xcomcmdr wrote on 2021-02-22, 19:27:

Here are the tools:
https://github.com/maximilien-noal/OpenRakis/ … master/tools/cd

Just for info, the hacked Adlib gold driver for generic OPL3 soundcards works with the cd version of the game.
Using the tools to unpack and repack DUNE.DAT from the cd version of the game and using the hacked Adlib gold driver from ripsaw8080 ( Re: Idea for Adlib Gold emulation? ) which i attach to the msg renamed to work with the cd version it works as it should 😀

ps. i just needed "api-ms-win-core-winrt-l1-1-0.dll" for DuneExtractor and DuneImpactor to work on my win 7 laptop.

Tested again and it doesnt seem to work 😒 (maybe it works cause the driver on my post is the original dune cd version by mistake) anyway don't have time right now, i'll see to it later.

edit : maybe the driver needs to be packed but can't find a HSQ compression util ( found this but no compiled binary 😒 https://github.com/sonicpp/Dune-game-translations )

Hello,

sorry I could not answer sooner.

You can run the game from the hard drive, with all the files from DUNE.DAT decompressed into the same folder as DNCDPRG.EXE.

You still need to re-pack your driver with HSQ compression. Maybe I could produce a compiled executable of sonicpp's HSQH.C file.

Hi xcomcmdr, thx for the help! would be nice to have a compiled HSQ compression program, the adlib gold driver is from dune floppy version and made by ripsaw8080 to play nice with generic opl3 soundcards, hope it would work with the CD version of the game.

I initially read "HERAD" as "Herald", and immediately I wondered whether this was about someone possibly having composed an Adlib/OPL2 version of the music piece "Herald of the Change" by Hans Zimmer (part of the soundtrack of the recent Dune movie), and perhaps even having managed to patch it into the classic Dune DOS game as additional background music.

It's funny how such a coincidental misinterpretation can lead to such a F█ING AWESOME IDEA.

Now I'm hoping someone will actually do that! ☺️

And why stop there? Perhaps OPL3 and MT-32 versions too!

psy_ wrote on 2022-05-31, 10:44:

Hi xcomcmdr, thx for the help! would be nice to have a compiled HSQ compression program, the adlib gold driver is from dune floppy version and made by ripsaw8080 to play nice with generic opl3 soundcards, hope it would work with the CD version of the game.

Hello,

Here it is attached to this post.

Hello xcomcmdr, many thx for the util! gonna try it , got delayed by moving house problems…

psy_ wrote on 2022-07-10, 14:48:

Hello xcomcmdr, many thx for the util! gonna try it , got delayed by moving house problems…

I tried this already, unpacked the DAT file and replaced the DNAGD.HSQ file for the patched DUNEAGD.HSQ from the floppy version. I packed the file with the HSQ tool first of course. The game ran, but there was no sound output at all. I guess the best way is to get the Adlib Gold driver from the CD version unpack it with the tool to unpack hsq files and sent it to ripsaw8080 to see if he can do his magic. Then repack it with hsq and rebuilt the DAT file with the patched version.

Sorry for the necropost but I've been getting back into more HERAD research, now that I'm starting to get a little more familiar with x86 assembly. I found my older disassembly files from 2017 for MegaRace's HERAD drivers, cleaned them up a bit and uploaded the commented code on Github. DFADP is for Sound Blaster, DFADL is for Adlib cards. There's a couple of missing symbols and labels but with UASM this code can build a bit-perfect copy of the original drivers:

https://github.com/synamaxmusic/herad

In other news, I learned about a rediscovered HERAD track from 1994 for Lost Eden's first demo. Interestingly, the Dune driver was reused so there's no drum map. Apparently, Lost Eden's dev team hadn't completely decided if they wanted streaming audio or sequenced FM music for the game, so for this early demo an Adlib version of the track "Citadel" is used.

After searching for almost an hour on archive.org, I found the demo in a magazine demo disc and have attached the SAVAGE.HSQ music file here. Since it's written for the older HERAD driver, you can play it in RDOSPlay.

synamax wrote on 2024-05-17, 19:08:

Sorry for the necropost but I've been getting back into more HERAD research, now that I'm starting to get a little more familiar with x86 assembly. I found my older disassembly files from 2017 for MegaRace's HERAD drivers, cleaned them up a bit and uploaded the commented code on Github. DFADP is for Sound Blaster, DFADL is for Adlib cards. There's a couple of missing symbols and labels but with UASM this code can build a bit-perfect copy of the original drivers:

nice reversing synamax - could maybe of help for the Dune reversing projects that xcomcmdr is involved in (Discord: https://discord.com/channels/8198979936246825 … 899322911883264)

i've done something similar with the MT32 driver versions of Stunts (also using UASM) - but i went a little further and also did a C port of the driver fully useable with the game
to make it easier readable then the asm code - even if the asm code not that big the C code is tiny in comparison

https://github.com/LowLevelMahn/UnifiedMT15

Jepael wrote this driver loading tool - is that somewhere available?

llm wrote on 2024-05-18, 08:21:

Jepael wrote this driver loading tool - is that somewhere available?

Here's the exe. If it exists, I would love to take a look at the source code and make some mods like enabling loops.

synamax wrote on 2024-05-18, 15:35:

Here's the exe. If it exists, I would love to take a look at the source code and make some mods like enabling loops.

Jepael seems to be offline for some years now, i send him a PM - the exe is compiled with some Turbo Pascal compiler and the user code seems to be not that huge
but original source would be much better then reversing another binary