug unless proven otherwise.

Oh, and the last bug I reported is a DOSBox bug as well. I have now tested over a hundred SDL applications on my system and only three or four, including DOSBox, allow the screensaver to kick in while active and while fullscreen. If half or more of the apps were exhibiting the behavior I would assume it is an SDL bug, but over 96% of the apps function properly.

I am kind of annoyed that every bug seems to be blamed on SDL is all. I use SDL applications frequently and never experience these oddities, but it seems to me that every time a bug pops up here, everybody wants to rage against SDL instead of accepting the fact that MAYBE DOSBox has a few minor bugs that need working out.

Sephiroth wrote:

those of us who own our game legitimately do not use images.

Speak for your self. I make images of my legitimate discs all the time. I'd prefer to keep my CDs out of harms way, in addition, there are several games that have problems being played from the CD, such as timing issues (especially games with CD audio tracks) that are fixed by using images. I also like not having to find a CD just because I get a whim to play a certain game. Disk space is not really an issue on a modern machine with cheap HDDs in the terabyte + range. Preservation+convenience+cheap HDD space and the fact that it can fix many problems=many images used by legitimate owners of these games.

I was told this was an SDL error (seems every bug I find is blamed on SDL)

Read again. It is NO SDL bug, it's a missing interface to do it cross-platform.

but in reality I have tested multiple applications now that CAN adjust the CD volume using SDL

They don't use SDL for the volume changing (or cdrom stuff at all) then,
so it's not portable.

Oh, and the last bug I reported is a DOSBox bug as well.

Fix it, put up a patch and be happy. As it only happens on systems you touch it seems.

I am kind of annoyed that every bug seems to be blamed on SDL is all.

See above. Learn to read.

of accepting the fact that MAYBE DOSBox has a few minor bugs that need working out.

Oh there are tons of bugs. Serious bugs even. So fixing those instead of
dealing with hacking around some minor annoyances put up by missing
functionality in library and non-reproducable problems of some people.

Again, that's the defensive attitude that prevents legitimate problems from being fixed. I spent hours yesterday reading over the SDL site, reviewing FAQs and forum posts, and nowhere did anything say something about SDL not controlling CDROM volume levels. If the other SDL apps I tested use something else, such as thw Win32/Win64 API to change audio levels, so be it.

The SDL site also says that SDL disables the screensaver by default, but it doesn't happen on any stock system. My systems are clean systems, which seems to be the big difference. You buy a Dell or a Gateway and it comes with BS software on it that seriously alters the way XP runs. I build my system from parts and install only XP and the drivers for my hardware. Massive difference. One of you stated in the prior thread that a Dell application was preventing it from coming on at all, but by closing that application the screensaver would kick in while windowed. That alone says numerous things about the testing environment being used. Test it on a clean system, not one with a system-tray that spans half the width of your monitor. Funny note is that it works correctly on a family member's Dell XPS Gen2 laptop, which has custom software running in the system tray! Boot the second copy of XP which is a clean install and used solely for gaming, and the same problem occurs where the screensaver kicks in during fullscreen operation. Seems to me that Dell has a nice utility that makes DOSBox work properly, but only works on Dell machines!

Again, that's the defensive attitude that prevents legitimate problems from being fixed

Then it's maybe time for YOU to take an offensive attitude and fix the problems.

I spent hours yesterday reading over the SDL site, reviewing FAQs and forum posts, and nowhere did anything say something about SDL not controlling CDROM volume levels.

So what SDL functions would you use for it? I assume you found it when
spending hours on investigation.

The SDL site also says that SDL disables the screensaver by default, but it doesn't happen on any stock system.

So what's the conclusion? That it's a simple dosbox bug or what?