It wouldn't be out of brand for tiny 640x480 numbers in 1995 though. Thinking about Bullfrog games' hi-res modes and Transport Tycoon. Some didn't scale and just had new hi-res art for the SVGA modes to save on having new routines (as non-integer 2d scaling per frame can be expensive as the 'hi-res' was more often 640x480 than 640x400.).

I've read Mac version had more high resolution UI assets bundled, but doomwiki dismisses their quality somewhat... For now I have cleaned up a bit: centering widgets, or moving them closer to screen borders as opposed to how they were spread out "evenly" before. It would also be cool to have status bar gargoyle patches extended with cut outs from contemporary widescreen assets, but that's not even on todo list at the moment.

Also if I have frightened you off with the instrumented crashes, I figured out the reason for those and have updated the code, so can now run with debug build again and with instrumentation on, so going to play Kaiser_28 to see if more crashes come my way. So far... running around and smashing things feels fun 😀

ludicrous_peridot wrote on 2022-12-01, 23:32:

Also if I have frightened you off with the instrumented crashes...

A little yes.. 😉
Also a bit busy with other things.

ludicrous_peridot wrote on 2022-12-01, 23:32:

I figured out the reason for those and have updated the code, so can now run with debug build again and with instrumentation on, so going to play Kaiser_28 to see if more crashes come my way. So far... running around and smashing things feels fun 😀

Phew! Good to hear that.
So is this the first DJGPP Hexen port ever? I only have an Eternity Engine 2004 for DOS which is told to have an unfinished Heretic mode, besides the normal Doom mode. Also a Hexen32/HexenDOS v0.1 from from 1999, but that is Watcom still.

Hexetic seems to be the first one, according to doomwiki. And it also boasts "different resolutions" and hi-color mode. But honestly, I have not tried it and have been told strange things, like that it was a valid option to play Heretic in high resolution, but not for Hexen. Wiki also says source code is available for Hexetic.

EDIT: Not playthrough ready yet, sadly, as I think I can see see the "quantum" Ettins from time to time, even if they don't crash debug build, and polyobjects or scripting or both seem to be whacky.

The way I found out was by pulling a bunch of Hexen maps from idgames that did not have too many negative reviews, and trying those out instead of playing kaiser_28. And while most were, actually, bad, there was one very bad map that worked quite well as a benchmark - that's DREDWOOD.WAD, and one that started out pretty good (HEXCITY.WAD) but has breaking bugs in this port.

EDIT2: Apologies for this back and forth of a kind, but seems like I got to the bottom of the faster than light monster issue, and have a fix with which immediate occurrences no longer happen. There are still crashes for me from time to time with instrumentation on, but that a welcome change from the misbehaving mobjs, acting like they were in a Lucas Arts game.

Trying out how OPL music sounds, and would like your opinion, folks - https://youtu.be/eC7zaIOL9w4

Don't have access to my Yamaha cards anymore (and to be honest the 744B one never sounded right), and this sounds nothing like any of these recordings on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEuYcOv7iZk ...

ludicrous_peridot wrote on 2022-12-22, 18:02:

Trying out how OPL music sounds, and would like your opinion, folks - https://youtu.be/eC7zaIOL9w4

Don't have access to my Yamaha cards anymore (and to be honest the 744B one never sounded right), and this sounds nothing like any of these recordings on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEuYcOv7iZk ...

Note that "improved Allegro 3.0B" had its FM handling fixed and tuned for DOOM 1 and 2 specifically. IIRC there were three parts configured there, by me: 1) The Midi to FM instrument banks, 2) driving the OPL in either drum or rhythm mode, 3) some tuning parameters I took from MusPlay. All three are compiled into the executable, and only entry no.1 can be user-overridden with another bank file, as is done for some Doom 2 instruments.

Thanks, Gerwin. So I was "lazily" trying to take advantage of that with Bernewfie by overriding the ibk on the assumption that Hexen is a dmx-linked Doom engine-based game. 😉

Have a question - does Ctrl+4 crash MBF for anyone running it on real HW?
The reason I ask is because the version of DOXBox I currently run (not using the sig rig, unfortunately) consistently crashes Tartar, MBF 2.04 and @crvs's build, and pressing Ctrl+1 - Ctrl+9 visibly slows the game down.
I am suspecting either Allegro or DJGPP malfunction, as the keyboard handler func does not seem to get the scancode event for the Ctrl+4 keypres.

Here's the @crvs's buid's output, as it looks to be most useful of the bunch:

ludicrous_peridot wrote on 2023-01-07, 20:26:

Ctrl+1 - Ctrl+9 visibly slows the game down.

These are CPU emulation core-switching hotkeys in Daum. Your crash is caused by switching to the simple core while running a protected mode game.

Yes, to repeat what is said here every time someone brings it up - please stop using DOSBox SVN-Daum. It has not been maintained in ~8 years, and the last couple of builds were buggy and broken in various ways.

Ok, thanks a lot for explanation and advice. Switched to ECE for all my activities, and I must say it is actually quite smooth both mixer- (with a 4k buffer) and fluidsynth- wise.

Is there a good build of DOSBox that allows for videocard emulation with enough memory to support VESA page flipping in 1280x1024 mode by the way? The ones I tried do not seem to work (while plain 1280x1024 obviously works fine). I actually made "-safe" arg in Tartar force non-page flipping output mode in addition to other stuff it does just for DOSBox sake not to go into options manually every now and then.

@gerwin Your download link in the first post is broken. Can you fix it?

Until then, here is the link to the archive.org mirror (latest version 2.04, Upload no. 019, 2017-09-10):
https://web.archive.org/web/20210722050621/ht … load/MBF204.zip

Burrito78 wrote on 2023-05-03, 20:49:

@gerwin Your download link in the first post is broken. Can you fix it?

Until then, here is the link to the archive.org mirror (latest version 2.04, Upload no. 019, 2017-09-10):
https://web.archive.org/web/20210722050621/ht … load/MBF204.zip

I rearranged something on my site, but forgot to sync it with that first post. It is fixed now. Thanks for reporting it.

For some reason, the pitch bends are all out-of-whack on my version.

It's repeatable on mutliple WADs, and it doesn't happen in Boom, so there may be a problem with how MBF's Allegro code approaches MIDI pitch bends.

T-Squared wrote on 2023-07-26, 21:03:

For some reason, the pitch bends are all out-of-whack on my version.

It's repeatable on mutliple WADs, and it doesn't happen in Boom, so there may be a problem with how MBF's Allegro code approaches MIDI pitch bends.

Are you talking about General Midi or FM music?
The General Midi driver passes the midi instructions to the sound-card's MPU interface, regardless of the nature of the data.
In case you are talking about FM, then Boom (for DOS) is a poor comparison. With the stock Allegro FM driver being bugged and not in the proper mode for the Doom tracks.

Yes, the FM music doesn't play pitch-bends properly.

T-Squared wrote on 2023-07-26, 22:21:

Yes, the FM music doesn't play pitch-bends properly.

Agreed, I see a problem in this function:
Modified Allegro // ADLIB.C // static void fm_set_pitch(int voice, int note, int bend)
It seems to not convert properly the allegro bend range 0..4096 to the muslib range -127..127. Meaning it is always in the upper half of that range.
I will make a new build...

On second look, the whole MUSlib/MUSplay pitch bend table does not apply to the Allegro "Bend" variable. I threw it out. This one should work better, please test:
MBF204_FMtest.zip

That is MUCH better! 😁

One more thing, are some of the instruments supposed to be that high in pitch? (Not the pitch-bent instruments, just in-general)

Glad to hear that it sounds better.
The 1st goal was, and is, to port the sound of MUSplay / MUSlib by Vladimir Arnost to the Allegro FM Driver.
When I checked original Doom 1 this week I could not get stereo FM out of it. Only Mono. Which made it harder to compare.

I plan to build and upload a 2023 edition of MBF 2.04 in the coming days. Will work from the last source that crvs kindly provided in this topic. Then some small music fixes applied to that.